The Unreason of Germany’s Covid Propaganda

"Liberté, égalité, fraternité leads to the hospital"

The German federal government’s ‘Besondere Helden’ (special heroes) lockdown propaganda campaign was recently celebrated in the Anglo Twittersphere.

It features older Germans reflecting, from some unspecified point in the future, on their heroic contributions to the battle against coronavirus. ‘The fate of this country lay in our hands’, one old man says. ‘So, we mustered all our courage and did what was expected of us, the only right thing. We did nothing. Absolutely nothing.’

The setup is a play on Zeitzeugen (time-witnesses), a curio of German culture since the 1970s, whereby individuals record their experiences of specific points in modern German history. Online portals exist in which video archives can be searched through and still-living Zeugen can be hired for school talks and documentaries. It can become a kind of second career for retired politicians or ex-Berlin Wall border guards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZgmIx3FmKc

The problem with Besondere Helden is that the tale told by the ‘veterans’ alludes to a form of national storytelling foreign to Germany. It is of course an allusion to the ‘What did grandad do in the war?’ tales, complete with medals-in-the-drawer, and a Saving Private Ryan-esque string arrangement in the background. It is the kind of thing one would expect to see in sentimental war films or Royal British Legion campaigns.

But, for obvious reasons, such a narrative of wartime heroism does not exist in Germany. Besondere Helden is a mixed metaphor, a secondhand reference that only makes vague sense due to imported Anglo-American culture. Thus Germans chiefly associate this form of storytelling, not with actual Second World War veterans’ storytelling, but with entertainment, a type of foreign theatre or something akin to Call of Duty.

If the German government wanted to make a rational case for lockdowns and massive intervention in the private lives and personal liberties of its citizens, fine. But this campaign is not a rational case. It is an attempt to bypass reason, and persuade and propagandise through entertainment.

In Berlin, the regional government has been somewhat less subtle with its agitprop. Placards are pasted on to almost every one of Berlin’s omnipresent 19th-century advertising columns – due to be torn down before the authorities suddenly found a pressing need for them – with simple threats, such as ‘wear a mask, or the neighbourhood is shut down’; or, perversely, ‘liberté, égalité, fraternité leads to the hospital: better wear a mask’. Others play on Berlin’s alternative image: ‘Berliners wear what they want, but they have to wear a mask.’

These directives have been displayed next to, and sometimes even on the same hoardings as, publicity for a Hannah Arendt exhibition at the German Historical Museum. It features her famous quote, ‘Nobody has the right to obey’ (Kein Mensch hat das Recht zu gehorchen). The irony appears lost on everyone.

That the authorities and, it must be said, most German citizens too, should be so enthusiastic and so uncritical about masks, is incredibly dispiriting. The visuals of a masked population maintain the atmosphere of emergency and of fear. Yet their use in preventing the spread of viral disease is contested and nowhere close to being scientifically proven. As the BBC journalist Deborah Cohen revealed in July, the World Health Organisation had changed its advice on mass mask-wearing due to political lobbying, not the emergence of any new evidence. Yet this fact is being deliberately avoided.

And now people are wearing this potent symbolism, this propaganda of fear, on their faces. In doing so, they are providing the state with what it needs to justify lockdowns: visible fear.

That the apparently liberal German authorities, both federal and local, are so blasé about utilising such methods to push through their agenda, and that their citizens are so seemingly complicit and undisturbed, is extremely disconcerting.

Source: Spiked

6 Comments
  1. nick1111 says

    Germany shall not exist

  2. cechas vodobenikov says
  3. ke4ram says

    Most German’s are not German. After the war thousands/millions of rapes by the ‘allies’ diluted the German race. There were many German war hero’s but the propaganda after the war vilified the German people. The young were especially indoctrinated with the supposed crimes of the Nazis. Look around,,, you see those same crimes actually being committed today by governments worldwide.

    Genetic manipulation: the modified Corona Virus and the DNA changing Covid Vaccine.

    Then you have crimes today even the Nazi’s were never accused of.

    Shutting down economies, millions of businesses and jobs gone. Locking people into their homes not even allowed to walk their dogs. Police beating, tasering, killing folks that try to protest these inhumane government dictates.

    While the Nazi’s were said to be trying to achieve a superior race today the world socialists are trying to reduce population by the billions by medical fraud.

    While the horrible Nazi’s were scorned for supposedly trying to conquer the world today the WEF (Claus Schwab, Gates, Soros and ilk) are actually doing so with the help of all worldly governments using freshly printed currency and medical fraud.

    Mask wearing, social distancing and hiding in the basement are only to remind folks of the fake disease. Keep em scared and fighting with each other.

    If the disease was real,,, does anyone think that New York doctor (Doctor Mike) that advises old folks killer Cuomo would be in Miami frolicking with beautiful women on a boat with no masks?

    What more do these folks have to do to convince you, the people, this is all a scam!

    1. fresnoman4man says

      These two videos about economics explains how the elites led by Herr Klaus Schwab of the WEF (World Economic Forum) actually profit while they use the virus ruse as a tool to wreck world-wide economic havoc. If you know anything about the history of their fascist forbearers, you know how their personal emotional pathology manifests as ideology. Fascism, socialism, communism, are seemingly competing bands of authoritarianism. In all cases, the rationale for the controllers is “We elites know what is best for you the proletarian masses so do as we say or suffer the consequences of disobedience. In the meantime we are distracted by the dramas of COVID cult outrages, partisans sniping, cross national conflicts , and competing brands of authoritarian ideologies. . — Jay

      Global Elite’s “Great Reset” Agenda
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xkqcowJTcQ

      Cantillon Effect: Global Elite’s Secret END GAME Agenda Exposed!
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xkqcowJTcQ

  4. quick draw mcgraw says

    Germany is not German. If they were they would stand on their own two feet act like a sovereign nation instead of bending over to be analized by the US every time DC barks.

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