Anger as ex-finance minister warns Muslims 'making Germany stupid'

A LEADING German Social Democrat has written a book with an apocalyptic vision of his country sliding into poverty, stupidity and Muslim domination.

Thilo Sarrazin, 65, a former Berlin finance minister and current Bundesbank board member, is already under investigation by a public prosecutor for allegedly inciting racial hatred by blaming immigrants for making Germany "dumber" and calling Muslim children "underclass citizens."

Now his book, Germany is destroying itself: How we are gambling with our country, threatens the strained social fabric of the "multi-culti" Fatherland once more at a time of rising racial tensions and the radicalisation of Islamic youth.

"I don't want the country of my grandchildren and great-grandchildren to become, in large part, Muslim, that over wide areas Turkish and Arabic are spoken, where the women wear headscarves and the daily rhythms of life are dictated by the call of the Muezzin," he writes.

"Demographically, the enormous fertility of the Muslim migrants poses a threat for the cultural and civilization equilibrium in aging Europe."

Mr Sarrazin's book, published next week, began serialisation in the best-selling tabloid Bild yesterday and paints a "bleak portrayal of a country suffering the consequences of a low birth rate, immigration and poverty. Are we gambling with our well-being, social freedom and the stability of our society?"

He claims national identity will be lost in a few short decades.

In his book, he adds: "The social consequences of uncontrolled migration were always taboo, and one was not allowed to talk about the fact people are different - intellectually more or less talented, lazy or industrious, with more or less morality, and that education and equal chances have not changed that.

"If Turkish migrants, in the third generation, do not speak correct German then an air of hostility grows around them.

"But why, one asks, do other migrant groups not have these difficulties?"

He claims the basis for future prosperity is dying as Germany shrinks because of its dwindling birthrate - half what it was in the 1960s - and the educational abilities of new generations "seem to worsen continuously.

"We accept as inevitable that Germany becomes smaller and stupider."

Mr Sarrazin, who kept his Bundesbank post but who was stripped of certain responsibilities following his previous outbursts, has angered Turkish cultural and social organisations in Germany with his 464-page book.

One Muslim mayor of a Berlin district has told his electorate not to readthe book, whcih he dismissed as "garbage".

However, there are many who find Mr Sarrazin's claims strike a chord.Daily there are reports of Muslim - both born and converted - German youths heading to military training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan for terrorist training, while a study published in June claimed Muslim boys were under-achievers in school and susceptible to violent Islamic teaching.

Two weeks ago, the Mosque attended by the 11 September attack plotters in Hamburg was closed down after it was declared to be little more than a hate academy stirring up anti-western feelings.

Mr Sarrazin is unrepentant. He writes: "In Germany an army of integration-assigned Islamist researchers works intensively hand in hand with sociologists, political scientists, government representatives and a crowd of naive politicians on minimisation, self-deception and the denial of problems."