Look, there’s no doubt that Der Spiegel have some (in my opinion disturbingly) left leaning tendencies. But it’s not like it’s a communist party phamphlet. It’s neither a surprise, nor ironic, that they report on these protests, especially when you consider that their main focus was destruction of the Holocaust exhibition. For that to become ironic you would somehow make the connection that “Der Spiegel is leftist, hence they are connected to Nazi-Germany, hence their reporting on this is ironic”.
I don’t accuse Rosenthal for implying this, but a whole lot of the commenters here sure do. It’s silly. Even though I have to agree that popular antisemitism today is probably more common on the political left, the connection to Nazi Germany is dubious. On the contrary, Nazi Germany rose to power on their hatred for the “jewis, socialist weimar republic”. Most Jews were leftists, most avid antisemites belonged to the right. Although socialists antisemits existed, and Marx didn’t like jews, the socialist parties in Europe generally supported jewish emancipation. And far more so than most of their political contenders.
There’s certainly some truth to the claim that Hitler’s National Socialism have some common features with socialist ideology. But it is very unfair, and historically incorrect, to connect these young left leaning Germans to Nazism.
