German Professor in the Firing Line
Wednesday, May 19th, 2004Raise a cheer for freedom of expression in Germany! – or perhaps rather to that country’s notoriously-rigid labor laws. It now seems that Defense Minister Peter Struck will not be able to relieve Michael Wolffsohn, history professor at the German armed forces university in Munich, of his post.
With this we’re back to the topics of torture and prisoner abuse that continue to dominate the news. For Wolffsohn got into trouble last week for remarks he made during an appearance on the German N-TV television channel, according to this report from the FT Deutschland, where he termed “legitimate” the use of torture or the threat of torture in the fight against terrorism, “because Terror has absolutely nothing to do with the normal basis, that is the normal value-basis, of our civilized order.” (more…)