Germany

Germans on the verge of a nervous breakdown

It’s a sign of the nation’s fraught state of mind that many seriously believe this week’s unlikely plotters could have toppled democracy.

BERLIN — Germany is on edge.

Early Wednesday, thousands of balaclava-clad German police officers fanned out across the country, arresting 25 people and seizing weapons to upend what authorities described as a diabolical plot to overthrow the country’s government and reinstate the monarchy. The group’s “military arm” was surreptitiously building “a new German army,” the lead prosecutor on the case said.

A day later, however, the case looks more like the script of a Monty Python episode than a sequel to the Day of the Jackal.

The alleged ringleader was Prince Heinrich XIII Reuß, the long-haired scion of an 800-year-old aristocratic line, who police said organized conspiratorial meetings at his hilltop Schloss in rural Thuringia.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inGermany, Germany: Not Bombed Enough?

Germany assesses credibility of rightwing coup plot amid further arrests

Without a cool truck your putsch is going nowhere.

Germany is trying to get the measure of how imminent a threat to the state was posed by the rightwing terror ring exposed on Wednesday, as police made further arrests in connection with the coup plot.

In their biggest ever raid targeting rightwing extremists, German authorities arrested 25 people suspected of plotting to overthrow the government, install a shadow regime led by a 71-year-old aristocrat, and seek talks with Russia to renegotiate its post-second world war settlement.

The head of Germany’s federal criminal police, Holger Münch, on Thursday revised the number of suspects upwards to 52, of whom 23 were currently in custody, adding that further raids and arrests were expected in the coming days.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inGermany

Why Germany’s far-right coup was doomed from the start

Twenty-five people have been arrested by German authorities on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government.

A failed coup attempt – and a series of raids involving 3,000 officers – seems like the sort of story that might happen in a far-flung part of the world, not the largest economy in Europe. But early reporting indicates there was something fairly typical about this coup attempt: it involved a group of delusional far-rightists and ex-military officers. The false idea that if these men simply waltzed into parliament and placed politicians under arrest, the state would fold and they would get to run the place, seems to have been a factor in their attempt. A similar attitude was held by those who plotted to stage a coup in Portugal in 1975, and Spain in 1981. As with this latest plot in Germany, both attempts to seize power failed miserably.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inGermany

Germany backtracks on defense spending promises made after Ukraine invasion

BERLIN — Germany on Monday walked back its promise to swiftly raise defense spending to at least 2 percent of its economic output — breaching the key commitment made days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to become a more serious military force.

Berlin also sought to play down internal warnings about delays to a flagship procurement of new fighter jets.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Ukraine - Russia", Germany

I prefer Qatar’s honesty to German hypocrisy

Germany, like the rest of Europe, needs gas, but cannot get enough of it without violating its own “moral standards”

Sportswise, things didn’t go very well for Germany, but the Germans have already secured the title of world champions in moral and double standards. The political establishment in Berlin went crazy after FIFA banned the pro-LGBT ‘One Love’ headband from the World Cup in Qatar. German Economy Minister Robert Habeck of the Green Party told the German national team that they had to wear the armband anyway. Various government officials protested, including Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, who wore the “One Love” armband at the opening match in Doha.

But immediately after the “scandal”, Germany proudly announced a new mega deal on gas with none other than Qatar, an agreement that Minister Habeck described as “super”. Bayern Munich loves Qatar’s money, and German soccer stars Thomas Müller and Manuel Neuer have never publicly made a speech against sponsoring Qatar Airways.

Related … Israel’s natural gas windfall in Europe is bad news for Palestinians

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Energy Matters", Germany, Israel

Germany loses patience with climate extremists

Protestors’ radical tactics are failing to win over the masses

“A red line has been crossed,” one member of the German parliament said, when it emerged that climate activists managed to break into Berlin Airport on Thursday and disrupt flight traffic for around 90 minutes.

While previous coverage of such incidents included supportive voices, this time the radicals have lost just about all sympathy, even in a country as keen to be green as Germany. Politicians from across the spectrum, climate experts and even the Green Party itself have now distanced themselves from the protests.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inGermany, Green-Scam

Germany: Europe’s bordello

An estimated 1.2 million men buy sex here every day

Germany is known as the bordello of Europe. It is a hard-won title. With more than 3,000 brothels across the country, and 500 in Berlin alone, its sex trade is worth more than £11 billion per year.

Prostitution, in all its forms, is legal in Germany, and has been since the end of the Second World War. Recently, though, attitudes have been changing. People and politicians are demanding that the government take notice of the “pimp state” and consider the terrible toll prostitution takes on its women and girls.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inGermany, Human Trafficking

Germans are dancing to stay warm this winter … Just four years after laughing at Trump

The world’s eyes have been on America this week, thanks to the midterms. Cockburn, however has been gazing across the Atlantic with amusement. A new dance class is being offered in Germany called “Let’s Move — Tanzt Euch Warm,” or “dance yourselves warm,” to combat rising energy costs as the temperature falls.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Ukraine - Russia", Germany, Trump Derangement Syndrome

Mittel-kaput? German industry stares into the abyss

Facing a prolonged energy crisis, many German firms face the unpleasant option of either shutting down or relocating elsewhere.

FRANKFURT — Is this the beginning of the end for German industry?

Europe’s manufacturing powerhouse is set to scrape by this winter thanks to gas reserves built up over the last eight months, avoiding an energy blackout.

But a darker scenario lurks just over the horizon, as high energy prices and lower gas reserves could conspire to trigger a wave of shutdowns among mid-sized companies unable to weather the storm as larger firms with deeper pockets seek safer economic ground in other countries.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Ukraine - Russia", Germany

Germany Selling Critical Infrastructure to China

Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz has apparently learned nothing from Germany’s fatal mistake of becoming dependent on Russian gas.

On October 26, Germany’s government decided to let the Chinese state-owned enterprise COSCO Shipping Ports, which has links to China’s People’s Liberation Army, buy a stake in the Port of Hamburg. COSCO is the world’s third-largest container carrier measured by capacity, and the fifth-largest port terminal operator in terms of the amount of cargo and vessels that it handles, according to German think-tank Merics. The Port of Hamburg is Germany’s largest port and the second-largest port in Europe, making it part of Europe’s most critical infrastructure.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"China - Communist Slave State", Germany, Germany: Not Bombed Enough?

Protesters attacked near Iranian embassy in Berlin

Protesters holding a pro-democracy vigil outside the Iranian embassy in Berlin were beaten and threatened at gunpoint by unknown assailants over the weekend, German police have said.

An officer guarding the building saw three men with face coverings tear down flags and banners reading “Iranians want democracy” and “Women Life Freedom” from a caravan parked in Dahlem district, in the capital, at just after 1am on Sunday morning.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inGermany, Iran

Olaf Scholz won’t dump China. Will Europe ever learn?

It was early fall, 1959. A senior official from Mao’s China was leading a mission to Kyiv, then part of the Soviet Union. He inspected factories, learned about state planning, and took an afternoon boat trip on the Dnipro River with his 30-plus comrades. It’s nothing like the Ukraine his son has to deal with today.

Xi Zhongxun, father of the current Chinese President Xi Jinping, led the visit. As secretary-general of the State Council, the government arm of the Communist Party, Xi the senior spent a total of four days in what is now Ukraine’s capital. The trip also took him to Moscow and Prague, and apparently left a mark on the boy who would one day run the only powerful Communist Party left standing on earth.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"China - Communist Slave State", Germany

Germany backtracks on a renewable energy future

… Between 2010 and 2020, the share of wind and solar in Germany’s energy mix increased by 242%, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). At the same time, coal’s decreased by 45%, oil by 10% and natural gas by 2%.

But that does not tell the whole story. Wind and solar supplied just 6%of total energy consumed in Germany in 2020, up from just 1% in 2010. Meanwhile, in 2020 oil and gas supplied 61% of Germany’s total energy demand. That’s up from 55% in 2010 as oil and gas were used to replace coal, which decreased to 16%.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inGermany, Green-Scam