The Elusive Truth in German Media
The conversation between Alice Weidel and Elon Musk has left a trail of contradictory emotions. The German mainstream media’s delayed reaction stands in the way of an immediate response. What the ARD’s “Faktenfinder” commented on Weidel’s statements is just as uncomfortable as some of the statements she made herself.
There is a moment, personal to me, that took offense at her claim that Adolf Hitler was a socialist, even a communist. As a 12-year-old, I visited the Dachau concentration camp after a demonstration, and it was an ex-prisoner, a comrade, who led the tour. The KPD was the largest communist party outside the Soviet Union in 1933. Most of its members did not survive the Nazi era. This is a fact that is not taught in the history books of the Federal Republic of Germany, nor is the fact that the communists were the only organized resistance against the Nazi regime. At this point, the history has been falsified since Konrad Adenauer’s time; it’s not Weidel’s personal fault, but those who saved Germany’s honor are still not being properly recognized. This is evident in the way Ernst Thälmann is remembered.
As for the bizarre idea that something about the Nazis was socialist or communist – Weidel crowned it by saying that under Hitler, the industry was nationalized – there is a decisive counterargument that the publicly funded fact-checkers do not consider, because they probably don’t know it or Weidel does not: the Nuremberg trials against Flick, Krupp, and IG Farben. There are process records showing how much these companies profited from the Nazi regime and the war. There are also numerous studies on the use of forced labor in industrial companies. Nothing was nationalized, on the contrary, even for the German industry, Benito Mussolini’s description applies: “Fascism should be called Corporatism, because it is the perfect fusion of the power of government and corporations.”
The fact-checkers do not argue with this; Mussolini’s sentence could still lead to other thoughts. No, it’s only about the Nazi ideology, which was racist. A false refutation of Weidel’s statement is followed by a false one. But at least, even the ARD authors utter a sentence: “Communists were persecuted and murdered under National Socialism.” Even for this tiny grain of truth, one should almost be grateful. And Weidel, born in 1979, is simply too young to remember figures like Hanns-Martin Schleyer, who was a close associate of Reinhard Heydrich and later the head of the Federation of German Industries..
This does not speak against the conversation, which would have been a mere belatedness if it had not collided with the censorship expectations of present-day Germany. The fact that it did not follow a clear line made it more interesting, as not every point was predictable, and the statements were not pre-prepared. And it became clear that the level was significantly lower than the conversation, for example, of Tucker Carlson with Vladimir Putin.
Weidel was surprisingly quick to adapt. This was evident in the topic of renewable energy. When Musk acknowledged that he was committed to the climate, and that it was part of Tesla’s business concept, Weidel immediately said that solar energy was actually good. This is also related to the fact that she simply assumed the role of the smaller Alice, opposite the great Elon, perhaps a residual conditioning from her time in investment firms, where one learns to be subservient to big investors?
Or it simply has to do with the fact that she was not firm on any of the topics, as seen in the example of wind energy calculation. In reality, the area required for wind turbines does not simply result from the number of wind turbines and the distance between them – one cannot set up endless rows of wind turbines, as the ones in the back would not receive any wind. The total area required is still significantly higher.
The most astonishing difference is between her statements in this interview and those she made in the interview with The American Conservative a few days earlier:
“We all still have the images in our minds, of President Joe Biden publicly humiliating Chancellor Olaf Scholz over Nord Stream in an unspeakable way. Nord Stream was destroyed in a war action.”
This was put on the point. And as for the subsequent statements about slaves or servants who do not have to fight, one can argue, but at least it’s an interesting picture for the current US-German relationship. But Weidel, who answered the questions of The American Conservative, was not the Weidel who spoke with Musk, which raises the question of which employee answered the other interview.
Well, this is a common phenomenon among many politicians, who think – and let write – for others. The central statement of this conversation is that Weidel is a typical average of the German political bubble, not more intelligent, not more educated, and not more steadfast than most others around her, and the realization that is being prevented with so much fuss and pretension by the mainstream media simply is: the AfD is the flesh of the Berlin Republic.
That the statements on the topic of Israel/Gaza by both, Musk and Weidel, were at best embarrassing, will not surprise anyone. After all, the approval of the AfD to the extremely bizarre anti-Semitism resolution of the Bundestag was no exception. In contrast to the usual practice of avoiding even the slightest agreement with the AfD, it seemed that no one noticed or cared in this moment. In the conversation, the only beacons of light were that both, Musk and Weidel, at least did not advocate for the expulsion of the Palestinians or their physical extermination, but rather education and a higher standard of living for a solution. Why then one had to wonder if they knew or had repressed the statements of the Israeli government, which aim to kill the Palestinians.
But the deepest impression left by the conversation is the low esteem for the freedom of opinion in Germany at present. Because nothing in this conversation would justify its prohibition or the denial of access, and nothing, not even the idiotic statements about Hitler, provides a reason to comment on the conversation with dozens of fact-checks and accusations of “propaganda” and “false statements.” It was the presentation of two opinions, which sometimes closely approach each other, and a certain insight into two personalities, but the downfall of democracy is not to be expected from this.
Where the extent of the hypocrisy, with which the conversation is declared unallowable, because Musk uses his “media power” to promote his preferred opinions, is breathtaking. What is the famous quote of Paul Sethe? “Press freedom is the freedom of two hundred rich people to spread their opinions.” What Musk did is only what the owners of media have done since the existence of media. This applies to every single newspaper. And the real reach of many newspapers was much greater than the 200,000 people who followed the conversation, which was laughable in comparison. In the end, the whole outcry, with which this banal conversation is reacted to, only serves to confirm the assertion that all other media are somehow committed to the dissemination of the truth. But one will search in vain for provisions in the German labor law for journalists that include the criterion of truth. The classic newspaper editor loses his job if he writes what the owner does not like, on a temporary basis (Tendenzbetrieb), and if he writes the truth ten times, and the owner is wrong ten times.