Hatred of America has always been a cornerstone of both pro-Putin parties Die LINKE and the right-wing extremist AfD. But what about the mainstream center-left SPD? Here is an excerpt from Hating America: A History:
"The victory of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who had been suffering during the campaign because of the country's poor economy, was probably due to his demogogic anti-American appeals. Among other things, Schoeder made a nationalist appeal by stating that to go along with American policy would make Germany a puppet of the United States. His justice minister, Herta Daeubler-Gmelin, went so far as to compare Bush to Adolf Hitler, which in Germany was no mere rhetorical flourish.
Indeed, Schroeder's German Social Democratic Party became a consistent sponsor of anti-Americanism. Ludwig Stiegler, a member of parliament, likened Bush to an imperialist Roman emperor bent on subjugating Germany. Oskar Lafontaine, the party's deputy co-chairman, called the United States "an aggressor nation." Rudolf Hartnung, chairman of the youth organization, accused the United States of "ideologically inspired genocide" in Central America and other places. State legislator Jurgen Busack claimed, "the warmongers and international arsonists do not govern in the Kremlin. They govern in Washington. The United Statesmust lie, cheat, and deceive in an effort to thwart resistance to its insane foreign policy adventures."
Some of the most outlandish September 11, 2001 conspiracy theories have been promoted by SPD officials – often with an anti-Semitic slant. The former SPD minister Andreas von Bulow wrote the perennial bestseller (in Germany) The CIA and September 11 which asserted the World Trade Center attacks were actually a joint "operation" between the CIA and Mossad, and that the Saudi terrorists were actually alive and well. The former SPD official and aide to Willy Brandt Albrecht Müller has also promoted the "CIA and Mossad" conspiracy theory on his influential blog NachDenkSeiten – also implying that the WTC attacks were masterminded by the "Jewish billionaire" George Soros. In general NachDenkSeiten and other German conspiracy sites see the CIA as an all-powerful force behind virtually everthing that happens. Jens Berger, Albrecht Müller's junior editor, has implicated the CIA with everything from the shooting down of MH17 in the Ukraine, to organizing the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. The site also republishes and shares content with the Kremlin propaganda network RT Deutsch. So pro-Russian sentiment is also something they share with the Left Party and the right-wing AfD.
