The Situation In Germany

This comes to us through the "Loving Life" Community Channel, South Africa. 🇿🇦

The host is citing a report by a Czech nurse working in a Munich (Germany) hospital.

The sanitized mass media in Germany won't touch issues like these. You would have to browse local newspapers and police reports on the internet to get a glimpse of the situation.

Ordinary sheeple making a call to an inner-city hospital may be torn out of their silken slumber though...


 
Eyeing power, Merkel protegee starts high-stakes defense job
Elected European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen attends the swearing-in ceremony of Germany's new Defence Minister, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, at the provisionally plenary hall of the German lower house of Parliament Bundestag at the Paul Loebe Haus in Berlin, Germany July 24, 2019. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

Elected European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen attends the swearing-in ceremony of Germany's new Defence Minister, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, at the provisionally plenary hall of the German lower house of Parliament Bundestag at the Paul Loebe Haus in Berlin, Germany July 24, 2019. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

BERLIN - Chancellor Angela Merkel’s protegee, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, pledged on Wednesday to push for increased military spending “in our own interests” as Germany’s new defense minister - a role likely to make or break her chances of succeeding her mentor.

Kramp-Karrenbauer, who lacks high-echelon government experience, grabbed the defense role to build her credentials for the chancellery - a high-stakes move that will demand she build up a military many Germans remain uneasy about deploying.

Merkel, who turned 65 a week ago, is aiming to stage-manage her gradual exit from politics and hand over power to Kramp-Karrenbauer, who replaced her as chair of their Christian Democrats (CDU) in December.

At a swearing-in ceremony on Wednesday, Kramp-Karrenbauer - known as AKK after her initials - began the tricky task of promising to seek spending hikes that the CDU’s Social Democrat coalition partners want to limit.

At the same time, she stressed that shaping up the Bundeswehr (armed forces) was in Germany’s own interests - presenting thinly veiled resistance to U.S. President Donald Trump’s demands that Berlin boost its military budget.

“To speak quite plainly, this is not about wishes from abroad, this is not about an arms build-up, it is about equipment and personnel - it is about our Bundeswehr,” she told lawmakers to loud applause.

“It is about a Bundeswehr that can fulfill the tasks we give it - it is about our own interests. If the Bundeswehr is to demonstrate the capabilities (that) we demand and expect of it, then the defense budget must rise.”

The defense job, vacated last week when Ursula von der Leyen quit to become president of the European Commission, will raise Kramp-Karrenbauer’s profile and give her a chance to reverse her declining popularity with a view to succeeding Merkel by 2021.

But her move into a role dubbed “the ejector seat” - such is the career damage to recent incumbents - risks backfiring as she inherits the task of reviving a demoralized and under-equipped Bundeswehr dogged by scandals and right-wing extremism.

With the defense job, she also ties herself to the binds of cabinet loyalty - while as CDU chair she must still mastermind the party’s strategy for three autumn regional elections in Germany’s east, in which success is crucial to her prospects.

FLOUNDERING POPULARITY
She immediately ran into trouble last week after giving a lackluster television interview and saw her public support - already floundering - take a further dip.

Kramp-Karrenbauer brings no defense experience, but comes with a track record - albeit brief - of pushing the military’s case. In March, she said Germany’s credibility with its NATO partners was at stake unless it raised defense spending.

She underlined Germany’s NATO commitment to boost military spending toward a target of 2% of economic output, adding: “We are a reliable ally, bearing a fair share of the joint duties.”

Aiming to make a better fist than von der Leyen of cleaning up the armed forces and boosting morale and military readiness, she paid tribute to the service of Germany’s armed forces: “This service needs respect, this service needs support,” she said.

In 2017, von der Leyen criticized “weak leadership” in the armed forces, provoking dismay among soldiers’ representatives, after an officer was arrested on suspicion of planning a racist attack to frame refugees.

Adding to the challenges Kramp-Karrenbauer faces, the Social Democrats are wary of committing to Britain’s plan for a European-led naval mission to ensure safe shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

“We must always examine scrupulously requests for support from our partners - we mustn’t affirm hastily, nor issue knee-jerk rejections,” she said.

Senate panel to vote next week on sanctions on Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline
A U.S. Senate committee is due to vote next week on a bill that would slap sanctions on companies and individuals involved in building the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany that the Trump administration says would strengthen Moscow's economic grip on Europe.

Germany's Merkel congratulates Johnson, stresses common European heritage
German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Germany's new Defence Minister, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, at the provisionally plenary hall of the German lower house of Parliament Bundestag at the Paul Loebe Haus in Berlin, Germany July 24, 2019. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

German Chancellor Angela Merkel congratulated Boris Johnson on assuming office as Britain's next prime minister on Wednesday, expressing the wish for good cooperation and yet deeper ties between the two countries.
 
Man pushes boy in front of train in Germany, killing him
Police secures a platform at the main train station in Frankfurt, Germany, July 29, 2019, after a 40-year-old man of African origin pushed an eight-year-old boy in front of an oncoming train, killing him, police said.     REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski

Police secures a platform at the main train station in Frankfurt, Germany, July 29, 2019, after a 40-year-old man of African origin pushed an eight-year-old boy in front of an oncoming train, killing him, police said. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski

FRANKFURT July 29, 2019 - A 40-year-old Eritrean man pushed an eight-year-old boy in front of an oncoming train at Frankfurt’s main train station in Germany on Monday, killing him, police said.

The man also pushed the boy’s mother but she survived. Police were unaware of any connection between the man and the victims and his motive was unclear, a police spokeswoman said.

“According to witness reports, a 40-year-old man pushed the boy and his mother onto the track just as the ICE (high-speed train) was arriving. The mother, thank God, was able to save herself,” the spokeswoman, Isabell Neumann, told reporters.

“Unfortunately, the eight-year-old boy was run over by the ICE. He suffered fatal injuries,” she added. “The man concerned ... fled the station after the crime. Passers-by took up the chase and the man was detained near the station.”

Neumann said the suspect was being questioned. The boy’s mother was taken to hospital and would also be questioned. Frankfurt police said on Twitter the suspected perpetrator was an Eritrean citizen.

Several platforms at Frankfurt station, a major rail hub in Germany, were closed after the incident.
 
Man pushes boy in front of train in Germany, killing him
Police secures a platform at the main train station in Frankfurt, Germany, July 29, 2019, after a 40-year-old man of African origin pushed an eight-year-old boy in front of an oncoming train, killing him, police said.     REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski

Police secures a platform at the main train station in Frankfurt, Germany, July 29, 2019, after a 40-year-old man of African origin pushed an eight-year-old boy in front of an oncoming train, killing him, police said. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski

FRANKFURT July 29, 2019 - A 40-year-old Eritrean man pushed an eight-year-old boy in front of an oncoming train at Frankfurt’s main train station in Germany on Monday, killing him, police said.

[…]

Yes, this is really unfortunate and it was not the last one. Last week another man pushed a mother in front of a train in Lower Rhine, the mother died too.

And since the most recent event it will bring up again the valid question about immigration and people who don't follow the law.
 
According to FOCUS magazine* the suspect is an Eritrean citizen who holds a residence permit for Switzerland.
He resides in the Swiss canton of Zürich since 2006. He's married and has three children.

The news is that he had even tried to push a third person, a 78 year old woman, onto the rails. The woman has received a shoulder injury.

(*) Click the [X] for viewing this article


ice.jpg
 
Man accused of pushing boy under German train was wanted by Swiss
Messages of mourning, candles, flowers and plush toys are placed by people for an eight-year-old boy who was pushed by a man in front of an oncoming train and died at the main train station in Frankfurt, Germany, July 30, 2019. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski

Messages of mourning, candles, flowers and plush toys are placed by people for an eight-year-old boy who was pushed by a man in front of an oncoming train and died at the main train station in Frankfurt, Germany, July 30, 2019. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski

A 40-year-old Eritrean refugee accused of killing an eight-year-old boy by pushing him under a train in Frankfurt was wanted by police in Switzerland, where he was being treated for psychological problems, authorities said on Tuesday.

In Monday’s incident, which horrified Germany, the man first pushed the boy’s mother onto the track but she rolled away. He then shoved the boy under an oncoming train before trying to push a 78-year-old woman, who fell over on the platform, Germany’s federal police chief Dieter Romann said.

On Thursday, he had also brandished a knife at a female neighbor in Switzerland and threatened to kill her, before fleeing, Romann said.

In Zurich, cantonal police officer Bruno Keller said an investigation had uncovered “no evidence of radicalization or ideological motive” for the man’s actions.

Romann identified the man as “A.”, in keeping with German police practice of not releasing suspects’ full names.

Police caught him as he tried to flee Frankfurt station. Prosecutors in the city have applied for a formal warrant to arrest him on one charge of murder and two of attempted murder, state prosecutor Nadja Niesen said.

If convicted he would face a life sentence. “There is no indication that he was under the influence of alcohol or drugs,” Niesen told reporters.

The man, who has three children, arrived in Switzerland in 2006, was granted asylum there in 2008 and had integrated well, Romann said.

Zurich police said the man, who had no convictions for violent behavior, had suffered psychological problems that had kept him off work since January.

Officers were called to an address to the south of Zurich, on Thursday after the man locked his wife and children in their apartment along with a neighbor. He had also threatened his neighbor verbally and with a knife, police said.

The people were freed unharmed and police said he was put on a wanted list after he fled.

Niesen said there was no reason to think Monday’s incident was linked to a case last week in Waechtersbach near Frankfurt in which a German attacked an Eritrean and then killed himself.
 
According to FOCUS magazine* the suspect is an Eritrean citizen who holds a residence permit for Switzerland.
He resides in the Swiss canton of Zürich since 2006. He's married and has three children.

The news is that he had even tried to push a third person, a 78 year old woman, onto the rails. The woman has received a shoulder injury.

(*) Click the [X] for viewing this article


ice.jpg

He was also an example of very good immigration in the past since he holds a Swiss residence permit. 2019 he received psychiatric help.
 
Cocaine worth 1 billion euros seized in Germany's largest drugs haul
An undated handout picture made available on August 2, 2019, shows Germany's largest ever seized cocaine shipment of four and a half tons. Hauptzollamt Hamburg/Handout via REUTERS

An undated handout picture made available on August 2, 2019, shows Germany's largest ever seized cocaine shipment of four and a half tons. Hauptzollamt Hamburg/Handout via REUTERS

German authorities on Friday said they had seized 4.5 tonnes of cocaine worth 1 billion euros ($1.11 billion) in the northern port city of Hamburg - the nation's biggest drugs haul to date.

The Hamburg customs office said it had examined a suspicious shipping container two weeks ago that came from the Uruguayan capital Montevideo and was bound for the Belgian city of Antwerp.

The container’s description said it was loaded with soybeans but authorities instead found 221 black sport bags containing 4,200 packets of pressed cocaine, the office said in a statement.

“This enormous amount represents the largest single seizure of cocaine in Germany,” it said, adding that the Hamburg prosecutor’s office was investigating who was destined to receive the contents of the container.

“The confiscated cocaine was destroyed under strict and extensive security measures,” it added.

German customs seize 4.5 tonnes of cocaine worth 1 billion euros
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© Axel Heimken/dpa via AP

It is the largest cocaine shipment that has even been seized by German customs officers.
 
THAT is a little bit suspicious... They found it today and destroyed it immediately? Really?
Normally such findings/confiscations go into the evidence vault - at least until the whole thing goes to court...

The Hamburg customs office said it had examined a suspicious shipping container two weeks ago that came from the Uruguayan capital Montevideo and was bound for the Belgian city of Antwerp.

After confiscating the bags of Cocaine, the custom office might have sent the suspicious empty shipping container to it's next destination - Antwerp - hoping to discover if someone was going to claim it or if it was scheduled to go onto another destination?
 
Germany Stalls and Europe Craters

August 11, 2019 -The influential economic commentator on Europe, Ambrose Pritchard Evans, writes:

“German industry is in the deepest slump since the global financial crisis, and threatens to push Europe’s powerhouse economy into full-blown recession. The darkening outlook is forcing the European Central Bank to contemplate ever more perilous measures.
“The influential Ifo Institute in Munich said its business climate indicator for manufacturing went into “free fall” in July, as the delayed damage from global trade conflict takes its toll and confidence wilts. It goes far beyond the woes of the car industry. More than 80pc of Germany’s factories are in outright contraction.”

Why? What is going on here? It seems that, though other European member-states used to be Germany’s largest market, Germany’s first and third largest export destinations are now the US and China, respectively. Together, they account for more than 15% of all outbound German trade activity. More than 18% of Germany’s export goods ended up somewhere in Asia. Therefore, Germany’s industrial struggles in 2019 point the finger in the direction of its external focus, which means the US, China, and Asia – i.e. its largest marginal trade partners. And the principal assailants in today’s trade and tech wars.

Clemens Fuest, the Ifo president, says: “All the problems are coming together: It’s China, it’s increasing protectionism across the board, it’s disruption to global supply chains”.

But if Germany’s manufacturing woes were not sufficient in and of themselves, then combined with the threat of trade war with Trump, the prospect indeed is bleak for Europe: And the likelihood is that any of that ECB stimulus – promised for this autumn, as Mario Draghi warns that the European picture is getting “worse and worse” – will be very likely to meet with an angry response from Trump – castigated as blatant currency manipulation by the EU and its ECB. EU Relations with Washington seem set to sour (in more ways than one).

But there is more: Speaking in the German parliament, Alice Weidel, the AfD leader, tore into Chancellor Merkel for her, and Brussel’s, botched handling of Brexit (for which “she, Merkel bears some responsibility”). Weidel pointed out that “the UK is the second biggest economy in Europe – as big as the 19 smallest EU members combined”. “From an economic perspective, the EU is shrinking from 27 member-states to 9. In the face of such an enormous event, the EU reaction verges on a pathological denial of reality … [they should recall] that German prosperity and jobs are at stake here. It is clearly in Germany’s interest that trade and investment continue unhindered. But, out of blind loyalty, you [Merkel], follow France, which wants to deny Britain access to the Single Market. Yes, you [Merkel] are considering not allowing Britain access to the European Economic Area, because France does not want it. [Sarcasm] that would be too much: Too much free trade; too much fresh air in the markets … France with its failed industrial policy serves as [the new] blueprint [for the EU]”. (See video here).

Weidel’s last point is key: She is implying that Macron is positioning himself to eclipse Merkel as the EU leader on the waning of the Chancellor’s influence and credibility. Macron intends to impose instead, the “failed” French industrial model, to Germany’s disadvantage, Weidel suggests.

She is not alone in this suspicion. Trump too, dislikes any prospective Macron take-over of the EU leadership that will (almost certainly) be more hostile to any trade agreement with the US (especially on agriculture), and which would open French industry to US competition. Hence Trump’s riposte (on French wine) in retaliation to France’s new taxes on US tech firms – contributing little, or nothing, to the French Treasury. Trump is enlisting too in the battle for the future shape of Europe. It is going to be a battle royal.

A major threat to the EU now emanates from the least anticipated direction – from the US. At no point did European leaders consider their project as a challenge to US power. Rather, they saw progress in their careers as contingent on receiving the US approval. Consequently, they deliberately chose not to found the Euro in anything other than within the dollar sphere. They never considered the possibility that the United States might change attitude. And now – suddenly – the EU finds itself exposed to all manner of sanctions through the Euro’s close vulnerability to dollar hegemony; from a possible trade and tech war between Europe’s two key trading partners; and even a falling-out as a result of a changing US defence calculus. Steering a course between the US and China will challenge deeply Europe’s imbedded cultural predisposition.

Weidel also warns the German Parliament that that the biggest consequence for Germany from Brexit is not just its exports, but rather, without the UK as a EU member, Germany will lose its ability to assemble a blocking majority (35%) in Council: And, absent this ability to block, Germany may not be able “to stop the crisis-ridden, Club-Med States and France, from reaching into community funds”.

This goes to the crux of the European crisis: an accord rooted in Germany’s traumatic experience of the inter-war hyper-inflation; in the Great Depression of the 30s; and to the social erosion to which it led. To exorcise these ghosts, Germany deliberately painted the EU into an automatic system of austerity ‘discipline’– enforced through a German surveilled, Central Bank (the ECB). The whole was ‘locked-fast’ in automaticity (i.e. in Europe’s ‘automatic stabilising mechanisms’). This was conceded by other European states (the core accord), since it seemed the only way (it was said), that Germany would agree to put its revered ‘Ark’ of the then stable Deutsche Mark, into the common ‘pot’ of the ECM system.

Professor Paul Krugman explains:

“How [then] did Europe manage to follow a common monetary policy … with an European Central Bank, explicitly … set up to give each country an equal voice, and yet satisfy the German demand for assured monetary rectitude? The answer was to put the new system on autopilot, pre-programming it to do what the Germans would have done if they were still in charge.
First, the new central bank – the ECB – would be made an autonomous institution, as free as possible from political influence. Second, it would be given a clear, very narrow mandate: price stability, period – no responsibility at all for squishy things like employment or growth. Third, the first head of the ECB, appointed for an eight-year term, would be someone guaranteed to be more German than the Germans: W. Duisenberg, who headed the Dutch central bank during a period when his job consisted almost entirely of shadowing whatever the Bundesbank did”.
Krugman is too polite to say it explicitly, but it never was a common policy. It was German control, hidden in stabilising mechanisms, designed by Frankfurt. The loss of this mechanism is what is frightening man of the German élite.

And Macron has just exploded that original Franco-German compact through putting a French woman (Lagarde) in charge of the ECB; a self-declared Federalist (“I want a United States of Europe”) as EU Commission President, and a Brexit hawk as President of the EU Council. Macron’s triumph over Merkel is intended to de-throne Germany. And a punishment Brexit – both to weaken Germany, and to sap Germany’s voting power at the Council – as well as the satisfaction of seeing a chastised Britain being chased from out of the EU.

So Macron is ushering in his notion of a closer centralised European governance – but who is to pay for it now? Without Germany’s former level of contributions and Britain’s input as a major contributor nation, the EU can neither reform itself (since many reforms would require Treaty re-writes), nor afford itself.

And wide political discontent to the Macron formula is already baked in for the future, as Frank Lee notes:

“Those Eastern European states which emerged from the break-up of the Soviet Union had been led to believe that a bright new world of West European living standards, enhanced pay levels, high rates of social mobility and consumption were on offer.
Unfortunately, they were sold an illusion: the result of the transition so far seems to have been the creation of a low-wage hinterland, a border economy on the fringes of the highly developed European core; a Euro version of NAFTA and the maquiladora, i.e., low tech, low wage, low skills production units on the Mexican side of the US’s southern borders”.
And we are not talking ‘just Latvia’: For many in the East of Germany (the AfD’s electoral heartland), German unification in 1990 was not a merger of equals, but instead an “Anschluss” (annexation) with West Germany taking over East Germany. Reasons for East German disenchantment can be seen everywhere: The eastern population has shrunk by about 2 million, unemployment has soared, young people are moving away in droves, and what was one of the Eastern Bloc’s leading industrial nations is now largely devoid of industry.

And here lies the kernel of the crisis. There has been a call from all sides to try something different: such as relaxing the fiscal rules that are destroying public services; or, more daringly, to touch the ‘holy grail’: of reform of the financial and banking system.

But here is the rub: All such initiatives are prohibited in the locked-down treaty system. Everyone might think to revise those treaties. But that is not going to happen. The treaties are untouchable, precisely because Germany believes that to loosen its hold over the monetary system will be to open Pandora’s Box to the ghosts of inflation and social instability rising, to haunt us anew. Weidel was very clear on this danger.

The reality is that the European ‘lock-down’ derives from a system that has willfully removed power from parliaments and governments, and enshrined the automaticity of that system into treaties that can only be revised by extraordinary procedures. No one in Brussels sees any prospect of ‘that’ happening – hence the Brussels ‘record’ is stuck: repeating the mantra of ‘There Is No Alternative’ (TINA) to more, and closer, Euro-integration. And that is precisely what the European ‘sovereigntists’ are determined to oppose, by all means possible.

Only the onset of the coming recession in Europe and the associated sovereign debt crisis may prove sufficient to shake Brussels from its smug torpor, and to focus minds on how to manage the coming crisis. As Evans-Pritchard concludes, the ECB cannot save the eurozone another time. The baton passes to the politicians – if they are able?

Welcome to the new phase of Westphalian struggle: European ‘Empire’ – to be, or not to be.

UK's Johnson to meet Macron, Merkel next week: Guardian
FILE PHOTO: Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson visits the Fusion Energy Research Centre at the Fulham Science Centre in Oxfordshire, Britain August 8, 2019. Julian Simmonds/File Photo

British leader Boris Johnson will travel to meet his French and German counterparts on Tuesday and Wednesday next week, in his first foreign engagements since becoming prime minister last month, a Guardian reporter said on Friday.

Germany's Merkel and British PM Johnson to meet soon: spokesman
German Chancellor Angela Merkel leads the weekly cabinet meeting in Berlin, Germany, August 14, 2019.   REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

A meeting between Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is planned soon, a spokesman for the German government said on Friday, adding that details would be announced later.

Merkel wants close Britain-EU partnership after Brexit
Germany wants Britain to maintain a close partnership with the European Union after its divorce from the bloc, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday.

Merkel promises to meet defense spending target amid U.S. criticism
German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Germany's new Defence Minister, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, at the provisionally plenary hall of the German lower house of Parliament Bundestag at the Paul Loebe Haus in Berlin, Germany July 24, 2019. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday she was taking Berlin's commitment toward its NATO allies seriously to further increase defense spending toward the agreed target.

Merkel: No need for fiscal stimulus package right now
German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks during a ceremony to mark the 75th anniversary at the site where a group of officers led by Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg was shot after their failed July 20, 1944 attempt on the life of Adolf Hitler, in the Bendlerblock building in Berlin, Germany, July 20, 2019. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday she did not see any need for a fiscal stimulus package to counter the effects of a slowing economy, but she added that Berlin would continue to pursue a high level of public investment.

German finance minister Scholz ready to seek SPD leadership: spokeswoman
FILE PHOTO: German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz poses for a portrait during an interview with Reuters in his ministry in Berlin, Germany, June 5, 2019.     REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch/File Photo

German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz has told interim leaders of his Social Democrats (SPD) that he would be ready to run for the leadership of the center-left party, a party spokeswoman told Reuters on Friday.

EU27 ready for all Brexit scenarios, German finance minister Scholz says
FILE PHOTO: German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz speaks during a news conference at the G7 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting in Chantilly, near Paris, France, July 18, 2019.  REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol/File Photo

The European Union is united and ready for all scenarios related to Britain's planned departure from the bloc, German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said on Twitter on Friday, after meeting his British counterpart Sajid Javid.

Scholz wants to remain finance minister despite SPD leadership candidacy: RND
German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz does not plan to quit his post despite intending to run for the leadership of his Social Democrats, a German newspaper group reported on Friday.

Germany believes no-deal Brexit 'highly likely' - Handelsblatt
FILE PHOTO: A person walks past an EU and a British flag in London, Britain, April 2, 2019. REUTERS/Hannah Mckay

Germany's government expects Britain to crash out of the European Union on Oct. 31 without a deal in place on their future relations, the Handelsblatt business daily reported on Thursday, citing a finance ministry document.
 
Germany, Hungary to mark end of the Iron Curtain
People walk at the Pan-European Picnic Memorial Park in Sopronkohida, Hungary, August 16, 2019. Picture taken August 16, 2019. REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo

People walk at the Pan-European Picnic Memorial Park in Sopronkohida, Hungary, August 16, 2019. Picture taken August 16, 2019. REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo

August 18, 2019 - SOPRON, Hungary - Thirty years ago on Monday Hungarian border guards for the first time allowed people from communist East Germany to cross freely into Austria and hundreds of them rejoiced. The Iron Curtain was passing into history.

This was a milestone in a year of momentous change in Europe, leading in a few short months to the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.

But Hungary, the first country to dismantle the east-west frontier, was also the first to fortify its southern border against a big new influx of Asian and African immigrants.

In 2015, Hungary built a high-tech double razor wire fence, complete with heat sensors, night vision cameras and constant border patrols along its 300-kilometre (186-mile) border with Serbia and Croatia.

This was the physical manifestation of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s vision of a “fortress Europe”.

The immigration issue threw a wrench into the usually close ties between Hungary and Germany, since Orban clashed with the views of Chancellor Angela Merkel, who initially threw the gates open to migrants.

Orban and Merkel will mark the fall of the Iron Curtain together in Sopron on Monday.

In Europe, opinions are divided on these new barriers. For some of those whose lives were changed forever by their chance to flee to the West, they are a calamity. They remember fondly the so-called Pan-European Picnic, where hundreds of East Germans broke through to Austria as border guards stood aside.

“That was our second birthday,” said Hermann Pfitzenreiter, who took his wife and small children across the border that day and came back to the border town Sopron to mark the anniversary and meet old Hungarian friends.

“Erecting these walls and fences, it’s catastrophic,” added his wife Margarete. “As Germans we belonged in Germany, but we had experienced the same unliveable life (as today’s immigrants). I’d love to drop Viktor Orban on the other side so he feels what that is like.”

“High as these walls may be, they will never deter people,” Hermann Pfitzenreiter said. “What you see in the pictures (of us crossing) can’t be put into words. We could not believe it was happening, it was total ecstasy, it had been unthinkable.”

The Pfitzenreiters, now live in Germany, near Mannheim.

THIS FENCE IS NOT THAT FENCE
Hungarians who helped bring down the Iron Curtain resent any parallels with Hungary’s current southern border fortifications or its practice of keeping immigration next to zero, saying such practice is necessary to preserve the Europe that the events of 1989 created.

Arpad Bella, who headed up the border station unit posted at the Sopron crossing in August 1989, said he had his hands full with the Pan-European Picnic, a political jamboree packed with hundreds of “Ossies”, or east Germans.

“I could confront them and risk violence, or let them through and face the consequences,” he said at the memorial park now on that spot. He chose the latter. “Every border guard was sick of the task... We just wanted them gone.”

Eventually he evaded consequences as his chief waited on the national chief, who waited on the interior minister, who waited on then prime minister Miklos Nemeth, who waited on Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev.

“Everyone waited until in September the borders were opened officially and everyone was free to march West.”

“We did that for the sake of European unity. And what we do now serves to preserve that unity. If some countries dislike that or it hurts some interests, let them worry about it. I fully support Viktor Orban in this policy.”

Laszlo Magas, who organized the Pan-European picnic in 1989, said it was “shocking and wonderful to see those people with their kids on their shoulders, approaching the border all scared then erupt in happiness when they stepped over to Austria.”

Magas said that had nothing to do with today’s situation.

“It was anachronistic to have two Germanys. We were helping a nation. This here is completely different. Let’s not mix that up with the fence that the masses of migrants forced us to build.”

Slideshow (9 Images)
Germany, Hungary to mark end of the Iron Curtain
 
Not just Germany, though, as the AGW hypnotism of the masses digs deep in the West. However, one can well imagine the ripple effects from Europe's center if this tandem Malthusian economic climate comes to be - as this spreads out.

Dr. Tim Ball (not referenced here) discussed how these AGW mechanisms were not top down but inculcated at the community/municipal level to grow up organically (the lies), and I can see this in our communities which then reached higher up with ready made answers in policy to address the hypnotized masses concerns. Their address follows the same global momentum...

When discussing "Companies such as Deutsche Bank, BASF, Bayer, Siemens, Thyssen, Ford" and so many others worldwide, it seems that they have been told, there is no way around it, as this message is near completely integrated now right thought the banking systems in place.



By P Gosselin on 18. August 2019



The German automobile industry today continues to be the real engine driving the country’s economy, but that may dramatically change for the worse – soon – according to economists Matthias Weik and Marc Friedrich in a commentary at the online news portal of the Deutsche Mittelstands Nachrichten (German Midsize Companies News – DMN).

The two authors focus on the economic direction of the German economy and how it is seriously threatened by the country’s obsession with climate protection and how policymakers are neglecting its key industry: automobiles.

Weik and Friedrich say that German policymakers are naive, and are in the process of ruining the German economy in their panic to rescue the planet from an alleged climate meltdown.

“Everybody is talking about the climate, yet no one is talking about the economic climate,” Weik and Friedrich say.

“Hard as nails” recession threatens Germany

The two economists warn of a coming recession, one that will be “hard as nails” as the ecological activist onslaught on German industry picks up.

According to the Weik and Friedrich, already “the seasonally adjusted and real order intake of German industry fell by 8.6 percent compared to the same month last year! For the tenth month in a row it is going down!”

“Companies such as Deutsche Bank, BASF, Bayer, Siemens, Thyssen, Ford have begun “massive job cuts or announced plans to do so”.

The two authors say that new buzzwords, such as “unemployment” and “layoffs”, will soon be dominating the media and that “no one will talk about the shortage of skilled workers any more, let alone climate change”.

Climate activist policymakers “negligently gamble away” prosperity

They write that the outlook for Germany’s key industry, automobiles, “is pitch-black” as the assault against the internal combustion engine continues unrelentingly.

The authors write: “If we actually continue to destroy our car industry – which accounts for 21 percent of our GDP – then everyone must be aware of the consequences.”

These consequences would mean economic shock waves not only for Germany, but also for Europe which massively relies on revenues generated by the German automotive industry, the authors explain.

Weik and Friedrich write that Germany’s policies “negligently gamble away” prosperity and that the “coming climate change in the economy will nip all irrelevant sham debates in the bud.”

“People in the streets”…”different demonstrations on Fridays”

They add: “The heated discussions and hysteria are a sign of the famous late Roman decadence and a warning sign of the crash. For many who demonstrate today, there will be no jobs in Germany tomorrow.”

Weik and Friedrich warn that as the “economic climate changes drastically and more and more people are standing in the streets without work […] we will see completely different demonstrations on Fridays. But then it will be too late.”
 
Merkel hints at return to academia after politics
German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks after receiving an honorary doctorate by HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management during a ceremony in Leipzig Opera House in Leipzig, Germany, August 31, 2019. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

German Chancellor Angela Merkel appeared to suggest on Saturday that she might return to academia at the end of her current term in office, which ends in 2021.

Merkel allies suffer double blow in German regional elections
Alternative for Germany (AfD) party leader Joerg Meuthen and AfD's top candidate for the Saxony election Joerg Urban react after the announcement of first exit polls for the Saxony state election in Dresden, Germany, September 1, 2019. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives and her Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners bled support to the far right in two state elections in eastern Germany on Sunday, dealing a double blow to her already unstable ruling alliance.

Buoyed by state votes, Germany's AfD takes aim at Merkel coalition
Alternative for Germany (AfD) party top candidate for the Saxony election Joerg Urban appears in the TV studio after the announcement of first exit polls for the Saxony state election in Dresden, Germany, September 1, 2019. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

An emboldened far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) warned Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling coalition partners they could not carry on as before after luring many of their voters to come second in two regional elections in eastern Germany on Sunday.

Merkel allies weather far-right surge in German regional elections
German Social Democratic Party (SPD) Finance Minister Olaf Scholz gives a statement after first exit polls for the Brandenburg state election in Potsdam, Germany, September 1, 2019. REUTERS/Christian Mang

Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives and her Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners held off a surge in far right support in two state elections in eastern Germany on Sunday, averting an immediate crisis for the ruling alliance.
 
Berlin Seeks to Ease Housing Pressure With $1 Billion ADO Deal
September 27, 2019, 10:24 AM GMT+2
A real-estate company owned by the Berlin government agreed to buy about 6,000 apartments for 920 million euros ($1 billion) from ADO Properties SA, as the administration responds to public outrage over surging rents.

The deal is the largest such purchase by the city in its history, according to housing Senator Katrin Lompscher. The transaction is aimed at securing affordable housing as the administration seeks to freeze rents and counter efforts to force the government to expropriate large landlords.

Read more: Germany’s Biggest Landlord Sounds Alarm Over Berlin Rent Cap

“This serves the purpose of keeping rents in Berlin stable and providing security for the tenants,” Mayor Michael Mueller said in a statement. “‘At the same time, we will continue to build new apartments and make the rent freeze legally secure.”

Property manager Gewobag will buy some subsidiaries of ADO Properties, the municipal company said in a release. The apartments are mainly located in the outer districts of Spandau and Reinickendorf.

“Our first calculations indicate a rather high price for a lesser-quality product,” Jefferies analyst Thomas Rothaeusler said in a note. He estimated the purchase price is roughly 10% above the units’ book value.

ADO Properties’ share price rose as much as 5.6% on Friday and were up 2.4% at 10:21 a.m. in Frankfurt.



 
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