Will American Wokeness Destroy the Rest of the West?

So cheered the Berliner Zeitung a few days ago after it was revealed that Bild, Europe's largest newspaper, had been forced to sack its editor — and one of Germany's most popular journalists — following allegations made in a Ben Smith New York Times article of affairs with junior colleagues.  The piece also suggested that Axel Springer SE, the German publishing giant that owns Bild, is out of touch with today's woke and #metoo values.  Moreover, a few weeks earlier, Springer announced it was going to purchase Politico, the U.S. politics website, for about $1B — the German publisher's largest-ever investment.  One more reason to adopt the new values that now dominate American capitalist culture.  After all, as Ben Smith put it, an American manager would have been fired for as little as five percent of the allegations Reichelt faces.

All in all, we can say Springer has sacrificed at the altar of woke capitalism an excellent newspaper editor — or, in Springer boss Mathias Döpfner's words, "the last and only journalist in Germany who still courageously rebels against the new GDR authoritarian state."

Meanwhile, the debate is raging throughout the country about gender-neutral and inclusive language.  Unfortunately, the whole matter is made more and more complicated by German grammar.