National Socialism and the New German Speech Police

Cows.

I get it: The most obtrusive thing everyone knows about Germany is that we’re the country responsible for National Socialism. So it’s inevitable that every time I write about how Germany is becoming an increasingly scary and authoritarian place, many commenters will declare that the National Socialists are back or that our inner Nazi is showing again or something else along these lines.

As polemic that’s fine, and as a way to piss off our rulers it’s more than fine. The constitutional protectors have deemed comparing present-day German authoritarianism to vintage 1930s-era German authoritarianism “relevant for the protection of the constitution,” by which they mean “politically suspect,” because they believe it amounts to “delegitimisation of the state.” In itself that won’t get your house raided (the constitutional protectors don’t have police powers), but it might well get your phones tapped. There are worse things we could be doing than inspiring paranoia among the horrible people who rule us.

The problem with Nazi comparisons, however, is that they’re tired and shopworn on the one hand and also not really accurate on the other hand. There are much better ways to delegitimise the state: