As noted here, Palmer has a bizarre new set of allegations about Hoppe’s alleged racism/anti-semitism, due to his being interviewed by the allegedly “fascist” German paper Junge Freiheit.
David Heinrich asked a German friend about the paper, and here is his response:
I’ve read about Mr. Palmer’s unjustifiable propaganda. The Junge Freiheit is a quite conservative newspaper. But it is in no way “fascist” or neo-nazi. But in fact the majority of Germans are nasty little leftists who react allergically against anything that is “rechtsextrem”, i.e. “right-wing extremist”. Of course “rechtsextrem” is an anti-concept, but it is very fashionable here in Germany, especially with the German Verfassungsschutz. The Verfassungsschutz is a government institution which keeps under surveillance “anti-constitutional” organizations, persons and newspapers which do not conform to the “consent of the democrats”, i.e. to the leftist public opinion which of course is made by government officals. Every year the Verfassungsschutz publishes a so called “Verfassungsschutzberich” which contains a list of all these obvserved organizations, persons and newspapers and detailed desciptions of their activities and the “threat” they represent. In fact this is just a form of censorship which is designed in order to ruin these organizations’, persons’ or newspapers’ reputation – quite successfully, if I may say so. It is a very effective form of surpressing disagreeable political opposition.
The Junge Freiheit was put under surveillance of the Verfassungsschutz by the government of North Rhine Westfalia (which then was a coalition of government of Socialists and Greens), which was heavily critized by some major German newspapers and publishers because the Junge Freiheit was by no means “extremist”. (btw. the government of North Rhine Westfalia, which was voted out of office some weeks ago, also put people under surveillance of the Verfassungsschutz because they were against the European Currency Union, as can be seen in the Verfassungsschutzberich for North Rhine Westfalia of 1997 or 1998.)
Meanwhile, the Bundesverfassungsgericht, which is the German Supreme Court, declared that the Verfassungsschutz surveillance of the Junge Freiheit is unconstitutional and and infringement of the freedom of the press.
I guess Mr. Palmer should do some investigations next time before going to bash anyone for being a “fascist” or neo-nazi or whatever. Me, I still wonder why Mr. Palmer seems to think that a government organization like the Verfassungsschutz is [reliable], because they are the real facists.
Of course, Palmer’s bleatings, as usual, make no sense at all. Mises himself fled
Austria to avoiding death at Nazi hands. The Mises site is filled with the most passionate anti-Nazi writings that exist. Hoppe is a libertarian anarchist, and gave an interview to a conservative German newspaper, in which he advocated libertarianism and explicitly attacked national socialism. Prominent German libertarians have written for paper and link to it, along with historians such as Ralph Raico and Martin Van Creveld. Palmer’s kooky conspiracy views are just that.
There is absolutely no reason to be defensive about Junge Freiheit. Junge Freiheit is as “fascistic” and “neo-Nazi” as Peter Brimelow’s VDare. I would not be surprised if Paul Gottfried, who has often written for them, writes something on this matter. I hope he does.
Palmer is a hysterical jerk, who has no aptitude for polemical debate whatsoever, so all he can do is rant and slander.
