 Thank you very much Hans-Selman Hoppe for invitation, it's a great pleasure, I have fun today. It's a great pleasure for me and great honor to speak to you about political correctness, about political correctness in Germany. For that first I will do a very brief definition about what PC is in essence, about the method and goal of PC, and after that I will discuss the German particular features on PC, compared for example with the US, the situation in the US or in Great Britain. So what is political correctness in its shortest possible definition, thus in one word? I think political correctness is language politics, or speech politics. Unless we know that the political class is trying to politicize all areas of our life, the politicization of the economy is advancing in this crisis with breathtaking speed, advancing process. We know the war against terrorism provides an excuse for never seen politicization of security. And despite some setbacks and expectations, the politicization of education, of health, of social security, of almost every area of our private life is an almost continuously advancing process these days. And PC is thus a form of a special type of this politicization process, or it is a deep personalization of our use of language. The most quote about the method and the goal of political correctness, I could found was in an article by Theodor Delrimpel, and Mr. Daniel says that in his study of communist societies he came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate. And therefore, the less it corresponded to reality, the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse, when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all the sense of poverty. I think I forgot to say that Mr. Delrimpel said political correctness is communist propaganda with small. So to send to obvious lies is to cooperate with evil. And in some small way, Mr. Daniel says, is to become evil oneself. And while standing to resist anything is thus eroded and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. Mr. Daniel says about communist propaganda and he adds, if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to. Thus the method of PC is the creation of fear of saying what oneself believes to be true. And this fear is created through the possibility of losing one's job, the denouncement and isolation in society, of public humiliation, of getting trashed by political correct sucks, and of the threats of other reprisals. In case of an incorrect choice of word, you have to apologize. You have to apologize again and again, preferably on your knees, and you have to do a particular type of performance of self-criticism. And these two we know from communist societies, Maoist China. As someone may know the Germans, the Germans tend to exaggerate. And this is the case too, I think, with regard to reprisals against politically incorrect. In the beginning of this year, the right-wing extremist, Horst Mahler, who had stolen nothing, not deceived anybody, hit anybody, or attacked anyone in any other ways, was convicted just because of the wrong words and of his wrong thoughts. And because, as a judge said, he was unregenerated and obstinate to six years in jail without peril. This is a considerably harsher punishment just for some words than some real Nazis got for their deeds. The linguistic areas of operation of PC is a phenomenon in all western countries and interestingly enough only in these western democracies. And they are the same in Germany as they are in these other western democracies. And there are two areas of content, I think. First it is a matter as one says, non-discrimination of perceived minorities, such as women, foreigners, non-bite and non-Christian. And until now true minorities, such as homosexuals or disabled people. And then secondly, a matter of political determination of historical truth. And this concerns particularly everything, of course, to do with the Third Reich. And this point explains why Germany is so important for the PC engineers. And in the US it concerns slavery, the war between the states or in Great Britain, the question of colonial times. But in every case, fear is created through feelings of guilt or rather through a kind of a cult of guilt. And last year Paul Gottfried told us about the religious aspect on this phenomenon. But it is not only a matter of what one says but who says it. Thus for black, eco-socialist, homosexual women it is nearly impossible to roughly be treated by the ray of language political punishment. Even if she says something very politically incorrect and conversely a white conservative Christian man, it does not need to see anything very firm and still be attacked with PC. In that case suspicion and assumptions and obvious distortions of quotes are sufficient. In Germany this once happened to a conservative member of parliament, of our federal parliament. And this man made a speech against collective judgment of guilt. And he used the example that many Jews were on the side of the Bolsheviks during the Russian October revolution. And he argued that it would be wrong to derive a collective conviction of all Jews from that fact. And without having said anything politically incorrect directly, the media of course twisted his words and for some weeks he was the anti-Semitic devil of Germany. And years later he won by law against the misrepresentation of these facts. However it was too late for him of course. He lost his job and of course no one reported about this. And I'm sure there are many similar examples in Great Britain and France or in the US. So if content nature and areas of operation of PC are the same in Germany as in the other western democracies, where are the differences? Only in the measures or in the drastic lengths of the jail terms? Concerning this indictable language offences, so-called propaganda offences, or folks for heads or incitement of the people, which are so far unknown in the English speaking part of the world, not only the length of the sentence is shocking. Also the incredible number of criminal procedures is hardly known, even hardly known in Germany. In German courts in the 10 years between 1994 and 2004, there have been 101,310 criminal procedures because of opinion offences, propaganda offences of folks for heads or incitement. And however not the courts are the most important agents of implementing PC, but the media are. And here too there is a particular German feature, because contrary to other countries, most of the, none of the German mainstream media have grown historically. They all were created and chosen and given a public license by the Allied military forces after 1945. And only those who acknowledged the historic interpretation of the victors and had to spread them, usually over-interpretating them, were given this license. And this is possibly the most important reason for the fact that in questions regarding the interpretation of history, there exists no opposing media voice at all in Germany. Perhaps some of you may know the Germans, so yes, they know some Germans are here. And you may know then that the Germans today basically have a psychological problem I have heard of. At the beginning of the last century, it might have been true that it was possibly widespread in Germany that the Germans said we, the Germans, are the greatest who have ever lived. But today for sure most Germans are officially convinced that the Germans are the greatest and worst criminals that have ever lived. And above all that the German crimes by far are by far the most terrible and that have ever been committed. And whoever makes the slightest qualifying objection in the face of this somewhat different chauvinism, you can say this perverted form of nationalism, is per definition a Nazi. And thus a modern form of the devil. So believe me it's really impossible today for a German to speak freely, really freely, about any aspect of the Nazi time. Two years ago there was a scandal in Germany involving an up-to-then very popular blonde TV newsreader and talk show host. And she was invited to another talk show and claimed there that speaking restraints in Germany now obviously went so far that no one could not even use the word Autobahn because the Nazis built motorways too. And as the truth of her thesis became evident when she was then thrown out of that same show with the words, you can go now. And other guests in this show hyperventilated and said, Autobahn that's an absolute no-no. This woman had even been active in obligatory anti-fascist organizations and she really only wanted to promote a more conservative Christian image of a family. And she lost her job and has not been seen again in German television since then, not anywhere, although she wrote some bestseller books. So are there any protections against political correctness? I think in the U.S. there at least is a constitution with its unconditional protection of free speech. In Great Britain there may be the specific British humor who may offer a sarcastic protective wall against an all too obvious PC hounding, at least sometimes. In France there may even be more awful political tendencies or laws than in Germany, but in France of course not every stability is implemented into the population down to the last village, the consolation. And in Germany, German humor, sadly next to nothing. In this respect criminal law particularities, media particularities, mental self-hate, and absent specific protection. It is true when we think back on the quote of Mr. Der Rampel, that the Germans themselves became to a certain kind diabolical. And all Germans are quite certainly very limited in their ability to resist all kinds of politicization. And besides this because of the demonized Nazi bogey, the supposedly contrasting democratic politics and thus also the language politics, the PC, are sacrosanct and practically not criticizable. And this is madness because really in the words of my friend Carlos Gebauer who will speak next to me, the lessons from history, the real lesson from history could be after Auschwitz there can be no more politics. But however in closing I want to add something hopeful. Mr. Der Rampel's PC template Communism as it actually existed finally collapsed under the over politicization of all areas of life, as predicted by Mises for the area of economics. And there are some indications I think that Communism also collapsed due to an exaggeration of lies and fear. And then in this area too life became over the years in the true sense of the word unbearable for the people. And if that is true then Germany as the frontier state of PC could be the first country in which political correctness is finally overcome. And indications for this can be found on the relatively free until now discussion forums on the internet. Where for example hundreds of thousands of people, telling me most of them anonymously or under pseudonymic nickname, raised support for this mentioned demonized TV news reader and talk show host in the very contrast to what they were told in the mainstream media. So the methods of PC seem not to have changed the true and secret opinion of the people which used to be obscured by the mass media and which is now on the internet becoming visible for many. So perhaps this PC that will cause a radical counter movement, pressure causes counter pressure. And perhaps this counter movement will grow particularly in Germany. Let us hope then that it will be a counter movement that will be anti-political in other areas as well. Thank you.