Eva Herman in 2006
2,811 words
Herman’s real point is that women should not be forced to work by social or financial pressures, but should instead receive, for example, a housewife’s salary or higher childcare allowances. This plea for more freedom of choice has been interpreted in the media more and more obsessively in the direction of a lack of freedom. While it was initially claimed that Herman wanted to go back to the 1950s and “force women to stay at home,” it was not very long before Nazi Germany was reached as a huge projection screen for all German fears. — Arne Hoffmann, Der Fall Eva Herman — Hexenjagd in den Medien
Eva Herman was probably the most popular newscaster and talk show hostess in Germany at the turn of the millennium. Engaging and attractive, she appealed both to a male and female audience; as the newscaster of the Tagesschau on state-sponsored channel ARD, she sat in most Germans’ living rooms during news hour. She was also liked as an example of a successful career woman with a somewhat colorful personal life. Until she committed an unforgivable crime.
After two divorces and into her third marriage, she suddenly began to question what she had to show for her life. She was successful in her job, yes, and she made good money, but that was really all. Her biological clock was ticking rapidly, and she wanted a child, but she had to learn that, unlike what she had always believed, it wasn’t that easy to get pregnant in her mid-thirties. When she finally gave birth to a son at the age of 38, she realized that, for purely biological reasons, he was probably going to remain an only child.
Motherhood accelerated the change of her worldview. She did research into parenthood — or the lack thereof — in Germany, as well as into education, feminism, and politics. She wrote two books on breastfeeding and how to get a baby to sleep. And although she returned to television work after a while, she started to acquire the reputation of an oddball: All that talk about motherhood and demographics, about how forcing women to work and put their children into daycare wasn’t female self-actualization at all, and about how difficult it was for mothers to deal with the dual role of working wife and homemaker — something was clearly wrong with her!
In April 2006, Eva Herman published an article in the conservative journal Cicero in which she openly questioned the achievements of feminism. The establishment went crazy. Her colleagues from the media in particular attacked her in a manner that can only be described as deranged, and Germany’s uber-feminist Alice Schwarzer made it her personal goal to, in modern terms, cancel Eva Herman. (Strange, commented Herman, that it had always been Schwarzer who had demanded women’s voices be heard.) As a result, Eva Herman lost her position as newscaster but was still allowed to moderate her popular talk show on channel NDR (also taxpayer-funded).
When her book Das Eva-Prinzip (The Eve Principle) was announced in 2006, her employer forbade her to do interviews regarding it. Everyone in the media was talking about the book, only its author was not allowed to explain her position. The attacks, even before the book was available as an advance reading copy, were vicious, one headline going so far as to title it “The Eva Braun Principle.” Questioned on Germany’s declining birthrates in an interview about Herman’s Cicero article, Alice Schwarzer had already likened motherhood to “giving a child to the Führer.”
Things only got worse from there.
In 2007, after a press conference for her next book, Das Prinzip Arche Noah (The Principle of Noah’s Ark), which was on the importance of intact families and communities, one journalist claimed that Eva Herman had praised the Third Reich’s family policy. In fact, Herman had done the exact opposite, and, forewarned by the reactions to Das Eva-Prinzip, her publisher had expressly issued a statement to that effect during the conference — which, as we all know, is a point in futility.
The press picked up the false claim and ran with it. Almost overnight, Eva Herman became an unperson. She lost her job, she lost her speaking opportunities, and her colleagues scrambled to distance themselves from her. It was, in short, an early example of the cancel culture we see today.
Shell-shocked and still believing she could fix things, Herman did the usual apology exercise, to no avail. She gave interviews, trying to set the record straight. She sued media outlets. And she accepted an invitation to a talk show that has by now become legendary as the prime example of a modern-day witch trial, including false accusations, intentional misinterpretations, sheer hysteria, and repeated prompts to confess and do penance: Johannes B. Kerner’s talk show, on which she appeared on October 9, 2007.
The deck was clearly stacked against Herman, and judging by the information that emerged later, it is obvious that the outcome was planned in advance. Asked to justify her use of the word Gleichschaltung when she described the almost unanimous repetition of the false “Herman praised Hitler’s family policy” claim in the media, Herman tried to make a simple point. After all, even the Leftist weekly magazine Der Spiegel had used the word repeatedly in a non-Nazi context.
Arne Hoffmann, who published his excellent analysis Der Fall Eva Herman — Hexenjagd in den Medien (The Case of Eva Herman — Witch-Hunt in the Media) in the aftermath of the events, described the scene sarcastically (my translation):
In Herman’s situation, [comedian and talk show guest] Mario Barth would probably have said, “Just because Hitler used the toilet, I’m not going to poop in the street.” Herman, of course, is more ladylike and explains exasperatedly, “Autobahns were built back then, too, and we drive on them today . . .” She has to break off, because here a commotion arises in the audience similar to what happens in the movie The Life of Brian as soon as someone utters the word “Yehovah.” “Yes, that’s beautiful,” [Leftist historian] Wippermann sneers. “Adolf built the autobahns — yes, that was it! The autobahn argument is the best!” . . .
Eva Herman defends herself, noticeably irritated: “No, wait a minute. We’re sitting here in a show now, and I’m constantly being accused of being Right-wing in my head, and I’m simply not. I refuse to . . .”
“There are a few things,” Kerner interjects, “that are simply — that are simply problematic. No, not problematic: They won’t do. And autobahn won’t do. Autobahn just won’t do.”
More absurdities followed until, after a discussion about the correlation between the availability of daycare facilities for children and birthrates, of all things, Herman was asked to leave the show, which she did gracefully. The next day, the media headlines claimed she had been kicked out because she had praised Hitler’s autobahn.
You can buy Jonathan Bowden’s Western Civilization Bites Back here.
But a strange thing happened: The ordinary public was furious about the way Eva Herman had been treated. On the Internet and in letters to the TV station, viewers poured out their scorn while showering Herman with messages of support. It was perhaps the first large-scale demonstration of awareness of how the mass media tries to manipulate public opinion.
The whole affair left a bad aftertaste, even in the media. Several journalists expressed their disgust at what had happened. It was still only the early days of cancel culture, after all, and many journalists still had something resembling a conscience. When tempers had cooled, and the damage had been done, questions were raised. What had been going on? How could things have gotten so out of control that the mass media who, up to this point, had considered itself neutral and objective, had organized a modern-day witch-hunt? Johannes B. Kerner, his reputation badly damaged, later even apologized to Eva Herman.
In 2018, long after the events had faded from public consciousness, gossip reporter Volker Probst remembered Eva Herman and wrote an article for n-tv. In it, he repeated the tired old allegations and falsehoods and picked quotes from her website to prove how frustrated, neurotic, and radicalized his incorrigible former colleague had become in the years since:
In retrospect, Herman’s story reads as if she were something like the Joan of Arc of the Alternative for Germany (AfD). And indeed, to this day, she still puts forward theories that would predestine her for a post in the party. What she is really doing today can be easily found out by looking at Herman’s website.
Probst boasted about this while failing at such a basic journalistic task as finding out that Eva Herman was living in Canada by then.
It is also clear in her introduction, “About Me,” that Herman feels alienated from the country in which she lives and from the media for which she herself used to work. Again and again she is asked whether the citizens “really agree with the strange policies of German Chancellor Angela Merkel,” she says. And: “Numerous journalists, who would perhaps also prefer to report the truth much more often, continue to surrender to the ordered propaganda in order not to become as unemployed as I was back then. It is a certainty that the death knell of the mass media is already ringing properly, and I am not really sad about it.”
To me, Probst’s article reads like a kind of exorcism. Finally, the mass media can shed their guilty conscience: “It’s confirmed: We were right to treat her as we did!”
Yet, what had been Eva Herman’s crime — really? It was not praising Hitler’s family policy or his autobahn. It was challenging the way of life of feminists and career women (and men), many of whom happened to work in the media — the same media Herman then accused of Gleichschaltung when they ganged up on her.
Das Eva-Prinzip questions whether the self-actualization Eva Herman’s colleagues and acquaintances were always talking about is really worth the damage that is being done in its name: broken relationships, a rapidly decreasing birthrate, and the masculinization of women and emasculation of men, all at the expense of the weakest members of society: the children. Herman points out that the call for more daycare facilities has nothing to do with empowering women; it is simply an economic strategy to get women back to work as soon as possible, and the strongest supporters of this policy are, ironically, those career women in the media, in industry, and in politics who either have no children or have the financial means to let other people take care of them. In particular, Herman opposes an inflammatory rhetoric that, based on the motto “You’re entitled to everything! Become the perfect egoists!”, confuses female self-actualization with selfishness. And she asks the justified question of whether men are not increasingly losing respect for the female sex precisely because of this new type of women.
Herman warns young women of the same error she believed in, that “there’s always time to have children later on.” No, she argues, the biological clock is a fact. But she also gives a few uplifting real-life examples from her own acquaintances: the career woman who, like Eva Hermann herself, realized she wanted a child, only to find herself rebuffed by her husband again and again. This lady finally divorced him and found herself a new partner who dreamed of having children and grandchildren. Or the case of a married couple among Eva Herman’s friends, both of whom were intelligent, well educated, musical, and who had good jobs and a large apartment. Why, Herman wondered, did they not pass on their obvious talents? She challenged them to get to work, and after some initial reservation, they did. They had their first child at about the same time as Herman had hers.
Das Eva-Prinzip holds up well even after almost 20 years. The situation, of course, has changed quite a bit in the meantime. Gender mainstreaming and the theory of gender as a social construct were still mainly feminist concepts in 2006, but have now reached their logical conclusion, to the point of eliminating safe spaces for women and spelling the end of women’s sports. Ethnic German birthrates are still abysmally low, while immigrants more than make up for it. Even Herman could not see that coming; she, like so many others, has since learned better.
Today, Eva Herman lives in Nova Scotia with her partner. In an article in the Preussische Zeitung that was also published on her website, she defended her decision to leave Germany (my translation):
Many people in our country are currently discussing the concept of homeland. In view of the fact that our soil is now made available to all immigrants from all over the world, no matter where they come from or why, no matter how many they are and could still become, many people here suddenly feel painfully that their homeland means a lot to them after all. . . .
After all, it is the land of our birth, childhood, it is the ground on which parents and ancestors grew up, with all the customs and traditions. It is our home; here we were formed, shaped, the social life educated us to be citizens of this country, which is our homeland. Now that it is being taken away from us piece by piece — since we are no longer allowed to consider even the advantages of our upbringing as such, but rather they almost resemble politically-correct criminal offenses — many a human spirit is awakening: What one hardly thought about for a long time, because everything was so self-evident, one now begins to miss. It hurts.
With each passing day, the realization grows that the wheel can no longer be turned back, because no one “up there” wants to turn it back: Germany is flooded with immigrants, whether the citizens want it or not. There are thousands of them every day, and one suspects that this is only the beginning: an exodus, with the inevitable goal of an exitus. And the more there are, the more their willingness to integrate decreases. . . .
It is no wonder that many a person who feels unjustly treated in the face of this devastating development and feels increasingly alienated in his own country is now beginning to entertain the idea of emigrating. Certainly, all of Europe is currently on the brink of collapse, because the storming of this fortress is in full swing. And even if a few brave leaders of the continent are still trying to protect their countries, the justified question must be asked as to what means will finally be used to force them to give up. The designated emigrant thus often thinks beyond European borders: Where could one go to escape the threat of ungovernability? . . .
And while his thoughts are increasingly occupied with this question, he begins to communicate with his fellow men. But what does he experience now? Apparently, it is seldom possible to talk about it constructively; instead, he is suddenly met with rejection, emotional counter-talk, and at times serious accusations: Traitor! Coward! Deserter!
Those who then calmly try to explain which thoughts of survival guide them and their descendants often hardly get a chance to speak. On the contrary, the chain of “well-meant” advice does not break: You should fight for your homeland! To the last drop of blood! Stand up like a man! Even if you go down, you can still say that you gave everything! . . .
Does this really make sense, in view of Merkel’s antifa thugs, who are active everywhere, well-organized and well-financed, intimidating and flattening everything that still offers resistance to these developments?
Is it healthy for the soul to be constantly cursed as a Nazi, your family as well, just because you criticize this evil population replacement? Is really everyone born to be this kind of hero? . . .
Everyone must now decide for themselves what they will do. Those who want to stay, those who want to fight, let them do so. Those who want to stay and watch quietly as their country goes down, they too are free to do so. Whoever cannot financially afford to leave, let him seek the community of like-minded people and move with them to the countryside as part of crisis preparedness. And those who leave the country to start anew elsewhere, for the sake of their children and their children’s children, should not be condemned. Perhaps they can do more for their old homeland from a safe distance than some people think.
That was in 2018. I do not condemn Eva Herman’s decision, even though I belong to “those who want to stay, those who want to fight.” But I suspect that she has realized by now that you can only run so far. The evil population replacement does not stop with Europe. Canada is a big country, but it, too, is in the grip of the globalists.
Still, her questions remain valid. How will each of us deal with the situation?
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16 comments
This was an interesting article, about a woman I hadn’t heard of. Thank you.
It was a really big deal around here back then. People remember it to this day. Sadly, the one thing that appears to have stuck in most minds is the “Eva Herman praised Hitler” nonsense.
“Perhaps they can do more for their old homeland from a safe distance than some people think.” A poignant statement, I am again reminded of the Irish nationalists who fled their homeland and took refuge in America to organize the Easter Rising and the War of Independence from afar, as the British made resistance virtually impossible at home. Of course they emerged victorious, even after being initially routed. America probably won’t suffice as a safe haven for white Europeans in this day and age, but something of the sort should be found, perhaps in the East instead. Let’s remember that diaspora means nothing unless you also remain highly organized, highly connected and highly homogeneous. A tactical retreat is all well and good, but do not allow yourself to be scattered to the four winds. I’m sure that’s a role reversal that (((they))) would salivate over.
Very interesting article. Her words from 2018 ring true (as does her analysis of feminism). Many are coming to this conclusion.
I recall the paleo-conservative historian Paul Gottfried expressing his astonishment at the current state of German womanhood in an AmRen podcast a couple years back where he was interviewed by Gregory Hood. Now in his 80s, Gottfried still does research in Germany & attends conferences there. I was struck by the amazed tone in his voice as he described the professional – academic class women he encountered, saying they looked, dressed, & acted like androgynous men. Also, when I see news photos of German women on-line, they have very short hair, & at least from a distance look more like 14 yr old boys – even female AfD politicians – than the much more feminine frauen I saw when I was stationed there in the 1980s.
As always, it very much depends. You mostly find that particular type of woman in the academic world and among senior management, since it is said (but I don’t know if it’s actually true) that women in those professions/positions won’t be taken seriously by male colleagues if they come across as too female.
I can’t think of many female AfD politicians that fit the description; but honestly, I’ve never paid much attention to it. I will start doing so! Thanks for pointing it out.
The author notes the same thing when she refers to “masculinization of women and emasculation of men”. I had not been to Germany for several decades when I returned in 2016 or 2017. I remember sitting in the S-Bahn (a train) across from someone and wondering the whole time if it was a male or female. There were also some very attractive German women, but the number of short-haired women and people with a questionable gender is noticeable. I live in the small country of Estonia, and it’s the same here. The first time I visited here in 2002 (and again in 2003 and 2004), there were no overweight people here. Now, you can see some huge people with androgynous features.
But I believe this is less so in eastern Europe than in western Europe. Until the collapse of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact in 1991, they were not exposed to cultural Marxism. western feminism and multiculturalism.
I have noticed it in Estonia, so I have no doubt the Holocaust [Holohoax] narrative has also been introduced throughout eastern Europe. Jews were known to be disliked in eastern Europe, so it’s not surprising that George Soros (Open Society) and others would bring that to eastern Europe. I recall seeing a sign honoring his presence at a nice hotel here 20 years ago. Today, they have all been indoctrinated with it, and several eastern European countries outlaw “Holocaust denial”.
I recall that before 1991, American Jews bemoaned that in the USSR they did not have World War II memorials specifically for Jews. They didn’t have them in eastern Europe, but in the early 1990s, the memorial that had stood at Auschwitz for about 45 years was torn down and replaced. They reduced the claimed number of victims at the camp from four million to one million, and the new sign said Jews were the victims. The previous sign made no mention of Jews.
I have also noticed a significant difference between how older and younger people perceive Germans in Estonia. I have no doubt it’s the same in at least some other countries in eastern Europe (Latvia, Finland, western Ukraine, etc.), countries that welcomed German soldiers as allies in World War II. Some, mostly older people, are noticeably pro-German or sympathetic to Germans. Germans have a long history in the Baltic countries. But many young people have been indoctrinated with hostility toward Germans. I was discussing this with my doctor here the other day. She agreed, and she says it’s the media.
No doubt, the media plays a huge role—perhaps the biggest role. World War II is a pretty popular subject here. A few times I saw big glossy magazines with the subject of World War II on the cover, mentioning Hitler and also the “dictator” Nasser, who was a hero to many Arabs. The magazine is all in the Estonian language, but the owner of the magazine is the big Swedish-Jewish publishing firm Bonnier. As a result, I have met more than one person here who thinks the former capital of East Prussia, Königsberg (now Kaliningrad), should be given to Poland. The city was founded in the 1200s by the Teutonic Knights and was German until 1945, when its entire population was brutally expelled. The other day I saw a sign in Tartu, where I live, commemorating about 30 Jews that settled in Tartu in the 1800s.
Very interesting observations. Sorry to hear that androgyny has come to Estonia. During my time in West Germany – 1980-1983 – German women were largely unaffected, & still very alluringly feminine. Androgyny – which was briefly in fashion in America during the 1970s, in “Women’s Lib” days – really had not taken hold in the USA then, either, except in very liberal university towns & in areas of big cities populated by various shades of the “avant-garde.” But now it’s everywhere, made worse as social-media increasingly deranges the minds of teenage girls.
The German presence in the Baltic states was of long duration, historically & economically important, & the subject of numerous histories. All eradicated by the Bolsheviks & finally, Stalin. I’ve heard the reason Konigsberg became Russian instead of Polish was that Stalin wanted to reserve a slice of (former) Germany for the USSR, & as a reminder to both Poland & East Germany of who was really calling the shots in their neighborhood.
Your description of how the Western liberal media has succeeded in imposing its narrative on Baltic peoples & re-shaping their perception of their own past is…ominous.
Thanks.
Somehow everything is “genderfluid” these
days. The two sexes have virtually liquefied.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3pntGBylho
Thank you. A great read.
The “Hase bleib hier” story was pretty shameful.
Thanks for recalling the Eva Herrmann affair. She was not really a hero, she could have done more when she saw they would cancel her anyway. She learned like so many pseudo heros that groveling would not help her.
Her last error was Canada – “vom Regen in die Traufe”, like the Germans would say.
Genderrama’s Arne Hoffmann?
The man who brags that his doctor father was Obama’s too?
Really?
I don’t have to agree with everything Hoffmann says and writes to consider his analysis of the Herman affair to be excellent.
So there was a young German man stabbed to death by migrants.
Merkel declared progroms.
The Bundespresident organized a left wing music festival.
One band there, K.I.Z. stood out with a song about Eva Herman.
Messer in die Journalistenfresse and so on.
There’s another song by that band.
https://genius.com/Kiz-was-willst-du-machen-lyrics
Interesting Lyrics in that context.
All the right wing media made it about Frau Herman.
No one spoke about the dead, stabbed, stabbed, stabbed, young man.
Did the excellent Männerrechtler Hoffmann mention that?
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