Germany megathread

[CumbrianLefty]

Appears we don't have a Germany megathread yet.

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

[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.

[CumbrianLefty]

https://thehill.com/policy/international/europe/525854-eleven-german-men-charged-with-far-right-plot-to-attack-muslims

Prosecutors on Friday charged 11 German men from a far-right terror group with planning deadly attacks on Muslims and plotting to overthrow the German government.

According to The Associated Press, federal prosecutors alleged that eight of the men formed the “Group S” organization during a meeting in September 2019.

Three others are accused of joining the group later. A 12th person was also charged with supporting the group.


Prosecutors also reportedly charged seven of the suspects with weapons violations in Stuttgart state court.

The AP reported that the suspects, who were listed without last names due to German privacy laws, wanted to “shake the state and the social order” in Germany and eventually create “conditions similar to civil war” by attacking mosques and killing or injuring as many Muslims as possible.

The group also allegedly hoped to lead a government coup, as well as use force against political opponents.

Be in no doubt, the far right is a genuine threat.

[CumbrianLefty]

De-nazification a mere 75 years after the event?

[CumbrianLefty]

Bet there was a fair sized age gap in that 1970s polling.

[CumbrianLefty]

Schroeder managed a significant turnaround in popularity come 2001-02.

Exactly why is, as you say, not quite as clear.

[CumbrianLefty]

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.

[CumbrianLefty]

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

[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.

[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.

[CumbrianLefty]

Happily, Germany does not have the Death Penalty.

There, fixed that for you. As with all other civilised countries in the world.

[CumbrianLefty]

Greens aren't going to go into coalition with a second placed Union, period.

[CumbrianLefty]

Isn't he pretty much the last of the "old school" AfD, though?

Which means his successor is likely to be one of the nutters.

[CumbrianLefty]

Very much looks like the entire antisemitism accusation against a hotel in Berlin that caused international outrage was made up by Gil Ofarim. Investigators found his claims not believeable after several interviews and even replaying the scene. The guy is now charged for the false claim.

https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1509580784155385862

Small correction, it was a hotel in Leipzig, which fed the "Saxony is the worst state in Germany and is comprised entirely of Nazis" narrative we all love so much.

There have been "fake" incidents like this before involving anti-Black racism or Islamophobia, but this is the first I can recall regarding AS. Always pretty shocking when it is proven to have happened.

[CumbrianLefty]

You increasingly wonder how he managed to keep this foot in mouth tendency in check when he was trying to get elected - I certainly don't recall this many gaffes from him back then.

[CumbrianLefty]

Isn't it kind of ironic that the woke German Bundestag legalized the advertisement for a genocide, whereas the based U.S. Supreme Court saved millions of innocent embryos - id est: lives - on the very same day? 😡

The Green Antifa Youth and the SJW Jusos and the Julis (youth organization of the NSDAP successor FDP), by the way, continue to press for the legalization of the slaughter of fetuses up to the ninth month of pregnancy. 🤮

What you meant to say, surely, was that Germany made a huge step towards humanitarianism and civilsation just as the US lurched towards fascist theocracy

[CumbrianLefty]

Hasn't that set of images been confirmed as fake?

[CumbrianLefty]

Why is the German political class so hellbent on doing this fake balancing act between the United States and Russia? In Sweden the social democrats don't have nearly this same problem and, despite often criticizing the United States, still recognized Russia as a threat throughout the Cold War and in the current day. Why are so many German politicians so obsessed with trying to "understand" Russia's "concerns" and apologize for them? Baffling behavior.

Guilt over World War II

More the legacy of like 20% of your population remembering a time when they quite literally were prisoners of Moscow.

Though you might think that would make them more hostile to Russia, rather than less.

[CumbrianLefty]

That faux pas by KFC is classic "algorithms gonna algorithm"

[CumbrianLefty]

The Bundestag is planning to pass a resolution declaring the starvation of Ukranians under Stalin a genocide.

Germany’s Bundestag is planning to pass a resolution declaring the starvation of millions of Ukrainians under Joseph Stalin a genocide, a move that parliamentarians hope will serve as a “warning” to Moscow as Ukraine faces a potential hunger crisis this winter.

The resolution, which will be jointly brought to the vote next week by the three governing parties and conservative opposition leaders, will describe the 1932-33 Holodomor as part of “a list of inhuman crimes by totalitarian systems that extinguished millions of human lives in Europe in the first half of the 20th century”.

“People across Ukraine, not just in grain-producing regions, were affected by hunger and repression”, the resolution will say. “This meets the historical-political definition from today’s perspective for genocide.”

The victims of the Holodomor – Ukrainian for “death by starvation” – are traditionally commemorated in Ukraine on the last Saturday of November.

Kyiv regards the historical event as part of a deliberate campaign by Stalin’s regime to collectivise agriculture and root out Ukraine’s fledging nationalist movement. Historians estimate between 4 million and 7.5 million people were killed in the human-made disaster.

Moscow has rejected Kyiv’s version of history, placing the deaths in the broader context of famines that devastated regions of Central Asia and Russia.

“Putin is part of Stalin’s cruel and criminal tradition,” said Robin Wagener, the German Green party MP who initiated the resolution. “Today Russian terror is once again haunting Ukraine. Once again the plan is to use violence and terror to deprive Ukraine of livelihood, to subdue an entire country,” he told newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Oh boy I can't wait to see what reason the pro-China clowns on the German left find to oppose this!

I don't really understand why plenty of normal leftists in Germany (the SDP is otherwise a sensible social democratic party, after all) have tankie-esque takes on these kinds of things, even if they (like Olaf Scholz) actually have decent relations with the US. Is it some kind of 'both sides' thing?

To a degree, yes.

Plus for fairly obvious historical reasons, even much of the German centre-left is pretty pacifistic.

[CumbrianLefty]

Hopefully by next winter we will all be less dependent on Russian gas anyway.

[CumbrianLefty]

Word is out that Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) is about resign. I would welcome her exit, she's unfortunately not up to the job.

And Eva "terrorist attacks are so funny" Högl is reported to become her successor.

Would be interested to know the context of that comment.

[CumbrianLefty]

Word is out that Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) is about resign

aaaaaannnnnnnd she's gone

So was her resignation statement along the lines of "I am a bit crap"?

[CumbrianLefty]

Word is out that Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) is about resign

aaaaaannnnnnnd she's gone

So was her resignation statement along the lines of "I am a bit crap"?

No, I think it was something along the lines of "the media controversy around my person is creating a distraction from finding a solution for the challenges our military is facing".

So a longer winded version of "I'm crap" then

[CumbrianLefty]

According to Boris Johnson

Hmm, do you really need the possible problem explaining here?