German government funds brochure attacking natural gender roles

The 60-page manual was produced by the Berlin-based Amadeu Antonio Foundation (AAS), an organisation founded by Anetta Kahane, who is an ex-Stasi German journalist, and notorius left-wing activist against “racism and hate speech”.

Kahane has publicly admitted acting as an informant for the Stasi in the former East Germany.

The Ministry for State Security or State Security Service, commonly known as the Stasi, was the official state security service of the German Democratic Republic, described as one of the most repressive intelligence and secret police agencies ever to have existed.

Kahane’s project was co-funded by the Family Ministry, which is a cabinet-level ministry of the Federal Republic of Germany.

The AfD noted the “Stasi methods” set out in the manual to turn children against the values of their parents. “The army of the spies has recently infiltrated the kindergartens and kindergartens,” the party pointed out on Facebook.

German tabloid Bild described it as a training guide for recruiting children as potential “informants” against their own parents.

The manual also instructs teachers on “[H]ow to deal with it when teachers or parents make anti-refugee or racist statements in front of children, or directly attack refugee children or parents?”

The booklet is called Ene, mene, muh – und raus bist du! [Eenie, meenie, miney, moh – out you go!] Inequality and infant pedagogy”, and was penned by the Amadeu Antonio Institute describing the tell-tale signs of a conservative household as “ponytails and dresses for girls, and a strong interest in sports among boys”.

One particular description of two children was particularly disturbing because it portrayed children adopting natural gender roles as being “right-wing”.

“The girl wears dresses and braids, she is directed to do house work at home, while the boy faces strong physical challenges and drills,” states the manual, as if that is a bad thing.

If children draw shapes that even vaguely resemble runes or swastikas, it could be a sign they are being reared in a “Nazi” household.

If the children have no discipline issues, do craft work at home, are in good physical shape or seem comfortable with traditional gender roles, they are probably being reared in an authoritarian “Volkish” household, the manual warns.

Also, parents complaining about boys wearing dresses or putting on nail polish at the school, suffer from stereotypes about masculinity or femininity that could serve a bridging function towards “far-right” notions.

Mainstream German conservative parties have also criticised the booklet while their Socialist coalition partners have welcomed it.

“The initiator of this expensive waste of paper at the expense of the taxpayer is Federal Minister of Family Affairs Franziska Giffey (SPD). It exposes a universal control attitude, one known otherwise only from totalitarian systems.

“Already in the GDR and in the Nazi state, children were subjected to such a moral review and even used as informers against their own parents. Privacy and freedom of expression are the highest assets of a functioning democracy. It is by no means the task of the state and kindergartens to check the way of life or the worldview of their parents,” the AfD noted in a Facebook post.

Matthias Breitfeld, an East German dissident who spent 28 months in a GDR prison, said: “We already have conditions like in the Third Reich and in GDR times. Opinion restriction, sanctioning of opponents of the government.”

He said “spying on people, propaganda against dissenters, totally mendacious media, false reporting” were already common.

“If they had not gone so far in their crimes that people were murdered and an unspeakable war had broken out, our government would have long since set up new camps for politically dissident thinkers.

“Am I crazy? No, I sat [in prison] for 28 months as a dissident in GDR times and today have the same feelings, it is no different.”

The AAS has denied wrongdoing and is now complaining about receiving hundreds of “hate phone calls” from angry Germans.

The timing of the manual is particularly curious, because earlier this year, the president of Germany’s Teachers Association warned that schools with over 70 percent of migrant children are spiraling out of control, with attacks on female teachers and and non-Muslim children becoming more frequent.

Heinz-Peter Meidinger, President of the Teachers Association, told Bild that a story in Berlin about Muslim migrant children sending each other ISIS beheading videos was not a lone incident, but instead such cases were “spreading like wildfire”.