Tag: Germany

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government transparency international affairs

The Age of Deference 

Angela Merkel, Germany, Wuhan, Covid, virus, lab leak

We knew from the beginning that Wuhan, China, was not only ground zero for the coronavirus epidemic, but that there was an Institute of Virology there, and that the disease could have broken out of its lab. But it took a few months for my first report, and about a year passed before I delved deeper into the evidence for the “lab leak” hypothesis.

In December, the House Subcommittee investigating the subject concluded that there was evidence for a lab leak and none for a zoonotic origin of the disease.

Throughout the period, corporate news sources barely covered the story, despite its obvious importance and inherent interest. Instead, they covered for the culprits, the better to push a “vaccine” that was more novel than the “novel coronavirus” itself. 

Journalists seemed immune to acknowledging, for example, “the man the media missed,” Dr. Peter Daszak. Years before the leak, the doctor publicly boasted about using a Chinese lab to engage in gain-​of-​function research on coronaviruses. And yet, he was placed on the World Health Organization team investigating the Wuhan situation!

Meanwhile, the CIA waffled.

Now we learn that German intelligence reported to then-​Chancellor Angela Merkel favoring the lab leak hypothesis.

In 2020.

“Two German newspapers say they have uncovered details of an assessment carried out by spy agency BND in 2020 but never published,” explains the BBC. “According to Die Zeit and Sueddeutscher Zeitung, the BND met in Berlin in 2020 to look into the origin of coronavirus in an operation called Project Saaremaa.”

The “spy agency,” as the BBC neatly puts it, “assessed the lab theory as ‘likely,’ although it did not have definitive proof.”

And, as Dr. John Campbell notes, neither Merkel nor her successor came clean with any of this.

Dr. Campbell finds his resulting loss of trust has a bright side: “it’s made me re-​evaluate many, many things.”

“The age of deference,” he concludes, “is past.”

All of our major institutions failed the pandemic test.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture media and media people too much government

Musk’s Alternative for Germany

Germany, Democracy, far right, extremist, Elon Musk

“Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk caused uproar after backing Germany’s far-​right party in a major newspaper ahead of key parliamentary elections in the Western European country,” ABC News tells us, “leading to the resignation of the paper’s opinion editor in protest.”

Germany’s three-​party coalition government, led by “center-​left” Chancellor Olof Scholz, fell apart when he fired the “pro-​business” party’s biggest name in the government, Finance Minister Christian Lindner.

Musk wrote a piece for Welt am Sonntag in which he expressed his support for Alternative für Deutschland, which is considered “far-​right” for opposing Die Grünen, the (“pro-​business”) Freie Demokratische Partei, and Scholz’s own Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands. “The Alternative for Germany (AfD) is the last spark of hope for this country,” asserted Musk*. 

“The Tesla Motors CEO also wrote,” explains ABC, “that his investment in Germany gave him the right to comment on the country’s condition.”

Musk must mean “a right” as in manners, not in law. In a free country, anyone has a legal right to speak up and comment on government.

But what is the significance of the editor who quit? She has every right to work only with news outfits that marginalize the AfD as promoters of “anti-​democratic” ideas. Hers is a matter of strategy: shunning, marginalization — no-​debate/​no-​cooperate — are what she thinks journalists must marshal against the “far right.” 

This journalist’s political tactic mirrors Germany’s practiced politics. ABC News explains that the AfD’s polling strength doesn’t much help its candidate, Alice Weidel, to “becom[e] chancellor because other parties refuse to work with the far-​right party.”

The non-​cooperation strategy goes full anti-​democratic when election results are suppressed. In Romania, for example, elections have basically been overturned because of how “far-​right” they are.

All very anti-​democratic, these “democrats.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* To be clear, his piece was published in German, of course, and above I’m quoting the English translation.

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First Amendment rights international affairs

Professional Idiot?

Germany, censorship, authoritarianism

Police in Germany are raiding and arresting unpowerful citizens for committing the sin of speaking harsh words about sitting officials. 

Or forwarding harsh words about them.

Animus toward free speech isn’t a new thing in Germany, even post-​twentieth-​century Germany. But it seems that the censorship, aka hate-​speech hatred, is getting more intense lately because of an election.

One recent victim is a 64-​year-​old pensioner, Stefan Nieoff, who forwarded a “meme” about Green Economy Minister Robert Habeck. Habeck wants to be chancellor. According to the “meme,” Habeck is a “professional idiot” (Schwachkopf Professional). 

But in consequence of Herr Nieoff’s reckless act of disseminating information of merely figurative accuracy, Bavarian police (a) raided the man’s home and (b) arrested him. Incidentally traumatizing his daughter, who has Down syndrome.

Why, exactly? Because the Bavarian police are idiots acting at the behest of other idiots.

In a video posted on X, Nieoff says, as Google-​Translated: “What they did to me is awful. I’m going to court. It can’t be that everyone keeps their mouth shut and lets themselves be oppressed like that.… So please, Mr. Habeck, I beg you, come to my kitchen table sometime. Like the police officers from the Schweinfurt Criminal Investigation Department.”

The Alternative for Germany party asserts that although Habeck “presents himself as a ‘people-​friendly’ candidate for chancellor, his critics are being relentlessly pursued.”

Reports say that Habeck, a member of the Green Party, has little chance of becoming chancellor. Let’s hope his chances are sehr schwach.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Noble Traitors

Sophie Scholl, White Rose, Nazis, Germany, Third Reich

Today marks a solemn anniversary. Seventy-​nine years ago — on Feb. 22, 1943 — three German students at the University of Munich were tried for treason by the Nazis, convicted and then executed, all in one day.

The method of execution: guillotine.

Days earlier, Hans Scholl and his sister Sophie had been caught distributing a leaflet at the university. It was damning — of the Nazi regime; and, from the perspective of that Nazi regime, of the Scholls: “In the name of German youth, we demand restitution by Adolf Hitler’s state of our personal freedom, the most precious treasure we have, out of which he has swindled us in the most miserable way.”

Hans had in his pocket a draft of another leaflet, in Christoph Probst’s handwriting. That seventh leaflet, never distributed, led to the arrest and execution of Christoph, along with Hans and Sophie.

The three were part of a cadre of students who wrote and distributed leaflets under the name The White Rose — a symbol of purity standing against the monstrous evil of the Third Reich. The leaflets decried the crimes of National Socialism, including the mass murder of Jews. And they urged Germans to rise up.

Three more members were later executed: Willi Graf, Alex Schmorell and Professor Kurt Huber. Another eleven were imprisoned.

Their resistance was ultimately futile, unsuccessful … but not pointless. 

They would not remain cogs in the killing machine that had taken the most advanced society in the world to the depths of depravity. They took a stand against what George Orwell later characterized as “a boot stamping on a human face, forever.”

We often say, with earnest piety, “Never again.” But our dedication should be inspired by the White Rose. When we encounter tyranny, think of the Scholls and say “Again for Freedom.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Further reading: For an excellent account of The White Rose, consult the aptly titled A Noble Treason, by Richard Hanser. See also Jacob Hornberger’s The White Rose — A Lesson in Dissent. The Orwell quotation is from the dystopian novel 1984. You can read the six pamphlets on this website.

This article is reprinted from 2019. A previous appreciation was published on Townhall in 2010.

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Sophie Scholl, White Rose, Nazis, Germany, Third Reich

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Ever Again?

Sophie Scholl, White Rose, Nazis, Germany, Third Reich

Today marks a solemn anniversary. Seventy-​six years ago — on Feb. 22, 1943 — three German students at the University of Munich were tried for treason by the Nazis, convicted and then executed, all in one day.

The method of execution: guillotine.

Days earlier, Hans Scholl and his sister Sophie had been caught distributing a leaflet at the university. It was damning — of the Nazi regime; and, from the perspective of that Nazi regime, of the Scholls: “In the name of German youth, we demand restitution by Adolf Hitler’s state of our personal freedom, the most precious treasure we have, out of which he has swindled us in the most miserable way.”

Hans had in his pocket a draft of another leaflet, in Christoph Probst’s handwriting. That seventh leaflet, never distributed, led to the arrest and execution of Christoph, along with Hans and Sophie.

The three were part of a cadre of students who wrote and distributed leaflets under the name The White Rose — a symbol of purity standing against the monstrous evil of the Third Reich. The leaflets decried the crimes of National Socialism, including the mass murder of Jews. And they urged Germans to rise up.

Three more members were later executed: Willi Graf, Alex Schmorell and Professor Kurt Huber. Another eleven were imprisoned.

Their resistance was ultimately futile, unsuccessful … but not pointless. 

They would not remain cogs in the killing machine that had taken the most advanced society in the world to the depths of depravity. They took a stand against what George Orwell later characterized as “a boot stamping on a human face, forever.”

We often say, with earnest piety, “Never again.” But our dedication should be inspired by the White Rose. When we encounter tyranny, think of the Scholls and say “Again for Freedom.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

N.B. For an excellent account of The White Rose, consult the aptly titled A Noble Treason, by Richard Hanser. See also Jacob Hornberger’s The White Rose — A Lesson in Dissent. The Orwell quotation is from the dystopian novel 1984.

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Sophie Scholl, White Rose, Nazis, Germany, Third Reich

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crime and punishment First Amendment rights general freedom ideological culture media and media people moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies Regulating Protest too much government

Twitter’s Merkel Tactics or Merkel’s Twitter Tactics?

Twitter, censorship, Germany, Merkel, speech, double standard

Is Twitter cooperating with Germany’s new crackdown on social-​media speech because otherwise it risks steep penalties? Or is Twitter just doing what it would do anyway?

When Germany’s new law against unwelcome speech went into effect this year, many Germans protested. “Please spare us the thought police!” was the headline in one top-​selling paper, Bild.

The law requires social-​media sites to block unapproved content — which includes “hate speech” and “fake news” — within 24 hours or face exorbitant fines. (Of course, every piece of news, no matter how well or shabbily reported, gets decried as hateful “fake news” by somebody.) Under the new law, Twitter suspended the accounts of two officials of the political party Alternative for Germany who tweeted that Muslim men have violent proclivities. Hateful, fake, inexact, whatever, such tweets by themselves threaten nobody and violate nobody’s rights. 

Did Twitter act only under duress here? 

Well, in the U.S., the company is not ordered by our government to muzzle anybody except perhaps terrorists or persons directly instigating a crime. Yet Twitter regularly suspends or bans users whose speech it considers objectionable. Moreover, it has become notorious for especially targeting speech that can be regarded as on the right end of the political spectrum — while leaving intact the tweet-​speech of left-​wing micro-​bloggers no matter how threatening or abusive.

I don’t say America’s government should become involved. It should certainly not compel Twitter to drop its double standard. 

Instead, it is Twitter itself that should become involved … and drop its double standard. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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