Germany’s “Network for Academic Freedom”: A network for Hitler’s rehabilitation
Seventy German academics founded the “Network for Academic Freedom” on February 3. Even though the organization consists merely of an empty website, a brief press release and a list of names, the mainstream media has given it widespread publicity. The “Network’s founding received more recognition in the mainstream media than almost any other political event in academia in recent months,” wrote the daily
Süddeutsche Zeitung.
If the founders were remotely honest, they would name their organization the “Network for the Rehabilitation of Adolf Hitler.” They seek to conceal their true aims behind a barrage of propaganda. They portray themselves, in a press release, as a persecuted minority whose “positions and opinions” have been “marginalised and morally sanctioned,” and complain about “restrictions on academic freedom,” which “often follow an ideological or political