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Certainly Sarrazin's book is being hailed as the work of a truth-teller: He sold 800,000 copies in three weeks this summer and his public readings are crammed with fans. I attended one the other day and was shocked to see how a teenage schoolgirl was shouted down and hustled out of the room by security guards for mildly questioning the Sarrazin thesis. Merkel, sensing danger, was quick to condemn at least one passage that seemed to suggest that there was a "Jewish gene."

This is not just about a book. Germany is beginning to realize that there is a gap in the party political spectrum to the right of Merkel's Christian Democrats, but to the left of the virulently undemocratic neo-Nazis. Opinion polls show that a party inspired by Sarrazin's thesis -- a party that would be critical of Islamic expansion in Europe and that seeks to control immigration -- could win 15 percent of the vote, thus seriously shaking up the German political system.

While Merkel reversed course to officially bury multiculturalism, one of her primary coalition partners, Horst Seehofer -- the leader of the Bavarian Christian Social Union -- called for a wholesale stop to immigration.