I’ve had no luck at Snopes and can find no debunkings on Google, but it can’t be true.

Booklets from a subsidiary of the German government’s Ministry for Family Affairs encourage parents to sexually massage their children as young as 1 to 3 years of age. Two 40-page booklets entitled “Love, Body and Playing Doctor” by the German Federal Health Education Center (Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung – BZgA) are aimed at parents – the first addressing children from 1-3 and the other children from 4-6 years of age.

“Fathers do not devote enough attention to the clitoris and vagina of their daughters. Their caresses too seldom pertain to these regions, while this is the only way the girls can develop a sense of pride in their sex,” reads the booklet regarding 1-3 year olds. The authors rationalize, “The child touches all parts of their father’s body, sometimes arousing him. The father should do the same.”…

The pamphlet advises parents to permit young children “unlimited masturbation” except where physical injury becomes apparent. It advises: “Children should learn that there is no such thing as shameful parts of the body. The body is a home, which you should be proud of.” For ages 4-6, the booklet recommends teaching children the movements of copulation.

Another product of the BZgA is a song book aimed at children of four and slightly older which includes several songs espousing masturbation. The song-book entitled “Nose, belly and bum” includes one song with the following lyrics: “When I touch my body, I discover what I have. I have a vagina, because I am a girl. Vagina is not only for peeing. When I touch it, I feel a pleasant tingle.”

Obligatory reading in nine different regions, according to a Polish newspaper. Until we have better proof, I’m calling shenanigans. Granted, one underestimates the German appetite for perversion at one’s peril, but even the land satirized in “Sprockets” wouldn’t stoop this low. Or would they?

In the meantime, I formally call upon Angela Merkel to renounce this treatise and let her nation’s children learn about the sex the healthy way — through text messages and web postings from Planned Parenthood about golden showers.

Update: Via one of our commenters, it looks like it’s real — and it’s already been pulled. Any German speakers out there want to do a proper translation of that article for us?

Update: Reader Niko K. e-mails:

I’m a native German. The quotes at lifesite.net seem exaggerated. The spiegel.de article’s most damning excerpts hint at parents encouraging their kids “to experiment” with their bodies, and the actual concerns were that pedophiles might misconstrue the booklets as justification for, well, being pedophiles that they are.