It is by no means a politically neutral book, as had been claimed in advance; “The Journey to Europe” would not be, even if the name of the right-wing AfD politician Maximilian Krah did not adorn its cover.
The premise of the novel, about a rootless lawyer, is clear: decadence and modernity are brought to the fore, and precisely the European aristocracy, which has recently fallen somewhat into disrepute due to rape allegations, is mourned here. Sudeten and Baltic Germans speak, alongside a few well-placed provocations and long-winded historical digressions. Read it if you like. About Krah, who likes to attract attention with SS-minimizations, there are already enough abysses known, such that the European journey would not offer much outrage potential.
Krah and his protagonist share some biographical details, hence the former feels compelled to state on the very first page: I am not that. It’s a pity, really; perhaps Europe would be better off if Krah were merely a lawyer with an inferiority complex.
If Krah were not who he is, the novel, however, would hardly be discussed by anyone. The Vienna-based Castrum Verlag is a small press that tends to publish authors who in the scene might be seen as borderline cases. Consider, for instance, the incel-whisperer Sebastian Schwaerzel, who rejects the label of being right-wing.
Now the Leipzig Book Fair has cancelled the publisher’s event with Krah. On safety concerns — not surprising, given the uproars at the Antaios stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2017 — one might also have counted on a few leftists with tomatoes in their bags in Leipzig.
Krah sees himself canceled, and can thus extensively promote his forthcoming novel. The right can also advertise for its own book fair, which took place for the first time in November in Halle, and where those who only slyly enough questioned the Holocaust were allowed to appear.
One can find this ironic—that right-wing radicals like Krah lament the curtailment of their rights, while in their party programs they demand the curtailment of the rights of millions. Above all, however, this case exposes the old journalistic problem: even bad publicity is publicity.
