Unfair depiction of Germany

Re How Germany became ‘the unloved leading power,’ April 11

The time is long past when Germany could be compared to the former Third Reich. Today’s Germany is democratic and a member of the European Union. The EU is supposed to be an alliance of equal nations and, up to a point, it is. But, like the pigs in George Orwells’ Animal Farm, some are more equal than others.

It doesn’t really matter which of the big countries in the EU is the richest, or most unloved for that matter, as they will all rise together or sink separately in future cutthroat competition with China, the U.S., Japan, Russia, India and Brazil. William Bedford, Newmarket The text may be careful, thoughtful, sophisticated and well-informed, the authors may be German, but regardless of the origin ( Der Spiegel) and content of the piece, its graphic layout in the Star’s reprint, comparing without a hint of shame on the front page of the World Weekly section a Nazi character to the current Germany, is despicably provocative and grossly unfair.

It is also offensive to all those who have striven to make 21stcentury Germany, against all the odds and everything that happened in the 20th, a beacon to the world of liberality, tolerance, opportunity and a thriving economic success — above all an integral partner in all matters of western economy and security — and should be far, far, beneath the Star.

I am a fourth-generation Canadian of largely Jewish heritage, having no identification with Germany and virtually no German ancestry (one-eighth exiled German Mennonite, which can hardly be considered an association with today’s Germany), and from my disinterested vantage the Star’s use of Nazi imagery seems appallingly unjust. Eric Vernon, Grafton