The Führer Cult:Germans Cringe at Hitler’s Popularity in Pakistan : By Hasnain Kazim in Islamabad, Pakistan

The influential German daily Der Spiegel is full of interesting and provocative analysis about political economic matters global and, especially at this moment, European,

The influential German daily Der Spiegel is full of interesting and provocative analysis about political economic matters global and, especially at this moment, European,

The influential German daily Der Spiegel is full of interesting and provocative analysis about political economic matters global and, especially at this moment, European,

The influential German daily Der Spiegel is full of interesting and provocative analysis about political economic matters global and, especially at this moment, European,

notably the current Eurozone crisis, occasioned by Greece’s Goldman Sachs’-aided mess with its problematic government deficit / GDP ratio,

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and, in that context, the peculiar dynamics of Germany’s interaction WITH this crucial issue,

in which the relatively prosperous Germany is receiving jabs not just from Greece, but other members who see the possible collapse of the whole Eurozone experiment, in D-land’s failure to rush in to bailout their cultural cousins to the south, on the one hand,

and, on the other, the fact that Germans at both the elite and popular level view the bailout of Greece largely in terms of the post-Cold War “annexation” of East Germany by West Germany,

whose economic repercussions are STILL being felt more than 20 years’ after,

largely in the continuing economic problems of the East,

 

AND the consequent fraying of a once almost luxurious social welfare safety net that existed in the West during the Cold War era before unification.

 

But Spiegel is also interesting for its sharp observation of Germany’s global status, as this item makes clear.

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Germans are popular in India and Pakistan, but not always for the right reasons.

 

Many in South Asia have nothing but admiration for Adolf Hitler, and still associate Germany with the Third Reich.

 

Everyday encounters with the love of all things Nazi makes German visitors cringe. …

Sometimes it’s better to keep quiet about one’s German origins. It’s embarrassing because people here think they’re doing you a favor by expressing their admiration for the Nazi leader.

I suspect most Indians and Pakistanis have no idea what this man did. They see him as the bold Führer who took on the British and Americans …

Pakistanis always hone in on that topic whenever they talk to Germans. “We’re Aryans too,” they say, because there was an Indo-Germanic race, the Aryas. Besides, Hitler was a military genius, they add. …

 

In the Islamic world, not just in Pakistan but right across from Iran to northern Africa, anti-Semitic sentiment of course plays a role. Conversations with German visitors rapidly turn to the injustice being suffered by the Palestinians who were robbed of their land.

 

 

One can try to cut such conversations short, like a German acquaintance of mine did recently. He told a taxi driver in Iran he should stop talking nonsense because he as a dark-skinned person wouldn’t have survived long in Nazi Germany. The taxi driver looked at him surprised and said: “But I’m Aryan!”

 

The alternative is just to wish the ground would swallow you up, like when German friends visited us while we were staying with our Pakistani relatives in London. Out of the blue, one uncle started talking admiringly about Hitler, his supposed military feats and how he led Germany out of economic misery. Our friends just sat there stony-faced and didn’t know what to say. Later on my parents apologized to them.

I don’t know where this fascination comes from, not just for the Nazis but for all things German. Most people don’t realize that today’s Germany is very different from the Third Reich. It’s not surprising. Many have never even been to the next big city in their own country, so how should they know what things are like in Germany these days?

As a result, many Pakistanis easily switch from Hitler to Mercedes (“Very excellent car, but a little too expensive”). A few days ago a white Mercedes built in the 1970s was driving ahead of me in the center of Islamabad carrying a family of seven. On the back was a sticker bearing a black swastika in a white circle. Underneath it read: “I like Nazi.”