Letter from Munich – 015
Letter from Munich – the Joseph Affair – 15
EINE DEUTSCHE FASSUNG STEHT WEITER UNTEN.
20 April 2001
Dear Mr. Graf, dear friends,
Alexandra in a suit that Chanel might have designed: simple, elegant, and Alexandra speaking to us the same uncomplicated and cultivated manner: “I would like to read to you one more short passage from an article that I mentioned once before, from ‘Die Zeit’ one of Germany’s most prestigious journals.”
“Another explosive commentary on the Joseph Affair, I suppose,” said Gunther, doing his best to yawn convincingly.
“Indirectly, yes,” Alexandra replied, “but it has something more directly to do with the current state of journalism in Germany. ‘Helmut Kohl’s slush fund system, and the way it was analyzed by the media,’ wrote Bruno Schirra recently, ‘is a shining example of the media’s penchant for self-deception. Every day, throughout the length and breadth of the land, after the latest storm of headlines, you could hear journalists being celebrated for the outstanding role they had played in uncovering the affair. What was lost in the tumult, though, was the fact that it wasn’t at all the laborious and painstaking efforts of the journalists that exposed the so-called Kohl System. It was stolid government officialdom, . . . tax investigators and district attorneys, whose files practically fell into the laps of our surprised national hacks’.“
Gunther was trying to remove a small piece of lint from his Brooks Brothers necktie as he commented, “And so you, no doubt, think that if German journalists deceived themselves about Kohl and his slush fund, and their role in exposing the whole affair, they’re deceiving themselves in a slightly different way now, where the death – or murder, as you insist on calling it – of the boy Joseph is concerned.”
You had to know Alexandra well, in order to hear the contempt underlying the tone of voice in which she spoke. “No,” she said, “I won’t say ‘are deceiving,’ because as far as their concerned it’s all in the past. But yes, I admit it. I believe the journalists in this country deceived themselves mightily when they investigated the Joseph affair.”
Gunther had given up on the necktie. He folded his arms and stared at Alexandra. “For God’s sake, woman, why? Bribery? Oh no, you think they’re all just a pack of lazy bastards, don’t you?”
Alexandra seemed to take some comfort in the fact that he was so irritated. “Not necessarily laziness,” she replied quietly, “and not bribery either. Let me read you something else Schirra wrote: ‘German journalists don’t have to be bribed; they’re proud of just being invited along for the ride; they’re content with being treated as if they had power and influence’. Talk about freedom of the press”, she laughed. “Under the circumstances, no German journalist in his right mind is going to try to find out what really happened to Joseph. They’re quite happy with whatever the district attorney and the various government ‘experts’ feed them.”
“Alexandra, why don’t you just stop? Or, as the Americans say, give it a rest.”
“Never.” Another smile, rather grim this time, as she referred by name to Saxony’s prime minister, who she apparently thinks has tried to have the embarrassing affair covered up and forgotten: “No one will ever forget what Biedenkopf has done.”
Sometimes I think Alexandra is just a little paranoid. But what do I know?
Sincerely yours,
Robert John Bennett
Mauerkircherstrasse 68
81925 Germany
Telephone: +49.89.981.0208
E-Mail:
” title=”mailto:rjbennett@post.harvard.edu “>rjbennett at post.harvard.edu
