TRUMP’S NEW NAZI FUROR
Supporters dig up an old German slur to threaten the ‘lying press,’
BERLIN— When a video of two Donald Trump supporters shouting “Luegenpresse” (lying press) started to circulate Sunday, viewers from Germany noted its explosive nature.
The defamatory word, most frequently used in Nazi Germany, is a common slogan among those branded as representing the “ugly Germany”: members of xenophobic, rightwing groups.
Its use at a Trump rally has worried Germans who know about its origins all too well. Both the Nazi regime and the East German government made use of it, turning it into an anti-democracy slogan.
“Luegenpresse” was branded taboo in Germany in 2015 by an academic panel after anti-Islam movements started using it more frequently in the presence of journalists.
The verbal attacks against journal- ists soon turned into physical violence in Germany. At times, media personnel were unable to cover protests organized by Pegida, an antiIslam movement, without private security. There’s no doubt the word “Luegenpresse” has an extremely ugly meaning in modern-day Germany.
Its history is even worse, though. The term emerged way before the Nazis took over in Germany. According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper, the term was coined by Reinhold Anton in 1914. In books, Anton used the term mainly in a foreign context to refer to “enemy propaganda.” It is unclear whether Anton was a pseudonym.
The word eventually turned into a propaganda slogan, used to stir hatred against Jews and communists.
Until today, the word has anti-Semitic connotations, and implies hatred not only against journalists but against everyone who opposes the “will of the people.” That abstract concept emerged when Hitler propagated the idea that Germans were a “master race” superior to all others, especially Jews and Slavic people.
The consequences of that rhetoric were horrifying. Millions of people were killed in concentration camps by the Nazis, including Jews, political opponents and homosexuals.
Although the word disappeared from public discourse for almost half a century in West Germany, it continued to flourish in communist East Germany, where it was used to condemn Western countries, including the U.S.