germany - who's the greatest?
WORKERS, JANUARY 2004 ISSUE
A recent poll in Germany for the greatest German has thrown up a top three of (1) Adenauer, Chancellor post-Second World War, architect of the European Union and all-round toady for the USA. Closely followed by (2) Luther, Protestant reformer. Thirdly, Karl Marx, Communist.
Marx's lead of the poll apparently galvanised the Christian Democrats (Adenauer's party - who have nothing to do with Christianity or democracy) into a frantic swamping of the polls. In what was the German Democratic Republic, Adenauer got zero votes. In West Germany Marx's vote was average. As 20% of the German population live in what was the GDR, for Marx to have secured third place indicates a massive turnout of the electorate. The organisers of the poll may not have intended the man who shattered Catholicism and the man who laid bare Capitalism to have come through as forcibly as he did.