Thilo Sarrazin
Encyclopedia
Thilo Sarrazin is a German
politician (SPD
) and former member of the Executive Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank
(until 30 September 2010). He previously served as senator of finance for the State of Berlin
from January 2002 until April 2009, when he was appointed to his position at Bundesbank.
In his 2010 book Deutschland schafft sich ab ("Germany Does Away With Itself" or "Germany Abolishes Itself"), the most popular but also widely criticised book on politics by a German-language author in a decade, he denounces the failure of Germany
's post-war immigration policy
, sparking a nation-wide controversy about the costs and benefits of the ideology of multiculturalism
.
, Germany
to a doctor and the daughter of a West Prussia
n landowner. His paternal family, a French Huguenot
family, originates in Burgundy, while his grandmother was English
-Italian. He has explained that his name means saracen
(i.e. Muslim) and is common in Southern France
: "It is derived from the Arab pirates that were called “Saracens” in the Middle Ages". He has referred to himself as "a European mongrel".
He grew up in Recklinghausen
and at age seven he was sent to an orphanage
in Bavaria
. He graduated
from the local gymnasium and then served in the military
from 1967 to 1971 after which he studied Economics at the University of Bonn
, earning his doctorate. From November 1973 to December 1974 he worked for the Friedrich Ebert Foundation
and became active in the SPD.
In 1975 Sarrazin began working in the Federal Ministry of Finance. Until 1981 he served as Head of Unit in the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs
and from 1981 he returned to the Federal Ministry of Finance. From October 1981 he served as bureau chief and was a close collaborator of Federal Finance Minister Hans Matthöfer
and his successor Manfred Lahnstein
. Even after the end of the socialist-liberal coalition
in October 1982, Sarrazin remained in the Finance Ministry, where he was director of several units, including (from 1989 to 1990) the "Innerdeutsche Beziehungen," which prepared the German monetary, economic and social union. During his time as Head of the Federal Ministry of Finance, he was partly responsible for German railways
.
From 1990 to 1991 Sarrazin worked for the Treuhand
. Up to 1997, he was State Secretary in the Ministry of Finance in Rhineland-Palatinate
. Subsequently, he was chief executive of TLG Immobilien (TLG).
Sarrazin is married to Ursula Sarrazin (née Breit) and has two sons. His apparent characteristic smirk is due to an operation he had in 2004 to remove a tumour on an inner ear nerve, resulting in an impairment of the right side of his face.
, the German national railway. During his first four months he served as head of internal auditing; from 1 September 2000 he was on the board of DB Netz
, responsible for planning and investment.
Sarrazin is considered a key developer of the people's share model of the German railway, which provides for the issue of non-voting preferred stock
to limit the influence of private investors. He claims to have made this proposal to thwart the model of capital privatization
of Deutsche Bahn. He is regarded as an explicit supporter of orienting the Deutsche Bahn on the principles of efficiency
under a cost-effectiveness analysis. His relationship with the former CEO of Deutsche Bahn AG, Hartmut Mehdorn
, is characterized as hostile.
Sarrazin's dismissal from the board of DB Netz AG was followed by legal disputes. He drew his salary for a transitional period during which the details of the separation procedures were regulated. According to Hartmut Mehdorn, Sarrazin broke his contract with the company, which stated that secondary activities are not allowed. The employment contract was subsequently terminated without notice by the DB. Sarrazin sued, but the case was dismissed by the Federal Court
.
in January 2002. He adhered to financial policy based on strict savings and a single-entry bookkeeping system for the management of local authorities.
As a result of his remarks on Berlin's social and educational reputation some consider Sarrazin being an agitator
. His proposals for cutting social benefits were often accompanied by protests. In 2008 he made suggestions, such as that a beneficiary of ALG II
could eat for less than € 4 per day. In 2009 he said of unemployed persons' management of energy: "First, Hartz IV receivers are more at home, second, they like it warm, and thirdly, many regulate the temperature with the window," in light of the fact that in Germany, the unemployed do not pay for rent and heating themselves. Sarrazin called pension increases "completely senseless action", but instead recommended that the government prepare older citizens for a "long term decline to the level of subsistence."
As of June 2008 Sarrazin held 46 secondary positions in addition to his Senate post. In the political controversy surrounding the Berlin event center Tempodrom he was accused of having awarded state funds irregularly. The preliminary investigation was also against two other SPD-CDU politicians, three companies and two accountants. The investigating prosecutor filed an informal appeal against Sarrazin, but in December 2004 the Berlin district court rejected a trial because the prosecution was seen as ineffective.
In August 2009, Berlin's public prosecutor
conducted an investigation of Sarrazin for embezzlement
. According to the office of the prosecutor, he favored the Berlin-Wannsee
Golf and Country Club
, leasing a golf course
to them at a reduced rate. Sarrazin dismissed the accusations on the grounds that he saw no financial loss for the city.
Christian Wulff
as of September 2010. On 9 September 2010 Dr. Sarrazin has asked the president to relieve him of his duties as board member.
(SPD) announced in August 2010 that it will investigate whether to terminate Sarrazin's membership, because allegedly his theses are diametrical to basic social-democratic values.
An arbitration committee, meeting in Berlin on 21 April 2011, decided that Sarrazin can remain a member of the party. The formal accusation that he had damaged the party with his theories could not be upheld, in particular because Sarrazin read a statement in which he said he had never intended to depart from social democratic values and that he had never intended to suggest that social-Darwinist theories should be implemented in political practice.
This in turn lead to dissatisfaction among many SPD party leaders. SPD Secretary-General Andrea Nahles
had the difficult task of explaining the decision then.
He has also said regarding Islam, “No other religion in Europe makes so many demands. No immigrant group other than Muslims is so strongly connected with claims on the welfare state and crime. No group emphasizes their differences so strongly in public, especially through women’s clothing. In no other religion is the transition to violence, dictatorship and terrorism so fluid.”
Sarrazin's statements were criticized by the chairman of the Interior Committee of the German Bundestag
, Sebastian Edathy
(SPD), the ver.di union and the political scientist Gerd Wiegel.
Sarrazin's book Deutschland schafft sich ab "Germany Does Away With Itself" or "Germany Abolishes Itself", presented at the end of August 2010, came under criticism for claiming that Germany's immigrant Muslim population is reluctant to integrate and tends to rely more on social services than to be productive. Furthermore, he calculates that their population growth may well overwhelm the German population within a couple of generations at the current rate, and that their intelligence is lower as well. He proposes stringent reforms for the welfare system to rectify the problems. The first edition of his book sold out within a few days. By the end of the year, the book had become Germany's number 1 hard-cover non-fiction bestseller for the year and was still at the top of the lists.
An uproar was caused at the same time by an interview with Welt am Sonntag
in which he claimed that "all Jews
share a certain gene like all Basques
share a certain gene that distinguishes these from other people." He subsequently offered his regrets for the irritation caused and explained his source, for instance, in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
, referring to international media reports on a recent study
by Gil Atzmon et al. that appeared in the American Journal of Human Genetics
.
newspaper among 10,000 Sarrazin readers, an overwhelming majority was shown to be male, middle-class, middle-aged to elderly, conservatives.
With a view of the strong and sometimes polemical reactions against Sarrazin, some have argued that in Germany freedom of speech is being lost, as pressure to conform to political correctness
is suppressing and silencing diverging opinions. Sarrazin's views were echoed to a varying degree by notable figures of the German public sphere including German-Jewish author Ralph Giordano
, industrialist Hans-Olaf Henkel, journalist and Islam critic Udo Ulfkotte
and FAZ
publisher Berthold Kohler
.
While Turkish and Islamic organizations have accused Sarrazin of "racism" and damaging Germany’s reputation abroad, the prominent German-Turkish sociologist and best-selling author Necla Kelek
, who has defended Sarrazin, introduced him at a Berlin press conference in late August 2010 attended by roughly 300 journalists, as big a turn out as for the Chancellor Angela Merkel’s rare press appearances. Kelek said Sarrazin addressed “bitter truths” in his new book and the chattering classes have judged it without reading it.
Henryk Broder
, the Spiegel newsweekly commentator, offered an explanation for attacks on Sarrazin’s statements.
“And there’s a second trick that’s being used now: he’s being accused of anti-Semitism. If you could accuse him of anything, it’s philo-Semitism
, because he wrongly thinks Jews are more intelligent than others,” Broder said. He added, “But of course, with an anti-Semitism accusation you can really go after someone, because anti-Semitism of course is no longer acceptable in Germany, and rightly so. There is no substantive debate here at all – the issue is that a nation gets up, as it were, they all agree and they take it all out on a scapegoat who they’d like to send into the desert. It’s very disturbing.”
"Political correctness is silencing an important debate" said Matthias Matussek of Der Spiegel
magazine.
"Sarrazin's findings on the failed integration of Turkish and Arab immigrants are beyond any doubt. He has been forced out of the Bundesbank. The SPD wanted to expel him from the party, too. Invitations previously extended to Sarrazin are being withdrawn. The culture page editors at the German weekly Die Zeit
are crying foul and the editors at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung are damning Sarrazin for passages he didn't even write. But what all these technicians of exclusion fail to see is that you cannot cast away the very thing that Sarrazin embodies: the anger of people who are sick and tired—after putting a long and arduous process of Enlightenment behind them—of being confronted with pre-Enlightenment elements that are returning to the center of our society. They are sick of being cursed or laughed at when they offer assistance with integration. And they are tired about reading about Islamist associations that have one degree of separation from terrorism, of honor killings, of death threats against cartoonists and filmmakers.
Klaus von Dohnanyi
, who offered to defend Sarrazin as the SPD sought to expel him, told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper how Germany was overshadowed by its Holocaust history and how a culture had developed whereby anyone saying the words "gene" or "Jew" is automatically considered suspect. He complains that we shy away from debates that "are commonplace in other countries." Among those is the discussion that "specific ethnic groups" share specific characteristics.
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
politician (SPD
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
) and former member of the Executive Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank
Deutsche Bundesbank
The Deutsche Bundesbank is the central bank of the Federal Republic of Germany and as such part of the European System of Central Banks . Due to its strength and former size, the Bundesbank is the most influential member of the ESCB. Both the Deutsche Bundesbank and the European Central Bank are...
(until 30 September 2010). He previously served as senator of finance for the State of Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
from January 2002 until April 2009, when he was appointed to his position at Bundesbank.
In his 2010 book Deutschland schafft sich ab ("Germany Does Away With Itself" or "Germany Abolishes Itself"), the most popular but also widely criticised book on politics by a German-language author in a decade, he denounces the failure of Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
's post-war immigration policy
Immigration policy
An immigration policy is any policy of a state that deals with the transit of persons across its borders into the country, but especially those that intend to work and to remain in the country. Immigration policies can range from allowing no migration at all to allowing most types of migration,...
, sparking a nation-wide controversy about the costs and benefits of the ideology of multiculturalism
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...
.
Early life
Sarrazin was born in GeraGera
Gera, the third-largest city in the German state of Thuringia , lies in east Thuringia on the river Weiße Elster, approximately 60 kilometres to the south of the city of Leipzig and 80 kilometres to the east of Erfurt...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
to a doctor and the daughter of a West Prussia
West Prussia
West Prussia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773–1824 and 1878–1919/20 which was created out of the earlier Polish province of Royal Prussia...
n landowner. His paternal family, a French Huguenot
Huguenot
The Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the 17th century, people who formerly would have been called Huguenots have instead simply been called French Protestants, a title suggested by their German co-religionists, the...
family, originates in Burgundy, while his grandmother was English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
-Italian. He has explained that his name means saracen
Saracen
Saracen was a term used by the ancient Romans to refer to a people who lived in desert areas in and around the Roman province of Arabia, and who were distinguished from Arabs. In Europe during the Middle Ages the term was expanded to include Arabs, and then all who professed the religion of Islam...
(i.e. Muslim) and is common in Southern France
Southern France
Southern France , colloquially known as le Midi is defined geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Gironde, Spain, the Mediterranean, and Italy...
: "It is derived from the Arab pirates that were called “Saracens” in the Middle Ages". He has referred to himself as "a European mongrel".
He grew up in Recklinghausen
Recklinghausen
Recklinghausen is the northernmost city in the Ruhr-Area and the capital of the Recklinghausen district. It borders the rural Münsterland and is characterized by large fields and farms in the north and industry in the south...
and at age seven he was sent to an orphanage
Orphanage
An orphanage is a residential institution devoted to the care of orphans – children whose parents are deceased or otherwise unable or unwilling to care for them...
in Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
. He graduated
Abitur
Abitur is a designation used in Germany, Finland and Estonia for final exams that pupils take at the end of their secondary education, usually after 12 or 13 years of schooling, see also for Germany Abitur after twelve years.The Zeugnis der Allgemeinen Hochschulreife, often referred to as...
from the local gymnasium and then served in the military
Military service
Military service, in its simplest sense, is service by an individual or group in an army or other militia, whether as a chosen job or as a result of an involuntary draft . Some nations require a specific amount of military service from every citizen...
from 1967 to 1971 after which he studied Economics at the University of Bonn
University of Bonn
The University of Bonn is a public research university located in Bonn, Germany. Founded in its present form in 1818, as the linear successor of earlier academic institutions, the University of Bonn is today one of the leading universities in Germany. The University of Bonn offers a large number...
, earning his doctorate. From November 1973 to December 1974 he worked for the Friedrich Ebert Foundation
Friedrich Ebert Foundation
The Friedrich Ebert Foundation is a German political foundation associated with the Social Democratic Party of Germany , yet independent of it...
and became active in the SPD.
In 1975 Sarrazin began working in the Federal Ministry of Finance. Until 1981 he served as Head of Unit in the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs
Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (Germany)
The Federal Ministry for Labour and Social Affairs is a top-level federal agency of the Federal Republic of Germany headed by the Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs as a member of the Cabinet of Germany...
and from 1981 he returned to the Federal Ministry of Finance. From October 1981 he served as bureau chief and was a close collaborator of Federal Finance Minister Hans Matthöfer
Hans Matthöfer
Hans Hermann Matthöfer was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany.Between 1974 and 1978 Matthöfer served as secretary of research and technology. In 1978 he took over as secretary of finance and in 1982 he left that post and served briefly as secretary of telecommunication...
and his successor Manfred Lahnstein
Manfred Lahnstein
Manfred Lahnstein is a German politician . In 1982 he was German Federal Minister of Finance as well as Federal Minister of Economics and until 2004 worked for the media conglomerate Bertelsmann.- Family :...
. Even after the end of the socialist-liberal coalition
Coalition government
A coalition government is a cabinet of a parliamentary government in which several political parties cooperate. The usual reason given for this arrangement is that no party on its own can achieve a majority in the parliament...
in October 1982, Sarrazin remained in the Finance Ministry, where he was director of several units, including (from 1989 to 1990) the "Innerdeutsche Beziehungen," which prepared the German monetary, economic and social union. During his time as Head of the Federal Ministry of Finance, he was partly responsible for German railways
Rail transport in Germany
, Germany had a railway network of 41,315 km. 19,857 km are electrified. The total track length was 76,473 km. Germany is a member of the International Union of Railways . The UIC Country Code for Germany is 80.-Overview:...
.
From 1990 to 1991 Sarrazin worked for the Treuhand
Treuhand
The Treuhandanstalt was the agency that privatized the East German enterprises, Volkseigener Betrieb , owned as public property. Created by the Volkskammer on June 17, 1990, it oversaw the restructuring and selling of about 8,500 firms with initially over 4 million employees...
. Up to 1997, he was State Secretary in the Ministry of Finance in Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. English speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz ....
. Subsequently, he was chief executive of TLG Immobilien (TLG).
Sarrazin is married to Ursula Sarrazin (née Breit) and has two sons. His apparent characteristic smirk is due to an operation he had in 2004 to remove a tumour on an inner ear nerve, resulting in an impairment of the right side of his face.
Deutsche Bahn
Between spring 2000 and December 2001 he was employed by the Deutsche BahnDeutsche Bahn
Deutsche Bahn AG is the German national railway company, a private joint stock company . Headquartered in Berlin, it came into existence in 1994 as the successor to the former state railways of Germany, the Deutsche Bundesbahn of West Germany and the Deutsche Reichsbahn of East Germany...
, the German national railway. During his first four months he served as head of internal auditing; from 1 September 2000 he was on the board of DB Netz
DB Netz
DB Netz AG is a 100%-owned subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn is a railway infrastructure provider, which owns and operates a majority of the German railway system . The company was established in the course of the second stage of the German rail reform as a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn...
, responsible for planning and investment.
Sarrazin is considered a key developer of the people's share model of the German railway, which provides for the issue of non-voting preferred stock
Preferred stock
Preferred stock, also called preferred shares, preference shares, or simply preferreds, is a special equity security that has properties of both an equity and a debt instrument and is generally considered a hybrid instrument...
to limit the influence of private investors. He claims to have made this proposal to thwart the model of capital privatization
Privatization
Privatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency or public service from the public sector to the private sector or to private non-profit organizations...
of Deutsche Bahn. He is regarded as an explicit supporter of orienting the Deutsche Bahn on the principles of efficiency
Efficiency
Efficiency in general describes the extent to which time or effort is well used for the intended task or purpose. It is often used with the specific purpose of relaying the capability of a specific application of effort to produce a specific outcome effectively with a minimum amount or quantity of...
under a cost-effectiveness analysis. His relationship with the former CEO of Deutsche Bahn AG, Hartmut Mehdorn
Hartmut Mehdorn
Hartmut Mehdorn is a German manager and current in the supervisory board of Air Berlin, until May 2009: CEO of Deutsche Bahn AG.-Biography:...
, is characterized as hostile.
Sarrazin's dismissal from the board of DB Netz AG was followed by legal disputes. He drew his salary for a transitional period during which the details of the separation procedures were regulated. According to Hartmut Mehdorn, Sarrazin broke his contract with the company, which stated that secondary activities are not allowed. The employment contract was subsequently terminated without notice by the DB. Sarrazin sued, but the case was dismissed by the Federal Court
Federal Court of Justice of Germany
The Federal Court of Justice of Germany in Karlsruhe is the highest court in the system of ordinary jurisdiction in Germany. It is the supreme court in all matters of criminal and private law...
.
Finance Senator
Sarrazin was appointed Finance Senator to the Senate of BerlinSenate of Berlin
The Senate of Berlin is the executive body governing the city of Berlin, which at the same time is a state of Germany. According to the Constitution of Berlin the Senate consists of the Governing Mayor of Berlin and up to eight Senators appointed by the Governing Mayor, two of whom are appointed ...
in January 2002. He adhered to financial policy based on strict savings and a single-entry bookkeeping system for the management of local authorities.
As a result of his remarks on Berlin's social and educational reputation some consider Sarrazin being an agitator
Agitator
An agitator is a person who actively supports some ideology or movement with speeches and especially actions. The Agitators were a political movement as well as elected representatives of soldiers, including the New Model Army of Oliver Cromwell, during the English Civil War. They were also known...
. His proposals for cutting social benefits were often accompanied by protests. In 2008 he made suggestions, such as that a beneficiary of ALG II
Hartz concept
The Hartz concept is a set of recommendations that resulted from a commission on reforms to the German labour market in 2002. Named after the head of the commission, Peter Hartz, it went on to become part of the German government's Agenda 2010 series of reforms, known as Hartz I - Hartz IV...
could eat for less than € 4 per day. In 2009 he said of unemployed persons' management of energy: "First, Hartz IV receivers are more at home, second, they like it warm, and thirdly, many regulate the temperature with the window," in light of the fact that in Germany, the unemployed do not pay for rent and heating themselves. Sarrazin called pension increases "completely senseless action", but instead recommended that the government prepare older citizens for a "long term decline to the level of subsistence."
As of June 2008 Sarrazin held 46 secondary positions in addition to his Senate post. In the political controversy surrounding the Berlin event center Tempodrom he was accused of having awarded state funds irregularly. The preliminary investigation was also against two other SPD-CDU politicians, three companies and two accountants. The investigating prosecutor filed an informal appeal against Sarrazin, but in December 2004 the Berlin district court rejected a trial because the prosecution was seen as ineffective.
In August 2009, Berlin's public prosecutor
Prosecutor
The prosecutor is the chief legal representative of the prosecution in countries with either the common law adversarial system, or the civil law inquisitorial system...
conducted an investigation of Sarrazin for embezzlement
Embezzlement
Embezzlement is the act of dishonestly appropriating or secreting assets by one or more individuals to whom such assets have been entrusted....
. According to the office of the prosecutor, he favored the Berlin-Wannsee
Wannsee
Wannsee is a locality in the southwestern Berlin borough of Steglitz-Zehlendorf, Germany. It is the westernmost locality of Berlin. In the quarter there are two lakes, the larger Großer Wannsee and the Kleiner Wannsee , are located on the river Havel and are separated only by the Wannsee bridge...
Golf and Country Club
Country club
A country club is a private club, often with a closed membership, that typically offers a variety of recreational sports facilities and is located in city outskirts or rural areas. Activities may include, for example, any of golf, tennis, swimming or polo...
, leasing a golf course
Golf course
A golf course comprises a series of holes, each consisting of a teeing ground, fairway, rough and other hazards, and a green with a flagstick and cup, all designed for the game of golf. A standard round of golf consists of playing 18 holes, thus most golf courses have this number of holes...
to them at a reduced rate. Sarrazin dismissed the accusations on the grounds that he saw no financial loss for the city.
Deutsche Bundesbank
On 30 April 2009, Sarrazin resigned from his position as senator as he was appointed to join the executive board of the Bundesbank. From May 1, 2010 until September 1, 2010, his responsibilities at Bundesbank included information technology, risk monitoring and review. On 2 September 2010, he was released from specific responsibilities in a move by the remaining board members to have him removed as executive board member following a series of controversial statements made by Sarrazin. Whether Sarrazin will keep his job at Bundesbank or will be dismissed is under review by Federal PresidentPresident of Germany
The President of the Federal Republic of Germany is the country's head of state. His official title in German is Bundespräsident . Germany has a parliamentary system of government and so the position of President is largely ceremonial...
Christian Wulff
Christian Wulff
Christian Wilhelm Walter Wulff is the President of Germany and a politician of the Christian Democratic Union. He was elected President on 2010 and publicly swore the oath of office on . A lawyer by profession, he served as Premier of the state of Lower Saxony from 2003 to 2010.-Early life and...
as of September 2010. On 9 September 2010 Dr. Sarrazin has asked the president to relieve him of his duties as board member.
Party membership
The party leadership of the Social Democratic PartySocial Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
(SPD) announced in August 2010 that it will investigate whether to terminate Sarrazin's membership, because allegedly his theses are diametrical to basic social-democratic values.
An arbitration committee, meeting in Berlin on 21 April 2011, decided that Sarrazin can remain a member of the party. The formal accusation that he had damaged the party with his theories could not be upheld, in particular because Sarrazin read a statement in which he said he had never intended to depart from social democratic values and that he had never intended to suggest that social-Darwinist theories should be implemented in political practice.
This in turn lead to dissatisfaction among many SPD party leaders. SPD Secretary-General Andrea Nahles
Andrea Nahles
Andrea Maria Nahles is a German politician, a Bundestag representative for the Social Democratic Party of Germany and former SPD Youth leader...
had the difficult task of explaining the decision then.
Immigration, Islam and social welfare controversy
Within two months, Sarrazin's book Deutschland schafft sich ab ("Germany Does Away With Itself" or "Germany Abolishes Itself"), published end of August 2010, became the highest sold book on politics by a German-language author in a decade, with overall sales hitting 1.1 million copies and the first editions sold out within a matter of hours or days. In the 13th edition Sarrazin added a brief foreword commenting on the nation-wide debate his book has sparked. As of May 2011, 1.5 million copies were sold.Sarrazin's views and criticism of it
Sarrazin advocates a restrictive immigration policy (with the exception of the highly skilled) and the reduction of state welfare benefits. There were severe reactions to his statements on economic and immigration policy in Berlin, which were published in September 2009 in Lettre International, a German cultural quarterly. In it he described many Arab and Turkish immigrants as unwilling to integrate. He said, among other things:- "Integration requires effort from those that are to be integrated. I will not show respect for anyone that is not making that effort. I do not have to acknowledge anyone who lives by welfare, denies the legitimacy of the very state that provides that welfare, refuses to care for the education of his children and constantly produces new little headscarf-girls. This holds true for 70 percent of the Turkish and 90 percent of the Arab population in Berlin."
He has also said regarding Islam, “No other religion in Europe makes so many demands. No immigrant group other than Muslims is so strongly connected with claims on the welfare state and crime. No group emphasizes their differences so strongly in public, especially through women’s clothing. In no other religion is the transition to violence, dictatorship and terrorism so fluid.”
Sarrazin's statements were criticized by the chairman of the Interior Committee of the German Bundestag
Bundestag
The Bundestag is a federal legislative body in Germany. In practice Germany is governed by a bicameral legislature, of which the Bundestag serves as the lower house and the Bundesrat the upper house. The Bundestag is established by the German Basic Law of 1949, as the successor to the earlier...
, Sebastian Edathy
Sebastian Edathy
Sebastian Edathy is a German politician.Edathy was born in Hanover, the son of an immigrant from Kerala, India, and is a trained sociologist. He has been an SPD member of the German parliament since 1998...
(SPD), the ver.di union and the political scientist Gerd Wiegel.
Sarrazin's book Deutschland schafft sich ab "Germany Does Away With Itself" or "Germany Abolishes Itself", presented at the end of August 2010, came under criticism for claiming that Germany's immigrant Muslim population is reluctant to integrate and tends to rely more on social services than to be productive. Furthermore, he calculates that their population growth may well overwhelm the German population within a couple of generations at the current rate, and that their intelligence is lower as well. He proposes stringent reforms for the welfare system to rectify the problems. The first edition of his book sold out within a few days. By the end of the year, the book had become Germany's number 1 hard-cover non-fiction bestseller for the year and was still at the top of the lists.
An uproar was caused at the same time by an interview with Welt am Sonntag
Welt am Sonntag
Welt am Sonntag is a German national Sunday newspaper published by Axel Springer AG, and established in 1948. Its head office is in Berlin, and it has local editions for Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Düsseldorf....
in which he claimed that "all Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
share a certain gene like all Basques
Basque people
The Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...
share a certain gene that distinguishes these from other people." He subsequently offered his regrets for the irritation caused and explained his source, for instance, in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , short F.A.Z., also known as the FAZ, is a national German newspaper, founded in 1949. It is published daily in Frankfurt am Main. The Sunday edition is the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung .F.A.Z...
, referring to international media reports on a recent study
Genetic studies on Jews
Genetic studies on the Jews are part of population genetics. This discipline is used to better understand the chronology of migration and thus complements the results provided by history, archeology, language or paleontology. The interest of these studies is to investigate the origins of various...
by Gil Atzmon et al. that appeared in the American Journal of Human Genetics
American Journal of Human Genetics
The American Journal of Human Genetics is a medical journal in the field of human genetics. Since its inception in 1948 by the American Society of Human Genetics, the journal has provided a record of research and review relating to heredity in humans and to the application of genetic principles in...
.
Statements of support
Polls suggest that almost half of the German population (including SPD members) agree with Sarrazin's political views and even 18 percent would vote for his party if he started one. In a survey conducted for the Süddeutsche ZeitungSüddeutsche Zeitung
The Süddeutsche Zeitung , published in Munich, is the largest German national subscription daily newspaper.-Profile:The title literally translates as "South German Newspaper". It is read throughout Germany by 1.1 million readers daily and boasts a relatively high circulation abroad...
newspaper among 10,000 Sarrazin readers, an overwhelming majority was shown to be male, middle-class, middle-aged to elderly, conservatives.
With a view of the strong and sometimes polemical reactions against Sarrazin, some have argued that in Germany freedom of speech is being lost, as pressure to conform to political correctness
Political correctness
Political correctness is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts,...
is suppressing and silencing diverging opinions. Sarrazin's views were echoed to a varying degree by notable figures of the German public sphere including German-Jewish author Ralph Giordano
Ralph Giordano (writer)
Ralph Giordano is a German writer and publicist.Giordano was born to a Sicilian father and a Jewish mother....
, industrialist Hans-Olaf Henkel, journalist and Islam critic Udo Ulfkotte
Udo Ulfkotte
Udo Ulfkotte , in Lippstadt, North Rhine-Westphalia is a German journalist renowned as a security and intelligence services expert, as well as a critic of Islam. He was formerly an editor for one of Germany's main dailies, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . Dr. Ulfkotte studied jurisprudence and...
and FAZ
Faz
FAZ may be an abbreviation for:*Football Association of Zambia*Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a German newspaper*Financial Autonomous Zone, an economic proposal...
publisher Berthold Kohler
Berthold Kohler
Berthold Kohler is a German journalist and one of the five publishers of the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.Kohler was born in Marktredwitz...
.
While Turkish and Islamic organizations have accused Sarrazin of "racism" and damaging Germany’s reputation abroad, the prominent German-Turkish sociologist and best-selling author Necla Kelek
Necla Kelek
Necla Kelek is a German feminist and social scientist, holding a doctorate in this field, originally from Turkey. She gave lectures on migration sociology at the Evangelische Fachhochschule für Sozialpädagogik in Hamburg from 1999 until 2004.In 2006, the scientific community distanced itself from...
, who has defended Sarrazin, introduced him at a Berlin press conference in late August 2010 attended by roughly 300 journalists, as big a turn out as for the Chancellor Angela Merkel’s rare press appearances. Kelek said Sarrazin addressed “bitter truths” in his new book and the chattering classes have judged it without reading it.
Henryk Broder
Henryk Broder
Henryk Modest Broder is a Polish born German journalist and author.Broder is known for polemics, columns and comments in written and oral media. Broder wrote for the magazine Der Spiegel as well as its online version and the daily Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel. Since 2010 he writes for Die Welt...
, the Spiegel newsweekly commentator, offered an explanation for attacks on Sarrazin’s statements.
“And there’s a second trick that’s being used now: he’s being accused of anti-Semitism. If you could accuse him of anything, it’s philo-Semitism
Philo-Semitism
Philo-Semitism or Judeophilia is an interest in, respect for, and appreciation of the Jewish people, their historical significance and the positive impacts of Judaism in the history of the western world, in particular, generally on the part of a gentile...
, because he wrongly thinks Jews are more intelligent than others,” Broder said. He added, “But of course, with an anti-Semitism accusation you can really go after someone, because anti-Semitism of course is no longer acceptable in Germany, and rightly so. There is no substantive debate here at all – the issue is that a nation gets up, as it were, they all agree and they take it all out on a scapegoat who they’d like to send into the desert. It’s very disturbing.”
"Political correctness is silencing an important debate" said Matthias Matussek of Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe's largest publications of its kind, with a weekly circulation of more than one million.-Overview:...
magazine.
"Sarrazin's findings on the failed integration of Turkish and Arab immigrants are beyond any doubt. He has been forced out of the Bundesbank. The SPD wanted to expel him from the party, too. Invitations previously extended to Sarrazin are being withdrawn. The culture page editors at the German weekly Die Zeit
Die Zeit
Die Zeit is a German nationwide weekly newspaper that is highly respected for its quality journalism.With a circulation of 488,036 and an estimated readership of slightly above 2 million, it is the most widely read German weekly newspaper...
are crying foul and the editors at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung are damning Sarrazin for passages he didn't even write. But what all these technicians of exclusion fail to see is that you cannot cast away the very thing that Sarrazin embodies: the anger of people who are sick and tired—after putting a long and arduous process of Enlightenment behind them—of being confronted with pre-Enlightenment elements that are returning to the center of our society. They are sick of being cursed or laughed at when they offer assistance with integration. And they are tired about reading about Islamist associations that have one degree of separation from terrorism, of honor killings, of death threats against cartoonists and filmmakers.
Klaus von Dohnanyi
Klaus von Dohnanyi
Klaus von Dohnanyi is a German politician and a member of the Social Democratic Party . Dohnanyi is the son of Hans and Christine Dohnanyi, and thus a nephew of Dietrich Bonhoeffer...
, who offered to defend Sarrazin as the SPD sought to expel him, told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper how Germany was overshadowed by its Holocaust history and how a culture had developed whereby anyone saying the words "gene" or "Jew" is automatically considered suspect. He complains that we shy away from debates that "are commonplace in other countries." Among those is the discussion that "specific ethnic groups" share specific characteristics.
External links
- Interview with Thilo Sarrazin on the BBC show World Have Your Say
- Thilo Sarrazin and His Comments on Muslims' Intelligence: The Joy of Despising Others