What is the difference between negating gravity and negating the Holocaust? Or, being Heiko Maas

Heiko Maas, focusing on bull

Hold it, not so fast. This was first and foremost an attention seeker. Signaling.

Germany's new Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (he was Justice Min. the term before) from the 'Equipe 14 Percent™', aka SPD, visited Israel. On TV (I can not find the video) he was shown in a fairly small hall with Jewish couples and families and Maas claimed there that in his earlier life he had looked if there had been some in his wider circle of friends and family who had done something against Auschwitz in one form or another. While addressing the attending Jews he wore a slighty slimy smile a couple of times. A typical smile of his, btw. "I could not find anybody", he lamented. "I entered politics because of Auschwitz".

That sentence immediately reminded me of Tom Ford in one video a year or so after he had left Gucci: 'I could not find anything to wear, so I started Tom Ford'.

Both statements are obviously complete and utter bull. With 10,000 buckeroos in your wallet you will leave a boutique splendidly dressed. However, Tom Ford was selling something. His new brand. So was Heiko Maas! He was selling Auschwitz. That was HIS brand. As the new ForMin!

Fact is, Heiko Maas scraped through law school. There was no way a reputable law firm would have taken him. So he went into politics. Here is one of Germany's former top judges' verdict about the Heiko in German. It's worth reading.

Claiming an Auschwitz-based morphing into a politician is like stating I asked around in my neighborhood if there were any plumbers. Upon realizing the negative, I decided to become a scientist. Just looking at Heiko Maas and you know everything about the 'Pussification' of men. He is a douchebag and slimeball.

Now what is the difference between negating gravity and negating the Holocaust? None. In both cases you look stupid, except you may encounter a couple of bruises in the first. But there is a slight difference in Germany in that section 189 exists which makes denial a crime. No such thing when denying gravity or teaching your flat earth science to eager listeners. On the contrary, it gets funny.

By criminalizing the denial of the Holocaust is where the problem starts. The Holocaust runs the risk of being instrumentalized. 'Instrumentalizing' Auschwitz with empty public rituals as M. Walser called it. Also worth reading the abstract of  "The ‘Post-Holocaust Jew’ and the Instrumentalization of Philosemitism" by Thomas Altfelix:

"Post-war German philosemitism appears to be a good exemplar for this definition of ‘xenophilia’. It demonstrates the dangers of moving within an allosemitic cycle in which difference becomes a method of keeping otherness at bay through abstraction. The fear of a misremembrance of the Holocaust resulting from an abstract memorialization seems to provide a very solid political basis for perpetuating a philosemitic identity construction of ‘the Jew’ as abstracted Other."

And that is exactly what Heiko Maas did and what every politician does to the Holocaust and what section 189 elicits, abstraction.

Which leads to the ultimate question, Can people levitate?