Auschwitz extermination camp as an election campaign backdrop - without the Jewish victims?
Auschwitz extermination camp as an election campaign backdrop - without the Jewish victims?
To mark the liberation of Auschwitz 80 years ago, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day , politicians from the red-green camp presented themselves in the former extermination camp.
Jewish victims are no longer discussed – not even in the news. Apparently they are no longer considered "suitable" victims.
Remembering the Holocaust is an ambivalent matter. The lesson for Germany from this crime against humanity could have been: totalitarian rule must never be permitted again, and another attempt to exterminate the Jewish people must be prevented under all circumstances.
Instead, Auschwitz is now seen as a kind of moral reformatory that has elevated the country of the perpetrators to a global moral high ground ("Especially us Germans!"). From there, other nations are lectured - while the Jews, ironically, are accused of not having learned anything from history: they defend themselves against their sworn enemies and resort to violence - and violence is fundamentally bad.
And again Olaf Scholz forgets something The Germans never forgave the Jews for Auschwitz (Zvi Rex), and now they are punishing them with ignorance. Chancellor Olaf Scholz's social media post on Holocaust Remembrance Day read:
"Sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, best friends, neighbors, grandparents: more than a million people with dreams and hopes were murdered in Auschwitz, murdered by Germans. We sympathize and remember. We will not tolerate forgetting, not today and not tomorrow."
People with dreams and hopes - that applies to everyone. Criminals and animal catchers also have dreams and hopes. But who exactly was murdered remains vague. But of course Scholz feels for these unknown people. He does not tolerate forgetting - unlike the investigative committee in the Cum-Ex scandal, which is to his advantage.
A Holocaust memorial without Jews? Many users found this inappropriate, but the SPD party executive even shared the Scholz quote as an official statement.
To complete the questionable staging, Scholz had himself photographed in front of a crematorium oven in Auschwitz – with his back to the camera, at least.
An extermination camp as a backdrop for an election campaign Economics Minister Robert Habeck also used Auschwitz for public self-promotion. In a statement he explained:
"Today, on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, I visited the main camp in Poland and later the concentration and extermination camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau. In addition to the official part, there were also a few moments alone. I don't think I need to say anything about that."
Thoughtful as always: Robert Habeck.
No, Robert, you don't need to. It would have been better not to. But is there anything that stands out? Again, there is no mention of the Shoah or the Jewish victims. Instead, Habeck uses the word "I" three times in the text. He presents himself as a reflective person, but what he is actually thinking about remains unclear: about the crumbling "firewall"? About lunch in the canteen at the memorial? What is certain is that he had his photo taken - after all, only other people engage in self-staging.
Tagesschau: Holocaust report without Jews According to a recent survey by the Jewish Claims Conference, twelve percent of 18- to 29-year-olds in Germany have never heard of the terms Holocaust or Shoah. According to an analysis of the Tagesschau edition of January 27, 2025, 5.5 million viewers did not learn in seven and a half minutes that the victims of the Holocaust were Jews.
Half of the main newscast was devoted to remembrance, but it managed to avoid the word "Jews." Instead, it spoke of "survivors," "former prisoners," "victims," "people," "men, women and children" - but not Jews.
Not even the Holocaust survivors Leon Weintraub and Margot Friedländer were referred to as Jews. Instead, the Holocaust is reinterpreted as a general warning against any discrimination. The lesson from the Shoah is therefore to be vigilant against all forms of intolerance, be it towards people of a different skin color, religion or sexual orientation.
"There is only human blood," says Margot Friedländer. We learn that her mother and other family members were deported and murdered, but not why. Were they persecuted as part of an ethnic minority? Because of their sexual orientation? Or perhaps because the Nazis wanted to exterminate the Jews of Europe? The Tagesschau does not clarify.
The suppression of Jewish victims For a long time, "stumbling blocks" were considered the symbol for Jews in Germany. But while Israel is abandoned and the government of the Jewish state is admonished, millions of migrants are taken in, who often bring with them deep-seated anti-Semitism. Mourning for dead Jews is acceptable, but living Jews do not seem to fit the picture.
The need to draw a line under the past is increasing - now not only from the right, but also from the left. The Holocaust is being transformed into a general warning, with the fate of the Jewish victims being pushed into the background. This strategy is not new: the GDR concentrated its commemoration on communist resistance fighters and neglected the Jewish victims. Today, in the "best Germany that ever existed" (Frank-Walter Steinmeier), the Jews are being repressed again and other groups are being highlighted instead.
The left-greens see Jews as privileged whites, while the "global South" is portrayed as victims of Western oppression. They ignore the fact that Arab states have long been involved in the slave trade on a large scale and that democratic values were not invented in Baghdad or Mecca.
Were "trans* people" the target of the Nazis? As early as 2023, the "Independent Federal Commissioner for Anti-Discrimination", Ferda Ataman, was pleased to note that the Bundestag was putting "homosexual and trans* people" at the center of its Holocaust commemoration. The six million murdered Jews were not mentioned in this context.
Of course, homosexual men were persecuted, but lesbian women were not. There was also never a National Socialist program to "exterminate trans* people in Europe." Nevertheless, these groups are now being placed at the center of commemoration - a development that says a lot about the political agenda.
Holocaust commemoration without a future in Germany.
German politics seems to be increasingly abdicating its responsibility towards the Jews. One reason could be the growing Muslim population, in which anti-Semitism is widespread.
Who wants to scare away potential voters?
In many schools it is already difficult to talk about the Holocaust or Israel, let alone visit memorial sites.
The Holocaust is increasingly used as a universal metaphor to denounce all forms of discrimination – except that against Jews.
It is used to discredit political opponents and accuse the right-wing camp of planning a new genocide. Germans are ashamed of the Holocaust - and now also of the way politicians and the media have dealt with it.
Jewish victims are no longer discussed – not even in the news. Apparently they are no longer considered "suitable" victims.
Remembering the Holocaust is an ambivalent matter. The lesson for Germany from this crime against humanity could have been: totalitarian rule must never be permitted again, and another attempt to exterminate the Jewish people must be prevented under all circumstances.
Instead, Auschwitz is now seen as a kind of moral reformatory that has elevated the country of the perpetrators to a global moral high ground ("Especially us Germans!"). From there, other nations are lectured - while the Jews, ironically, are accused of not having learned anything from history: they defend themselves against their sworn enemies and resort to violence - and violence is fundamentally bad.
And again Olaf Scholz forgets something The Germans never forgave the Jews for Auschwitz (Zvi Rex), and now they are punishing them with ignorance. Chancellor Olaf Scholz's social media post on Holocaust Remembrance Day read:
"Sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, best friends, neighbors, grandparents: more than a million people with dreams and hopes were murdered in Auschwitz, murdered by Germans. We sympathize and remember. We will not tolerate forgetting, not today and not tomorrow."
People with dreams and hopes - that applies to everyone. Criminals and animal catchers also have dreams and hopes. But who exactly was murdered remains vague. But of course Scholz feels for these unknown people. He does not tolerate forgetting - unlike the investigative committee in the Cum-Ex scandal, which is to his advantage.
A Holocaust memorial without Jews? Many users found this inappropriate, but the SPD party executive even shared the Scholz quote as an official statement.
To complete the questionable staging, Scholz had himself photographed in front of a crematorium oven in Auschwitz – with his back to the camera, at least.
An extermination camp as a backdrop for an election campaign Economics Minister Robert Habeck also used Auschwitz for public self-promotion. In a statement he explained:
"Today, on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, I visited the main camp in Poland and later the concentration and extermination camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau. In addition to the official part, there were also a few moments alone. I don't think I need to say anything about that."
Thoughtful as always: Robert Habeck.
No, Robert, you don't need to. It would have been better not to. But is there anything that stands out? Again, there is no mention of the Shoah or the Jewish victims. Instead, Habeck uses the word "I" three times in the text. He presents himself as a reflective person, but what he is actually thinking about remains unclear: about the crumbling "firewall"? About lunch in the canteen at the memorial? What is certain is that he had his photo taken - after all, only other people engage in self-staging.
Tagesschau: Holocaust report without Jews According to a recent survey by the Jewish Claims Conference, twelve percent of 18- to 29-year-olds in Germany have never heard of the terms Holocaust or Shoah. According to an analysis of the Tagesschau edition of January 27, 2025, 5.5 million viewers did not learn in seven and a half minutes that the victims of the Holocaust were Jews.
Half of the main newscast was devoted to remembrance, but it managed to avoid the word "Jews." Instead, it spoke of "survivors," "former prisoners," "victims," "people," "men, women and children" - but not Jews.
Not even the Holocaust survivors Leon Weintraub and Margot Friedländer were referred to as Jews. Instead, the Holocaust is reinterpreted as a general warning against any discrimination. The lesson from the Shoah is therefore to be vigilant against all forms of intolerance, be it towards people of a different skin color, religion or sexual orientation.
"There is only human blood," says Margot Friedländer. We learn that her mother and other family members were deported and murdered, but not why. Were they persecuted as part of an ethnic minority? Because of their sexual orientation? Or perhaps because the Nazis wanted to exterminate the Jews of Europe? The Tagesschau does not clarify.
The suppression of Jewish victims For a long time, "stumbling blocks" were considered the symbol for Jews in Germany. But while Israel is abandoned and the government of the Jewish state is admonished, millions of migrants are taken in, who often bring with them deep-seated anti-Semitism. Mourning for dead Jews is acceptable, but living Jews do not seem to fit the picture.
The need to draw a line under the past is increasing - now not only from the right, but also from the left. The Holocaust is being transformed into a general warning, with the fate of the Jewish victims being pushed into the background. This strategy is not new: the GDR concentrated its commemoration on communist resistance fighters and neglected the Jewish victims. Today, in the "best Germany that ever existed" (Frank-Walter Steinmeier), the Jews are being repressed again and other groups are being highlighted instead.
The left-greens see Jews as privileged whites, while the "global South" is portrayed as victims of Western oppression. They ignore the fact that Arab states have long been involved in the slave trade on a large scale and that democratic values were not invented in Baghdad or Mecca.
Were "trans* people" the target of the Nazis? As early as 2023, the "Independent Federal Commissioner for Anti-Discrimination", Ferda Ataman, was pleased to note that the Bundestag was putting "homosexual and trans* people" at the center of its Holocaust commemoration. The six million murdered Jews were not mentioned in this context.
Of course, homosexual men were persecuted, but lesbian women were not. There was also never a National Socialist program to "exterminate trans* people in Europe." Nevertheless, these groups are now being placed at the center of commemoration - a development that says a lot about the political agenda.
Holocaust commemoration without a future in Germany.
German politics seems to be increasingly abdicating its responsibility towards the Jews. One reason could be the growing Muslim population, in which anti-Semitism is widespread.
Who wants to scare away potential voters?
In many schools it is already difficult to talk about the Holocaust or Israel, let alone visit memorial sites.
The Holocaust is increasingly used as a universal metaphor to denounce all forms of discrimination – except that against Jews.
It is used to discredit political opponents and accuse the right-wing camp of planning a new genocide. Germans are ashamed of the Holocaust - and now also of the way politicians and the media have dealt with it.
Image: COPR/BR
Author: Democratic Truth
