Auschwitz and the SPD

As an appropriate follow-up to tonight’s panel discussion from Israel, Henryk Broder writes about the shameless exploitation of Auschwitz by German Social Democrats.

Many thanks to JLH for the translation from Mr. Broder’s website:

Auschwitz and the SPD

by Henryk M. Broder
May 9, 2019

The fantasy land of German social democracy is located in southern Poland, about 70 kilometers west of Cracow and about 40 kilometers southeast of Katowice. The geographic coordinates are: latitude 50°02′03″ N and longitude 19°12′37″E, 232 meters above sea level. The place is called Auschwitz, alternatively Oswiecim, and was designated by UNESCO as a World Cultural Heritage Site.

For over a million people, Auschwitz was a final stop and a mass grave. For Heiko Maas,[1] it was a factor that decided his choice of profession. He had, says the minister, “entered politics because of Auschwitz.” Actually, he entered politics because his second state law examination was so bad that he had no chance of being appointed as a state’s attorney or a judge — not even in Saarland. So he became a politician. Because of Auschwitz. Give me a break!

Sigmar Gabriel[2] did not enter politics because of Auschwitz, but because of his father, who was a Nazi, as Gabriel admitted unasked. It is seen as the metaphorical equivalent. As his father is for one of them, Auschwitz is for the other. And Gabriel, too, refers often to that German symbol of longing. At a fundraiser of the German National Foundation for the European elections, he said it “was exciting” to participate as the continent was being shaped. And that it was “a ray of hope that, in a time full of conflict, we have managed to come from Auschwitz to Maastricht in less than a generation. I find it a genuine miracle that we have come from hostility and genocide in less than a human lifespan, to become first partners and then friends. That is the real miracle of the European Union’s guiding light in an otherwise grim world.”

Yes, he really said that — the big baby of the SPD — and with a facial expression as if he had just discovered that there had been a short circuit in his playroom, where he had spent so many happy hours. Similarly, for Maas and some bards of the SPD, Auschwitz is not the last stop, but the light at the end of the tunnel, a start, the beginning of a better world. The people who died in this place did not die in vain. The gods heard their cries for help and made possible a direct connection from Auschwitz to Maastricht. And now, according to the subtext, if we don’t watch out, we will be going back to Auschwitz.

Gabriel is nuts, to say the least. What he is doing is covered by paragraph 168 of the criminal code[3] and is “punishable by up to three years’ imprisonment or a financial fine.” Or a long weekend in Greifswald with the youngsters of Feine Sahne Fischfilet [German punk band] in company with Robert Menasse [Austrian writer known for themes of loneliness and alienation] and Heiko Maas.

PS — small additional note: It was wacko Gabriel two years ago who wrote in a short essay for Frankfurter Rundschau: Social democrats were, like the Jews, the first victims of the Holocaust. Some were victims of political persecution, others of racist madness. The text was later quietly corrected to be even worse. Details here www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/umstrittene-holocaust-aeusserung-geschichtslektion-fuer.1013.de.html?dram:article_id=384723, here www.juedische-allgemeine.de/politik/sozialdemokraten-und-opfer/ and here www.deutschlandfunk.de/holocaust-vergleich-djv-kritisiert-heimliche-aenderung-auf.2852.de.html?dram:article_id=384792.

Notes:

1.   Heiko Maas (SPD), since 2018 Merkel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs.
2.   Sigmar Gabriel, SPD party leader from 2009-2017, Vice Chancellor from 2013-2018, preceded Maas as Foreign Minister.
3:   Removing or disrespecting a dead body or any part thereof, or vandalizing any funerary marker.
 

9 thoughts on “Auschwitz and the SPD

  1. Bunch of idiots , stupid empty idiots who try have a carrier in German politics…unbelievable..

  2. Yeah…I,m Pole living in Poland…
    Author have a problem with knowledge of History..
    Auschwitz ( Oswiecim) issue is NOT only about Germans and and JEWS !
    Jews are NOT only victims of Germans in Oswiecim…Poles where ethnic majority slaughter there…so Russians,Roma ,Greeks etc..
    STOP twisting the Truth about Oswiecim on this site !!
    Jews do not own monopoly on suffering and German genocide inflicted on Central and Eastern European mostly Slaves..Why you doing this ? Is this site Zionist agenda ?

    • You are absolutely right. But apparently not all nations have the right to suffer.

    • Read it again, slowly. The author is making no presumptions about who died at Auschwitz. He is simply pointing out the callous hypocrisy of those who use the Holocaust for their own advantage.

    • Read it again carefully. The author says nothing about how many kinds of people died at Auschwitz. He uses the words of the callous hypocrites who use it for their own purposes, to ridicule them .

  3. Mass Immigration Is Far More Destructive Than World War II

    https://www.eurocanadian.ca/2019/04/mass-immigration-far-more-destructive-than-world-war-2.html
    ==============
    By the way, I was on an excursion in Auschwitz when I was in school. It’s horrible. A very elderly Pole woman who was a guide told how a sweetish smell of smog stood over the city at that time.

    Most of all I was struck by pictures from a peaceful life that were painted on the walls in the barracks.

    • No one beside you and me wants to comment on this ??
      Typical western hypocrisy ..Political gains in theirs political agendas..They are NOT concern what happen in Oswiecim..Auschwitz serve them for theirs political games..Soulless and arrogant Westerners..Islamic karma is already upon them.. Sickening..

      • I want to know more about the sufferings of the Poles under German occupation.

        I do care.

        I have this mental image of the gallant Polish cavalry on horseback charging the invading German army tanks armed with swords .

        It was gallant, desperate, breathtakingly heroic ,certaily as heroic as the Spartans defending the pass at Thermopylae.

        And I want you to know that there are few things that bring me to tears ,one is the skirl of the bagpipes(which is deeply emotional for me) and two the gallantry of the Polish cavalry against the invading German army.

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