No Discussion in Germany!
Since World War II, Germany has built its whole culture on a negative image and everyone trying to evaluate, critize or to change it is being denounced by the elites in order to perserve political correctness.
The shadow of the Third Reich still looms over the whole country and threatens to erradicate any signs of a new culture, a more liberal approach to the past.
And Kunkel and Hohmann are just the latest examples in this war on intellectual freedom. The first has been attacked for his new book, which did not explicitly critize the Nazi Regime, but just portrayed the luring aspects of it. Before even anybody could read the whole book, the German magazin 'Der Spiegel' condemned the book and the author to be pro-Nazi.
Martin Hohmann had the same problem, when he held the speech about the Germans as the 'Tätervolk', arguing that this was a wrong description.
His speech wasn't politically correct, thus he got bad PR all over the place, leading even to an almost expell from his own party, the CDU.
I don't want to say, here, that I agree with his national-conservative-right-winged views, but the reasons he had been critized for, are utterly and truly despisable. They didn't discuss the content of his speech, but the mere reciting of Nazi-Sources.
This is a common example for Germanys culture, today. Instead of going into an in-depth analysis and then concluding in a debate, we discriminate every non-conform content and oppinion.
This is almost as bad as censorship, and the beginning of a totalitarian atmosphere.
Another perfect example is Prof. Wolffson, a Bundeswehr proffesor, who has argued in favor of torturing terrorists to protect Germany from terrorism.
All the while this argument might be lacking on several intellectual levels, the outcry was not about the torturing alone, it was more about the sheer thought. There was no discussion about it, but only despisable arguments that it is inhuman and a reminder to the Nazi regime.
There were no thouroughly explained arguments, just personal denouncement and offence against Prof. Wolffson.
Again, I do not agree fully with Wolffson's interpretation and argumentation and I don't want to be connected to it. However, I have to argue in his favor that he has the right to express his thoughts and should do so. It should have been a discussion about this topic, rather than a denunciation of the person who has spoken his mind.
Sources:
Wolffson's Outrage
Kunkel Interview on 'Endstufe'
Commentary: smg.max@gmx.net
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