How to Spot Agit-Prop, German Legacy Media Edition
It's not very subtle, eh, so, here goes, courtesy of the Bertelsmann Foundation
Headlines read (top-left/right; bottom-left/right):
Top: Mr. Trump is portrayed giving the Hitler salute with the header ‘His Struggle’ (Sein Kampf), juxtaposed to Mr. Obama who is labelled ‘Saviour in the Hour of Need’ (Retter in der Not).
Facts, such as the latter’s aggressions (under international law) vs. numerous countries vs. Mr. Trump not starting any new wars notwithstanding, this ain’t very subtle. Also, note that Mr. Obama presided over not ‘only’ the genesis of the ongoing quagmire in Ukraine but also took over (W.) Bush’s all-out assault on civil liberties—and this affected not ‘only’ Americans but continues to reverberate across the globe. Of course, given ‘the West’s’ (mostly former) constitutionally enshrined protections of such liberties, the ramifications are felt most profoundly by the peoples of the West.
Bottom: Alice Weidel, one of the leaders of the parliamentary party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD, lit. ‘Alternative for Germany’) is introduced with the header ‘What else but Hate is there, Ms. Weidel?’ (Was können Sie eigentlich außer Hass, Frau Weidel?); note that the word ‘Hass’, or ‘Hate’, is printed in what is known as ‘Gothic’ type-set in English and Fraktur in German. Ironically, its use was discontinued by none other than Nazi Germany in 1941 whose leadership deemed it not German enough (via Wikipedia, references omitted):
On January 3, 1941, the Nazi Party ended this controversy by switching to international scripts such as Antiqua. Martin Bormann issued a circular (the ‘normal type decree’) to all public offices which declared Fraktur (and its corollary, the Sütterlin-based handwriting) to be Judenlettern (Jewish letters) and prohibited their further use.
As if that kind of moronic agit-prop wouldn’t be enough, we note, in passing, that Ms. Weidel is a lesbian whose partner, according to Wikipedia, is ‘a woman originally from Sri Lanka’. They are legally married (civil union) and have two adopted children.
As an aside, Ms. Weidel is vehemently opposed to LGBTQTA+ proselytising of minors, with Wikipedia quoting her as follows (same link):
Weidel has stated her opposition to discussion of sexuality prior to puberty saying that ‘I don't want anyone with their gender idiocy or their early sexualisation classes coming near my children’.
But ‘hate’-ful she is, printed in letters forbidden by the Nazis. You can’t make this BS up.
Ms. Weidel is contrasted with Robert Habeck (Greens), currently serving as Germany’s Economic Minister overseeing the wholesale destruction of German manufacturing due to the Greens’ insane policies that stem, partly, from Angela Merkel’s Energiewende (energy transition) announced in 2011. It’s the biggest policy blunder since 1945, but, then again, if the current German gov’t takes these policies to their logical conclusion, they may end up exceeding even the Nazi régime in terms of wanton destruction visited upon the German people. Time will tell.
Oh, lest I forget: Mr. Habeck’s header reads: ‘Der Steuermann’ (The Captain), with the sub-header proclaiming: ‘A Tough Job: How Habeck Will Safeguard Our Prosperity’.
Two Brief Words about Stern Magazine
If, at this point, you’re wondering about Stern magazine, according to Wikipedia, it is an (with emphases added)
illustrated, broadly left-liberal, weekly current affairs magazine published in Hamburg, Germany, by Gruner + Jahr, a subsidiary of Bertelsmann. Under the editorship (1948–1980) of its founder Henri Nannen, it attained a circulation of between 1.5 and 1.8 million, the largest in Europe's for a magazine of its kind…
Trump: Sein Kampf
In its 24 August 2017 edition Stern demonstrated its continued ability and willingness to generate cover-page controversy (and, for the purpose, to discard the restraints of nutzwertiger Journalismus [something like the equal weight clause in the US]). A photo-shopped image depicted then United States President, Donald Trump, draped in the American flag while giving a stiff-armed Nazi salute. ‘Sein Kampf’, read the headline, or ‘his struggle’—a reference to Adolf Hitler's autobiographical manifesto, Mein Kampf. The sub-headline reads: ‘Neo Nazis, Ku Klux Klan, racism: How Donald Trump fuelled hatred in America’.
Yet, one also reads the following (at Wikipedia, same link):
The Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, while critical of President Trump's failure, in his remarks following the 13 May ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, to ‘make a distinction between Nazis and KKK protesters and those who opposed them’, described ‘the depiction of the president as a latter-day Hitler by a major German publication’ as ‘untrue and beyond the pale’. ‘Germans’, they suggest, ‘must surely know that by misappropriating…Nazi symbols and terms associated with Adolf Hitler, they belittle and becloud the crimes of the past.’ Jewish leaders in Germany similarly argued that the depiction of Trump as the new Hitler diminished (verharmlost) Nazi genocide.
If ‘even’ the Wiesenthal Center deems such coverage ‘beyond the pale’ and ‘diminish[ing] the Nazi genocide’, it’s probably a good indicator of stupidity—and prima facie evidence of the undue influence of corporate opinion-makers over the body politic.
For more about the Bertelsmann group’s nefarious activities, you are invited to read the following piece:
The media across the West is behaving in lock step because media is a owned by the same oligarchical interests which control deep state structures in all countries. Global imperial oligarchy rules directly through deep state structures and molds public opinion through propaganda outlets they own or control.
From what I recall from the basic course in german I took 35-ish years ago, Stern was considered as on par with stuff like National Enquirer and the very bottom tier of tabloids?
Could have been our teacher's personal bias of course.
It's a shame the term "Lügenpresse" is so tainted by you-know-who using it, because it fits so well. "Yrkeslögnare" is a term becoming more common here in Sweden, about journalists: "Berufs-Lügner", if that checks out language- and grammar-wise.