Germany megathread

[CumbrianLefty]

Didn't the CDU get themselves into a real mess over "flat taxes" during that campaign?

Yes, Merkel's shadow finance minister Paul Kirchhof had started a debate on flat taxes, but it didn't make it into the official campaign platform. Generally, the CDU was very conservative in the early 2000s.

Which of course didn't stop Schroeder and his party using it to great effect.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Didn't the CDU get themselves into a real mess over "flat taxes" during that campaign?

Yes, Merkel's shadow finance minister Paul Kirchhof had started a debate on flat taxes, but it didn't make it into the official campaign platform. Generally, the CDU was very conservative in the early 2000s.

If the CDU has gone through various phases of being very conservative, somewhat conservative/mixed, and centrist throughout its history, what time periods would you say those were?

E.g. was the CDU of the 1960s significantly different than the party of the 1950s or 1970s? When did it turn from ordoliberalism to embracing more neoliberal economics? etc.

(obviously I understand that this an oversimplification, but as an American in Sweden I still don't really grasp Christian democracy in Germany that well)

[republicanbayer]

Didn't the CDU get themselves into a real mess over "flat taxes" during that campaign?

Yes, Merkel's shadow finance minister Paul Kirchhof had started a debate on flat taxes, but it didn't make it into the official campaign platform. Generally, the CDU was very conservative in the early 2000s.

If the CDU has gone through various phases of being very conservative, somewhat conservative/mixed, and centrist throughout its history, what time periods would you say those were?

E.g. was the CDU of the 1960s significantly different than the party of the 1950s or 1970s? When did it turn from ordoliberalism to embracing more neoliberal economics? etc.

(obviously I understand that this an oversimplification, but as an American in Sweden I still don't really grasp Christian democracy in Germany that well)

There might be other Germans on the forum, who can give you a better answer, but from what I know, in the late 1940s and early 50s the main agenda of conservatives was making Germany a part of the western alliance, the European integration, friendship with France and a remilitarization whereas the SPD favored neutrality. Internally, ordoliberals had defeated those in the CDU who had favored a socialist-like economy or outright socialism in the late 1940s. These principles guided the CDU administrations of Adenauer and Erhard.

I don’t know a lot about the Grand Coalition led by Kiesinger or the CDU in the early 1970s, though I think Rainer Barzel was considered more conservative than his successor, Helmut Kohl.
Kohl himself was a moderate as leader of the opposition and as chancellor, who generally shied away from big reforms, with the exception of European integration and German reunification, both of which would not have happened without him. On economic issues, there was a constant struggle against high unemployment and high deficits, only made worse by the reunification and the Gulf War.

In the early 2000s, the CDU was extremely conservative, especially on economic issues. The party convention of 2003 in Leipzig led to a neoliberal platform. Also, Merkel supported the Iraq War and opposed multiculturalism. From 2005 to 2013, Merkel was governing as a moderate conservative, I would say, since then she has moved considerably to the left on many issues. Nowadays the CDU simply considers itself a centrist party.

[President Johnson]

Didn't the CDU get themselves into a real mess over "flat taxes" during that campaign?

Yes, Merkel's shadow finance minister Paul Kirchhof had started a debate on flat taxes, but it didn't make it into the official campaign platform. Generally, the CDU was very conservative in the early 2000s.

Which of course didn't stop Schroeder and his party using it to great effect.

I really loved how Schröder mocked Kirchhof by referring to him as "that professor from Nuremberg".

[CumbrianLefty]

Didn't the CDU get themselves into a real mess over "flat taxes" during that campaign?

Yes, Merkel's shadow finance minister Paul Kirchhof had started a debate on flat taxes, but it didn't make it into the official campaign platform. Generally, the CDU was very conservative in the early 2000s.

Which of course didn't stop Schroeder and his party using it to great effect.

I really loved how Schröder mocked Kirchhof by referring to him as "that professor from Nuremberg".

Whatever else you say about him, he was a genuinely terrific campaigner and that is certainly something the SPD could do with right now.

[Pick Up the Phone]

Didn't the CDU get themselves into a real mess over "flat taxes" during that campaign?

Yes, Merkel's shadow finance minister Paul Kirchhof had started a debate on flat taxes, but it didn't make it into the official campaign platform. Generally, the CDU was very conservative in the early 2000s.

Which of course didn't stop Schroeder and his party using it to great effect.

I really loved how Schröder mocked Kirchhof by referring to him as "that professor from Nuremberg".

Heidelberg it was. More beautiful place to live and teach anyway.

[Pick Up the Phone]

I don’t know a lot about the Grand Coalition led by Kiesinger or the CDU in the early 1970s, though I think Rainer Barzel was considered more conservative than his successor, Helmut Kohl.
Kohl himself was a moderate as leader of the opposition and as chancellor, who generally shied away from big reforms, with the exception of European integration and German reunification, both of which would not have happened without him. On economic issues, there was a constant struggle against high unemployment and high deficits, only made worse by the reunification and the Gulf War.

It really is interesting how our perceptions change over time. You're right, Kohl was not considered overly conservative during the 1970s and 1980s, whereas he is nowadays widely regarded as an administrator of conservative stasis. In the early 1980s, he famously called for a 'geistig-moralische Wende'* but then he didn't do much as a Chancellor on this front. The most important project of the Kohl era (aside from the reunification of Germany) was to foster European integration. When it comes to social and cultural issues, conservatism has been in a defensive position ever since.  

That being said, the CDU/CSU had a different clientele back then. Most importantly, it was much more religious, which means that it was to a much higher degree church-affiliated and responsive to church teachings and authorities. In 1950, almost 96% of the German population were either Protestants (EKD/Lutheran) or Catholics. By 1980, this share had decreased to 86%, by 1990 to 72%, by 2000 to 64% and today... well barely 52%. And this is a pretty generous number because only a small minority of those formally affiliated with a Church do actually believe in its doctrines (resurrection of the dead etc.). Obviously, this development has had a major effect on how Christian Democrats in Germany view themselves and it definitely has made it easier for them to drop their resistance against abortion and same-sex marriage. One could say that today, for the first time in many decades, the German center-right is more or less decoupled from Christian identity politics.    

* A term that is notoriously difficult to translate. The literal meaning is 'spiritual and moral turn' but this sounds more esoteric and otherworldly than it does in German. The core idea was to strengthen traditional values in society and leave behind the 'subversive' heritage of 1968.

In the early 2000s, the CDU was extremely conservative, especially on economic issues. The party convention of 2003 in Leipzig led to a neoliberal platform. Also, Merkel supported the Iraq War and opposed multiculturalism. From 2005 to 2013, Merkel was governing as a moderate conservative, I would say, since then she has moved considerably to the left on many issues. Nowadays the CDU simply considers itself a centrist party.

I would say that the CDU of the late 1990s/early 2000s was not more conservative than the CDU of the early 1990s or the 1980s. The point is rather that society had evolved in the meantime and the CDU had not. They increasingly appeared out of touch, with politicians like Friedrich Merz and Peter Gauweiler openly downplaying marital rape because "what happens in a couple's bed should not be the government's concern." The 1998 election was certainly a shock moment and the 2002 election further proved that the party had to modernize. And Merkel was smart enough to do just that. Granted, she briefly tried to return to the CDU's more neoliberal ways in 2009 when entering a coalition with the FDP but this spectacularly failed, and from 2011-2013 onwards, her centrist inclinations became increasingly obvious. There are many different events that fall in this time period: the abolition of mandatory conscription (until then considered a sacred cow of German conservatism), the Euro crisis that called for a more lenient economic policy, the rise of the Greens and the 2011 defeat in Baden-Württemberg where the CDU lost power for the first time since World War II...

Indeed, the CDU calls itself die Mitte (the Center) today. But so do many other parties and I am not sure if this is anything but a marketing strategy. The modernization of the CDU has moved the party to the center but I would still classify it as center-right. The SPD is more centrist in my opinion.

[President Johnson]

Didn't the CDU get themselves into a real mess over "flat taxes" during that campaign?

Yes, Merkel's shadow finance minister Paul Kirchhof had started a debate on flat taxes, but it didn't make it into the official campaign platform. Generally, the CDU was very conservative in the early 2000s.

Which of course didn't stop Schroeder and his party using it to great effect.

I really loved how Schröder mocked Kirchhof by referring to him as "that professor from Nuremberg".

Heidelberg it was. More beautiful place to live and teach anyway.

That's correct, Nuremberg was Ludwig Erhard.

I really miss Schröder. For all his faults post-chancellorship, he was a real persona and faught for what believed was right.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

I always thought he was meant to be absolutely stuffed in 2005, and only just losing that election was actually one of his most impressive achievements.

Here's Schröder's legendary "performance" at the "heavyweight round" on Election Evening 2005.
He was a bit tipsy, smug, and self-congratulatory that night owing to his unexpected election success. During that time his demeanor was criticized as inacceptable (he himself belatedly called his behavior "suboptimal"), but the longer that event dates back, the more I appreciate his bold, courageous, and dauntless determination and truculence in hindsight.

Sorry for the poor quality of that clip, but it was the only one I found subtitled. (Moreover, the translation matches the poorness of the video quality quite well... ) If you want a HD clip of the Elefantenrunde, try this one.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Yeah, Gerhard Schröder was a total comeback kid. In 2002 everybody thought he would lose (and for a while polling numbers certainly pointed that way) and then he managed to win a slim majority again in the end. 2005 was pretty similar, albeit to a somewhat lesser extent... coming back from the dead to block a seemingly certain CDU-FDP majority and secure his party a continued presence in the government.

Not so great Chancellor, but a great campaigner and a great fighter. Come to think of it, he had almost a proto-Trumpian quality to him. Schröder didn't care about protocol or the decorum if he thought something was very popular with his electorate, especially when had his back against a wall. He also had a total macho approach to politics and campaigning: Always insist that you're right, that you're totally a successful Chancellor, and that you're gonna win again, no matter what. Never apologize, never back down.

The downside was that Schröder quickly ran into problems when he had nobody to fight against, when he had to build and create something in a constructive manner.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

Yeah, Gerhard Schröder was a total comeback kid. In 2002 everybody thought he would lose (and for a while polling numbers certainly pointed that way) and then he managed to win a slim majority again in the end.

Not only Schröder behaved Trumpish in 2005, so did Stoiber in 2002, too. 😝

[WMS]

Uh-huh.


Clearly a person of the highest principles!

[PSOL]

Seems Like Pegida has laid siege to a government building apparently

Edit: mistake, in the Netherlands

[Astatine]

Seems Like Pegida has laid siege to a government building apparently

Eindhoven is located in the Netherlands.

[Zinneke]

potato, potato

[NewYorkExpress]

A contractor working on the Bundestag has been charged with passing the floor plans of the Reichstag to Russian Intelligence.

A German man has been charged with espionage for allegedly passing information on properties used by the German parliament to Russian military intelligence, prosecutors said Thursday.

The suspect, identified only as Jens F. in line with German privacy rules, worked for a company that had been repeatedly contracted to check portable electrical appliances by the Bundestag, or the lower house of parliament, federal prosecutors said in a statement.

As a result of that, he had access to PDF files with floor plans of the properties involved. The Bundestag is based in the Reichstag building, a Berlin landmark, but also uses several other sites.



Prosecutors said, at some point before early September 2017, the suspect “decided of his own accord” to give information on the properties to Russian intelligence. They said he sent the PDF files to an employee of the Russian Embassy in Berlin who was an officer with Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency.

They didn’t specify how his activities came to light.

The charges against the suspect, who is not in custody, were filed at a Berlin court on Feb. 12. The court will have to decide whether to go ahead with a trial.

[Silent Hunter]

It was more ancillary properties rather than the main building. The Russians could just ask their grandparents about that - most of the graffiti from 1945 is still there.

[NewYorkExpress]

Angela Merkel says she won't take AstraZeneca's COVID vaccine because she's too old.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she won't take AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine because she's too old.

The pace of Europe's vaccine rollout has slowed behind that of the United Kingdom. People have reportedly refused to take AstraZeneca's vaccine after European leaders cast doubt on its effectiveness.

Merkel, who is 66, was asked by the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine whether she would receive a dose of AstraZeneca's vaccine to counter a perception in Europe that the vaccine is ineffective.

The chancellor said she would not get the vaccine because it had not been approved for people over 65 in Germany. "I am 66 years old and do not belong to the recommended group for AstraZeneca," she told the paper.


Recent trials in Scotland have linked AstraZeneca's vaccine with a dramatic drop in the risk of hospitalization among older people.

More than 1.4 million doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine are sitting in storage in Germany, while healthcare workers have administered only 240,000 doses, Thomas Mertens, who chairs Germany's standing commission on vaccines, said this week, the New Scientist reported.

[njwes]

Angela Merkel says she won't take AstraZeneca's COVID vaccine because she's too old.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she won't take AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine because she's too old.

The pace of Europe's vaccine rollout has slowed behind that of the United Kingdom. People have reportedly refused to take AstraZeneca's vaccine after European leaders cast doubt on its effectiveness.

Merkel, who is 66, was asked by the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine whether she would receive a dose of AstraZeneca's vaccine to counter a perception in Europe that the vaccine is ineffective.

The chancellor said she would not get the vaccine because it had not been approved for people over 65 in Germany. "I am 66 years old and do not belong to the recommended group for AstraZeneca," she told the paper.


Recent trials in Scotland have linked AstraZeneca's vaccine with a dramatic drop in the risk of hospitalization among older people.

More than 1.4 million doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine are sitting in storage in Germany, while healthcare workers have administered only 240,000 doses, Thomas Mertens, who chairs Germany's standing commission on vaccines, said this week, the New Scientist reported.

That's very interesting...

I wonder if she's received a "better" alternative vaccine--obviously it would be contrary to the spirit of the EU's vaccination program and seen as extremely shady, but of course, I'm sure that elites at that level across Europe (whether from wealth or political power or both) can fairly easily obtain one or two doses of whatever vaccine they want. Alternatively, I know that she's very religious, though generally quite quiet about it, and of course some Christians across the world have reservations about receiving vaccinations, but I'd really doubt many of those types would be found in the mainstream German Lutheran churches.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

After Timo Sievert's - Germany's "loudest firefighter" and probably most famous paramedic - devastating experience with AstraZeneca and with his primary care physicians' inhuman handling of his vaccination damage, I will never let that inoculant get under my skin.
Consider that he isn't an anti-vaxxer whatsoever, and the many dislikes come from The Wendler's and Xavier Naidoo's gloating QAnus army, whom he heavily criticized for their fearmongering regarding any kind of anti-Covid-19 inoculant.
Der Sievi nevertheless calls upon his fans to get themselves vaccinated against the Corona virus. He even says that he would have himself inoculated against Covid-19 again.

[NewYorkExpress]

German Intelligence has placed the AfD Party under surveillence for extremism.

For the first time in its postwar history, Germany has placed its main opposition party under surveillance, one of the most dramatic steps yet by a Western democracy to protect itself from the onslaught of far-right forces that have upset politics from Europe to the United States.

The decision by the domestic intelligence agency will now allow it to tap phones and other communications and monitor the movements of members of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, which not only sits in the Federal Parliament but has become entrenched at all levels of politics in nearly every part of the nation.

It is among the most sweeping efforts yet to deal with the rise of far-right and neo-Nazi political movements within Western democracies, which are attempting more vigorously to constrain, ostracize or even legally prosecute those elements to prevent them from chipping away at the foundations of democratic institutions.

News of the move came on the same day that France banned Generation Identity, a militant youth movement considered dangerous for its slick rebranding of neo-Nazi concepts, and as lawmakers in the European Parliament in Brussels forced the party of Hungary’s semi-authoritarian leader Viktor Orban out of the mainstream conservative group.


It also follows the impeachment hearing in Washington of former President Donald J. Trump over accusations that he incited the violent mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, as well as rising concerns among Democrats and even U.S. law enforcement agencies about links between some Republican Party members and extremist or conspiracy groups like QAnon.

For Germany, the question of how to deal with the far right has particular urgency in an election year that will see Angela Merkel step down after 16 years as chancellor, a tenure in which she became a symbol of a Germany that has learned from its Nazi past and opened itself to refugees seeking shelter from conflict and persecution.

[Former President tack50]

While I am certainly no fan of AfD, isn't that move a bit extreme/an overreaction? How common is to monitor parties for "extremism"? (as well as how does AfD compare to say, the old NPD)

[President Johnson]

While I am certainly no fan of AfD, isn't that move a bit extreme/an overreaction? How common is to monitor parties for "extremism"? (as well as how does AfD compare to say, the old NPD)

No, it's not. They have a ton of people who are anti-democratic and not even try to hide it. It's long overdue proper authorities take a closer look at the entire party. Especially since the far right has ever gained in influence since the party was founded. The AfD's lawsuit before the Supreme Court will determine the rightfulness of the decision anyway, and I have great confidence the constitutional judges will make the right decision.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Up until 2012 or so, the PDS and then Left Party had been under surveillance by the Verfassungschutz. Since then this has been downgraded (but not entirely discontinued), with the Verfassungsschutz now surveilling only specific radical sub-organizations and wings of the Left Party.

[NewYorkExpress]

The Administrative Court of Cologne suspended the surviellence of the AfD Party.

A German court on Friday suspended the right of the country’s domestic intelligence agency to conduct surveillance of the Alternative for Germany, the leading opposition in Parliament, pending the outcome of a legal challenge by the far-right party.

The ruling, made by the Administrative Court of Cologne, came two days after news leaked to the media that the intelligence service had decided to investigate the party, known by its German initials AfD, on suspicion of being a threat to democracy, based on its anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim expressions and members who have been dismissive of Germany’s crimes under the Nazis.

The move to classify the group as extremist and in need of observation by the intelligence services serves as a strong example of the lengths that a Western democracy is willing to go to defend its system against the threat of right-wing forces that have gained in popularity in the United States and Europe.

But the court ruling on Friday underscored a particular quandary in Germany between the need to protect against threats to the state while safeguarding civil liberties. Because of its Nazi past, Germany has both aggressive measures to fortify the Constitution as well as tough protections for its citizens against state intrusion.


The legal challenges filed by the AfD against its surveillance are testing that balance.

Although the intelligence office, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, known by its German initials BfV, had declined to comment on the leak on Wednesday, the court found that it violated a confidentiality agreement and jeopardized the party’s guarantee to equal opportunity.

In its ruling, the court revoked the intelligence agency’s right to take further action against the party, or to publicly discuss its consideration of taking action against the party, until a final ruling is handed down in a lawsuit the party has filed to prevent the government from classifying it, or its members, as extremist.

The court stressed that Friday’s decision would not influence the outcome of the AfD lawsuit, which is still being considered. It is not clear when a ruling may come.