Thilo Sarrazin is causing controversy again in Germany, this time with a new book about the euro. As a former banker he knows his topic thoroughly, and is shaking up the establishment with his contrarian viewpoint.
Many thanks to JLH for translating this article from Junge Freiheit:
Sarrazin: There is a Nexus of Euro and Holocaust
Thilo Sarrazin has defended his theory of a connection between German save-the-Euro policy and German guilt for WWII. An obligation to Europe was derived from German guilt, said Sarrazin in an interview with Zeit. “There is a nexus of Euro and Holocaust.”
As an example of this, Sarrazin quoted the Italian writer Eugenio Scalfari who wrote some weeks ago in Zeit: “If Germany should pursue a financial policy that allows the Euro to crash, then the Germans would be responsible for the collapse of Europe. After two World Wars and the Holocaust, that would be the fourth sin. Germany must now assume its responsibility for Europe.”
Former chancellor Helmut Schmidt made a similar argument at the SPD party convention last September, says Sarrazin. He said quite clearly: “It cannot be that — only 70 years after the last World War, and according to this reasoning — we are expected to pay for the debts of other countries; and that is exactly what the Eurobond, for instance, amounts to.”
“Germany cannot solve the Greeks’ internal problems”.
Under the rubric of European solidarity, it must not be understood that developed, sovereign states would take over the debts of other sovereign states to compensate for their poor decisions, warned the former head of the federal bank. Germany cannot solve the problems of the Greeks, the Spaniards or the Italians.
On Tuesday, in Berlin, Sarrazin presented his new book, Europe Does Not Need The Euro. In it he had made sure that there would be outrage, with his comment that policy on the issue of salvaging the Euro was being driven by “that very German reflex, according to which the penance for the Holocaust and the World War will not be done until all our property, even our money, is in European hands.”
10 comments:
RonaldB here:
The paradoxical fact is, Germany cannot save the Euro. It can only pile up the dead weight of inappropriate currency and dysfunctional governmental policies, until Europe crashes much harder and with much more finality that was necessary.
It is obvious to even the dimmest impartial observer that it is totally dysfunctional for different countries to be pursuing a common fiscal and monetary policy. For example, Greece, as a major tourist attraction, has a different characteristic from Germany, which is stodgy and tedious, but reliable.
Like a drug-taking relative, Germany in the EU will enable its more profligate neighbors to continue policies which are logically unsustainable. Also, like dependent relatives, the more aid the neighbors receive, the more they hate their "benefactor", who keeps them dependent and subservient.
Sarrazin makes a good point: in Germany, the Left feels the need to "atone" by surrendering German sovereignty, including budgetary control, to an unelected, democratically un-legitimated Commission of Euro-crats in Brussels. At least some of these like-minded Euro-clones, like Barraaso of Portugal, are "former" Maoists. There is some irony in this "atonement" program. Germany's "friends" in Europe are all to eager to encourage German "atonement" especially when they need someone else's money to spend on their pet projects--like importing more migrants, putting them on the welfare rolls, and enlisting them as voters to keep themselves in power. Truly, "Holocaust education" in Europe has become blackmail and an extortion racket directed against Germany, and ultimately AGAINST ALL NATIVE EUROPEANS who are told that they too must "atone" -- and that they can, and will, "atone" by assenting to their own cultural eclipse, and finally their extinction.
Hi RonaldB: Generally true, BUT the dependent Europeans are their own enslavers - refusing to live with fiscal responsibility and stealing a safe future from their children to pay for their more and more profligate present spending.
Second Anon: YES. YES. YES. A lot of powerful (and ordinary) Jewish people appear to blame Americans and Europeans for the mass death of Jews in World War II - instead of 1) realizing that many peoples were targeted for elimination in World War II, and 2) thanking Americans and Europeans for the saving of Jews as well as those other peoples. In addition, some people promote a wildly immature expectation that Americans were 'responsible' to save Jews from aggression then - and everyone in the world except Christians now - whether or not it is realistically possible to save people who are largely responsible for their own problems - in Islam due to their INFERIOR (Yes I said it!) culture based on the criminal religion of Islam.
Egghead
Scalfari's talk is pretty bold for an Italian. Which side was Italy on in WW II, anyway? And which Italian dictator was best buds with Hitler? I know, I just can't seem to remember.
Black Death - I'm thinking you are American. Most Europeans who have the slightest knowledge of WW II know that Italy was never unified during WW II; there were monarchists, communists and fascists-- the latter force winning out for the first few years of the war and like the communists of Russia was never elected into power, but rather seized it. Unlike Germany, Italy always had a strong partisan/rebel opposition from day 1 of the fascist march on Rome. Sicily conspired with the US to make way for the Americans and was liberated a year before the landing at Normandy and prompted Italy to be divided into 2; the fascists in the north and the monarchists forming the "Kingdom of the South" which continued to side with the allies. And it was the popular Italian support for the allies that eventually toppeled Mussolini, prompting the subsequent invasion of Italy by Germany.
I understand facts are often pesky in a conversation like this, but it may help you in the long-run to learn them.
Ah, the sins of the father have no bounds....
Sarrazin is correct in his estimation and it must be recognized, particularly by historians, that there would be no European Union today if Germany had been defeated militarily in World War One. As the Armistice has shown us, if the enemy is not defeated then his plans for expansion and control are only put on hold for another time.
If Germany had been thoroughly beaten and its ambitions scattered to the four winds then we would have an entirely different history of the 20th Century to look back on.
Yes, maybe the Germans should have adopted the Japanese model and developed selective and collective amnesia about WW2. No guilt, no EU no euro?
Old Man
I had a cynical Uncle who had professional dealings with the Germans on Omaha Beach. Decades later, when the Euro project was taking off, he cackled "It's because we killed all the best Germans"
Germans should start sporting bumper stickers suggesting to those with their hand out after profligate spending: "Take my work and thrift habits, not my money".
Christine Lagarde's sympathie lies with the African children. To h... with the Greek.
- Better jets to the Sub-Saharian leaders! Updated interior decoratings now!
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