Following expressions of support from the German far-right newspaper Junge Freiheit and the fascist National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), the views of Humboldt Professor Jörg Baberowski on refugees have now been acclaimed by American neo-Nazis.
On December 8, the Daily Stormer published an article entitled “German Professor Says German Identity will be Totally Destroyed by Mass Immigration.” The web site includes a photo of Baberowski with the comment, “More and more people are willing to state the obvious.”
The Daily Stormer reads like a modern version of the anti-Semitic Nazi rag Der Stürmer (The Stormer), which was published by Julius Streicher between 1923 and 1945.
Under columns entitled “Jewish Problem” and “Race War,” repellent racist and anti-Semitic articles appear, with headlines like “Jews Urge World to Unite Against Le Pen” and “Actual Gorilla Slaughters Six-Year-Old White Boy in His Bed (For No Reason, Of Course).”
According to Wikipedia, the Daily Stormer has now replaced Stormfront.org as the most read “hate site” on the Internet. The editor of the Daily Stormer and author of the article on Baberowski is the neo-Nazi and anti-Semite Andrew Anglin. Before establishing the Daily Stormer in 2013, Anglin ran the blog Total Fascism in which he glorified Adolf Hitler and disseminated propaganda for the Greek fascist Golden Dawn party. In the Republican Party presidential primary contest in the US, Anglin is supporting the fascistic candidate Donald Trump following Trump’s call for a ban on the entry of Muslims into the US.
Like Anglin’s support for Trump, his support for Baberowski is no accident. The American fascists are clearly impressed with Baberowski’s extreme right-wing views on refugees, his references to the “Christian West,” and his advocacy of a new German war policy.
Here are some passages from a December 7 interview with Baberowski in the Huffington Post, quoted approvingly by Anglin:
“Even 9/11 wasn’t immediately perceived as a turning point. But I do believe that something fundamentally new is happening that will change our country very much. Germany will no longer stay out of wars and conflicts. And the Germany that we know will disappear as a result of the mass immigration.”
“Everything that was dear to us, what we have been given all our lives, must change, because people come from a different cultural background and have other ideas about how we should live.”
“It is absurd that a Russian academic has trouble obtaining a visa, but Pakistani migrant workers, who come without a passport to Germany, have all options open. We do not control immigration.”
“You cannot just open the borders and let the immigrants move in. … For this we will have to pay a high price.”
“The borders should now be closed. That would be a clear signal to the European neighbours to take part in coping with the crisis. But will it happen? I doubt it.”
Anglin also supports Baberowski’s criticism of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the mainstream media. He cited, inter alia, the following statements of the Humboldt Professor:
“This criticism refers mainly to the television media. … Journalists are obsequious and [provide] uncritical reporting, they do not provide critical questions, but see themselves as an extended arm of the chancellor and her strategy.”
“It was not wise to take selfies with refugees who were sent from all over the world, and it was not wise to call out to the world that it could come to Germany…”
At the end of the article, Anglin reproduces some of the “selfies” showing Merkel with incoming refugees and makes the following comment: “lol @ selfie queen. What a narcissistic bitch.”
The reason why a neo-Nazi like Anglin is drawn to Baberowski can be easily discerned. The international recognition accorded the Humboldt professor is based not on scholarly work (none of his books have been published in English), but rather on his playing down of Nazi crimes in World War II.
In a long article in Der Spiegel in February 2014 (also published in the international edition of Spiegel Online) Baberowski publicly backed the most notorious Nazi apologist among German historians, Ernst Nolte. According to Baberowski, “Nolte was done an injustice. Historically speaking, he was right.”
In the same article, Baberowski sought to present the Führer in a favourable light. “Hitler was not a psychopath, he was not vicious,” Baberowski said. “He did not want to talk about the extermination of the Jews at his table.”
It is scandalous that someone who is praised and promoted by far-right and fascist circles holds a prominent position at one of Germany’s leading universities, appears almost daily on German media, and is defended by the university administration against substantive criticisms of his views.