I know that some of you are impatient with my posts about German politics, and particularly my repeated pieces on our retarded Health Minister. I get that this can seem like inside baseball, and that all of you suffer under the very similar idiocies of your own Covid politicians. But, I just can’t help myself. Lauterbach is a special case, a truly monumental idiot who in his boundless incompetence and stupidity vastly exceeds his peers. It is my aim to make him the international symbol of pandemic derangement. I want pictures of this human incarnation of everything that is wrong with masking children and force-vaccinating millions printed next to future dictionary entries on Covidianism. We have seen the enemy, and it is this sad, stupid, Smeagol-looking loser, who thinks Eric Feigl-Ding is an authority and that clip-on bowties are fashionable.
You must understand that Lauterbach is not only the dumbest federal politician Germany has ever had. He also ranks among the least competent, most bafflingly idiotic people ever to have attained prominence of any kind. He is a drunken tweeter who as Cabinet Minister once declared war on Russia. He is a dim salt-phobic eccentric whose own ex-wife declared him unfit for the responsibilities of a Cabinet position. He is a tireless advocate of mask mandates who in May 2021 was photographed totally maskless on a train to Hamburg.
He has written one of the saddest, most derivative and pointless Ph.D. dissertations I have ever read. He poses as an epidemiologist while routinely misinterpreting even the simplest scientific studies. His most memorable science fail was a tweet citing a “new American Mega [sic!] Study” showing that mask efficacy is “very great and uncontested”. His link led to a bizarre pre-print that was so bad, some concluded it had to be a hoax. When a serology study emerged showing that 95% of Germans had Covid antibodies, he denied the results meant the pandemic was over, inadvertently questioning the entire premise of mass vaccination. He spent much of early 2022 demanding that ever more people get fourth doses and even said he himself was quadruple vaccinated. Three months later he announced he had tested positive for Covid, declared his symptoms to be substantial, and then violated Berlin quarantine rules to attend a press conference, where he was stupid enough to flash his digital vaccine pass to the cameras. The QR code revealed that he had only ever received three jabs. His Ministry insisted he’d merely failed to register his second booster with the CoronaWarn app, but the next year he doubled down on his stupidity, allowing the press to photograph his physical vaccine records, showing only three doses were registered there as well.
At one point he proposed to exempt the recently vaccinated from indoor mask rules, saying that he hoped this would encourage further vaccine uptake. After polls showed that disturbingly large numbers of Germans were willing to accept quarterly vaccination for the privilege of mask exemptions, he said he’d withdraw the incentive if too many people took advantage of it. This summer, with the political relevance of Covid fading, he opened a new front against summer weather, announcing an initiative to call old people and remind them to drink water whenever temperatures get too high.
There has been such an unrelenting tidal wave of Lauterbachian moronicity that it has proven impossible to keep track of it all. He is an endless source of comedic content, a political lolcow who stumbles from embarrassing gaffe to embarrassing gaffe without ever seeming to notice. Last year, he appeared on national television and ranted bizarrely about the Stanford epidemiologist John Ioannidis and the Great Barrington Declaration. He seemed to be drunk, or perhaps under the influence of some medication, as he mashed his words about “certain scientists who are shared exponentially on social media”:
So there is exponential growth in viruses, and there is also an exponential growth in false information. You only need a few scientists for this… In the case of Corona, for example, there was a scientists who used to do very good work but has now drifted off course. A Stanford scientist, Ioannidis, made a declaration, the Great Barrington Declaration, which basically said that the virus is not that dangerous, that it’s not killing people, that flu can be more dangerous and so on, a lot of things that just aren’t right. And this has been quoted incredibly often by these people, who are out there, and there are just far too many of them, who would like to hear the relieving message, “it’s not really that bad, we don’t have to do anything”.
The rant escaped notice at the time, but was recently unearthed by my Twitter friend @tomdabassman, who uploaded the clip with English subtitles. He tagged Stanford medical professor and Great Barrington Declaration co-author Jay Bhattacharya, who could hardly believe his eyes. Almost everything in Lauterbach’s rant was wrong, and he said so in a tweet that has now been viewed almost a million times:
Now, for better or worse, Germany looks up to America and prizes American academic culture. When a Stanford professor criticises the German Health Minister, the German press take notice.
First was a modest article in the Berlinzer Zeitung – ‘Harsh criticism from abroad: “Lauterbach seems not have any inkling”‘
Stanford Professor Jay Bhattacharya doesn’t see [Lauterbach’s statements] as a laughing matter. He wrote on Monday that he’s sorry the Germans had such an unqualified health minister during the Covid pandemic.
He countered Lauterbach’s statements with four points: firstly, Professor John Ioannidis is far from being an outmoded scholar and is one of the most frequently published and cited scientists on the subject of Covid. Secondly, he neither wrote nor signed the Great Barrington Declaration. Thirdly, even this declaration did not declare the virus to be harmless …. Fourthly, Bhattacharya says that “Lauterbach seems to have no idea of the damage his lockdown policy has done to the poor, children and the working class. Germany has worse Covid results than neighboring Sweden”.
The original tweet with the Lauterbach video has already been viewed 500,000 times; the tweeting Health Minister has not yet responded publicly to the Stanford professor’s message.
Then came Bild, the largest-circulation newspaper in Germany, with the headline ‘Stanford Professor has harsh criticism for Lauterbach‘:
In his Covid policy, Karl Lauterbach repeatedly talks about science, arguing with studies and articles. But, of all people, a renowned Covid scientist is now sharply criticising the German Health Minister!
Stanford Professor Jayanta Bhattacharya (50), an expert in health economics, has accused Lauterbach on X of being “incredibly misinformed about Covid science”.
The reason for the outrage: an RBB interview with Lauterbach from March 12th 2022.
In an interview excerpt shared by Bhattacharya, Lauterbach complained about an “exponential growth not only in viruses, but also in false reports. … In the case of Corona, for example, there was a scientists who used to do very good work but has now drifted off course: a Stanford scientist, Ioannidis,” Lauterbach says. He is referring to John Ioannidis (58), Professor of Medicine and Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health at Stanford University.
Statements that Bhattacharya won’t let stand!
“Professor John Ioannidis is not ‘worn out’ and is one of the most published/cited scientists on Covid,” he says… Furthermore, Ioannidis neither wrote nor signed the ‘Great Barrington Declaration’. And the Stanford professor clarifies in his counterattack on Lauterbach that the ‘Great Barrington Declaration’ never claimed that the virus was “not dangerous.” … “Lauterbach seems to not have any inkling of the damage his lockdown policies did to the poor, to children, and to the working class,” says Bhattacharya. AND: The Stanford professor even calls Lauterbach “unqualified”.
Major blogs and online magazines like Reitschuster and Tichys Einblick have picked up the story, with headlines about how badly informed Bhattacharya finds Lauterbach to be. News.de calls Bhattacharya’s “public reprimand” a “bitter slap in the face” for the Health Minister; Der Westen says much the same, as does the television broadcaster ProSieben.
We desperately need more of this. I call upon Jay Bhattacharya to continue his attacks on the German Health Minister. He is a moronic pseudointellectual fraud and a menace, and the German people need to hear this from Stanford professors like him. Perhaps the other authors of the Great Barrington Declaration could add their voices too. Surely John Ioannidis would also like to weigh in.
This piece originally appeared on Eugyppius’s Substack newsletter. You can subscribe here.
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This man, Lauterbach, sounds as though he is superbly qualified to become Prime Minister, possibly even King, of the United Kingdom.
And why is the nutty inquiry, stuffed full of pantomime dames, currently performing here not obsequiously interviewing him, hanging on his every word?
OoooH , Matron !!.. said Charles Hawtry
Somebody appointed this man to his job. Other people voted for him, presumably. And the world’s leaders acquiesce in his idiocy, whilst the press doesn’t notice it until Jay Bhattacharya points it out. This is a civilization in terminal decline.
To me most public figures who consider themselves entitled to tell us how to live our lives are simply more polished versions of this turd of a person.
“Lauterbach is a special case, a truly monumental idiot who in his boundless incompetence and stupidity vastly exceeds his peers.”
Hmmm, what about Germany’s Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock? She famously stated she would only consider peace negotiations with Putin if he changed his course in Ukraine by 360°!
I can think of one or two examples of even exceptionally intelligent politicians on the world stage but that was a long time ago. Nowadays?
She’s also reportedly very worried about the fate of countries hundredthousands of miles distant from ours because of climate change (the moon is about 239,000 miles distant from us and would thus probably qualify) and has gone on record pointing out that the war in Ukraine – unlike wars in the 19th century¹ – isn’t fought with tanks alone.
¹ She obviously meant to say the 19-century, ie, the 20th. Which neatly illustrates her intellectual capacity.
And these people have immense power in our new world of made up pandemics and all the nonsense attached to them. And yet here he is still in post! How is this possible? Is he waiting for a job offer at the WHO because he’s just the right side of stupid and dishonest to fit in perfectly.
We used to respect the German people for being practical, competent and efficient -albeit far too compliant and respectful of “authority.”
I correspond regularly with a German friend; she tells me what 21st century Germany is really like and it’s a madhouse of incompetent politicians and excessive bureaucracy, even worse than the UK, compounded by the German people’s tendency to obey Orders, which is far more prevalent than the Brits’.
I don’t know if you saw or remember the German Polizei behaviour when the large anti lockdown etc protests went down. They were almost as bad as the Dutch in their violence and suppression methods. It made disobedience very hard.
Then there was the surveillance and door to door sweeps of anti government dissidents, the locking up for psychiatric issues of those in medical professions speaking out.
We had it pretty good in that sense in the UK barring the baseball capped thug police forces that shut some of the larger protests down on three of them at least. Still they didn’t baton us on mass and spray water cannons etc..
Germany has definitely gone down harder and faster than us.
Remember that German Dr getting arrested by armed Police during Livestream, was situations like that being shared that made me think, things are getting sinister.
Germany not only has an inland secret service (called Verfassungsschutz — protectors of the constitution) exclusively supposed to spy on Germans to ensure that they all properly toe the party line but also a large paramilitary police force (housed in barracks and organized into battallions and regiments), the Bereitschaftspolizei, whose purpose is to deal, usually violently, with undesirable political unrest among the population. Insofar the SPD is concerned, that’s all opposition to anything the government does which isn’t other professional politicians of establishment parties holding speeches.
OTOH, we don’t yet send professional perverts into elementary schools for paedophiling. The Greens obviously badly want that. But so far, except maybe in the shithole state of Bremen, vocal parent protests have always stopped these initiatives in their tracks.
Every state is working their models for neo feudalism according to their cultural histories.
Thank you for elucidating yours.
That’s your (or rather, the Freedom and Democracy! anglo-saxon) model of government for a properly domesticated Germany, ie, one which keeps paying everyone’s bills but without making unreasonable demands. Like any. It’s really not that much different from the GDR just because the party the current head of government nominally belongs to sometimes changes. It’s also pretty much the boilerplate organization of a state based on repressing the population.
The typical career of a professional politician in Germany starts with getting the German equivalent of A level degree (Abitur). This implies an entitlement to go to university where prospective politicians than join the youth/ student wing of some established party and, starting with organs the so-called student self-administration consisting of a mock parliament called StuPa (Studierendenparlament) and a mock government called AStA (Allgemeiner Studierenden-Ausschuß), work their way up from there. Crossing over into real politics usually happens between 25 and 30. This means a typical German politicians will never have worked in a real job and doesn’t have real experience with anything but the machinations of one party he more-or-less randomly joined when he was 18 – 19.
That’s pretty much how recruitment for the parliamentary system of government works everywhere and the outcome is always broadly the same.
Comedy gold!!
I’m wary of personalising attacks on covidianism. Angela Merkel is harder to make fun of but she was in charge at the time.
What we need to attack is collectivism gone mad, and what we need to defend is the concept of individual liberty. Covid was just an extreme example of a negative trend that has been going on for a while and continues unabated.
That’s too difficult for most people I am afraid. If we can generate a Lauterbachian stereotype in the public imagination, then hopefully if a new politician in that vein comes along they’ll not be taken seriously.
One thing I think would be really valuable would be a satirical sit-com that would make fun of all things woke and covid. Should be easy to make it funny as hell too.
If it chips away at the lies in the eyes of the general public then perhaps it’s a positive thing, but I think it’s just a distraction from the fundamental issues. It’s true I am not known for my sense of humour, but I don’t find any of this funny. Evil, not funny. It’s the same with Hancock – easy to make fun of, but probably just a useful idiot, not our real enemy. Our real enemy is collectivism gone mad, material wealth and the appearance of freedom making people sleepy and not paying attention to the erosion of freedom, safetyism, the idea that the collective is more important than the individual, that the state and institutions can and should solve all our problems. In short this dichotomy:
Thomas Sowell lays out these concepts in his A Conflict of Visions, and The Vision of the Anointed. These two visions encompass a range of ideas and theories.
The unconstrained vision
Sowell argues that the unconstrained vision relies heavily on the belief that human nature is essentially good. Those with an unconstrained vision distrust decentralized processes and are impatient with large institutions and systemic processes that constrain human action. They believe there is an ideal solution to every problem, and that compromise is never acceptable. Collateral damage is merely the price of moving forward on the road to perfection. Sowell often refers to them as “the self anointed.” Ultimately they believe that man is morally perfectible. Because of this, they believe that there exists some people who are further along the path of moral development, have overcome self-interest and are immune to the influence of power and therefore can act as surrogate decision-makers for the rest of society.
The constrained vision
Sowell argues that the constrained vision relies heavily on the belief that human nature is essentially unchanging and that man is naturally inherently self-interested, regardless of the best intentions. Those with a constrained vision prefer the systematic processes of the rule of law and experience of tradition. Compromise is essential because there are no ideal solutions, only trade-offs. Those with a constrained vision favor empirical evidence and time-tested structures and processes over intervention and personal experience. Ultimately, the constrained vision demands checks and balances and refuses to accept that all people could put aside their innate self-interest.
I’m wary of personalising attacks on covidianism. Angela Merkel is harder to make fun of but she was in charge at the time.
While Angela Merkel silently abolished the German constitution and replaced its legal institutions with the informal council of chancellor and first ministers, Lauterbach was relentlessly touring German TV, talking about nothing but the dangers of COVID.
What is the difference between a German Health Minister and a plank of wood? ———————————The Grain
A plank of wood is useful.
What a gangley prick!
No need to apologise, Mr Eugyppius; this man is a source of relief and recreation for us here in the UK and hopefully soon for the German nation too. What an absolute towering cretin Mr Lauterbach is. But oh dear God – there are so many of them…
Idiots and fools are now the leaders of choice to assist in the breakdown of society and the bewilderment and disillusionment of the population.
Who said the German’s don’t have a sense of humour
. He’s Charles Hawtrey’ s doppelganger
“He is a moronic pseudointellectual fraud and a menace,”
Umm sound like anyone else we know (I know which one of the many?) okay a clue – comes from Seattle (I believe). I was particularly thinking about the menace bit but the rest fits too.