Sidelined
The combination of power and money in German journalism is leading to the end of professional ethics – or to a citizens’ income. Part 2 of 2.
As the future government puts together a debt package worth hundreds of billions for armaments, voters are once again wondering where the critical reporting is. What about the profession of journalists who leave the mainstream? What consequences does a citizen’s income have for one’s own professional activity? Are the Basic Law and the 2019 ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court being respected? The author reports on case studies, some of them from her own experience.
by Angela Mahr
[This article posted on 3/27/2025 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.manova.news/artikel/kalt-gestellt-2.]
Money, work and human dignity
Since the value of work in our society is still measured in terms of money, which I believe is the greatest and most consequential error of our time, going to the job center is a massive taboo. Nobody talks about it. The “Hartz IV citizen’s income cliché reports” that are occasionally broadcast on television, with their problem-ridden and alcoholic stereotypes of “social parasites”, complete the new old enemy stereotype. Instead of the taboo, however, there is a need for an open discussion on the topic of securing one’s livelihood under capitalism.
In order to massively increase psychological pressure, the job centers do not even comply with the laws and the verdict of the Federal Constitutional Court in November 2019. It seems that people should rather work mindlessly than reflect and work towards positive change.
Until 2019, the Hartz IV sanctions deprived people of their livelihoods and caused many thousands to become homeless every year, and that in a country with harsh, long winters.
From 2010 to December 2016, the number of homeless people in Germany rose from 248,000 to 335,000.
In 2019, a citizens’ movement led by Ralph Boes succeeded in ensuring that people can no longer be massively sanctioned and thrown out onto the streets. The human rights activist Ralph Boes went on hunger strike for more than 75 days to set a precedent and end the inhumane and undignified practice. He lost 18 kilograms of body weight. Through this public “sanction hunger strike,” he and the movement brought the case before the Federal Constitutional Court, risking his health and life. The goal was to insist on the constitutionally guaranteed fundamental right to a life of dignity. Hartz IV had forced people to permanently choose between dignity and life, according to Boes. “I won’t go along with that.”
According to one estimate, almost 300 homeless people died of hypothermia between 1991 and 2017. For the winter of 2018/2019, the Federal Working Group on Homeless Assistance assumes that at least twelve homeless people have died of exposure. In the Corona winter of 2020/21, 23 homeless people in Germany paid for the capitalist dictate with their lives and froze to death. From then until 2024, the number fluctuates between three and six every winter.
The dying on Germany’s streets must come to an end. A relapse of our society in the direction of inhumane and deadly Hartz IV sanctions must be ruled out.
Homeless person in Berlin, January 2024. Photo: Angela Mahr
Work is something that every person wants to do and contributes, according to their abilities and talents. It would probably be one of the greatest possible punishments to forbid a person once and for all to work, to help, to participate. It is simply part of our nature. Every young child takes action themselves to contribute when they see adults at work. However, it is not part of our nature to fundamentally “bow and scrape” to hierarchical structures and take orders or instructions while turning off our conscience and taking little or no responsibility. We then fail to help decide what should be worked on, by whom, how and to what end.
David Graeber already described this dilemma very vividly in his famous book “Bullshit Jobs – On the True Meaning of Work” in 2018.
Journalist Felix Feistel puts it succinctly and pointedly in 2023:
“There is probably more nonsense being produced, more work being done, more pottering around, more being done than ever before. But instead of people using what has been achieved and distributing it fairly among all, instead of cutting back a little and turning to life, inequality and poverty are increasing, fewer and fewer people can afford to live, which in itself is an expression of the madness in which we find ourselves. Nevertheless, production continues, work continues, and the system continues to be driven forward.”
The crux of the matter, in my words, is:
people should work in a way that they want to do so, that they recognize as meaningful, and that they can reconcile with their conscience. There is no human being who was born solely to be a vicarious agent.
Unpleasant and exhausting work requires healthy working conditions and appropriate remuneration. Over time, it should be shared among several people, and corporate structures must allow for more shared responsibility. This is in line with both the free choice of occupation and human dignity.
There were and are ways to thwart all this, whether through communist state regimentation or through capitalist structural violence. Our task is to see through each of these and to find new ways. In his urgent letter “Human Dignity is inviolable”, Ralph Boes writes as early as June 2011:
“Employing people in work that is meaningless overrides human dignity – and threatening them with hunger and homelessness if they do not comply with the nonsense they are forced to do, certainly does so.”
His approach of not changing the unemployed people, but rather developing the circumstances further, is rapidly becoming more relevant in times of artificial intelligence.
Freedom instead of predatory capitalism
We will have no choice but to build new structures as the old ones fall apart under the mismanagement, predatory capitalism and propaganda machine of recent years. Sahra Wagenknecht’s book “Wealth without Greed” from 2016 already offers numerous valuable approaches to how an economy can be created through cooperative structures in companies that serves people, instead of the other way around.
Free science, free media, free art and culture are essential components of a healthy society. Germany affords an expensive public broadcasting system, which urgently needs to be reformed and democratized.
Artists and those working in the cultural sector are usually the first to suffer when the intertwining of power and money increasingly serves only a few. When journalism is corrupted, the way is cleared for abuse of power and corruption, and the problem eats its way into all industries. It is a mistake to believe that we can do without certain industries. A society without free art, without free culture and without free journalism will also lose its freedom in the other areas – or come to its senses before then.
There are various very good approaches to reforming and democratizing corporate structures, decision-making processes and money. People’s livelihoods must be decoupled from capitalism and secured unconditionally. This is not about luxury, nor is it about not allowing the entrepreneurial spirit of start-ups, commitment or hard work to pay off. It is about putting an end to the blackmail of life.
It is high time to gather the well-developed concepts that have been developed for this purpose, to discuss them in a results-oriented manner and to implement them.
Angela Mahr studied ethnology, North American studies and literature (M.A.) in Berlin. As an author, she deals with the field of tension between propaganda and society, as well as intercultural communication, the deep state and power politics. As a filmmaker, she traveled to China, Tibet and India and publishes through alternative channels. She has published the books: “Peace for Ukraine: How Can the War Be Ended?”, “Breaking Out of the Matrix of Fear: Power and the Media Using the Examples of 9/11 and Corona” and “Peace Needs Freedom: Seeing Through the Information War, Dismissing the War”. Much of the analysis and writing in each of these was first published on Manova. For more information, visit angela-mahr.de.
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Sidelined
In German journalism, the combination of power and money is leading to the end of professional ethics – or to a citizens’ income. Part 1 of 2.
As the future government puts together a debt package worth hundreds of billions for armaments, voters are once again wondering where critical reporting is. What about the profession of journalists who leave the mainstream? What consequences does a citizen’s income have for one’s own professional activity? Are the Basic Law and the 2019 ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court being respected? The author reports on case studies, some of them from her own experience.
by Angela Mahr
[This article posted on 3/25/2025 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.manova.news/artikel/kalt-gestellt.]
Where does the pursuit of money, power, influence or simply comfortable survival lead? After the warmongering traffic light government was voted out of office, Friedrich Merz is now continuing the warmongering propaganda and rearmament with an incredible fraud against the voters.
Before the federal election, Merz ruled out a reform of the debt brake.
Three weeks after the election, the CDU/CSU, SPD and Greens passed a 500 billion debt package. To facilitate this act of piracy, an amendment to the Basic Law was rushed through with the old Bundestag.
Peace begins with overcoming the information war and, in connection with this, with a free media and an open and fearless discourse. The most important basis for this is the ability of journalists to work in their fields of expertise, following their conscience.
Due to revolving doors, excessive director and moderator fees, and a broadcasting council close to the state, public broadcasting has lost much of its credibility. The interrelations with transatlantic think tanks and advertising customers in the large media houses of German newspapers lead to a similar result.
But the responsibility of a journalist is great in view of the escalations of the past three years. Is everyone aware of this?
More money for war?
Those who fueled the war in Ukraine were courted by the German media. Those who shed light on the background and did not want to supply weapons to war zones were grilled by the moderator in discussions and then removed from the university with flimsy excuses. The scientists Patrick Baab and Ulrike Guérot can tell you a thing or two about it. Daniele Ganser made a courageous and uncomfortable start more than ten years ago. Where is all this leading?
If the Federal Republic of Germany were to spend 5 percent of its GDP on weapons, then almost every second euro of tax revenue would go to the arms industry, as calculated by the independent journalist Norbert Fleischer:
“Five percent of Germany’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2023, which was around 4.19 trillion euros, would correspond to around 209.5 billion euros. The federal budget for 2023 provided for expenditures of 476.29 billion euros. Thus, the amount of 209.5 billion euros corresponds to about 44 percent of the federal budget for 2023.“
“Whether it is 2, 2.5 or 5 percent, to be honest, that is only of secondary importance to me,” Friedrich Merz explained in January at an event organized by the Club of Hamburg Business Journalists.
“The good news is that peace will not break out in this region on the first day,” said ZDF correspondent Elmar Theveßen in January, speaking about the war in Ukraine during a live link-up with Maybrit Illner on Donald Trump’s presidency. It wasn’t a slip of the tongue: it could take another six months, ‘that’s the good news for now,’ he added.
State funding for opinion-making
Work brings money, and money is how you recognize the service provided for the common good. Those who don’t earn money are not considered to be providing a service for the common good. This is the short and inaccurate formula of evaluation that we, collectively, still have in mind. But where does that lead?
In Germany, millions of tax dollars are spent to fuel the information war in line with the government’s agenda – or to keep it transatlantically on course. So-called “non-governmental organizations” and “fact checkers” are then the direct financial profiteers.
Some examples:
The tip of the iceberg is currently made up of government-sponsored reporting offices that promote mutual denunciation in society. Numerous legal statements that are compatible with freedom of expression are reported there by anonymous snitches. There is a considerable budget for this:
In 2023 alone, around 830,000 euros flowed from the Senate administration’s funds to Berlin registration offices, Focus Online reported on the Berlin registry.
Of course, such state-sponsored informants fuel a climate of fear.
In recent years, the media platform Correctiv has received not only donations from super-rich individuals such as eBay founder and billionaire Pierre Omidyar, totaling millions, but also several hundred thousand euros in state funding.
In 2023, Correctiv received more than 431,000 euros from the federal treasury, with an additional 145,000 euros coming from the state treasury of North Rhine-Westphalia.
The German Press Agency dpa not only reproduces news from the US Associated Press (AP) across the board. Since 2021, it has also received over €1.3 million from the budget of Claudia Roth (Greens), the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. In addition, in 2023 and 2024, it will receive €30,000 annually from the Federal Agency for Civic Education, which is also subordinate to the BMI.
The Center for Liberal Modernity (LibMod) receives millions of euros in state funding.
According to a response from the federal government to a request from the then-left, the “think tank” has been funded for 24 projects since 2018 with almost four and a half million euros in state funds, or more precisely: 4,472,573 euros.
One of the center’s projects is called “Ukraine in Europe: Strengthening German-Ukrainian Political Dialogue and Strengthening the Capacity of the Ukrainian Parliament” (1) and received a earmarked funding sum from state funds of 709,637.06 euros in the years 2021 to 2023, as can be seen from the enquiry of the then left-wing faction from 2022.
The project “Counter-Media: Parallel Public Sphere and Radicalization Machine to Delegitimize Representative Democracy” received 316,211.47 euros in earmarked funding from state funds from 2021 to 2022.
The very name of the project unfortunately contains what is probably a deliberate confusion between criticism of the government, which is necessary for a democracy, and a willingness to use violence, which is dangerous. In this state-funded project, the Nachdenkseiten are denigrated as a “hinge for conspiracy-theoretical thinking” and defamed as a “vehicle for ideology, a hinge for conspiracy theories and an agenda-setter for radical system opposition”.
Money rules the world and capital replaces meaning
Why don’t many more German journalists leave these unbearable structures in the face of these conditions? What awaits the contractor when he leaves security behind in favor of the search for truth in his profession? Is it a matter of widespread cowardice in this sector or are the problems even deeper?
The money that someone gets for their work is still the usual criterion for social acceptance of the work and even of the person. But on the one hand, in our time, the money that someone “earns” no longer means that the professional activity serves the common good, the people, the country or nature. Often the exact opposite is the case. On the other hand, this attitude contradicts human dignity.
More and more money does not come from the end consumer, but from where it has been accumulating for many years: the super-rich, foundations, think tanks and also tax revenues. Accordingly, the interests of those super-rich, foundations and think tanks are also reflected in science, the media and the cultural sector.
It is not the market that regulates demand here, but the super-rich who regulate the market with money and laws. The argument that demand promotes the best and most sensible supply has long since ceased to be valid.
This can also be argued from the example of sustainable agriculture or fairly produced clothing, on the basis of raw materials and heating systems, in medicine, in care and in many other professions.
Many activities are valuable and necessary in themselves, but they urgently need change and further development. This also applies to the employment relationships in large companies and businesses, be it in production or distribution. The necessary change cannot follow capitalist laws alone, for example, if products are to last a long time, production is to be environmentally friendly and the human dignity of raw material suppliers and employees is to be preserved, even those in faraway countries.
As long as a few only look at the numbers and make money from production, however, this remains a utopia, and the work of people on the respective projects means destruction, overexploitation of nature and suffering. A conscious change of an employee, however, combined with their path to independence, then serves people, but in most cases does not earn the former employee enough money.
How does the problem affect the media industry? At this point, the research was hard but effective, because I myself am currently the best example.
As a journalist in the fields of peace, geopolitics, intercultural communication and society, I have career opportunities in financially strong think tanks for a good cause, in addition to the major corporate media in Germany: Correctiv, Zentrum Liberale Moderne and many more. I could also specialize in making students “resilient” against “disinformation” online, in order to cement the current war propaganda in the minds of the TikTok generation. I could actively contribute to the construction of enemy images and firewalls, to the persecution of government critics, to the loss of teaching jobs by scientists, and to the delivery of the Taurus to Ukraine at long last. Or: I stay true to myself, bite the bullet and accept a citizen’s income.
Power, fear and citizen’s income
In this case, the necessary amount for the self-employed to survive is topped up by the job center according to the monthly standard rate of currently 563 euros plus rent and health insurance. If the self-employment of the “top-up” is not financially viable over a longer period of time, he is first offered measures, then later “assigned” to change his activity so that it fits into this capitalist world.
“Assignment to the ‘measure for the care and knowledge transfer for employable, performance-entitled self-employed persons’” is then the subject in a letter that is supposed to initiate the change in the insufficiently lucrative activities.
The letter “obliges” the recipient to participate and, in connection with this, to “actively cooperate in all services aimed at maximizing income until the end of the assignment period” as well as to “provide information about the success of the measure and any other information that may be required to check the quality of the measure by the office named in the letterhead (the external consulting firm, note).” The letter also “obliges” the recipient to “allow the above-mentioned training provider to assess your performance and behavior”. Orwell sends his regards?
Elsewhere and in other letters, it is pointed out that “if necessary” “occupational alternatives” are also discussed and checked for feasibility. Failure to comply with these obligations may result in a 10 percent or 30 percent reduction in the standard rate of the citizen’s income.
In short, there is a lot of pressure to give up a financially unprofitable self-employment and thus the activity itself.
In order to save tax money, not to employ anyone pointlessly and to concentrate on my work, I refused the above-mentioned measure and further counseling appointments. In my case, a few weeks later, payments were simply stopped altogether, for a total of six weeks, which is unconstitutional. Even the most inhumane Hartz IV sanctioning before 2019 did not know this in this form. Calls and written inquiries on my part did not help, but my personal appearance then ended the cold sanction.
I see no specific political persecution in my case based on the content. Presumably, I could have prevented the loss of payments by providing a written statement in a timely manner regarding the unsuitable counseling offer. However, the pressure to change my activity did not.
But what if such a procedure were to be used politically against members of the opposition in the future?
I did research on the subject and spoke with several citizens’ income recipients who had had similar experiences.
Melanie Engel, a mother of two, received no money for half a year after her initial application following her separation from her husband. She responded to each of these inquiries in writing in a timely manner. Finally, she was asked to draw a floor plan of the shared house, indicating how she used each room. The separation and her planned move out were made considerably more difficult by the lack of money. The lawyer she eventually consulted had never seen a similar case. She told me that she had registered several demonstrations during the Corona years.
Birgit M. (name changed) was ordered to repay the entire money during an approval period of 6 months, i.e. around 5000 euros, on the grounds that she had not submitted documents such as bank statements. However, the office had all of these by fax. Birgit M. went to the social welfare court with the fax confirmation until the office had to admit that the files had been lost. She was also active in the resistance during the Corona years; whether there is a connection here cannot be said.
Several citizens’ income recipients were affected by hundred percent cuts for months, for example on the grounds that a matter had not been resolved before the job center. Some went to the social court, but then needed a lot of time – and that without money.
Isn’t the accumulation of such incidents in itself a form of structural violence against dissidents who do not submit to the dictates of big capital at any cost?
I see here the harbingers of a dangerous development that is currently being driven by corresponding lobbyists: more money is needed for armaments, propaganda and war.
Are they trying to nip social change in the bud by gutting and watering down the welfare state?
Psychological pressure from job centers can become the biggest lever for profiteers to keep people in line or to get them into line. As a result, the necessary change and further development of the professional world becomes impossible. A society that puts working people under existential pressure cuts itself off from its creative and entrepreneurial potential. Fear and pressure destroy the corrective impulses. The cause of the problem is the disregard for human dignity.
“Integration agreement” is the name of a document for recipients, instead of the simple term ‘self-employment counseling’. A self-employed person who, for all the reasons currently given, no longer earns enough money is therefore not excluded, and therefore does not have to integrate anywhere. He simply earns too little. In a society as word-sensitive as ours, that should be worth changing.
Another change is deserved by the inaccurate term “socially weak”, which means “economically weak” and should be called that. However, this phrase cannot be blamed on the job centers.
Sources and notes:
(1) Original: Project “Ukraine in Europe: Strengthening German-Ukrainian policy dialogue and enhancing the capacity of the Ukrainian parliament”
Angela Mahr studied ethnology, North American studies and literature (M.A.) in Berlin. As an author, she focuses on the areas of tension between propaganda and society, as well as intercultural communication, the deep state and power politics. As a filmmaker, she traveled to China, Tibet and India and publishes her work through alternative channels. She has published the books: “Peace for Ukraine: How Can the War Be Ended?”, “Breaking Out of the Matrix of Fear: Power and the Media Using the Examples of 9/11 and Corona” and “Peace Needs Freedom: Seeing Through the Information War, Dismissing the War”. A large part of the analyses and articles published in each of these initially appeared on Manova. Further information can be found at angela-mahr.de.
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My capital
Alice Weidel’s statement that Adolf Hitler was a communist does not stand up to closer historical scrutiny.
The public image of communism is now subject to strong fluctuations. If you look at the image of Hitler that the AfD chancellor candidate created in her conversation with Elon Musk, you might be amazed. Did the “Führer” preach class struggle instead of racial hatred? Were the KPD and SPD his financial backers, not rich capitalists? You live and learn. Of course, the word “worker” is part of the name “Nazi Party”. Hitler wanted to win over the broad working masses for his project. However, he soon showed his true colors, had people who, according to Weidel, should have been his ideological comrades, locked up in concentration camps and incited German workers in terrible wars against French, Polish and Russian. The author ties into this bizarre incident with multifaceted observations on current German and Austrian politics.
[This article posted on 3/1/2025 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.manova.news/artikel/mein-kapital.]
Recently someone found a red fly in the brown soup. Apparently some would prefer it if the broth were not brown but completely red. They think it is obvious that the National Socialists were socialists, as the name suggests. Meanwhile, everyone knows that history was always written by the church, the powerful and the victors. What were they thinking, trying to sell us Adolf Hitler and his National Socialists as right-wing national fascists?
Some people like to unpack the beautiful word framing from the new toolbox and suspect whitewashing. We were supposed to be hoodwinked and the whole Hitler thing was a socialist action under a false flag to deceive us all. The word socialism can be clearly read in National Socialism.
Do the doubters really believe that the inventors of modern mass communication were so simple-minded and infantile that they would not have noticed this? What is historically known so far is that the first national movements emerged from the labor parties. That is where most of the dissatisfied were to be found. That is where they could gather many votes that could ensure the necessary majority in the coming elections in the democracies founded after the World War.
As the name NSDAP already shows, the new party called itself the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Seen in this light, it is correct that the young postcard painter would not have turned immediately and directly to industry. In addition to the desire to reach as many votes as possible through the masses of workers, there were also other influences on this young party. These drew on racist sources and, apparently, above all from the field of anti-Semitism.
In addition to the anti-Semitic party, there was also the so-called Hammerbund and the Association against the Arrogance of Judaism. These were all counter-movements against the so-called Jewish emancipation that had begun after the Enlightenment. These groups were of the opinion that emancipation had already made too much progress. But it was not only Jews who were despised. The aim was to exclude anyone who posed a threat to the pure German people, the Aryans, the master race.
This means that the young Nazi Party was, from the outset, highly racist. The National Socialists’ view of society was also shaped by nationalism, racism, authority and hierarchy. It is hard to imagine that there were only a few points of contact with the egalitarian and international world view of the socialists of the time.
Until then, racism had never been noticed as a socialist issue. Even if all this is true, the word socialism can still be found in the name of the then young party. There is very little to be found in Adolf Hitler’s oeuvre about economic ideas.
Rather, it speaks of a person who knows exactly how everything works and what he wants to achieve. What he likes and what he dislikes. On the one hand, there is the annexation of Austria to the German Reich and the project of gaining living space in the east, whatever that was supposed to be. On the other hand, there is anti-Semitism and, in this context, the Jewish world conspiracy. In this context, he also saw Marxism as coming from the Jew Karl Marx, and likewise socialism. He also saw Bolshevism as part of this Jewish conspiracy.
It is therefore difficult to believe that this man was secretly a socialist in his little room. Moreover, it seems hard to imagine that the NSDAP would have betrayed and deceived its leader with a secret socialism. As a culmination of his hatred, he even accuses the Jews of promoting prostitution with the intention of spreading syphilis among the German people. This sounds more like a joke, or perhaps a symptom. Adolf Hitler wants to confront National Socialism with the slogan “racial struggle instead of class struggle”.
No matter whether it is a clever book or not, it is definitely not a work on German or international economics. If you compare it to the work of Karl Marx, it looks quite different. Marx was very much concerned with the liberation of the workers and the proletariat from exploitation by the owners of the means of production, i.e. the capitalists.
Above all, Marx presented a completely new economic and social order in Capital. There is an interesting reference to capitalism and industry in the small booklet by Éric Vuillard, “The Agenda”.
Good friends in big industry
At the invitation of Reichstag President Hermann Göring, 24 prominent representatives of industry attended a meeting with Adolf Hitler on February 20, 1933. In addition to the big shots from Krupp, Opel, BASF, Bayer, Siemens and Allianz, hardly any company that was then, and in some cases still is, important in the German economy was absent. The topic of the meeting was the financial support of National Socialist policies. Does anyone really believe that these gentlemen would have sat down with a run-of-the-mill socialist?
The NSDAP was very satisfied with the outcome of the talks. As history progressed, the generous donors were thanked with the allocation of forced laborers, who were then of course available to them free of charge. That doesn’t really sound like socialism in practice either. I even think that socialists would turn in their graves at the thought of forced labor. But Adolf Hitler didn’t just have very good friends in German industry. Henry Ford, the doyen of modern car manufacturing and inventor of the assembly line, was also a great admirer of his.
In addition to this well-known industrialist, there were other American entrepreneurs who not only held the German leader in high esteem, but were also willing to support him financially.
If you know that the Americans as a nation had and still have an almost sacred and also panicky fear of communism and socialism, then this behavior of prominent business leaders is very strange if the assumption is correct that the National Socialists were closet socialists.
The Americans fear socialism mainly because they are afraid that socialism would dissolve their economic system and thus their private property. Henry Ford would probably have fled in despair. It is little known that the Americans supplied Adolf Hitler with oil during the Second World War. Without this essential raw material, the Führer would not have been able to fight the war for so long and on such a scale. The supplies were not stopped until the beginning of June 1944. After all, the Allied troops landed in Normandy on June 6 of the same year, opening the Western Front there. It was very convenient that the Germans were slowly running out of fuel. This double-sided attitude of the Americans prompted some later historians to the spiteful remark: Only the German fascists would have lost. Fascism was not defeated.
After the war, the Nuremberg trials took place, in which some minor figures were condemned as pawn sacrifices. All the important defendants were found guilty right during the trial, but soon after this verdict they were pardoned or were allowed to count on reduced sentences or releases. Many were not even charged. At least the Allies, and the Americans in particular, were highly interested in some specific scientists. Once these scientists had moved to America, no one asked about their past.
Former Nazis in leading positions
In Germany, Konrad Adenauer was installed as Chancellor by the CIA. He chose Hans Globke as the head and closest confidant of his Chancellery, who had worked in the Reich Ministry of the Interior during the Nazi era. This initially led to some resistance and also a request to Adenauer to dismiss this man, since he was, after all, a prominent Nazi. The first CDU chancellor after the Second World War responded by saying that if he did so, he would also resign from his position as chancellor. Globke was also responsible for the personnel policy of the Chancellery and the CDU party leadership. It seems hardly credible or likely that a CDU politician would bring a socialist into such a prominent position in Germany and his party.
Looking at the parties that were founded in Germany and Austria after the Second World War, it was mainly in the conservative groups that former Nazis could be found. After all, socialists and communists were regarded as enemies of the state in the 1000-year Reich, imprisoned and some of them sent to concentration camps. For all these and many other reasons, it seems highly unlikely that the National Socialists were not right-wingers or conservatives, but in fact socialists.
I don’t understand what people hope to achieve by trying to attract attention with such insights. Do they want to get right-wing parties out of the right-wing corner once and for all? Or are they trying to reverse the blame for historical events?
What is better about our past or the facts created by the NSDAP and Hitler if these people were not right-wing conservative fascists, but perhaps socialists or communists?
What changes if they were only racists but not conservatives? They were certainly conservatives, if you look at the cult of the ancient Germans that this party has celebrated everywhere with its symbols and rituals. The idea of conservative socialists seems to me to be a topic for cabaret. Perhaps it is fashionable for current reasons.
Betrayed by representatives of the people
Germans find themselves in very turbulent, sometimes surprising times. Fascists are being identified everywhere. As some demonstrations and actions show, the anti-fascists of today often behave just as fascistically as one used to know only from the historical fascists. In recent years, many voters feel betrayed by left-wing ideologies and parties, as the ruling people obviously do not want to fulfill their roles as representatives of the people. They follow an agenda that is completely incomprehensible to the voters. In any case, one that does not contribute to a tangible growth in prosperity. Those in government in recent years have brought about more deterioration than improvement for their peoples. Therefore, people are deciding in favor of other parties that will represent their interests more clearly in the future.
At least that is what the voters hope. As soon as such an election is over, the losers come forward and point the finger at the so-called right-wing extremists or even fascists. Today, many previously unsuspected things are enough to be called a fascist. Opponents of vaccination are among them, coronavirus and climate deniers, or any kind of swore-worders who disagree again or stand for the wrong party. I don’t even know what corona or climate deniers are. Maybe soon someone who holds their breath in horror will be a breathing denier. There was a movement that should have been sold to us as diversity. But I must have misunderstood that. Diversity in the sexes is good, in opinions it is a clear sign of fascism.
The power of the center
What I find particularly amusing is the development in our country, Austria. A few years ago, there was a young messiah who was supposed to save our conservative heavyweight, the ÖVP. He succeeded in doing so with a policy that was far to the right of the FPÖ. Incidentally, it was already known as far-right at the time. After all, his goal was to take away the FPÖ’s voters. From this point of view, he and his ÖVP were XXX-right-wing extremist at the time. Today, the same party is proud of the achievements of the little messiah, but no longer has him as chancellor. Now they suddenly want to be a centrist force. Like a wonderful castling maneuver in chess, they move from the far-right to the center. They act as if they can’t even remember.
Meanwhile, they have messed up quite a bit and haven’t really achieved anything either. They are just in the middle, average, so-so, and now the FPÖ is once again a dangerous right-wing extremist party. It is inconceivable that such a political force should head a government. Back then, only the Messiah was allowed to do that, and no one else. The FPÖ has now gained votes again because voters have returned to it. But now they cannot form a coalition with them because they are right-wing extremists. Josef Taus, a former ÖVP chairman, once made a good statement on the subject of elections. When a journalist wanted to tell him that he had not won against Bruno Kreisky, he said, “Young man: elections are never won. Elections are always lost. Hardly anyone votes for a party because it is so great or so sweet or beautiful. Most people vote for an opposition party because they are disappointed by the governing parties.”
So much for the topic that is so popular today that all voters for the AfD or FPÖ are supposed to be fascists. Umberto Ecco put this very nicely in his booklet about fascism: “We live in a time when everyone believes that if they are the first to call out fascist, they would have won.”
About 80 years ago, Simone Weil wrote a wonderful little book on this subject. She calls it: “Note on the General Abolition of Political Parties”. This work appeared shortly after the Second World War, at a time when the newly founded parties and their representatives were still seen as honorable men, but not yet women. Simone Weil stated that a representative democracy with representation by political parties is not possible at all. Because every party must ultimately represent itself first and foremost, and there is no room left for representing the citizens. When voting, club compulsion must prevail.
Dissenters who publicly express themselves against the basic attitude of the party must be excluded. An authoritarian hierarchy must prevail in the party, which should of course be ideologically difficult for a democratic party. But it is handled that way in all of them. This clear and simple realization makes it understandable why coalition negotiations and the implementation of coalitions are so difficult. After all, the question of what is good for the party always comes first.
The German Minister of Economic Affairs has repeatedly emphasized from the outset that he does not know what to do with Germany. Now, at the end of his government career, it turns out that he was absolutely right.
Annalena Baerbock also said that she didn’t care about the votes of her constituents. So it’s not about the voters and it’s not about the people, it’s exclusively about the well-being of the parties. Unfortunately, this applies to all parties, to the detriment of the voters. It also applies to those who are now being elected in greater numbers in the hope that they will do something different. But their own party also has the highest priority for them.
No filter for public opinion
If we want to change something, then we all have to care more about politics and confront all undemocratic behavior and laws with determination. Here, too, we have the paradox that today the other is the enemy of democracy. The voters, because they vote for the wrong people, and the parties, because they do not want to take the elections seriously and hold on to power. Some of us have to be willing to devote ourselves to the political process. Yes, and then there should no longer be any parties that represent the filter for public opinion. Parliament should be made up exclusively of people elected by the people and not affiliated with any party. These people can then propose government representatives, who in turn should be elected by the people.
The people should no longer be faced with the task of choosing the lesser of two evils at every election, which then turns out to be the biggest problem after the election.
The advantage of this diversity of people and opinions is that so many different people are much more difficult to corrupt. In Austria, every lobbyist would have to deal with 183 members of the National Council. In Germany, with 733 individual members of the Bundestag. This is much easier today with totalitarian democratic parties. It is enough to reach the leaders of the three or five most important parties. And their members will follow orders from above. We can only enter into a genuine democratic order if we demand a complete and lived democracy. Then it does not matter whether a proposal comes from one party or another. Every proposal comes from a member of parliament elected by the people and should therefore be treated with due seriousness and respect.
Perhaps some people now think that all this would take far too long. In the heyday of Venice and its Venetian democracy, the legislative periods lasted only two years. The acting mandatees did not have to worry about election campaigns, because they were banned for the following legislative period. Running for office for the next but one term was only worthwhile for citizens who could demonstrate success in their last term. There are many models of democracies that we know little about because our existing democracy game must avoid comparison.
After the two world wars, there were two camps in Austria. The ÖVP warned of the “Red Danger” from the socialists and the SPÖ warned of “The Black Future” with the ÖVP. Both camps were so indoctrinated that it was not possible to discuss across party lines. Many were direct party members. But even as a non-member, one could quickly be assigned to one or the other camp by a careless utterance and that was the end of the conversation. We should have developed a little further and slowly discard this camp thinking.
What we are currently experiencing is about the welfare of us all, and it is being gambled away on the political gaming table. Therefore, it is no longer about who represents which color or paints themselves with it. We should decide for those who have the better proposals for our future. A good idea for the people does not get better or worse whether it comes from red, green, black, blue, yellow or purple. It is about the deeds and the actions, and not about the colors. In this respect, we do not have to change the color of a historical party after 80 years. That won’t make anything better today.
Let’s put the political paintbox aside and try to find a good solution for our future and that of our children and grandchildren. To do that, we need people who care about this. People who can perceive our current reality. But above all, people who are able to make the right decisions together with specialists. In our new democracy, the will of the people should come before anything that the representatives of the people strive for.
I
Wilhelm Hamburger, born in 1951, worked in advertising from 1979 to 2017, after studying business administration, in roles ranging from copywriter to agency owner. He looked after many of his customers for over 25 years. He was a contrarian from an early age: addicted to learning, reading, writing and music. He has been a passionate cook for 60 years. His motto in life: “Life and the world should become a little more beautiful every day.”