German Bundestag Election 2017 and 'Holocaust Politics'

[Moderator]

A recent article in the leftist newspaper "Die Zeit" is openly for abolishing holocaust denial laws. The article was written by the leftist editor of the newspaper Josef Joffe.

http://www.zeit.de/2018/07/holocaustges ... -zeitgeist

The motivation for writing the article are the Polish holocaust laws which seek to outlaw the statement that Poland was involved in the holocaust. However, he does talk about holocaust denial laws:

""Wie es wirklich gewesen ist", um den berühmten Ranke-Spruch aufzugreifen, kann nicht per Gesetz verfügt werden – das ist der absurde Teil. Hier müssen sich auch Belgier, Deutsche oder Franzosen an die Nase fassen, welche die Leugnung des Holocausts unter Strafe stellen."

"What really happened" - quoting the famous bon mot by Ranke - cannot be decreed by a law - this is the absurd part.... Oh well, the second sentence is really hard to translate. It effectively means that the holocaust denial laws in Belgium, Germany and France are no good.

Excellent post, Pia.
Thank you, M1

[Pia Kahn]

"Excellent post, Pia.
Thank you, M1"

Your welcome M1, I'm glad to help.

[Hektor]

A recent article in the leftist newspaper "Die Zeit" is openly for abolishing holocaust denial laws. The article was written by the leftist editor of the newspaper Josef Joffe.

http://www.zeit.de/2018/07/holocaustges ... -zeitgeist

The motivation for writing the article are the Polish holocaust laws which seek to outlaw the statement that Poland was involved in the holocaust. However, he does talk about holocaust denial laws:

""Wie es wirklich gewesen ist", um den berühmten Ranke-Spruch aufzugreifen, kann nicht per Gesetz verfügt werden – das ist der absurde Teil. Hier müssen sich auch Belgier, Deutsche oder Franzosen an die Nase fassen, welche die Leugnung des Holocausts unter Strafe stellen."

"What really happened" - quoting the famous bon mot by Ranke - cannot be decreed by a law - this is the absurd part.... Oh well, the second sentence is really hard to translate. It effectively means that the holocaust denial laws in Belgium, Germany and France are no good.

Indeed a translators, challenge: Let me try.
"It's something were Belgians, Germans and French have to pick onto their nose, which put Holocaust denial under punishment."

Essentially "Holocaust Denial Laws", become bad once they step on toes of the wrong people. And I think they realized that it was initially the persecution of Revisionist as well as suppression of freedom of speech that motivated people to investigate the matter further and become Holocaust Revisionists in the first place.

It's kind of a Nexus-shirt to them. And on other forums I've seen people pointing out in a debate, that can not debate the matter further, because they don't know whether they may violate Paragraph 130 of the penal code book. That's the one that deals with "Holocaust Denial". More specifically it is 130.3:

(3) Mit Freiheitsstrafe bis zu fünf Jahren oder mit Geldstrafe wird bestraft, wer eine unter der Herrschaft des Nationalsozialismus begangene Handlung der in § 6 Abs. 1 des Völkerstrafgesetzbuches bezeichneten Art in einer Weise, die geeignet ist, den öffentlichen Frieden zu stören, öffentlich oder in einer Versammlung billigt, leugnet oder verharmlost.
https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__130.html

You wanna give it a try translating?

Because it is actually quite tricky and fishy how they formulated it. Not sure, if it would come through to a non-German speaker immediately.

This is btw. the paragraphy they are referring to:

Völkerstrafgesetzbuch (VStGB)
§ 6 Völkermord
(1) Wer in der Absicht, eine nationale, rassische, religiöse oder ethnische Gruppe als solche ganz oder teilweise zu zerstören,
1. ein Mitglied der Gruppe tötet,
2. einem Mitglied der Gruppe schwere körperliche oder seelische Schäden, insbesondere der in § 226 des Strafgesetzbuches bezeichneten Art, zufügt,
3. die Gruppe unter Lebensbedingungen stellt, die geeignet sind, ihre körperliche Zerstörung ganz oder teilweise herbeizuführen,
4. Maßregeln verhängt, die Geburten innerhalb der Gruppe verhindern sollen,
5. ein Kind der Gruppe gewaltsam in eine andere Gruppe überführt, wird mit lebenslanger Freiheitsstrafe bestraft.
(2) In minder schweren Fällen des Absatzes 1 Nr. 2 bis 5 ist die Strafe Freiheitsstrafe nicht unter fünf Jahren
https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/vstgb/__6.html

This is a translation from:

Article 6
Genocide
For the purpose of this Statute, "genocide" means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
http://legal.un.org/icc/statute/99_corr/cstatute.htm

Bear in mind that this "international law" was only introduced long AFTER WORLD WAR TWO. That means that it wasn't possible to violate it, when National Socialism was still governing in Germany! The wording also limits the applicability of the paragraph to National Socialism under exclusion of Allied mass crimes or for that matter any other crimes of that sort. That's why you can "deny Dresden" or deny extermination of Germans, Ukrainians, Balts, Tartars, Armenians or for that matter anybody else.

[Pia Kahn]

(3) Mit Freiheitsstrafe bis zu fünf Jahren oder mit Geldstrafe wird bestraft, wer eine unter der Herrschaft des Nationalsozialismus begangene Handlung der in § 6 Abs. 1 des Völkerstrafgesetzbuches bezeichneten Art in einer Weise, die geeignet ist, den öffentlichen Frieden zu stören, öffentlich oder in einer Versammlung billigt, leugnet oder verharmlost.

This is extremely difficult to translate, because the word order is completely wacko for English speakers. In German it makes sense because the grammar tells you the relationship of the words. So this is my first attempt

"Anyone who condones, denies or plays down - in public or in a meeting - in a manner, which is capable of disturbing the public peace, a crime according to § 6 {1} of the Code of crimes against peoples {Völkerstrafgesetzbuch}, which was committed under the rule of national socialism, shall be sentenced to a fine or to imprisonment for up to 5 years."

If it doesn't make any sense to a native English speaker, then please give me your feedback.

[Pia Kahn]

I actually had a discussion with the foremost judge in criminal law in Germany about this law, Thomas Fischer. He has a blog on the website of the newspaper "die Zeit".

I pointed out to him that a deed committed under the rule of national socialism "unter der Herrschaft des Nationalsozialismus begangene Handlung" - if that's correct English - does not mean a deed committed by the nazi state. You could say for example: Under the rule of president Roosevelt, the American people became immensely rich. Or under the rule of President Lincoln, the southern states declared secession from the USA. This is how this term is used in German.

Given the definition of genocide, if a jew living under the rule of the nazi state killed a German with the intention of killing all Germans, then this would be a genocide under Art. 6 committed under the rule of national socialism". Thus, denying this murder would be a crime.

You can imagine what happened. He said this was absurd without giving any reasons.

I pointed out to him that this law is unconstitutional for several reasons and told him the arguments. I quoted the supreme court and explained why their decision was false. He responded to me with sarcasm and by pointing out his authority. No rational response.

Then the discussion raged on about the holocaust. I told him that I was not going to publish my opinion but that I would like to point out the chemical arguments put forth by Germar Rudolf and Richard Green. So technically I didn't deny the holocaust and just presented the arguments from both sides. Then, the guy completely freaked out, called me an asshole, threatened me with prosecution and banned me from publishing on "die Zeit".

I think this is the bravest thing I have ever done in support of freedom of speech.

[Pia Kahn]

Well, a few months after our discussion Thomas Fischer posted a blog post about "Volksverhetzung", in which he asked: Should the Auschwitz lie be a criminal act?

http://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/zeitges ... ht/seite-4

This is what he wrote:

"Soll die "Auschwitzlüge" strafbar sein?
Ich meine: Im Grundsatz nein, im Zweifel nein, im Ergebnis ja. Das ist eine wahrhaft unklare Antwort, und vielleicht wird sie Sie – nach dem oben Gesagten – überraschen. Aber hier gilt, was immer gilt: Im Zweifel für die Freiheit und im Zweifel – mit Schmerzen – für die Dummheit."

His answer is:

"Should the Auschwitz lie be punishable?
In my opinion: In general No, in case of doubt no, in consequence yes. This answer is truly unclear and maybe it will surprise you following what I have said previously. But, in this case, we must stick to the rule that is always applicable: In case of doubt for freedom and in case of doubt - feeling pain - for stupidity."

You can really sense that this man is struggling with his conscience.

After stating that 99% of all deniers are liars and the liars should be punished, Mr. Fischer's posts the final sentence of his blog:

"Den einen Trottel, der ernsthaft glaubt, die Erde sei eine Scheibe, werden wir ertragen können."

"We should tolerate the exceptional fool, who truly believes that the earth is flat."

http://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/zeitges ... ht/seite-5

When I read it, I though that he was talking about me. He did not prosecute me, so I was lucky.

[Hektor]

I actually had a discussion with the foremost judge in criminal law in Germany about this law, Thomas Fischer. He has a blog on the website of the newspaper "die Zeit".

I pointed out to him that a deed committed under the rule of national socialism "unter der Herrschaft des Nationalsozialismus begangene Handlung" - if that's correct English - does not mean a deed committed by the nazi state. You could say for example: Under the rule of president Roosevelt, the American people became immensely rich. Or under the rule of President Lincoln, the southern states declared secession from the USA. This is how this term is used in German.

Given the definition of genocide, if a jew living under the rule of the nazi state killed a German with the intention of killing all Germans, then this would be a genocide under Art. 6 committed under the rule of national socialism". Thus, denying this murder would be a crime.

You can imagine what happened. He said this was absurd without giving any reasons.

I pointed out to him that this law is unconstitutional for several reasons and told him the arguments. I quoted the supreme court and explained why their decision was false. He responded to me with sarcasm and by pointing out his authority. No rational response.

Then the discussion raged on about the holocaust. I told him that I was not going to publish my opinion but that I would like to point out the chemical arguments put forth by Germar Rudolf and Richard Green. So technically I didn't deny the holocaust and just presented the arguments from both sides. Then, the guy completely freaked out, called me an asshole, threatened me with prosecution and banned me from publishing on "die Zeit".

I think this is the bravest thing I have ever done in support of freedom of speech.

It's absurd, because that whole paragraph 130 of German penal code is absurd for a number of reasons.
It violates several legal principles enshrined in the provisional constitution the socalled "Basic Law":

- It violates the dignity of people first of not being able to publish research findings, secondly because the dignity of Germans is violated, because that legislation privileges non-Germans over German people. (article 1)
- Free development of ones person is impaired, by punishing expression of opinion and limiting access to information. (article 2)
- Given that the legislation privileges "victims of Nazi crimes" it violates equality before the law (article 3)
- Given that the Holocaust is a civic religion and the paragraph actually protects it from criticism article 4 is violated.
- Freedom of expression is violated, as well as freedom of research and teaching (article 5).

OK, it may also infringe on other rights and principles, but those are the most important. Note the emphasic on "public peace". Why would disputing the Holocaust disturb the peace? Only because the Holocaust is instrumental in keeping the Germans in check. They basically admit by implication that they Holocaust is a means of oppression and control in Germany!

[Pia Kahn]

"Note the emphasis on "public peace". Why would disputing the Holocaust disturb the peace?"

Yes, this is a huge topic. Please not that the denial does not have to actually disturb the public peace. It merely has to be capable of disturbing the public peace irrespective of whether it actually does disturb the public peace. It is completely unclear what "public peace" is and what is capable of disturbing the public peace. Please note that denial has to be performed in such as way that it is capable of disturbing the public peace. Thus, it should be possible to deny without disturbing the public peace. However, nobody knows how you are allowed to deny.

Thus, this law also contravenes against Art. 103 II GG, in particular "the principle of clarity and definiteness (of the wording of enactments)"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nulla_poena_sine_lege

"Nulla poena sine lege certa
There is to be no penalty without definite law. This provides that a penal statute must define the punishable conduct and the penalty with sufficient definiteness to allow citizens to foresee when a specific action would be punishable, and to conduct themselves accordingly. The rule expresses the general principle of legal certainty in matters of criminal law. It is recognised or codified in many national jurisdictions, as well as e.g. by the European Court of Justice as a "general principle of Union law".[4]"

This is a point, which Silvia Stolz makes over and over again in her talk about her trial.

[Sannhet]

The decline of the CDU under Angela Merkel has now reached quite a surprising level, with one poll this week putting them at only 28.5% of popular support nationally; the CDU/CSU's historical support (actual vote totals) from the 1950s to 1990s was 45-50%.

I believe this points to a serious weakening of the force of Holocaust-Politics in Germany, which few would have predicted four years ago (pre Migrant Crisis). The Holocaust still has cultural dominance and will, I assume, for some time to come, in the way that Communist ideology still did in 1985-1988, before the challenges of 1989 brought it all down. (This is not a prediction of the imminent fall of Holocaust ideology or 1989-like spontaneous demonstrations to get rid of Holocaust memorials across the West; I would stop the analogy at early 1989; how exactly the Holocaust gets unraveled and its iron grip loosened and then removed, I do not yet know.)

The reasons for the decline of the CDU (and the SPD, polling now at a truly pathetic 16-18%) lean towards being off topic for this forum, but certainly the refugee crisis (August 2015 to spring 2016) is central to it; in turn, the Holocaust political-apparatus was central to the political conditions that allowed for the refugee crisis. Politics is complicated and easy answers are probably not fully accurate ones, but the Holocaust's relation to this is, as I see it, pretty certain.

So my little mental experiment can yield this way to conceptualize the likely election result:

Aggressive Holocaust-Pushers (overt): 35% of seats
Opponents of Holocaust Cult-ism (tacit): 15% of seats (of whom only a minority will speak out)
Neutrals and those passively obedient to 'Big H.' cultural hegemony: 50%

Your assessment seems to be in the ball park. However in the general population, it may look differently again. As I said, people get fed up with the subject. They get "Holocaust fatigue" and actually try to avoid the subject. But they're not left alone, Hitler seems to be still omnipresent on television. And the media makers know how to diversify the subject.

One year after the election, polls now put public opinion (party support) on the Right as definitely shifting towards the only party with seats at the national level that has known "Holocaust Opponents" in it (AfD). On the Left, the picture is less clear, as the Holocaust-pushing Greens now have almost as much polled support as the SPD, which leans towards being more Holocaust-neutral.

I want to get an updated estimate of current levels of Holocaust-pusher support and opposition in late 2018 using the framework I proposed last year. I would propose the following, and am curious to hear how much others who follow German domestic politics would agree with this rating system:

________________________________________________________
Position of each German party on the Holocaust
Party: [Holocaust Pushers] - [Neutrals] - [Opponents of the Holocaust]

AfD: 0 - 40 - 60
CDU: 10 - 75 - 15
FDP: 0 - 100 - 0

SPD: 65 - 25 - 10
Green: 90 - 10 - 0
Linke: 70 - 30 - 0
________________________________________________________

For the SPD, I had to include a '10' for Holocaust Opponents just for Herr Sarrazin alone (poetically born on Feb. 12, 1945; one day before Dresden). (There is also a historical component of the SPD from the 1960s and 1970s, that I discuss in this thread ("How much support is there in Germany for abolishing "Holocaust Enforcement" laws?" [May 2017]). It is unclear how much of that anti-Holocaust subcurrent of the SPD survives into the 2010s, 2020s, and beyond.) Sarazzin is now out with a new book, eight years after his Germany Abolishes Itself, which touches at the margins on Holocaust themes and indirectly with Holocaust Cultism. Sarrazin does not deal directly with the Holocaust in either that book or in the new book, which is about political Islam in Europe/Germany.

For the CDU, I had to include a '10' for Holocaust Pushers just for Angela Merkel alone now, who, although she isn't a crazed Holocaust-maniac like Joschka Fischer, does seem clearly motivated by the Holocaust and Holocaust-politics, given her actions. I also reduced the estimate of Holocaust Opponents from what I proposed last year (I proposed 0 - 80 - 20), from 20 to 15, as some of the Holocaust Opponents will by now have defected to the AfD. It may even by now be 10 - 80 - 10 or even 15 - 75 - 10, following years of the Merkel Cult of Personality in the CDU.

For Linke, the '30' Neutral score represents a core constituency for this party, which is working-class ex-East German older people, especially those who did not grow up with Holocaust training. However, this party will not have any actual Holocaust opponents, because anyone like this who actually cares about t he issue and is a conscious (even if secret) opponent of the Holocaust would have gone to AfD by now. I have read that think many eastern Linke voters have done this, replaced by some ex-SPDers and others; in the West, more and more by foreigners. Politics is always shfiting, and the image of the Linke as old communist-loyalists may soon need updating.

________________________________________________________
Current Polling for each German party
mid-September 2018 (see here)
AfD: Up to 20%*
CDU/CSU: 28-30%
FDP: 8-10%

SPD: 16-18%
Green: 13-15%
Linke: 8-10%
________________________________________________________

(* - Note that for AfD, 17.5% is highest result [Aug. 2018], but AfD support is always known to be underestimated in polling; the chance that their true support now exceeds 20% seems high, to me.)

Now as we multiply the first table by the second, we get a very rough estimate of Holocaust support in German politics:

________________________________________________________
% of Voters, by Party and Position on Holocaust
Party: [Holocaust Pushers] - [Neutrals] - [Opponents of the Holocaust]
AfD: 0 - 8% - 12%
CDU: 3% - 22% - 4%
FDP: 0 - 9% - 0

SPD: 11% - 4% - 2%
Green: 13% - 1% - 0
Linke: 6% - 3% - 0
________________________________________________________

This gives us a support, society wide, including many now in Germany whose ancestors were not in 1940s-Germany:

________________________________________________________

German Political Situation re: the Holocaust Question
Grand Total, for Sept. 2018

• 33%: [Holocaust Pushers]
• 47%: [Neutrals]
• 18%: [Opponents of the Holocaust]

Note: This is a composite estimate of political parties' internal positions on the Holocaust, multiplied by party support and added together. Total does not add up to 100 due to rounding and <5% support nationally going to another specific party, not one of the six here analyzed and too small for pollsters to count.
________________________________________________________

Summary
Despite the AfD's steady gains over the past three years, and especially in the past one year in which a purported "protest party that would surely break apart soon" has added healthily to its support base, the overall picture remains unfavorable for opponents of the Holocaust. It stands today roughly similar to what it was last year (my estimate for the election was it would be 35 - 50 - 15), except that there has probably been a sifting of Holocaust Opponents on the Right to the AfD, which is now Germany's first-ever major party defacto opposed to the Holocaust, but a strengthening of Holocaust-pushers on the left with the continued fading of the SPD with its lingering Holocaust-neutral faction.

The ideal, and most realistic, scenario for Holocaust Liberation, given this analysis, would be:

(1) the AfD holding together, and

(2) the CDU ejecting Merkel, and over the next few years pushing its party numbers on Holocaust Politics (on my scale proposed above) towards 0 - 65 - 35, which means eliminating the Holocaust Pusher influence that has come in with Merkel. I suspect 0 - 65 - 35 to be CDU's realistic limit before it would really begin to split apart. If CDU wants to prevent more CDUers from defecting to AfD, or win some back, it will need to move away from the influence of Holocaust Pushers and their agenda, as conservative and rightist-nationalist voters are not attracted to Holocaust-pushers.