Review of Thilo Sarrazin's Germany Consigns itself to Oblivion, by Dr. Frank Ellis, Former Professor of Russian and Slavonic Studies at Leeds Univ. UK
Mut is der Wind, der zu fernen Küsten treibt, der Schlüssel zu allen Schätzen, der Hammer, der groβe Reiche schmiedet, der Schild, ohne den keine Kultur besteht [...] Zum Teufel mit einer Zeit, die uns den Mut und die Männer nehmen will!
Ernst Jünger
© Frank Ellis 2010
Introduction to the Reviewer’s Commentary and Analysis
Publication in Germany earlier this year of Thilo Sarrazin’s Deutschland schafft sich ab: Wie wir unser Land aufs Spiel setzen (Germany Consigns itself to Oblivion: How we are Putting Our Country at Risk) has made it possible for Germans to talk openly for the first time about themes which have been publicly censored in Germany over the last five decades. Having read this work very closely, I have no doubt that Germany Consigns itself to Oblivion may well be the book that finally smashes taboos about race, immigration and integration which have exerted such an insidious influence on German intellectual life since the end of World War Two. In fact, the influence of Sarrazin’s book will extend way beyond Germany. This book is not just about the future and fate of Germany: it is about the very survival of Europe.
Concerns over the magnitude and speed of population growth, as well as the racial and cultural changes brought about by mass immigration are nothing new. What is new is the manner in which the political establishments of virtually all Western states have abandoned, with complete disregard for the legitimate fears and well being of their own indigenous populations, any form of immigration controls. In the USA and Western Europe, a very large proportion of the political class have tried to justify this mass influx of foreigners with the claim that we need the labour, skilled or otherwise; that the mass movement of people is a necessary part of a globalised economy; that in some vague, sentimental way the prosperous nations of the north have an obligation to throw open their doors to the surplus populations of the Third World. Until quite recently, this mass movement of the unemployed and unemployable from the slums of the Middle East, Africa and the Indian sub-continent, with a fair proportion of actual and would-be terrorists among them, used to be justified by the obviously preposterous claim that the white indigenous populations of northern Europe would somehow benefit from the influx of millions of foreigners into their countries. Indeed, we were told – though not so much these days – that immigrants were bearers of the remarkable gift of diversity; that their presence enriched us.
