The co-founder of the environmental movement extinction rebellion has called the holocaust an "almost normal event" in human history.
"The fact is that in our history, millions of people have been killed regularly in terrible circumstances," briton roger hallam told the newspaper "zeit". For him, the holocaust was "just another slice in the history of mankind".
His exaggerations met with harsh criticism in germany; ullstein publishing house stopped delivery of hallam’s new book to german bookstores as recently as wednesday.
Genocides have occurred repeatedly over the past 500 years, hallam said. "To be honest, you could say: this is almost a normal occurrence."As examples, the 53-year-old cited atrocities in china and the congo: "the belgians are in spades 19. The congo in the twentieth century and have decimated it."He knows that there are different debates about whether the holocaust is unique or not. For him the matter is clear.
The ullstein publishing house immediately distanced itself from hallam. "The distribution of the book has been stopped with immediate effect," the publisher in berlin announced. The work, titled "common sense. The nonviolent rebellion against the climate catastrophe and for the survival of humanity" was supposed to take place on 26. November to come to german bookstores.
Also federal minister heiko maas (SPD) reacted emport: "the holocaust is more than millions of deaths and cruel torture methods. To murder and exterminate jews industrially is uniquely inhumane. We must always be aware of this, so that we can ensure: never again!" He wrote on twitter.
Extinction rebellion germany distanced itself from hallam and spoke of "belittling and relativizing exaggerations about the holocaust". He is no longer welcome at the movement in germany, he said.
The federal chairman of the grunen, robert habeck, also called on other offshoots of extinction rebellion (XR) to disassociate themselves from hallam. The movement "must distance itself from him in whole crystal clear," habeck told the "bild" newspaper (thursday).
North rhine-westphalia’s minister president armin laschet (CDU) spoke on twitter of hallam’s "unacceptable talk" that relativizes the holocaust. "Why this anti-semitic and right-wing framing when it is supposedly about climate protection??"
Extinction rebellion originated in great britain and is now attracting attention in many countries with protest actions for climate protection. Hallam, who lives in the british part of wales, is the best-known face of the movement. He is a sociologist and organic farmer.
In september, hallam was arrested for announcing that he would fly a drone at london-heathrow airport. He wanted to stop the air traffic and thus protest against the construction of a third runway. Air traffic contributes to climate warming.
Hallam justified his lawbreaking at the time by saying that he wanted to attract more attention. "When a society acts in such an immoral way, democracy becomes irrelevant. Then there can only be direct action to stop it," he told "spiegel online".