Clemens Heni Confronts the “Red-Brown Equalization Project” in Major Interview in “Frankfurter Rundschau”




MEDIA WATCH  |  GERMANY  |  ANTISEMITISM  |  DOUBLE GENOCIDE

Capture

BERLIN—In a groundbreaking interview with Dr. Clemens Heni, director of the Berlin International Center for the Study of Antisemitism (BICSA) in the leading German liberal daily Frankfurter Rundschau, Heni criticizes the ongoing comparison of Hitler and Stalin and the relativization of the Holocaust. He reminds readers, in the interview conducted by journalist Katja Thorwarth, what psychoanalyst Zvi Rix had to say about German reception of the Holocaust: “The Germans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz.”

In the interview, Heni critiques the Prague Declaration, its East European supporters as well as former German President Joachim Gauck, who signed it himself. Other topics of the interview include an analysis of the term “secondary antisemitism” after Auschwitz, the danger deriving of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), the newly elected right-wing extremist party in the German Bundestag, the fantasy of a lovely “Christian-Jewish Occident,” the difference of Islam and Islamism (without ignoring that Islamism could not exist without Islam) as well as an analysis of the term “right-wing extremism”  in contrast to “left-wing radicalism.”

Related: Clemens Heni Edits New Academic Journal on Antisemitism

The online version of the interview includes an additional question, dealing with recent antisemitic rallies in Germany (mainly by Muslims). Heni confronts these mainly Muslim antisemites, but he also fears that scholars in Germany fail to understand that antisemitism is much broader and much more dangerous a phenomenon than “just” anti-Zionism.

The headline of the print version of the interview translates: “The Hitler-Stalin Comparison Plays an Enormous Role in Fixing German Guilt”.

A PDF of the print version follows, and is available here.

Dr Clemens Heni Interviewed by Katja Thorwarth Frankfurter Rundschau 16 17 Dec 2017
This entry was posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Clemens Heni, Double Genocide, Germany, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Prague "Platform" and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.
Return to Top