Thilo Sarrazin's new book Europe Doesn't Need the Euro promises to be a blockbuster bestseller, just like his 2010 book Deutschland schafft sich ab ("Germany Abolishes Itself"). In the earlier book Sarrazin clained that inferior races (Arabs, Turks) immigrating to Germany were contaminating the gene pool of the German Volk. With that book Sarrazin became a darling of the far right, and the neo-Nazi NPD plastered Berlin with campaign posters proclaiming "Sarrazin was right".
In his new book Sarrazin steers clear of eugenics, but advances some controversial ideas again using inflammatory language. Here Sarrazin argues that the Euro zone is holding Germany to ransom over its past aggression, blackmailing it into agreeing to Euro bonds or mutualized debt. Supporters of Euro bonds in Germany “are driven by that very German reflex, that we can only finally atone for the Holocaust and World War Two when we have put all our interests and money into European hands,”
The idea that Germany is unfairly forced to atone forever for the Holocaust and reliquish sovereignty to culturally lazy (and inferior) southern Europeans fits the worldview of the extreme right in Germany.
The NPD celebrates Sarrazin's new book and sees him as a hero of the German Volk:
Die NPD – und offenbar auch Thilo Sarrazin – setzt alles daran, diesem fast gebrochenen Volk seinen nationalen Selbstbehauptungswillen wiederzugeben. Die selbstbewußte Vertretung deutscher Gegenwartsinteressen ist aber nur durch einen Schlußstrich unter die irrwitzige „Vergangenheitsbewältigung“ möglich.
(The NPD – and evidently Thilo Sarrazin as well – is doing all it can to restore a sense of national confidence to the nearly-broken German Volk. A confident representation of Gemany's national interests is only possible if we end once and for all this stupid "coming to terms with the past" (Vergangenheitsbewältigung))
But the more mainstream reviews of Europa braucht den Euro nicht have not been so enthusiastic. The Frankfurter Rundschau calls it "a repulsive book" – Ein widerliches Buch :
Sarrazin konstruiert den Gegensatz zwischen dem effizientem Nordeuropa und dem schludrigen Süden − fleißig gegen faul, weiß gegen braun. Club Med nennt er die Staaten, denen er unsolides Verhalten unterstellt. Wo verortet Sarrazin Frankreich? Im Club Med!
Klar, hier schreibt ein Eurogegner, der zu wissen glaubt, warum Deutschland bislang so europafreundlich agiert hat. Die anhaltende Begeisterung für Europa sei nicht zu erklären „ohne die moralische Last der Nazizeit“.
(Sarrazin constructs a dichotomy between the efficient northern Europe and the slovenly south – industrious vs. lazy, white vs. brown. He labels the countries who behave unseriously Club Med. Where does he position France? In Club Med!)
Clearly we have here an opponent of Europe who claims to know why Germany has acted as a proponent of a unified Europe. The enthusiam for Europe can only be seen against the background of the "moral burden of the Nazi era.")
But one can point out every error, distortion and lie in Sarrazin's book and it won't make a bit of difference. The book will be a bestseller, and Sarrazin will continue to spread his poison on television and every other public forum that will have him.
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Germans are trash anyway. They’d sell their own mother’s tombstone for ready money. The neo-nazis all have small foreheads, are throwbacks to some Neanderthal race, of which one ought not to be proud of! One can only laugh. France and Italy are the more appealing lands in Europe. Germany has all the appeal of the American midwest.
It’s pretty ignorant to denigrate an entire people or nation. Why bother even reading this blog if you believe that “Germans are trash anyway.”?
This blog often points at Germany negatively. Since I got sick of Germany, this blog amuses me. A German once told me “Americans are easy to control. You will work for US.” I dont know if he was trying to make me hate all of Germany, but Ive met enough like him to write the whole land off as a useless region of money-grubbing jerks.