Free Speech!

by Hans Vogel

Hans Vogel argues that Germany’s crackdown on critical media, including the shutdown of Compact magazine, is indicative of a broader EU trend toward suppressing dissent and freedom of expression.

There are, of course, opinions that are forbidden in Germany.

— German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, at the summer press conference, 24 July 2024

Last week, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser ordered the shutdown of Compact magazine, one of the few German printed media critical of the government. For the government, its circulation of 40,000 was not so much cause for concern, but rather the broader appeal of its websites and video (“TV”) channel. Compact had been a vociferous, argumentatively strong and consistent opponent of criminal government policies, beginning with the Great Covid Show.

There are, of course, quite a number of critical websites targeting the German audience, which not only consists of the 85 million inhabitants of Germany itself, but also comprises the nine million German-speaking Austrians, over six million German-speaking Swiss as well as millions of non-Germans all over Europe and Turkey. With German being the second most widely spoken continental language in Europe after Russian, it is obvious that any outlet targeting the German audience has a huge potential.

Since some of those critical websites enjoy an impressive popularity and some are also rather prestigious, the German government has been fighting them vigorously. In 2010, the last year for which data are available, the German government requested Google to de-rank or render invisible almost two hundred German websites. Some of those sites, such as anonymousnews, have moved out of Germany altogether due to harassment of all sorts. Some independent, critical journalists have also moved out of the country, among them Thomas Röper and Alina Lipp.

Mrs. Faeser, fat and full of feminine and porcine vindictiveness, has embarked upon a crusade against anyone critical of the government and its destructive policies. Whether it is anti “Covid” measures, the forced introduction of windmills that destroy the environment and human health, the massive numbers of imported anti-German foreigners whose main interest seems to be to molest German women, or the government’s Russophobic zealotry, all these policies destroy Germany’s social fabric and economic structure. Moreover, such policies have become increasingly pervasive and seem intended to drastically change every single aspect of people’s lives.

Under these circumstances, being critical of the government is almost inevitable, at least for anyone with a functioning brain. The answer of the German government, in line with the unelected EU Commission, has conveniently qualified any person doubting official narratives as a “conspiracy theorist” and the facts and arguments sustaining alternative points of view as “disinformation.” Influential German non-governmental outfits, such as the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, have ventured out even further in the repression of “wrongthink” by equating conspiracy theories with “antisemitism” or even branding them menschenfeindlich (“anti-human”). In other words, according to this line of thought, tacitly adopted by the German government, anyone lending credence to a “conspiracy theory” actually hates Jews. Such is the intellectual level of politically correct logic in today’s Europe!

For all practical purposes, today there are so many obstacles standing in the way of freedom of speech that it may be safely stated that in Germany there is no such thing.

At the same time, along with the EU Commission, most EU members, the US and its other satrapies, Germany never ceases to claim vociferously that it embraces “Western values.” Yet in the same breath, the Ukraine is mentioned, with appeals launched to support the valiant Ukrainian people, its courageous leadership and fearless soldiers protecting Europe against a Russian onslaught engineered by Vladimir Putin.

Ah, those Western values! These are indeed supposed to include freedom of speech and press freedom. So, if Germany does not have these, what does that say about those values? Or is Germany, after all, perhaps not part of the “West?”

Well, after a brutal and rapacious allied military occupation since 1945, it cannot be denied that since 1949, when the German Federal Republic was proclaimed, it has been a US vassal state. As of today, there are still some 50,000 US occupation troops to ensure that Germany retains that subordinate status. As a matter of fact, from the point of view of de facto sovereignty, Germany is not fundamentally different from Puerto Rico, Guatemala or the Ukraine. Therefore, although Germany is part of the “West,” it does not enjoy some of its most important values.

Since when has Germany had no freedom of expression and the press? Since 1945, any and all sympathetic and benevolent references to Hitler and National Socialism have been proscribed. Nazi symbols are outlawed and Germans are compelled to adhere to the standard narrative of the Second World War in all its details. Needless to say, this narrative was cooked up by the Anglo-American victors and, to a lesser extent, by the USSR.

Between 1933 and 1945, there was no freedom of expression and the press either. The Nazis had prohibited socialism and communism, the political parties that represented it and the newspapers that expressed it. Thus, for the last 91 years — almost an entire century — Germany has not had freedom of expression.

Between the end of the First World War and 1933, there was freedom of expression, although at the same time the country suffered unimaginable economic and social hardship with a runaway inflation that left nothing untouched; for many Germans freedom of expression was then not among their main concerns.

With Chancellor Bismarck’s departure from the political scene in the late 1880s until 1914, Germany had a booming economy, a vibrant cultural life and was making great strides towards becoming one of the first truly modern societies in the world. In times such as those, it is always a bad idea to impose restraints on what people are allowed to say and write.

The EU, led by a vindictive German woman with a head like the Medusa, is also in the forefront of the battle against free speech. The Great Covid Show has been a fantastic pretext for cracking down on anyone divulging facts and arguments at odds with the official narrative.

Like a pair of pliers, attack on free speech usually consists of two elements. The first one is to stress how important the cherished value of freedom of expression is, has been and forever will be. Of course, it will always be defended since it is a “Western” core value, so let no one have any doubts about this. The second element is that there are evil people out there with a desire to subvert “the system,” “our values” or the state, and who spread “disinformation” and “conspiracy theories,” or, God forbid, use “hate speech.” Needless to say, this cannot be allowed and therefore, in order to protect free speech, constraints need to be applied. This line of reasoning is also quite popular among the Western military: “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.”

Only idiots are capable of that kind of reasoning, and only complete fools or very dumbed-down individuals will swallow it. The fact that today so many German, EU and US officials and politicians commonly exhibit this peculiar logic is quite disconcerting. Perhaps it is a kind of brain disease that shuts off normal, sound thought.

That may be the explanation for the puzzling verdict recently issued by an Italian court in Milan. A female journalist was sentenced to pay 5,000 Euros in damages to Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The court found especially damaging a remark she made regarding Meloni’s short stature. With some 1.60 meters in height, she is indeed a little woman, which gives her about the same size as that other sensitive little woman, Ursula von der Leyen, who is 1.64 meters tall.

While the Milan verdict may refer to what is essentially no more than a hissy fit, journalists and politicians all over Europe are being hounded for transcending the bounds of an ever wider framework of political correctness. The most innocuous observation may cause an indictment by a state prosecutor. German and other European judges are so corrupt that they will obediently issue guilty verdicts in most of these cases.

Quite apart from the question of whether free speech is in and by itself a required feature of any society or political system, the collective West has declared it to be so. Yet its internal contradictions are becoming increasingly difficult to reconcile.

Yet another indication that major changes are imminent.