Rubbish in Papers causing trouble
Relations between Germany and Poland are always strained before they compete against each other but what has occured is rediculous and stupid.
The daily newspapers, Fakt and Super Express, have both been criticised for running doctored photographs of Poland coach Leo Beenhakker in various poses of aggression towards the German national side; one photo has him brandishing a medieval sword and about to deliver a death blow to captain Michael Ballack. The other depicts Beenhakker clasping aloft the severed heads of Ballack and Germany coach Joachim Loew, and implores: “Leo, bring us their heads!â€
As expected the Germans have reacted to this describing the pictures as “an absolute scandal,” and they want answers from Warsaw. Another comment from the Polish German ambassador I wish them the worst. I think it is particularly bad that this is published at a time when fans are coming into contact. It’s completely unnecessary and really should be ignored.â€
The Polish coach had this to say “We apologize to the German people. We want to distance ourselves totally from these weird, dirty and sick people.â€
This should be ignored and these people should be presicuted for doing such stupid things when they know tensions are high.
I think this affair should teach people a lesson - at least one. What I mean is this: The tabloid press, or rather, the “information industry” wants to draw profit from latent apprehensions and prejudices. It makes conscoius efforts to poison the climate, to create so-called scandals which will develop their own dynamics, which then again bill be a welcome hotbed for all kind of bizarre sensational “newspaper
plants”.
It was characteristic that two years ago, during the World Cup events in Germany, more and more people - and peoples ! - by virtue of individual perception, of individual person-to-person contacts, came to realize how much they had before been manipulated by press campaigns that worked in the way I have described above. This particularls holds true for the English yellow press. Their anti-German stance vanished.
Let us hope that the present clamoring will be revealed and condemned as what it is: a cheap trick to make money at the cost of international understanding, sportsmanship, and fair play.
Posted from Germany