Rise of the European right

The Establishment Rebel

Books that point out leftist and liberal failures are becoming top bestsellers in Germany. The once highly popular talk-show host Eva Herman was fired by her TV-station after she wrote a book about the damages caused to the family by feminism; Herman survived the vicious media witch-hunt that ensued and struck back with a highly successful book exposing media manipulations. A few weeks before the publication of her explosive report on immigrant crime, juvenile magistrate Kirsten Heisig was found dead in a forest near Berlin. The official story of her suicide has been seriously questioned ever since, especially in the blogosphere; in any case, her book, too, became a well-received bestseller. Meanwhile German media intensely discuss the possibility of a new center-right, conservative party apart from Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which is constantly losing its traditional conservative supporters. Some observers, including the well known and respected philosopher Norbert Bolz, even call for a rehabilitation of the notion of the “Right,” which in left-wing dominated Germany is generally defamed as “Nazism” and “extremism.”

It was in this atmosphere of a changing wind that Sarrazin planted his book like a bomb. And it went off with a bang.

Though the usual calls for his head came immediately, general support for him, especially among the people, was so great that many of the usual suspects among the ruling politicians and opinion makers hesitated to take firm positions, as if waiting for the final verdict on Serrzin to be rendered before voicing a strong opinion on the man.

Sarrazin is from the center-left party, but his arguments are definitely coming from the right side of the political spectrum. Social mood has the people ready for change and the right is bringing fresh ideas.