MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Banker launches another challenging controversial book with Germany as the “Euro-zone hostage”
Thilo Sarrazin: for some a preacher of hate, for others an independent-minded breaker of taboos Former German central banker Thilo Sarrazin, whose musings on Muslim immigrants sparked outrage in 2010 has triggered fresh controversy with a book that paints Germany as the Euro zone's hostage, forced to pay out vast sums to atone for the Holocaust.
In extracts of his book “Europe doesn't need the Euro”, due to be published Tuesday, Sarrazin argues that the Euro zone is holding Germany to ransom over its past aggression, blackmailing it into agreeing to Euro bonds or mutualized debt.
Supporters of Euro bonds in Germany “are driven by that very German reflex, that we can only finally atone for the Holocaust and World War Two when we have put all our interests and money into European hands,” Sarrazin wrote, according to extracts published in the Focus weekly.
Sarrazin's new book has stirred heated debate among politicians even before it goes on sale.
“Either he is speaking and writing this appalling nonsense out of conviction or he is doing it with despicable calculation,” Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.
A leading member of Germany's opposition Social Democrats (SPD), Peer Steinbrueck, locked horns with Sarrazin on national television last evening, describing the theories in his 400-page book as worthless.
“It is pathetic that he is using the Holocaust to secure as much attention as possible for his Euro bond theses,” Greens leader Juergen Trittin told today's Die Welt newspaper.
“To spend money keeping the Euro is a worthwhile investment for Germany,” Trittin said.
Germany's agreement to bail out Greece reveals its “susceptibility to blackmail”, Sarrazin wrote, alluding to crimes committed by the Nazis before and during World War Two. “This politics is turning Germany into a hostage of all those in the Euro zone who may in the future, for whatever reason, need help,” he said.
Focus had a picture of the bespectacled, moustachioed Sarrazin, 67, on its front cover crumpling up a wad of Euros.
Germany is the largest contributor to multi-billion Euro bailouts of Greece, which faces a second election in just two months in June that leftists opposed to German-inspired austerity policies may win.
Sarrazin is lauded by some in Germany as an independent-minded breaker of taboos fighting for the interests of German taxpayers but is denounced by others as a preacher of hate.
He shot to notoriety in 2010 with a book entitled “Germany does away with itself” (Deutschland schafft sich ab), a bestseller that exposed a deep rift in German society over its integration of immigrants.
The book accused Turkish and Arab immigrants of exploiting Germany's welfare state, refusing to integrate and lowering the average intelligence - arguments that led to his resignation from the Bundesbank, where he was a board member, and which still cloud immigration debates two years after publication.
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Read all commentsWho the hell does he think he is?
May 22nd, 2012 - 09:31 am 0For a start he clearly ignores the fact that other countries like britain and france have contributed more than what germany has, germany has the tighted purse strings in the whole of the EU, hell even the UK has put money into the Euro Zone bailout fund, and this muppets claiming the rest of the euro zone are holding germany to ransom. No they are not, they simply expect germany to contribute its fair share instead of germany expecting everyone else to pay the cost for propping up their beloved currency. Funny how germany always expects the UK to pay, and then try to impose a financial tax knowing full well the majority of income created would come from the UK financial sector thats equal to 75% of the EU financial sector and this guy has the nerve to complain when we say know by saying other countries are holding germany hostage, i think not. Is it not germany that imposed strict austerity measures on greece, causing the current problems in greece that now threaten their treasured euro currency? Err yes it was, so whos holding who hostage - Its germany, holding out in the hope that others will in a last ditch effort to protect their own economies, will pay to bail out the euro. So its not germany being held hostage.
To say its a form or retribution for WW2 and the hologuast is just insulting and desrepectful to all those who lost their lives in the war and the hologaust, on both sides, as german jews were victims too. This guy to me most clearly be a nazi supporter to even have such ignorant, arrogant and disrespectful views. Off cause hes also looking to profit from his book, but i say it should be banned from sale completely, that will teach the ignorant prat a lesson, thought then he will claim hes a hostage for having his own opinion.
The problem is that when there is a crisis going on people tend to gravitate towards the extremes - especially to those that seem to offer simple solutions. Unfortunately there aren't simple solutions to this crisis. The obvious answer is Eurobonds but the Germans would need to change their constitution for it to happen - and there's no appetite among voters for that.
May 22nd, 2012 - 10:43 am 0The underlying problem is that even German 'prosperity' as it is today is a bit of a fallacy. They lent the likes of Greece money to buy German goods. This looks good in German accounts - but only if it can be repaid - which it can't and won't.
Those plucky Germans are beginning to look like loan sharks that like to twist arms and break legs to secure repayment.
Is it not true, that Germany and the EU knew perfectly well, that Greece and others did not meet the criteria for joining the euro,
May 22nd, 2012 - 01:12 pm 0And yet allowed them to join, [corruption]
So in fact, it was and is there fault all alone is it not .
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