When a German banker and former government official spoke publicly about a unique “Jewish gene,” when he attacked Islam as a source of violence and stunted development and when he espoused genetic theories that evoked the fright of the Nazi past, the political leadership quickly condemned him as racist and called for him to be fired, Michael Slackman reports in The New York Times.
But the banker, Thilo Sarrazin, an executive with the Bundesbank and a former Berlin finance minister, has not emerged as the marginalized hate-monger that the initial condemnation suggested. His book, “Germany Does Away With Itself,” which laments the growing number of Muslim immigrants, contending that they are “dumbing down” society, was released Monday and is already in its fourth printing, with sales expected to exceed 150,000 copies, according to his publisher. [more...]