Tuesday, November 4, 2003

Germany's Peter Struck Makes More News

German Defense Minister Peter Struck is also in the news this week for firing the head of Germany's Special Forces, General Rainhard Gaenzel, as a result of his praise for the anti-Semitic statements of a conservative parliamentary representative. Gaenzel was one of the most prominent officers in the Bundeswehr.

Martin Hohmann, Bundestag (lower house of the national parliament) representative of the conservtive Christian Democratic Party (CDU) from the city of Fulda in the state of Hesse, gave a speech in which he described Jews as a "criminal people" (Taetervolk). It was in the context of a stock anti-Semitic theme, that "the Jews" were masterminding the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 in Russia. (The same people normally don't have trouble believing at the same time that "the Jews" are masterminding capitalist plutocrats, too.)

What Hohmann actually said was, "There were large numbers of Jews not only in the leadership [of the Bolsheviks] but also among the Cheka firing squads. And so one could rightly describe Jews as a criminal people." Angela Merkel, head of the CDU, immediately denounced his speech and removed him from his current position on the Bundestag Justice Committee. Other CDU members, as well as the central Jewish organization in Germany, are calling for his expulsion from the party.

General Rainhard Gaenzel praised Hohmann's anti-Semitic speech in a letter  to Hohmann.  When Defense Minister Struck heard about it, he canned Gaenzel, saying his expression of support for Hohmann's anti-Semitism was intolerable and in no way honorable. Gaenzel had been in the Bundeswehr since 1963.

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