San Franzisko?

For an amusing look at the unexpected places this image (from the pro-Nazi era of a German satirical magazine called Kladderadatsch (g)) has been ending up lately, go here.

Comments

[M. Möhling]

Mr Breitbart has hired some editors whose noodles seem not quite to be al dente. I must say that the right worldwide leaves something to be desired. Unfortunately. Anyhoo, some mad urge makes me link this. Again. The LA Times' Joel Stein on whether "Jews control Hollywood." Written with some gusto.

While I don't think that Jews control US media, they certainly have an influence not proportional to their numbers. As it were in the Weimar Republic, incidentally, much for the better of the press. Jacobsohn, Tucholsky, Kisch, Ossietzky, Karl Kraus,[1] anyone? 0.75% of Germans were Jews, then.

Might these numbers give us a hint as to the proportions? Jews make up around 0.2% of the world's population (US: 2%), yet they snatched 22% of all Nobel prizes between 1901 and 2011 (US: 36%).[2] Has been like that in Germany, too, till the Nazis took to Aryan science[3] because, as Mr Goebbels pestered, there were too many Jewish doctors. And many there were. Critically minded taz has an idea as to why this is: Haben die aschkenasischen Juden ein Intelligenz-Gen? (do Ashkenazi Jews have a gene for intelligence?)

"Intelligenz-Gen", gotta love that. Obviously the taz' Mr Misik got it wrong as seemingly Mr Sarrazin had later, as it's not about a single gene, but the combination of various genetic factors. Now Mr Sarrazin got that right in his book - not to be named here, as we're in polite company - but worded it later in a fashion that could be willfully misunderstood. Eg by Mr Misik. Gleefully. Repeatedly. Who got it wrong in explicit detail throughout his article:

Genetiker von der Universität Utah wollen nun nachgewiesen haben, dass die aschkenasischen (also die europäischstämmigen) Juden über ein eigenes "Intelligenz-Gen" verfügen

No Misik, they did not, but you happened not to have read the study. You skimmed the Economist and the NYT.[4]

1. Austrian, ok, but let's not be anal about that, Mr Freud
2. Source: jinfo.org. Should be good enough as this is hardly disputed
3. Yes, I know, even Nazis knew better eventually, but you get my drift
4. Doesn't really answer the question, but gives some background in a nutshell: Teilen alle Juden wirklich ein bestimmtes Gen? (G)

[Eckeman]

Interesting to see the second life of such despicable images. A related point is that although most educated Germans today would disavow such crude caricatures of America’s media landscape in polite company, this image nevertheless embodies the unspoken assumption of much of present-day Germany’s Bildungsbürgertum and political elite, and it is the subtext of much German journalism on America spanning both sides of the political spectrum. Andrei Markovits http://www.andymarkovits.com/pubs_amerika.htm and Dan Diner http://www.amazon.de/Feindbild-Amerika-Best%C3%A4ndigkeit-eines-Ressentiments/dp/3549071744
have shown this quite convincingly. “The Jews” controlling opinion in America is the unspoken (and often unreflected) idée fixe of German discourse on America, and as component of German national identity it taints the very idea of “Europe” as an antipode to “America.”