Margaret Brennan, the host of “Face the Nation,” must have skipped basic World War II history wherever she went to school. It’s hard to fathom any other explanation for the indefensible claim she made about freedom of speech while she was debating—sorry, “interviewing”—Secretary of State Marco Rubio about Vice President Vance’s deserved chastisement of European governments for their censorship regimes.
Brennan’s claim that free speech in Europe is dangerous because in Nazi Germany it “was weaponized to conduct a genocide” is so historically wrong as to be laughable.
Brennan believes that free speech existed in Nazi Germany? Really? I know that’s untrue not only from history, but from the experiences of my own mother and grandmother, who filled my youth with stories of the government oppression they saw and experienced in the 1930s in Nazi Germany.
Secretary Rubio quickly hit back, correctly observing that “free speech wasn’t used to conduct genocide. The genocide was conducted by an authoritarian Nazi regime.”
Brennan obviously does not seem to understand the difference between censorship and propaganda. Free speech swiftly disappeared in Germany after the Nazi Party took control of the country, and propaganda—not free speech—began spewing out of the government as well as the newspapers, radio stations, and “journalists” that the Nazi Party controlled under its new “Reich Ministry of Enlightenment and Propaganda.”
Perhaps CBS should give Brennan an all-expense-paid trip to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. As their Holocaust Encyclopedia explains:
“When the Nazis came to power in 1933, the German constitution guaranteed freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Through decrees and laws, the Nazis abolished these civil rights…. Starting in 1934, it was illegal to criticize the Nazi government.”
The Nazis closed down or took over anti-Nazi newspapers. In another move to control communications, the Nazis passed the Schriftleitergesetz (also known as the Editorial Control Act) in 1933, a law that required all journalists to be licensed by the government to practice their profession. As the Arolsen Archives at the International Center on Nazi Persecution explains, anyone expressing anti-Nazi views would not be licensed and those who received licenses were “directly subordinate to the Ministry of Propaganda and accountable to the Ministry—instead of their publishers.”
The censorship regime didn’t just apply to the media of the time, newspapers and radio stations. It applied to ordinary Germans, too. Germans like my grandparents quickly learned that any criticism of the regime, any disagreement with the propaganda being taught to students in the public schools—even just a joke about Hitler—could lead to swift arrest and punishment.
Brennan apparently is unaware that the first German concentration camps were not set up when World War II started; they were opened almost as soon as Hitler and his party took over in the 1930s. Dachau, the first such camp for political prisoners and anyone else who criticized or opposed the government, Hitler, or the Nazi Party, opened on March 22, 1933.
Dachau and the other camps were used to “imprison and intimidate the leaders of political, social, and cultural movements that the Nazis perceived to be a threat to the survival of the regime.”
Freedom of speech used to “weaponize genocide”? Wrong! Freedom of speech disappeared into Dachau and the numerous other camps set up throughout Germany.
In fact, these camps, whose purpose was to suppress free speech and all opposition to the Nazi’s hideous regime, “became the model for the Nazi concentration camp system” during the war that was used to murder millions of Jews and others whom the Nazis considered “subhumans,” and to imprison Nazi opponents like Lutheran Minister Martin Niemöller.
Niemöller famously criticized himself and others for not speaking out sooner about the suppression of the Nazi regime, including its censorship, saying, “Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
What JD Vance did at the Munich Security Conference was to speak up for those Europeans whose freedom of speech is being violated today and for the vital importance of preserving that right. He was dead-on in criticizing countries like Germany and the United Kingdom, using specific examples such as the German government going after individuals who post “anti-feminist” commentary online or the British government convicting an Army veteran of the “heinous crime” of silently praying close to an abortion clinic, if you can call 50 meters close.
Or the Swedish judge who commented on the recent criminal conviction of a Christian activist, saying that the country’s laws protecting free speech don’t extend to speech that risks “offending the group that holds that belief.” That is a perilous view that short circuits the ability of anyone to say anything critical about any belief because it might “offend” someone who holds that belief.
Vance admitted, “in the interest of truth,” that this was happening in our country, too. The Biden administration “threatened and bullied social media companies to censor so-called misinformation,” opinions that our own government disagreed with or didn’t like. But then Margaret Brennan probably sees nothing wrong with that either, since she believes freedom of speech can be weaponized if it allows unwoke, politically unacceptable opinions to be expressed.
Probably the most disappointing aspect of this whole affair—other than Margaret Brennan’s profound ignorance and apparent disdain for the First Amendment—is the hostile reception of European leaders to Vance justifiably calling them out.
The most important part of his presentation was the offer he made to cooperate with them in order to stop this type of misbehavior. “Just as the Biden administration seemed desperate to silence people for speaking their minds,” he said, “so the Trump administration will do precisely the opposite, and I hope we can work together on that.”
“We may disagree with your view, but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square, agree or disagree,” said Vance.
For the citizens of Europe, including the members of my extended family who are still there, I can only hope that these EU governments finally start taking the same attitude as JD Vance towards their own citizens and stop raiding, arresting, investigating, and punishing them for expressing views that those governments disagree with or don’t like.
* * *
Hans von Spakovsky is a Senior Legal Fellow in the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
[#item_full_content]
[[{“value”:”
Margaret Brennan, the host of “Face the Nation,” must have skipped basic World War II history wherever she went to school. It’s hard to fathom any other explanation for the indefensible claim she made about freedom of speech while she was debating—sorry, “interviewing”—Secretary of State Marco Rubio about Vice President Vance’s deserved chastisement of European governments for their censorship regimes.
Brennan’s claim that free speech in Europe is dangerous because in Nazi Germany it “was weaponized to conduct a genocide” is so historically wrong as to be laughable.
Brennan believes that free speech existed in Nazi Germany? Really? I know that’s untrue not only from history, but from the experiences of my own mother and grandmother, who filled my youth with stories of the government oppression they saw and experienced in the 1930s in Nazi Germany.
Secretary Rubio quickly hit back, correctly observing that “free speech wasn’t used to conduct genocide. The genocide was conducted by an authoritarian Nazi regime.”
Brennan obviously does not seem to understand the difference between censorship and propaganda. Free speech swiftly disappeared in Germany after the Nazi Party took control of the country, and propaganda—not free speech—began spewing out of the government as well as the newspapers, radio stations, and “journalists” that the Nazi Party controlled under its new “Reich Ministry of Enlightenment and Propaganda.”
Perhaps CBS should give Brennan an all-expense-paid trip to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. As their Holocaust Encyclopedia explains:
“When the Nazis came to power in 1933, the German constitution guaranteed freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Through decrees and laws, the Nazis abolished these civil rights…. Starting in 1934, it was illegal to criticize the Nazi government.”
The Nazis closed down or took over anti-Nazi newspapers. In another move to control communications, the Nazis passed the Schriftleitergesetz (also known as the Editorial Control Act) in 1933, a law that required all journalists to be licensed by the government to practice their profession. As the Arolsen Archives at the International Center on Nazi Persecution explains, anyone expressing anti-Nazi views would not be licensed and those who received licenses were “directly subordinate to the Ministry of Propaganda and accountable to the Ministry—instead of their publishers.”
The censorship regime didn’t just apply to the media of the time, newspapers and radio stations. It applied to ordinary Germans, too. Germans like my grandparents quickly learned that any criticism of the regime, any disagreement with the propaganda being taught to students in the public schools—even just a joke about Hitler—could lead to swift arrest and punishment.
Brennan apparently is unaware that the first German concentration camps were not set up when World War II started; they were opened almost as soon as Hitler and his party took over in the 1930s. Dachau, the first such camp for political prisoners and anyone else who criticized or opposed the government, Hitler, or the Nazi Party, opened on March 22, 1933.
Dachau and the other camps were used to “imprison and intimidate the leaders of political, social, and cultural movements that the Nazis perceived to be a threat to the survival of the regime.”
Freedom of speech used to “weaponize genocide”? Wrong! Freedom of speech disappeared into Dachau and the numerous other camps set up throughout Germany.
In fact, these camps, whose purpose was to suppress free speech and all opposition to the Nazi’s hideous regime, “became the model for the Nazi concentration camp system” during the war that was used to murder millions of Jews and others whom the Nazis considered “subhumans,” and to imprison Nazi opponents like Lutheran Minister Martin Niemöller.
Niemöller famously criticized himself and others for not speaking out sooner about the suppression of the Nazi regime, including its censorship, saying, “Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
What JD Vance did at the Munich Security Conference was to speak up for those Europeans whose freedom of speech is being violated today and for the vital importance of preserving that right. He was dead-on in criticizing countries like Germany and the United Kingdom, using specific examples such as the German government going after individuals who post “anti-feminist” commentary online or the British government convicting an Army veteran of the “heinous crime” of silently praying close to an abortion clinic, if you can call 50 meters close.
Or the Swedish judge who commented on the recent criminal conviction of a Christian activist, saying that the country’s laws protecting free speech don’t extend to speech that risks “offending the group that holds that belief.” That is a perilous view that short circuits the ability of anyone to say anything critical about any belief because it might “offend” someone who holds that belief.
Vance admitted, “in the interest of truth,” that this was happening in our country, too. The Biden administration “threatened and bullied social media companies to censor so-called misinformation,” opinions that our own government disagreed with or didn’t like. But then Margaret Brennan probably sees nothing wrong with that either, since she believes freedom of speech can be weaponized if it allows unwoke, politically unacceptable opinions to be expressed.
Probably the most disappointing aspect of this whole affair—other than Margaret Brennan’s profound ignorance and apparent disdain for the First Amendment—is the hostile reception of European leaders to Vance justifiably calling them out.
The most important part of his presentation was the offer he made to cooperate with them in order to stop this type of misbehavior. “Just as the Biden administration seemed desperate to silence people for speaking their minds,” he said, “so the Trump administration will do precisely the opposite, and I hope we can work together on that.”
“We may disagree with your view, but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square, agree or disagree,” said Vance.
For the citizens of Europe, including the members of my extended family who are still there, I can only hope that these EU governments finally start taking the same attitude as JD Vance towards their own citizens and stop raiding, arresting, investigating, and punishing them for expressing views that those governments disagree with or don’t like.
* * *
Hans von Spakovsky is a Senior Legal Fellow in the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
“}]]
