Germany megathread

[President Johnson]

Appears we don't have a Germany megathread yet.

I'm going to start with this one:

Stuttgart: Police probe 'unprecedented' night of rioting

Police have said hundreds of people tore through the southwestern German city overnight, clashing with officers and looting shops. One regional politician described the violence as "civil war-like scenes."

Police in Stuttgart have arrested 24 suspects over rioting and looting that erupted in the German city early Sunday morning.

Of those in custody, 12 are German citizens and at least seven of them are under the age of 18, said Vice President Thomas Berger.

Speaking at a press conference, he told reporters the violence escalated at around midnight after officers began carrying out drug checks in Schlossplatz, the city's main square.

Police said hundreds of mainly young people who had gathered there started throwing stones and bottles at authorities, smashing patrol cars and breaking shop windows. They then tore through the main shopping district.

Officers estimated that up to 500 people were involved in the unrest, which took several hours to bring under control.

[...]

Deutsche Welle (English)

This is basically my hometown, inner city is about 20km away from here. Stuttgart has not seen this kind of violence in the past. As their article said, it didn't have politicial motives, apparantly a drug raid was the starting point. Usually Stuttgart is one of the safest cities in Germany, along with Munich.

However, I've noticed nightlife in Stuttgart has changed over the years, with more "strange people" out there. I actually do prefer nightlife in surrounding cities, especially in our county.

Footage:

https://twitter.com/SWRAktuellBW/status/1274606857865302018
https://twitter.com/SophiaMariaKa/status/1274611752601255937

[palandio]

I'm not sure which possibility I should find more disturbing:

1. The riots being (at least partially) planned and coordinated. The occassional use of ski masks and bludgeons points towards this direction.

2. Several hundred people ("party folk") hanging around in small groups with no common organization on a normal Saturday night in the plain center of Stuttgart who then spontaneously engage in massive violence. This is basically what the police implied in today's press conference.

Probably a bit of both. Apparently there have been minor incidents and tensions on the past weekends. So maybe something was already building up.

[palandio]

Stuttgart's bar and discotheque owners are now complaining about the police describing the Schlossgarten mob as "Party- und Event-Szene".

[CumbrianLefty]

Appears we don't have a Germany megathread yet.

I'm sure there was one, maybe it has been locked?

[palandio]

Appears we don't have a Germany megathread yet.

I'm sure there was one, maybe it has been locked?

Until November 2018 there was "German Elections & Politics" which was closed and locked because it had become too long. Since then there have been "German elections (federal & EU level)" and "German Elections (statewide & community level)", but apparently no general event/politics thread.

In fact I find continuous megathreads relatively useful. It might at first seem tempting to give more prominence to an event or ongoing situation by creating a new thread dedicated to it, but after some time the new thread tends to fall into obscurity. Instead (reasonably confined) megathreads make it easier to follow events over time.

Thank you President Johnson!

[NewYorkExpress]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/30/europe/german-special-forces-dissolved-right-wing-intl/index.html

An elite German military unit which reportedly had a number of extreme right-wing members will be disbanded, a source told CNN on Tuesday.


"The Second Commando Company of the KSK will be dissolved," the source said, asking not to be named ahead of an announcement Wednesday.

The KSK is the unified command for German Army special forces -- designed in the 1990s to be the equivalent of US Special Operations Command, according Janes, a defense analysis firm.

The unit has around 1,400 soldiers who embark on operations such anti-terror campaigns and hostage situations, according to the AFP news agency.

[Middle-aged Europe]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/30/europe/german-special-forces-dissolved-right-wing-intl/index.html

An elite German military unit which reportedly had a number of extreme right-wing members will be disbanded, a source told CNN on Tuesday.


"The Second Commando Company of the KSK will be dissolved," the source said, asking not to be named ahead of an announcement Wednesday.

The KSK is the unified command for German Army special forces -- designed in the 1990s to be the equivalent of US Special Operations Command, according Janes, a defense analysis firm.

The unit has around 1,400 soldiers who embark on operations such anti-terror campaigns and hostage situations, according to the AFP news agency.

Yeah, the recurring "Nazi scandals" have plagued the German Armed Forces for decades now.

In contrast to the militaries of countries with a much a much longer democratic history (US, UK, France...) the German military never fully manged to disconnect itself from the traditions of the Wehrmacht and the culture it entails. That doesn't mean that most German soldiers are neo-Nazis, but there's significant minority that just doesn't want to go away no matter how many reforms the top brass have implemented.

In the case at hand here, a specific problem with the KSK apparently was that as a special forces unit they have existed in a pretty isolated state from the regular military therefore facilitating a self-contained environment in which Nazis were essentially enabled of taking over most of the KSK.

(In more recent times, the Nazi scandals were occassionally supplement by the Islamist scandals... apparently the concept of armed conflict and maybe a strict hierarchy attracts both extreme right-wingers and fundamentalist Muslims.)

[NewYorkExpress]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-germany-brothels-idUSKCN24D09U

Prostitutes demonstrated in Hamburg’s red light district late on Saturday evening demanding that Germany’s brothels be allowed to reopen after months of closure to curb the spread of coronavirus.

With shops, restaurants and bars all open again in Germany, where prostitution is legal, sex workers say they are being singled out and deprived of their livelihoods despite not posing a greater health risk.

[Middle-aged Europe]

The numbers are a bit of a foregone conclusion, but on the left you see "who would you vote for?" and on the right "who will win?" for Germany.

[CumbrianLefty]

As in this country, *some* left wingers want to see Trump win - either for muddled "accelerationist" reasons or as "punishment" of the Democrats for going centrist again. Others have simply become deeply pessimistic and literally expect the worst at all times.

[Middle-aged Europe]

So I just went to observe to big, fat anti-COVID restrictions protest in Berlin. My primary take-aways from there:

- There was a lot of flag-waving going around. The most commonly seen flag seemed in fact to be the Black-White-Red flag of the German empire (1871-1918), also a widely used symbol of full-on neo-Nazis because the Swastika flag itself is outlawed around here, while the Black-White-Red had also been been used as Germany's official flag in concurrence with the Swastika for a transitional period between 1933 and 1935. The apparent ubiquity of that flag today surprised even me a bit. Didn't actually expect everything to be that right-wing.

- The second most commonly seen flag at the protests seemed to be the state flag of the Russian Federation. Go figure. This also included a guy with a Vladimir Putin t-shirt I had seen walking around.

- The third most common symbol was the "Q". Some people who had arrived to the protests in their car had the habit of donning a big, white "Q" symbol on their vehicles. There were even some comibinations with aforementioned symbols, for instance I also saw a woman protestor wearing a t-shirt with a big "Q" in the Black-White-Red colours of the empire.

- A few Trump fans were also waving an American flag, often in conurrence with the Russian flag or even the Black-White-Red one. In Germany, the Stars and Stripes seem to be increasingly becoming a symbol carried by Nazis as a result of the presidency of Donald Trump. But maybe this would change again with a Biden win in November.

- Another notable aspect was that there seemed to be significant age gap between protestors and counter-protestors. While anti-Corona restrictions protestors had an average age of about 50, pro-restrictions counter-protestors were more about 30. This seems to be line with the fact that Pegida and AfD in Germany as well as Trumpism in America is in large parts a rebellion of middle-aged white people against the system. Another feature distinguishing protestors and counter-protestors was that the former group was often mask-less, while the latter group usually wore a mask.

- I happened to come by at a corner were anti-Corona restrictions protestors and the Antifa was almost directly faced against each other. The mood was pretty aggressive there and I sometimes expected a brawl to start any second. But in the end, it limited itself to mutual shouting, insulting, and name-calling.


UPDATE: And I just read in the news that the police has officially dispersed the protests due to non-compliance with phyiscal distancing rules.

Demonstrations in Berlin continue to a degree, but I'm glad the police has stepped in. The court should never have ruled to allow the demonstration in the first place given in what kind of situation we find ourselves in. Many of the protesters are AfD-hacks and other deluded folks anyway. The most hilarious thing is these people complaining about "dictatorship" now. They have no clue what a dictatorship is actually like.

Well, I certainly get the point that banning such protests would only help to embolden them and radicalize them further. And of course, at this point this could very well be the strategy of right-wing extremists: Deliberately not wearing any masks and not keeping distance to fellow protestors so that such protests get banned and so that they can point out how awfully authoritarian everything has become.

However, I do agree that seeing a large-scale (40,000 people?) protest march against a alleged "Corona dictatorship" which primarily dons the flag of the old German empire and of Russia definitely exhibits a certain amount of cognitive dissonance and/or hypocrisy.

^^

Since this ongoing story from the international COVID thread is increasingly about right-wing extremism in Germany rather than the coronavirus pandemic itself, I decided to outsource it and continue with it in this thread here. Probably makes more sense.

Anway, later this evening at least a couple of dozen COVID restriction protestors, waving Black-White-Red flags from the Imperial era, broke through barricades in front the Reichstag and atttempted to storm the entrance of the German parliament, throwing rocks and bottles at nearby police officers. The protestors were eventually repelled by the police, using pepper spray.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, this is now the top story in Germany and possibly also the moment where the protests are ultimately backfiring on the protestors, since they went a bit too far for their own good.

As I indicated in the beginning, the narrative is now not about COVID restrictions any longer, but about violent neo-Nazis and how neo-Nazis have effectively taken over and assimilated the anti-restrictions movement.

[NewYorkExpress]

So I just went to observe to big, fat anti-COVID restrictions protest in Berlin. My primary take-aways from there:

- There was a lot of flag-waving going around. The most commonly seen flag seemed in fact to be the Black-White-Red flag of the German empire (1871-1918), also a widely used symbol of full-on neo-Nazis because the Swastika flag itself is outlawed around here, while the Black-White-Red had also been been used as Germany's official flag in concurrence with the Swastika for a transitional period between 1933 and 1935. The apparent ubiquity of that flag today surprised even me a bit. Didn't actually expect everything to be that right-wing.

- The second most commonly seen flag at the protests seemed to be the state flag of the Russian Federation. Go figure. This also included a guy with a Vladimir Putin t-shirt I had seen walking around.

- The third most common symbol was the "Q". Some people who had arrived to the protests in their car had the habit of donning a big, white "Q" symbol on their vehicles. There were even some comibinations with aforementioned symbols, for instance I also saw a woman protestor wearing a t-shirt with a big "Q" in the Black-White-Red colours of the empire.

- A few Trump fans were also waving an American flag, often in conurrence with the Russian flag or even the Black-White-Red one. In Germany, the Stars and Stripes seem to be increasingly becoming a symbol carried by Nazis as a result of the presidency of Donald Trump. But maybe this would change again with a Biden win in November.

- Another notable aspect was that there seemed to be significant age gap between protestors and counter-protestors. While anti-Corona restrictions protestors had an average age of about 50, pro-restrictions counter-protestors were more about 30. This seems to be line with the fact that Pegida and AfD in Germany as well as Trumpism in America is in large parts a rebellion of middle-aged white people against the system. Another feature distinguishing protestors and counter-protestors was that the former group was often mask-less, while the latter group usually wore a mask.

- I happened to come by at a corner were anti-Corona restrictions protestors and the Antifa was almost directly faced against each other. The mood was pretty aggressive there and I sometimes expected a brawl to start any second. But in the end, it limited itself to mutual shouting, insulting, and name-calling.


UPDATE: And I just read in the news that the police has officially dispersed the protests due to non-compliance with phyiscal distancing rules.

Demonstrations in Berlin continue to a degree, but I'm glad the police has stepped in. The court should never have ruled to allow the demonstration in the first place given in what kind of situation we find ourselves in. Many of the protesters are AfD-hacks and other deluded folks anyway. The most hilarious thing is these people complaining about "dictatorship" now. They have no clue what a dictatorship is actually like.

Well, I certainly get the point that banning such protests would only help to embolden them and radicalize them further. And of course, at this point this could very well be the strategy of right-wing extremists: Deliberately not wearing any masks and not keeping distance to fellow protestors so that such protests get banned and so that they can point out how awfully authoritarian everything has become.

However, I do agree that seeing a large-scale (40,000 people?) protest march against a alleged "Corona dictatorship" which primarily dons the flag of the old German empire and of Russia definitely exhibits a certain amount of cognitive dissonance and/or hypocrisy.

^^

Since this ongoing story from the international COVID thread is increasingly about right-wing extremism in Germany rather than the coronavirus pandemic itself, I decided to outsource it and continue with it in this thread here. Probably makes more sense.

Anway, later this evening at least a couple of dozen COVID restriction protestors, waving Black-White-Red flags from the Imperial era, broke through barricades in front the Reichstag and atttempted to storm the entrance of the German parliament, throwing rocks and bottles at nearby police officers. The protestors were eventually repelled by the police, using pepper spray.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, this is now the top story in Germany and possibly also the moment where the protests are ultimately backfiring on the protestors, since they went a bit too far for their own good.

As I indicated in the beginning, the narrative is now not about COVID restrictions any longer, but about violent neo-Nazis and how neo-Nazis have effectively taken over and assimilated the anti-restrictions movement.

Eventually, either Merkel or one of her successors are going to have to make the decision to ban AfD.

They literally are Germany's new Nazi Party.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Eventually, either Merkel or one of her successors are going to have to make the decision to ban AfD.

They literally are Germany's new Nazi Party.

According to the constitution, political parties can only be banned by Germany's supreme court, which was specifically set up as a safeguard since it was the Nazis who simply could ban any party they wanted to back in 1933 under the laws of that time. The government could theoretically file a motion to such an effect. In the past, the supreme court had repeatedly refused to ban the neo-Nazi NPD though.


Anway, here are some pics of the events in front the Reichstag:

[PSOL]

So what’s going on with the Left party? Heard their leadership is about to change.

[Middle-aged Europe]

So what’s going on with the Left party? Heard their leadership is about to change.

Yeah, Kipping and Riexinger won't run again after eight years as co-chairs. Unclear who's gonna be their successors. Wagenknecht has been gone for a while now too, so the party lacks a prominent figurehead who has the pull to bring voters to the polls. Speaking of which, polling numbers numbers having been that great either lately (7-8%), having lost a big chunk of the mere protest vote to the AfD. Lately, some prominent Left representatives - including the outgoing party chairs - have said some positive things about a possible coalition with Greens and SPD next year.

[President Johnson]

The numbers are a bit of a foregone conclusion, but on the left you see "who would you vote for?" and on the right "who will win?" for Germany.

If Germany became the 51st state, it would have something like 90 or 100 electoral votes and lock out Republicans from power for ever

[palandio]

So I just went to observe to big, fat anti-COVID restrictions protest in Berlin. My primary take-aways from there:

- There was a lot of flag-waving going around. The most commonly seen flag seemed in fact to be the Black-White-Red flag of the German empire (1871-1918), also a widely used symbol of full-on neo-Nazis because the Swastika flag itself is outlawed around here, while the Black-White-Red had also been been used as Germany's official flag in concurrence with the Swastika for a transitional period between 1933 and 1935. The apparent ubiquity of that flag today surprised even me a bit. Didn't actually expect everything to be that right-wing.

- The second most commonly seen flag at the protests seemed to be the state flag of the Russian Federation. Go figure. This also included a guy with a Vladimir Putin t-shirt I had seen walking around.

- The third most common symbol was the "Q". Some people who had arrived to the protests in their car had the habit of donning a big, white "Q" symbol on their vehicles. There were even some comibinations with aforementioned symbols, for instance I also saw a woman protestor wearing a t-shirt with a big "Q" in the Black-White-Red colours of the empire.

- A few Trump fans were also waving an American flag, often in conurrence with the Russian flag or even the Black-White-Red one. In Germany, the Stars and Stripes seem to be increasingly becoming a symbol carried by Nazis as a result of the presidency of Donald Trump. But maybe this would change again with a Biden win in November.

- Another notable aspect was that there seemed to be significant age gap between protestors and counter-protestors. While anti-Corona restrictions protestors had an average age of about 50, pro-restrictions counter-protestors were more about 30. This seems to be line with the fact that Pegida and AfD in Germany as well as Trumpism in America is in large parts a rebellion of middle-aged white people against the system. Another feature distinguishing protestors and counter-protestors was that the former group was often mask-less, while the latter group usually wore a mask.

- I happened to come by at a corner were anti-Corona restrictions protestors and the Antifa was almost directly faced against each other. The mood was pretty aggressive there and I sometimes expected a brawl to start any second. But in the end, it limited itself to mutual shouting, insulting, and name-calling.


UPDATE: And I just read in the news that the police has officially dispersed the protests due to non-compliance with phyiscal distancing rules.

Demonstrations in Berlin continue to a degree, but I'm glad the police has stepped in. The court should never have ruled to allow the demonstration in the first place given in what kind of situation we find ourselves in. Many of the protesters are AfD-hacks and other deluded folks anyway. The most hilarious thing is these people complaining about "dictatorship" now. They have no clue what a dictatorship is actually like.

Well, I certainly get the point that banning such protests would only help to embolden them and radicalize them further. And of course, at this point this could very well be the strategy of right-wing extremists: Deliberately not wearing any masks and not keeping distance to fellow protestors so that such protests get banned and so that they can point out how awfully authoritarian everything has become.

However, I do agree that seeing a large-scale (40,000 people?) protest march against a alleged "Corona dictatorship" which primarily dons the flag of the old German empire and of Russia definitely exhibits a certain amount of cognitive dissonance and/or hypocrisy.

^^

Since this ongoing story from the international COVID thread is increasingly about right-wing extremism in Germany rather than the coronavirus pandemic itself, I decided to outsource it and continue with it in this thread here. Probably makes more sense.

Anway, later this evening at least a couple of dozen COVID restriction protestors, waving Black-White-Red flags from the Imperial era, broke through barricades in front the Reichstag and atttempted to storm the entrance of the German parliament, throwing rocks and bottles at nearby police officers. The protestors were eventually repelled by the police, using pepper spray.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, this is now the top story in Germany and possibly also the moment where the protests are ultimately backfiring on the protestors, since they went a bit too far for their own good.

As I indicated in the beginning, the narrative is now not about COVID restrictions any longer, but about violent neo-Nazis and how neo-Nazis have effectively taken over and assimilated the anti-restrictions movement.

Fortunately I was a few hundred kilometers away, hence I have to rely on what I read online and elsewhere, but here is what I gathered:

- The organizers and much of the crowd cover a wide spectrum from mere anti-COVID measure fatigue to COVID denialism to outright conspiracy theories. The ideological background is vast and diffuse, but with a heavy bent towards esoteric stuff and anti-vaxers.

- During the last weeks there has been a heavy mobilization for the protests among the far-right scene and in particular the Reichsbürger scene. For anyone who has ever been to a larger protest it should be clear that the flag-wavers are usually to be found among the most organized parts of the protesters, with the most radical or sectarian groups being overrepresented. (So-called Reichsbürger consider the Federal Republic of Germany to be illegitimate and claim that the German Reich has never been legally abolished.)

- As far as I can tell at least a part of the Russian and American flags has to be viewed in this context, because the Reichsbürger demanded a "peace treaty" from Russia and America in front of the Russian embassy. (You might ask what this has to do with COVID-19. Honestly I don't know.)

- In this regard the Berlin police department and Berlin's Senator (=secretary/minister) of the Interior Andreas Geisel were right: The massive mobilization of the militant Reichsbürger meant a threat to the public security, plus they correctly expected that the protesters would not even pretend to abide by the epidemiologic measures (keeping distance, masks). Geisel's mistake (and yes, I consider it a mistake) was to declare after the ban that he didn't want the protests in Berlin for political reasons.

- Altogether I think that yesterday was a very successful day for the Reichsbürger and related far-right groups. They are continuously building ties with more mainstream (yet still slightly bizarre) groups and increased polarization will help them to channel insecurity, discontent and fatigue towards their bizarre agenda and depict themselves as the only alternative.

- "Pro-restriction counter-protestors" seems like an odd designation to me. It often happens that people are protesting against "xyz" and then there is a counter-protest and it's not so much pro-"xyz" per se and more against the people protesting and their motives. And rarely has this been the case as much as here in my opinion.

[President Johnson]

The next plague is here: It's been confirmed the African swine fever, already a problem in Poland, has arrived in Germany. A dead wild boar in Brandenburg near the Polish border has been tested positive yesterday. It's yet unknown whether there are additional cases in other areas. While harmless to humans, an infection always ends deadly for wild boars or pigs. Worse are potential economic consequences for farms: South Korea already halted imports of pork from Germany. China and others may follow soon. It's been reported that domestic pigs in the area will be "quarantined" in their barns in an effort to prevent a potential spread.

Isolated cases from this plague were reported from Belgium earlier, but it appears they could get it under control.

https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1304061565864296448

[NewYorkExpress]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54174393

Twenty-nine German police officers have been suspended for sharing pictures of Adolf Hitler and depictions of refugees in gas chambers on their phones.

The officers also used far-right chatrooms where swastikas and other Nazi symbols were shared, officials in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) said.

NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul said it was a "disgrace for NRW police".

It follows several other incidences of far-right extremism among the German security services.

More than 200 police officers were involved in raids on 34 police stations and private homes linked to 11 main suspects. The officers are said to have shared more than 100 neo-Nazi images in WhatsApp groups.

Some of the suspects face charges of spreading Nazi propaganda and hate speech. Others are accused of not reporting their colleagues' actions.

[Pick Up the Phone]

The Bundestag's Committee on Health has today rejected a proposal to legalize cannabis (sponsored by the GRÜNEN) with CDU/CSU, SPD and AfD all voting against and FDP abstaining. LINKE in favor.

Might further weaken the SPD's position with young and urban voters. I heard #NiemehrSPD (#NeverAgainSPD) was trending on Twitter after the vote...

Pretty sure that the GRÜNEN will demand full legalization (among many other things) after the 2021 elections. And the CDU/CSU, being the CDU/CSU, will eventually agree for tactical reasons.

[President Johnson]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54174393

Twenty-nine German police officers have been suspended for sharing pictures of Adolf Hitler and depictions of refugees in gas chambers on their phones.

The officers also used far-right chatrooms where swastikas and other Nazi symbols were shared, officials in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) said.

NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul said it was a "disgrace for NRW police".

It follows several other incidences of far-right extremism among the German security services.

More than 200 police officers were involved in raids on 34 police stations and private homes linked to 11 main suspects. The officers are said to have shared more than 100 neo-Nazi images in WhatsApp groups.

Some of the suspects face charges of spreading Nazi propaganda and hate speech. Others are accused of not reporting their colleagues' actions.

This was major news today and is absolutely disgusting and appalling. I hope all of them get severe pubishments beyond the firing. Unfortunately, political leaders in all parties, especially the CDU though, for all too long lived in denial about these problems. At least today, NRW's Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU), admitted there are too many of "single incidents".

I think there needs to be a thorough investigation throughout all police ranks when it comes to rightwing extremism. The overwhelming majority of police are fine people, but a broader investigation is needed in their own interest to sort out the bad apples who have no right to wear the uniform of this country.

[NewYorkExpress]

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54204356

German police have launched a homicide investigation after a woman died during a cyber-attack on a hospital.

Hackers disabled computer systems at Düsseldorf University Hospital and the patient died while doctors attempted to transfer her to another hospital.

Cologne prosecutors officially launched a negligent homicide case this morning saying hackers could be blamed.

One expert said, if confirmed, it would be the first known case of a life being lost as a result of a hack.

The ransomware attack hit the hospital on the night of 9 September, scrambling data and making computer systems inoperable.
.....

The female patient, from Düsseldorf, was due to have scheduled life-saving treatment and was transferred to another hospital in Wuppertal which is roughly 19 miles (30km) away.

Some local reports suggest the hackers did not intend to attack the hospital and in fact were trying to target a different university. Once the hackers had realised their mistake it is reported they gave the hospital the decryption key without demanding payment before disappearing.

I'm not an expert on German law, but if it can proven that the hackers are responsible for this patient's death, then what law might apply, and what would the appropriate sentence be?

[Yeahsayyeah]

Without being able to use proper English terminology German courts in the last years have expanded on murder verdicts on grounds of "conditional intent" (see: killing people during illegal car races on streets). This seems broadly applicable here.

[Hnv1]

The Bundestag's Committee on Health has today rejected a proposal to legalize cannabis (sponsored by the GRÜNEN) with CDU/CSU, SPD and AfD all voting against and FDP abstaining. LINKE in favor.

Might further weaken the SPD's position with young and urban voters. I heard #NiemehrSPD (#NeverAgainSPD) was trending on Twitter after the vote...

Pretty sure that the GRÜNEN will demand full legalization (among many other things) after the 2021 elections. And the CDU/CSU, being the CDU/CSU, will eventually agree for tactical reasons.

Seems odd considering drug use in Germany is pretty much out in the open in most cities I’ve been to

[Pick Up the Phone]

The Bundestag's Committee on Health has today rejected a proposal to legalize cannabis (sponsored by the GRÜNEN) with CDU/CSU, SPD and AfD all voting against and FDP abstaining. LINKE in favor.

Might further weaken the SPD's position with young and urban voters. I heard #NiemehrSPD (#NeverAgainSPD) was trending on Twitter after the vote...

Pretty sure that the GRÜNEN will demand full legalization (among many other things) after the 2021 elections. And the CDU/CSU, being the CDU/CSU, will eventually agree for tactical reasons.

Seems odd considering drug use in Germany is pretty much out in the open in most cities I’ve been to

Haha, that's the gap between reality and politics... in fact, there are some polls that have shown a healthy majority for cannabis legalization. It's only that the CDU/CSU has no incentive to concede the issue (right now) for two reasons: (1) It would appear as if they were abandoning another 'conservative' position and may thus cause intra-party discomfort; (2) it would not get them anything in exchange. At least the latter point could change if there are coalition talks between CDU/CSU and Greens in 2021.