OPINIONSrnUnder Western Eyesrnby Paul Gottfriedrn”When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking, or thinking I cannot choosernbut laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist.rnBut it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.”rn—John AdamsrnThe Commission for Racial Equality:rnBritish Bureaucracy and thernMultiethnic Societyrnby Ray Honey fordrnNew Brunswick: Transaction Publishers;rn3Bpp.,$44.95rnDie Diktatur der Guten:rnPolitical Correctnessrnby Klaus ]. GrothrnMunich: FA. Herbig; 320 pp., $33.25rnSind Gedanken nock frei?rnZensur in Deutschlandrnby Glaus NordbruchrnMunich: F.A. Herbig; 313 pp., $32.50rnThese works highlight the jackbootedrnpolitical correctness in contemporaryrnEuropean society and document thernbitter observation of the German playwrightrnBotho Straus that “the regime ofrntelecommunication represents the leastrnbloody tyranny but the most comprehensiverntotalitarianism in history.”rnKlaus J. Groth focuses most explicitlyrnon the t)’ranny of politically correct opinion.rnCiting the ravings in the Germanrnpress against nonleftist scholars and authors,rnthe acts of vandalism unleashed byrnleftist activists—sometimes in full sight ofrna passive police force—against conservativernpublications, and the testimonyrnPaul Gottfried is a professor of humanitiesrnat Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown,rnPennsylvania, and the author,rnmost recently, of After Liberalism: MassrnDemocracy in the Managerial Statern(Princeton).rnbrought against politically incorrect authorsrnin German courts charged with protectingrnthe post-war constitution againstrn”extiemism,” Groth shows German societyrnon the brink of total thought control.rnTo its credit, the most internationallyrnrespected German newspaper, the FrankfurterrnAllgemeine Zeitung, has resisted thernwave of leftist influence. Unlike Die Zeit,rnDer Spiegel, and Die Tageszeitung, tornname just three predictable defenders ofrnGerman leftist orthodoxy, the FrankfurterrnAllgemeine Zeitung dares to publish criticsrnof the dominant political culturernwhich, according to one of the newspaper’srneditorials, now consists of “the politicsrnof arrest warrants, the pillory, and thernspirit of police persecution.” Accordingrnto historian Rainer Zitelmann, whornmight be speaking about the UnitedrnStates as much as about Germany, “Conservativernjournalists, intellectuals, andrnpoliticians have been excluded [from thernpolitical conversation] and thrust into thernvicinity of the far Right.”rnAccording to Glaus Nordbruch, onerncan only grasp Germany’s situation full}’rnby looking at its recent history. The postwarrnGerman attempt to “overcome thernNazi past,” originally inflicted on a defeatedrnand thoroughly shamed nation byrnAmerican and British occupying forces,rnprepared the way for the German embracernof political correctness. Educatorsrnand administrators, initially with somernprompting, set out to “reeducate” anrn”anti-democratic” people and to replacernan authoritarian German heritage with arndenationalized “civic patriotism” {Verfassungspatriotismus).rnNordbruch observes that much ofrnwhat has promoted leftist thought controlrnin Germany did not always work in thisrnway. Two government agencies nowrnidentified with censoring and criminalizingrnthe intellectual right, the Bundesverfassungsgerichtrnand the Bundesprufstellernfilr jugendgefdhrende Schriften, once targetedrnenemies of bourgeois society. Thernlatter, founded in 1954 as an agency forrnprotecting youth against smut and defendingrnChristian values, now goes afterrncritics of the leftward-drifting politicalrnculture. Publications are labeled “dangerousrnto German youth” if they disapprovernof Third World immigration andrnalternative lifestyles or discourage the expiationrnof the German right-wing past.rnMoreover, the Bundesverfassungsgericht,rna court that worked to marginalize communistrnsympathizers, has remade itselfrnideologically: In the last 20 years, this tribunalrnhas placed under special “constitu-rn28/CHRONICLESrnrnrn