Tuesday, September 11, 2007

German TV Moderator Fired for Praising Nazi Family Policy

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/09/europe/EU-GEN-Germany-Moderator-Fired.php

Sunday, September 9, 2007

BERLIN: Germany's NDR public broadcaster fired a talk show host and author on women's issues after she praised Nazi Germany's attitude toward motherhood, the station said Sunday.

NDR said Herman, who has written books urging a return to more traditional gender roles, was fired after confirming to station management that she made the statement reported in the Bild am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday.

The statement was: "What I wanted to express was that values which also existed before the Third Reich, such as family, children and motherhood, which were supported in the Third Reich, were subsequently done away with by the 68ers" — a reference to 1960s leftists.

Other news reports had quoted her as saying at the presentation of her latest book that, while there was "much that was very bad, for example Adolf Hitler," there were good things, "for example the high regard for the mother" under the Nazis.

NDR program director Volker Herres said in a statement that "Mrs. Herman's authorial activities are in our view no longer compatible with her role as a television moderator and talk show host."

In books and essays, including "The Eve Principle," Herman, 48, has questioned what she sees as an overemphasis by women on careers as opposed to having and raising children, and urges them to "rediscover their femininity."

Herman formerly appeared as a news reader on Germany's "Tagesschau" national newscast on public television. But she left that post in 2006 before the publication of "The Eve Principle" in what the station said was a decision to protect the show's neutrality.

Herman could not immediately be reached for comment.

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