German sociologist, anti-racism activist, and former Green Party politician Jutta Ditfurth has called for right-wing publishers to be removed from the biggest annual book fair in Germany by Antifa, according to a new interview with Frankfurter Rundschau on Monday.
“The [Frankfiurt] book fair should inform the public at an early stage which publishers are in the registration process. It would be enough to evaluate right-wing publishing programs in their mainline. You don’t have to read every single book,” she said.
She believes that Historians, scientists, and “experienced anti-fascists” could quickly take stock of this type of situation. The “White privileged” part of society would allegedly not understand the experiences that people of color go through on a day-to-day basis, she said.
The Jungeeuropa publishing house features a variety of voices, including libertarians, conservatives, and members of the New Right. Authors include Mária Schmidt. Alain de Benoist, Michel Onfray, and Derek Turner.
However, Ditfurth believes a range of viewpoints should be excluded over political correctness.
“Yes, the entire book fair should be a safe space for BPoC (Black and other People of Color), people with kippahs, or other possible victims of Nazis. The book fair can only be such a place if racist, folkish, anti-Semitic publishers are kept out,” she explained.
“A stand like that of Jungeuropa is always an organizational docking point for other Nazis, who then move through the fair together and are a danger,” Ditfurth claimed.
Ditfurth has long been active in German left-wing politics, and has been a radical environmental activist since the 1970s. Although she said she rejected armed struggle, she advocated property damage as a protest measure. She also called for an amnesty against the Red Army Faction terrorist group, which was responsible for a number of high-level murders and bombings in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Frankfurt Cultural Committee has held a debate on the subject on Friday. At the meeting, city councilor Thomas Bäppler-Wolf (SPD) called for right-wing publishers to be excluded from the book fair.
“Put the right-wing publishers where they belong, in the last hall, next to the toilet,” he demanded.
The presence of the right-wing Jungeuropa publishing house at the book fair last year sparked a lot of discussions. At the time, author Jasmina Kuhnke refused to appear at a panel discussion near the publisher’s stand.
When presenting the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade to the Zimbabwean writer Tsitsi Dangarembga, the Greens city councilor Mirrianne Mahn criticized what she felt was a lack of solidarity with Kuhnke.
“The paradox is that here in the Paulskirche — the cradle of democracy — we give the Peace Prize to a Black woman, but Black women were not welcome at the book fair,” she said.