Longtime Tagesspiegel columnist Harald Martenstein leaves the newspaper after a heated debate about one of his texts.
"This is my last column for this newspaper, with which I've spent almost exactly half my life," writes Martenstein on page one of the current Sunday edition of the Tagesspiegel.
It is no secret that the editors-in-chief of the Tagesspiegel formally distanced themselves from one of his texts and deleted it: "I was not involved in this decision.
Something like that usually means that you separate, I made the decision to do so.”
In the controversial column of February 6, Martenstein described wearing "Jewish stars" at corona demonstrations with the inscription "Unvaccinated" as "an arrogance, also a trivialization" and "difficult for the survivors to bear", but "certainly not anti-Semitic “, because the bearers identified themselves with persecuted Jews.
The text was sharply criticized within the editors and also by the readership.
The editor-in-chief later admitted that it should not have been published in this way and withdrew it online.
As always, he wrote what he thinks, writes the 68-year-old journalist in his farewell column.
People who use Jewish stars to stylize themselves as victims are stupid and oblivious to history, people who call for the destruction of Israel at demos are a bit more dangerous: "I haven't changed my mind.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Where one believes only oneself possesses the truth, I am out of place.”