IT SOUNDS unlikely, but if you are exposed to a certain brand of shampoo, and do
not protect yourself, you will suffer harm. Don’t believe me? Read on.
ON the morning of Tuesday November 12, 2024, 64-year-old Stefan Niehoff was woken abruptly in his home in Ibind in Bavaria by police from Schweinfurt, a city 20 miles to the south west. (Schweinfurt – literally: Pigford. You couldn’t make it up.) They demanded entry, searched his home and seized his Samsung tablet.
What had Herr Niehoff done to warrant such an alarming dawn raid? Earlier that month, he had retweeted a very dangerous meme showing a slightly altered hair-care brand logo beneath an image of Germany’s then vice chancellor and economics minister, Robert Habeck. The brand logo (Schwarzkopf) had been adjusted to read Schwachkopf (simpleton, dimbo – literally ‘weak head.’) Habeck, a prominent member of the German Green Party, was not amused, which is putting it mildly. He filed a criminal complaint.
It turns out that Habeck is a bit of a sensitive cove. He is a client of the On-Line Hate monitoring company ‘SO DONE’ run by FDP politician Franziska Brandmann. The company trawls social media for ‘hate’ posts relevant to a client, who is then apprised of the posts. It is up to the client to decide what, if anything, to do about them. At the time, the vice chancellor had filed 805 criminal complaints. Anyone calling Herr Habeck ‘Vollpfosten’ (two short planks) would face fines of €2,100. One poster on Twitter pleaded: ‘Schreiben Sie sich bitte nicht wund, Herr @roberthabeck!’ [literally: please don’t write yourself sore.] But to no avail. Over the next 14 months, Stefan Niehoff was persecuted unto the grave. The initial charges against him were of disrespecting a public official. When that couldn’t be made to stick, his Twitter account was fine-tooth combed, and several ‘pro-Nazi’ memes were discovered. The cat was out of the bag, and the fish was on the hook. Niehoff was charged with ‘incitement to hatred’ and the ‘use of unconstitutional symbols’. In June 2025, he was fined €825.
Niehoff refused to pay and chose a full trial instead. He was found guilty. He was in the process of appealing against his conviction when he died, apparently after a stroke, in January this year.
What accounts for such vituperative, senseless persecution? There is a psychological phenomenon called Projection. Internal processes are experienced as happening outside the Self. All the undesirable traits to which a person tends are bundled up and projected outwards on to others. This is frequently so blatant to detached observers that it can take one’s breath away.
What is the root of Projection? Why does it arise? If a child is treated cruelly and callously; beaten, abused; abandoned, rejected, ignored; insulted, humiliated, criticised; that child will grow up believing that there is something awry in his life; that there is something wrong somewhere. He will not know exactly what is wrong, so he will take a guess. This guess always goes in one of two directions. Way one – that he is lacking in lovability, looks, skills or intelligence; that he is bad; that he should not have been born. Way two – that he is surrounded by people and/or circumstances that are defective, bad; that should not have been allowed to happen. He himself is near-perfect. The collateral damage this causes can be immense. Nothing and no one is spared in the desperate attempt to keep at bay the anger, fear and insecurity, which build up relentlessly until they become unendurable. Then they are squirted out, like venom, at any available and suitable target. The momentary relief is augmented if the target can be seen to suffer, or be permanently damaged. But such relief is short-lived. As sure as the day is long, the anger and insecurity steadily build up again. Such people are on a hair trigger. The slightest thing can set them off – even a ‘funny look’ and another expulsion of the poison sac is required. The unavoidable consequence of this is that the person becomes more and more unpopular and isolated. One by one, friends and acquaintances make their excuses and leave.
Whereas a normal person might interpret such shunning as something significant requiring attention, the projector is necessarily oblivious to the psychic process that has him in its grip. He doubles down; and down and down he goes. The process can be halted by early psychological intervention. But left to its own devices, the condition progressively worsens, each time sinking the victim further into the mire of anger, resentment and bitterness. The upshot is usually the destruction of an innocent victim, suicide, or both. We can see this in operation clearly with the vindictive prosecutions launched against those who would disrespect their Betters.
We now have ‘Hate Speech’ laws in this country. Don’t you ever dare criticise those who deem themselves above reproach. Such trespasses are intolerable – and you’d better take it SERIOUSLY. They may have plenty of deeply buried self-contempt, but another thing these people have deeply buried is a sense of humour. No jokes please. Especially pertinent and witty ones that hit the nail on the head. Here is Stefan Niehoff’s story, Schwachkopf-Affäre (Tale of a meme). The film is extraordinary; guileless and very moving. The love his Down’s Syndrome daughter Alexandra and her father have for each other will break your heart. Have a tissue and a barley sugar to hand. The film not only reveals the stupidity and sadism of tormenting this blameless man, but the consequences of all this pent-up stupidity and sadism on Germany itself. Turn subtitles on if you can’t speak German. Read them attentively. There are some chilling parallels in there.
