Der Spiegal pulls ‘anti-Semitic’ book from bestseller list

Germany’s most prominent newspaper has pulled a book from its bestseller list after it was deemed “anti-Semitic” and “historically revisionist”.

Der Spiegel, whose best-seller list is often used to stock the country’s bookshelves, withdrew ‘Finis Germania’ (The End of Germany) from the list, despite it being the top-selling book on Amazon’s German site.

The book collates the work of late historian Rolf Peter Sieferle on German political thinking, including on the Holocaust, while the title is taken from a popular phrase used in German history expressing a fear or paranoia about national decline.

In one passage, Sieferle says: “In every city Christianity had built cathedrals to its murdered God. Today, the Jews, to whom God himself had promised eternity, build memorials throughout the world to their murdered co-religionists.”

He adds: “Not only are the victims ascribed a moral superiority, the wrongdoers and their symbols are ascribed an eternal depravity.”

Susanne Beyer, Der Spiegel’s deputy editor, said Finis Germania had been pulled from the paper’s magazine because it was “right-wing extremist, anti-Semitic and historically revisionist”.