Posted Monday, November 9, 1998

Problems in Germany

Saturday 7 November 1998  Jewish leader appalled by racist Germans By Andrew Gimson in Berlin THE Chairman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany said he was considering resigning after a survey showed 30 per cent of Germans had anti-Semitic tendencies. Ignatz Bubis said the nation's elite was expressing views once confined to Right-wing extremists. He claimed that he and other Jews who argued that anti-Semitism was a marginal phenomenon were wrong. "We have let ourselves be deceived. We have followed a head-in-the-sand policy." Mr Bubis said the level of anti-Semitism was as high in the rest of Europe as in Germany. Germany's political and intellectual elite were "no longer immune" to the infection. He described a speech by Martin Walser, the novelist, as "intellectual arson". Mr Walser argued that the emphasis in Germany on the Holocaust and its use as a "moral club" would prove counter-productive. He rejected Mr Bubis's attack, pointing out that "1,200 fairly well-qualified contemporaries" had given him a standing ovation. However, Mr Bubis, who lost several relatives in the Holocaust, saw the positive response to the speech as confirmation that "intellectual nationalism" was growing. Monday is the 60th anniversary of Kristallnacht when 100 Jews were killed and 30,000 sent to concentration camps.

Our opinion IF ANTI-SEMITISM is increasing in Germany, which would be regettable, it should not take a rocket-scientist to understand why. Totally unrelated and irrelevant "bad character" note for Australians. Bubis has a real criminal record, having been sentenced to twelve years' jail by the communist German courts in Dresden for racketeering. He fled to West Germany without serving his sentence.

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