Divisive German banker launches immigration book

[August 30, 2010]  BERLIN (AP) -- A leading German banker whose remarks stereotyping Muslims and Jews have sparked outrage launched his new book on immigration issues Monday amid calls for his removal from the central bank's board.

Chancellor Angela Merkel says the Bundesbank should dismiss board member Thilo Sarrazin after he said that "all Jews share the same gene" and that Muslim immigrants in Europe are unwilling or incapable of integrating into western societies.

In the book, Sarrazin maintains that immigrants have taken from Germany's welfare system without contributing enough to the country.

The Jewish and Muslim communities have also condemned his remarks, which came ahead of the launch of his book, "Deutschland Schafft Sich Ab," or "Germany Abolishes Itself."

Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, renewed the chancellor's call for the Bundesbank to consider Sarrazin's future.

"These are comments that only damage and don't help integration in this country, which is a national duty," Seibert said at a government news conference.

Last year, Sarrazin, who previously served as regional finance minister for Berlin, told a magazine that "I do not need to accept anyone who lives on handouts from a state that it rejects, is not adequately concerned about the education of their children and constantly produces new, little headscarf-clad girls."

He later apologized for those remarks.

However, Sarrazin, 65, would know full well that his country has had little tolerance for anti-Semitic remarks since the Holocaust, and that many of Germany's immigrants have complained about racist remarks and xenophobic behavior.

Several German lawmakers have demand that Sarrazin step down from his post as board member at the Bundesbank and resign his party membership of the left-leaning Social Democrats -- demands that Sarrazin rejected.

[Associated Press]

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