Death of the Forests — Das Waldsterben — On the History of a Politically Useful Myth

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What brought the Greens to power in Germany in the 1980s, making them members of the parliament and a nationally visible political party/movement, was their ability to set into operation a highly dramatised alarm, indeed a panic-stricken mania: the fear that the German forest was bound for quick and total destruction thanks to industrial pollutants. A gigantic deception, but it worked, and what is surprising, its mendacity has never been subject to a reappraisal of Green  "ecological" alarmism. 

Mark Twain may be right in claiming that it is much harder to convince people that they have been deceived than to actually deceive them. 

The below film by Michael Miersch on the politically convenient lies about the death of the German forest that started the career of the Greens as a political force to reckon with, and establish them as a small but immensely powerful group that sets much of the political agenda in Germany nowadays.  

Here is also a link to a speech in which Michael Miersch deals with the ecological disasters perpetrated by the "ecological" movement. The lecture is available in German and English.

The above film documents that damage to the German forests was hugely exaggerated by politicians and the media and in truth largely due to natural causes. But the Greens get away with their unconscionable strategy of instilling groundless fear into the population to make the frightened eager for leadership and salvation.

It is high time for another go at Vergangenheitsbewältigung (originally meaning coming to terms with one's Nazi  past) in Germany.