in a german folktale, first published in writing by the grimm brothers in 1812,

a wolf eats chalk to alter his voice so it sounds like that of a goat. he covers his black paws with dough from a nearby bakery to make them look like the white and shiny goat’s hoofs. that’s how he gains access to the house where seven little goats are waiting for their mother’s return. he devours six of them. the seventh hides inside of a large old longcase clock and survives.

the returned mother, after she heard what happened from the seventh little goat, takes a pair of scissors, finds the wolf, who is now, after that extensive meal, sleeping, and slashes his belly wide open. the little goats (still alive) are released. the goat mother fills the belly with big stones and sews it back together. the wolf (still alive) is waking up feeling heavy and thirsty. he tries to drink from the well but with all the stones inside he loses his balance and falls into the well. he drowns.

these, among others, are several inferences that can be drawn:

–– what comes from the outside is frightening, safety is only found inside.

–– a stranger (outside) invades home while the mother is absent. his costume and a make-believe voice performance (friendly and familiar) grant him access to the children whom he consumes.

–– the wolf is a father/uncle/family friend/a trusted doctor, teacher, coach, political leader, etc. (inside). he has access–through social assignment/holding a role or function in the house–to the children whom he consumes.

–– the wolf is the dark and hungry suppressed psychological part of the mother. her possessive love turns what she loves into herself. she consumes her children.

–– only because she broke the rule to never touch it, by hiding in the case of the old antique clock at the time the intrusion happened the seventh goat was saved.

–– mutilating and torturing the wolf to death is introduced to the little goats as a legitimate and natural response to the wolf's violent attack. 

–– with the dead wolf in the water, the well is now poisoned for everyone. death to all.

fear is a tool and goats are customarily butchered and sold for consumption by the shepherd who is usually the one circulating this story about the insatiable wolf.

my friend D says that “germany is as cold and cruel as it is because it is inhabited by more hungry ghosts than humans.”

not even four centuries ago, on the grounds of today’s wider region of german-speaking europe, 15 to 20 million people (up to 45% of the regional population) found their deaths during a 30 year long war. this war was fought on battlefields where soldiers walked into each other’s blades to the sound of drums. 15 to 20 million people bled out and decayed into the ground of these fields and scientific studies have found that the soil there is still detectably more fertile than the soil of neighbouring fields. in addition to these dead, alone in what is germany today, up to 40 thousand (mostly) women have been tortured, decapitated, drowned, hung, and burned on the stake as witches during the same period. more than half of all european inquisition’s victims. 300 and some years earlier, up to 30 million people had perished from the black plague (a third of the european continent’s population back then). 120 years ago, the german empire murdered

up to 90 thousand nama and herero in germany’s colony on the grounds of today’s namibia, and then between 80 and 100 years ago, (my grandparents were young) more than 90 million people were killed during the two world-wars in europe. about 4,5% of the world’s population back then. since then, countless wars have been conducted, many of them with german involvement or the support through german money and arms.

for 11 months now, germany––the national state I’m a citizen of and the place where I currently live—is taking part in the (probable) genocide of the people of palestine. with indiscriminate financial, material, and moral support for the state of israel. palestinians have been so successfully dehumanized (in european fantasies about the “arabs”) and conflated with hamas for so long that, for a majority of germans (and other people from the global north), they seem to be not human enough to deserve humanity.

german state-politics instrumentalize german holocaust guilt as a smoke screen

to veil a deeply rooted racism and arab/islamophobia and uses it as justification for their close industrial cooperation with israel on arms development and defense issues.

I believe that many germans genuinely find residue of guilt and shame for the crimes committed by their ancestors in themselves.

but guilt and shame alone are not very helpful. they often lead to helplessness and fear, causing anger, self-righteousness, and stubborn white fragility. guilt and shame are useless unless they are transformed into (self)reflection, attention, (un)learning, and change. the holocaust was possible only because jews and many other groups of people (sinti and romani, homosexuals, so-called anti-socials, migrants, communists, people with disabilities, etc.) were dehumanized so successfully, that the german civil society was willing to participate in their mass murder voluntarily. 

how to take care of the monsters of violence that want to be fed constantly and everywhere? how to take care of our ancestors’ spirits? the ghosts of all those that were displaced, killed, and famished? and the ghosts of all those who tortured, deported, murdered, or were complicit in other ways? all of them still lingering, angry, haunting, lost, and wild? how can we satisfy their hunger, clear their confusion, and do them justice so they can finally leave? how to develop methods to end the circles of violence? what to do with inherited and sedimented trauma, fear, rage, and suppressed knowledge of guilt? what to do with shame? how to stop ourselves from constantly repeating and reenacting? how to end violence, coloniality, capitalism, racism, and patriarchy? also within ourselves? how to stop the genocide in gaza?

lights fly by. dark outside. driving back from a sunday’s visit with my maternal grandmother in konstanz. 1972. my father, hands on the wheel, eyes on the road. my mother turns around addressing her three children in the back: “listen carefully. should anyone of you ever become a soldier, you would not be part of my family anymore.” turning back. facing the road. no further comment.

my mother, born 1938 in striegau, silesia (now stzegom, poland), was a child refugee during the last three years of ww2. her father was a senior lieutenant

in the german wehrmacht and a nazi and his wife, my grandmother was an enthusiastic follower.

kurt tucholsky died from an overdose of sleeping pills in 1936. “soldaten sind mörder”, he famously wrote, reflecting on his experiences as a soldier during ww1. “for four years there were whole square miles of land where murder was obligatory, while half an hour away it was just as strictly forbidden. did I say murder? of course, murder. soldiers are murderers” he wrote, using the pseudonym ignaz wrobel in 1931 for “die weltbühne”, he published together with carl von ossiezky.

my mother, evelina, died from an overdose of sleeping pills in 2024, feeling deeply betrayed by the circularity of life’s events and all the broken promises of progress. “it is all a loop. world-wide-wars never end. humans are stupid. men are monsters. who lies wins. soldiers are murderers.”