Tag: Germany

Germany Steps into The Past

Recently Germany held it selections and there is a trend in Europe for Far Right parties to gain support and Germany was no different.

Conservative and right-wing parties emerged on top. The mainstream conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), along with its partner, the Christian Social Union (CSU), finished first with 28.6 percent of the vote, while the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) surged into second with 20.8 percent, according to provisional results announced by election authorities.

Germany voters made a change at the top on Sunday, delivering a victory to centrist conservatives in the parliamentary elections and giving the far right its best result since World War II. Friedrich Merz, who’s now in position to become the nation’s chancellor, declared victory minutes after the first projection based on exit polls was released, Politico Europe reports. “We must now quickly regain our ability to act so that we can do the right thing at home, so that we are once again present in Europe,” Merz said, “so that the world can see that Germany is being governed reliably again.” Chancellor Olaf Scholz denounced the support for Alternative for Germany, and President Trump celebrated the election results.

Exit polls—which have been historically accurate in Germany—had Merz’s Union bloc running at about 29% and Alternative for Germany around 20%, which is double the anti-immigrant party’s showing in 2021. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats polled about 16%, per the AP, and the Green Party 13.5%. Scholz conceded Sunday, telling supporters “this is a bitter election result.” And he decried the fact that “an extreme right-wing party like the AfD is getting such election results. That must never be something that we will accept. I will not accept it and never will.” On social media, Trump proclaimed it a “great day for Germany.”

Merz’s Christian Democrats will need to partner with at least one party to form a governing coalition. He could end up partnering with small parties, per the New York Times.
Merz had said he’d refuse to work with AfD, as had Scholz and other party leaders. Parts of the AfD’s organization are considered extremist by German intelligence agencies. The party’s second-place finish will shake the continent, at least, per Politico; Germany is the most powerful nation in Europe. Despite Merz’s position, Alice Weidel, the AfD’s candidate for chancellor whose supporters include Elon Musk, said she would consider forming a coalition with the winning party. “We will hound the others to make sensible policies for our country,” she said.

Merz has to build a coalition to govern and that may not be as easy as it sounds.

Reuters reports that Merz will face “complex and lengthy coalition negotiations” to form a government. His bloc took around 29% of the vote. AfD doubled its share of the vote, coming second with around 20.5%, but other parties generally refuse to work with AfD as part of a longstanding “firewall” against the far right, meaning Merz may have to govern as part of a three-party coalition. The center-left Social Democratic Party is considered the most likely coalition partner, CNBC reports.

Is the past bleeding into Germany’s future?

This sounds very familiar to anyone that has a grasp on history.

He is not a big fan of Trump and he is worried about the future of NATO….

Later this year, a NATO summit will be held — but he suggested Europe may need to devise a new defense structure to replace it.

“I am very curious to see how we are heading toward the NATO summit at the end of June,” he said. “Whether we will still be talking about NATO in its current form or whether we will have to establish an independent European defense capability much more quickly.”

(politico.eu)

 

Reparations? No Thanks!

Here in the US with all the protests for racial equality there have been some that are calling for reparations to be paid to black ancestors of slaves…..

Of course they use the fact that the US has paid reparations to Japanese-Americans for their treatment during World War Two….

But this post is about something other than US slavery…I know hard to believe that there is something more important than the events in the US….but amazingly there is……and it is the history of Africa and the region unknown in the day as German Southwest Africa.

German South-West Africa, or present-day Namibia, was a colony of the German Empire from 1884 until 1915, when it was occupied by South African forces fighting on the side of Great Britain in World War I. The brief history of the colony was marked by a series of insurrections by the Khoekhoe and Hereros against German rule, insurrections that the authorities suppressed with extraordinary harshness. The German ambition was to populate the colony with large numbers of settlers from Germany, much as the British had done in other parts of Africa. By 1914 more than 9,000 German settlers were living in the colony, but the dry climate and lack of water was a limiting factor on further settlement and expansion. Theodor Rehbock was a noted German hydraulic engineer who was asked by a local syndicate to study the colony’s water resources and their potential use in irrigation projects. Rehbock visited German South-West Africa in 1896-97 and produced this analysis of its economics, geology, climatology, and hydrology. His work contains detailed maps, tables, and plans for water projects. It remains a valuable resource for the study of the history of Namibia.

A little more historical perspective…..

In 1884, German chancellor Otto von Bismarck convened a meeting of European powers known as the Berlin Conference. Though the conference determined the future of an entire continent, not a single black African was invited to participate. Bismarck declared South-West Africa a German colony suitable not only for trade but for European settlement. Belgium’s King Leopold, meanwhile seized the Congo, and France claimed control of West Africa.

The German flag soon became a beacon for thousands of colonists in southern Africa—and a symbol of fear for local tribes, who had lived there for millennia. Missionaries were followed by merchants, who were followed by soldiers. The settlers asserted their control by seizing watering holes, which were crucial in the parched desert. As colonists trickled inland, local wealth—in the form of minerals, cattle, and agriculture—trickled out

Indigenous people didn’t accept all this willingly. Some German merchants did trade peacefully with locals. But like Belgians in the Congo and the British in Australia, the official German policy was to seize territory that Europeans considered empty, when it most definitely was not. There were 13 tribes living in Namibia, of which two of the most powerful were the Nama and the Herero. (Kaunatjike is Herero.)

Germans were tolerated partly because they seemed willing to involve themselves as intermediaries between warring local tribes. But in practice, their treaties were dubious, and when self-interest benefitted the Germans, they stood by idly. The German colonial governor at the turn of the 20th century, Theodor Leutwein, was pleased as local leadership began to splinter. According to Dutch historian Jan-Bart Gewald, for instance, Leutwein gladly offered military support to controversial chiefs, because violence and land seizure among Africans worked to his advantage. These are all tactics familiar to students of United States history, where European colonists decimated and dispossessed indigenous populations.

(Smithsonian Magazine)

If you would like more info then this site may be of some assistance…..https://www.sahistory.org.za/place/namibia

Now that we have set the stage….Germany has offered reparations for the ills foisted upon the natives…..and Namibia has declined the offer……

Namibian President Hage Geingob on Tuesday turned down Germany’s offer of €10 million ($11.7 million) in reparations for the genocide committed by the German Empire at the start of the 20th century.

“The current offer for reparations made by the German government remains an outstanding issue and is not acceptable to the Namibian government,” Geingob said in a statement after a briefing on the status of negotiations. He added that the government’s special envoy, Zed Ngavirue, would continue to negotiate for a “revised offer.”

Geingob also took exception to Germany’s use of the term “healing the wounds” in place of the word reparations, saying the terminology would be debated further.

No apology so far

The two countries began negotiating an agreement in 2015 that would see Germany give an official apology and development aid as compensation for the killing of tens of thousands of indigenous Herero and Nama people by German occupiers in 1904-1908.

https://www.dw.com/en/namibia-germany-reparations/a-54535589

Maybe an apology would make things go better…..

Just a thought.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

US Troops Positive News

Let me start by saying that there is lots about Trump’s presidency that I do not now or would ever support….however his decision on the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan is a positive aspect of his rule.

And now he, Trump, has threatened to bring troops home from Germany and some are going bonkers at the thought of no troops in Germany…..but I do believe that he deserves recognition for attempting to fulfill a campaign promise……

This week, President Trump called for a modest reduction of American troops in Germany, reducing them from 34,500 to 25,000 (a great start that will hopefully lead to further reductions there). The Republican neocon caucus responded exactly as you would expect. You’d think the Berlin Wall was still in place and two million Russians were about to invade Germany. Utter nonsense.

With the Cold War now 30 years moribund, the hysteria over removing troops is ludicrous. Meanwhile the very real threat of bankruptcy and menacing debt grows each day. Just this year, the United States will add $4 trillion to the national debt. Can the Germans afford to defend themselves? Without question. Germany actually balances its annual budget every year.

Trump Deserves Credit for Bringing the Troops Home

In Afghanistan the question has been asked…..will we ever get to zero troops deployed in Afghanistan?

This is the agreement between the US and whoever it is we were negotiating with at the time…..

Click to access Agreement-For-Bringing-Peace-to-Afghanistan-02.29.20.pdf

Now a few thoughts on this question…..

The agreement itself suggests that it will not. To understand why requires examining the agreement in a bit more detail. The text of the document contains three main parts. In the first part, the United States agreed to a number of terms. Chief among these is to draw down its military forces to a total of 8,600 troops within 135 days (which has nearly happened) and, subject to the Taliban meeting its obligations, to withdraw all of its remaining forces within another nine and a half months. Washington also agreed to facilitate a prisoner exchange between the Afghan government and the Taliban (which has been happening, albeit slowly). In the second part, the Taliban agreed not to allow any of its members or other groups—explicitly including al-Qaeda—to use Afghanistan to threaten U.S. security or for recruiting, training and fundraising activities designed to do so. The third part of the agreement includes a requirement for the United States to seek endorsement from the United Nations for the deal, which Washington has already done. And it includes these two sentences:

https://www.lawfareblog.com/will-united-states-really-go-zero-troops-afghanistan

I agree…we have way too much invested in Afghanistan to leave it completely….but I have been mistaken in the past and hopefully I am once again.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Germany In The Rear View Mirror

The commander in chief has ordered US troops out of Germany…..not all but just a few…..

Growing US-Germany tensions have reached the point where the Trump Administration has announced that 9,500 troops will be returning from Germany. This will leave 25,000 US troops there, which is the new “cap” for maximum troop levels.

The US has been haranguing Germany for years over military spending, and this has included Trump threatening to pull troops back. Polls have shown Germany tended to prefer that the US troops leave anyhow.

The US had at one point many more troops in Germany, as part of Cold War deals. The troops are still nominally there to fight Russia, even though a large number of NATO countries are now in between Germany and Russia.

(antiwar.com)

Many of us antiwar types have been calling for the US to bring the troops home from Germany since the USSR is no longer a threat….

But what about Russia?

Russia’s Western Military District has announced the deployment of more troops as well as motorized units into their western region, saying they are meant to “perform tasks on ensuring the defense of the Russian Federation in the Western Strategic direction.”

This puts more Russian forces in the area near the NATO frontier, after years of US and NATO troops being deployed in the Baltic and in other areas bordering Russia. This is a continuation of that buildup, with an eye toward further tit-for-tat challenges.

(antiwar.com)

The big question is will this Trumpian move harm America’s standing in Europe?

Some say the move will damage Trump’s relationship with Germany, Europe’s most powerful nation, and boost anti-American sentiment there. “Russia has done nothing to lower its threat to our allies,” a retired US Army general tells the Wall Street Journal, which broke the story. “Germany is the most important ally we have in Europe. This looks like punishment somehow.” But a senior US official says the order reflects Trump’s frustration with Germany in other ways—like its level of military spending (not yet the NATO goal of 2%) and decision to finish a gas pipeline with Russia under the Baltic Sea. Some of the US troops will apparently go to Poland or other American allies, while the rest will come home.  

I am pleased to see some of these troops finally coming home….but will this move make matters worse in Europe….especially in Eastern Europe?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

What Were They Thinking?

A history lesson for a Tuesday…..

Most everyone who has a TV knows the Adolf Hitler was the leader of Nazi Germany….but how many realize that he was elected to the Reichstag in 1932…

The Nazis’ rise to power fascinated me…so in my younger days I found a good book that help me understand what the German people were thinking….

The Nazi Voter

The first study based on a large national sample of both urban and rural districts examines the Nazi constituency — how it was formed, from which social groups, under what conditions, and with what promises. Using advanced statistical techniques to analyze each national election of the Weimar era, Childres offers a new and challenging interpretation of who voted for Hitler’s NSDAP and why. He also provides a systematic examination of Nazi campaign strategy.

The Nazis didn’t just seize power—they were voted in. It’s hard to imagine, but there was a time when Adolf Hitler was a name on a ballot in a democratic election. He was openly fascist and anti-Semitic, but the people chose to make him their leader. They supported him while he dissolved democracy.

That book left as many questions as it answered…..

It’s easy to write off the rise of Nazism as a momentary lapse of reason, but the truth isn’t that simple. The people who voted for Hitler really thought they were making the best choice.

There were many reasons that the German people voted for and elected Hitler to represent them…..the top ten is listed below….

10 Reasons The German People Elected Adolf Hitler

Interesting how the people change their thinking to help a despot rise to power under the guise of “democracy”….

Thank God humanity has grown beyond this type of craziness….(sarcasm in case you missed it)…..

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Operation Paperclip

At the end of World War 2 the US ran all over Germany snapping up German scientists, most of whom would be tried for crimes against humanity but their expertise was needed so Operation paperclip protected these criminals and moved most of them to the US under the protection of the government.

More about Operation paperclip here…..

Operation Paperclip, named after the use of the ordinary paperclip attached to the personnel files of select German scientists, was a special operation of breathtaking scope. Instead of highly trained teams tasked for important combat missions, these teams were hunters and gatherers sifting and searching through the wreckage and ruin of a devastated Germany. Theirs was a high-stakes contest against an equally determined Russia and other less malevolent former allies. German scientists and technologies were the pawns, and the prize was nothing less than national security and preeminence as a world power. When it was concluded, hundreds of German scientists and their families, tons of documents, hardware, weapon systems, and technologies would be transferred from Germany to the United States.

Officially, Operation Paperclip concluded on Sept. 30, 1947. In a public statement, the Army announced that the operation had brought into the United States 457 scientists and 453 dependents. But a closed-door decision was made to allow Operation Paperclip to continue, this time as a top secret program. To justify the continuation, the Air Force stated that the 209 German scientists working for it had substantially advanced the development of weapons systems and the scientists were “superlative specialists … the best available in the world today.” They were saving the Air Force millions of dollars and an estimated 10 years in cost and development. The Navy added its praise, stating that German mathematicians, aerodynamicists, and experts in heat transfer had proven that “their professional education and training [were]superior to that of any U.S. personnel available.”

https://argunners.com/operation-paperclip-saving-german-scientists/

Some of the research that America used in their space program was testing done on Jewish prisoners that resulted in a horrific death and yet we decided that it was somehow okay to use this research if it put us a head of the Russians.

I personally have a problem with this type of program….a war criminal is a war criminal and should face the same judgements that others had to face.

Thoughts?

The Day They Redrew Europe

Note:  This post was suppose to be on 23 August but I got side-tracked with the president’s speech in Phoenix that I let it slip my mind….sorry about that……a day late…..

History is the looking at facts and seeing how they could effect the future by studying the past.

78 years ago the countries of Germany and Russia came to a deal that would redraw the map of Europe…..the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact…..23Aug1939………

A world slipping ever closer toward war awoke on the morning of August 24, 1939 to the shocking news that Adolf Hitler’s Germany and Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union had signed a nonaggression pact.

Hitler was beaming when his foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, returned from Moscow with the agreements in hand.

“The name of party comrade von Ribbentrop, as [German] Reich foreign minister, will be forever associated with the political rise of the Germans and the German nation,” he declared.

Source: Molotov-Ribbentrop: The Night Stalin And Hitler Redrew The Map Of Europe

Just a few short days later…Germany invaded Poland to start World War 2.

Even 78 years later the legacy of that Pact still haunts Eastern Europe…..

Valentins Trojans remembers the marauding bands of Red Army soldiers going from farmhouse to farmhouse in his rural Latvia, looting watches, shoes, and clothing.

Harijs Ruks recalls being interrogated by a sadistic Soviet officer who kicked him brutally with steel-toed boots.

And Elza Burkite recollects how occupying Russian forces seized a young mother, whose son had vanished into the Latvian forests to join up with anti-Soviet partisans.

Source: Molotov-Ribbentrop: In Eastern Europe, Pact’s Bitter Legacy Remains

This Pact lead to the millions of deaths and the massive destruction of World War Two……

You would think after that war that civilization would have learned from their mistakes…..you would think then you would be wrong.

Class Dismissed!

The Nazi Voter

About here someone has read the title and is busy typing a reply to this post and condemning me for equating this person to the Nazis….well bite me!  This is a post about a voting bloc within Germany in the 1920’s and 30’s.

Several years ago I read a book about the state of Germany in the years after WW1 especially those that would be voting in the elections.  It covered many aspects of German society and the voting habits of its population.

A fascinating book, The Nazi Voter, written by Thomas Childers.

I recently found a good article about the same sort of stuff that was in the Nazi Voter……how society was breaking down and what led to the popularity of the Nazis…..

Amid the swirling mess in Berlin of political intrigue, rumors, and disorder, the SA, the Nazi storm troopers, stood out as an ominous presence. In the spring of 1932, many in the German democratic government came to believe the Brownshirts were about to take over by force.

Source: The History Place – Rise of Hitler: The Republic Collapses

It has always fascinated me as to how, in hindsight, could the German people allow someone like Hitler to come to power through the vote.

Some of my questions have been answered……

Thoughts?

Notes From “Half Moon Camp”

I shall explain what Half Moon Camp is all about but first a bit of an intro……

My regular readers know that I do like me some history…..and I go to great links to find the answers to stuff and to try and tie all aspects together if possible…..since my interests in the past 30 years has been the Middle East….a region that history is mysterious and mostly unknown…..I also like studying World War One because the modern warfare was born….it is a great study if one is interested in conflict management and resolution.  So much of the events in the world today were born during and after World War One.

I watched a historical doc on the History Channel entitled the “Nazi Jihad”….the premise was that the Nazis trained the modern day jihadist and that a line can be drawn from jihadist like AQ and ISIS back to the closing days of WW2 and the “werewolves” program…..this was a propaganda piece at best….true a line can be drawn from Germany to the jihadist but the program started decades before….during World War One, The Great War.

I recently wrote a post on this program, the “werewolves” and gave my thoughts on the incident and the documentary…..

Source: Werewolves To The Right – In Saner Thought

Now on to the “Half Moon Camp” program…….

“Half Moon Camp” was a POW camp in Germany in 1916 that was used to turn allied soldiers into jihadist fighting for imperial Germany….

A little-known PoW camp just outside Berlin was dedicated to turning Allied Muslim soldiers into jihad warriors

If history is dictated by the concerns of the historian’s day, then it’s surprising more of us haven’t heard the story of the Halbmondlager, or “Half Moon Camp”, a small First World War prisoner-of-war camp in Zossen, near Berlin.

It was like no other PoW camp in history. Reserved primarily for Muslim prisoners, detainees lived in relative luxury and were given everything they needed to practise their faith. Spiritual texts were provided, Ramadan observed, a mosque erected – the first on German soil – and there were sermons by visiting spiritual leaders and academics.

Source: Germany’s Grand WW1 Jihad Experiment – Telegraph

Closing Thought–27Feb17

Subject:  Immigrants!

Do you recall the faux outrage when the report of wandering gangs of immigrants were attacking and raping Germans?  I believe it was big on alt-Right sites (not to be confused with real Conservative sites) around the first of this year.

I reported that their insane claims were debunked by German police authorities….these massive attacks did not occur….and the alt-Right was silent on this revelation….and some still refer to these non-existent attacks to feed their hatred and bigotry.

Source: Mass sexual assault in Frankfurt by refugees ‘completely made up’ | The Independent

Now more news has coming about immigrants in Germany…..and I bet the alt-Right will by-pass this news or claim, like everything else, is fake…….

More attacks on refugees were reported in Germany last year with more than 3,500 registered across the country, amounting to nearly 10 acts of anti-migrant violence a day while far-right parties have enjoyed a sharp increase in popularity. There were 3,533 attacks on refugees and refugee accommodation and welcoming centers across Germany in 2016, according to a recent report by the German Funke Mediengruppe, as reported by DW. These attacks, apparently motivated by anti-immigration sentiment, left 560 people injured, among them 43 of which were underage.

The numbers, which take into account attacks that occurred outside asylum centers as well, show a slight decline from 2015, the year Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to open the country’s borders to any and all refugees and asylum seekers, a policy which has been widely utilized by economic migrants as well as Islamic State militants and other terrorists.

The report also says that an additional 217 NGOs helping immigrants and volunteers were attacked as well.

These figures are preliminary and may be adjusted.

The rise of populist, anti-globalist and nationalist parties on the European continent was well underway even before 2015 as domestic problems were already being disproportionately created by citizens with immigrant backgrounds, though they never posed a direct threat to the European establishments.

MORE:    https://www.dailysabah.com/europe/2017/02/26/germany-hit-by-10-anti-migrant-attacks-a-day-report-says

Once again….the alt-Right and its minions report on lies to feed their hatred…personally I say let the bastards starve.

This situation will get NO ink of their sites…..it does not feed their need for hatred.

My day is done!  Have a good day and I will return tomorrow with more stuff….chuq