GER politics thread

[Skybird]

https://www-focus-de.translate.goog/..._x_tr_pto=wapp

It's probably only a matter of time before the Greens overtake all parties including the SPD and take the top post in a coalition government themselves. The CDU, which can no longer be associated with anything "conservative" anymore since the holy mother Angela gutted and disemboweled it alive, can no longer build up a counterweight, firstly because it is now only a hollow torso and thus its own echo chamber, and secondly because it would need a strong coalition partner - the FDP - to form a government majority. But the FDP is virtually assassinating itself, calling its complicity in radical left-wing zeitgeist projects "damage limitation." Its voters thank it for this sick logic by running away from it in droves and repeatedly chasing it out of parliament in state elections. In a new government with the SPD as its coalition partner, the CDU will vie to be perceived as at least as woke and left-wing as the red SPD socialists and green Maoists.

Things will not go well in Germany anymore. Only woker and left-anarchist Gesinnungsterror. Dissenters are increasingly intensively and increasingly blatantly discriminated against, meanwhile also get sanctioned by the state, non-complkiance with new wanted Orwellian-dystopian social norms and behaviour rules even increasingly get put under legal penalty. Of the next elections one can have already now only fear. No matter how it turns out, it can only get worse. Not voting at least doesn't make you complicit - but it also doesn't pay the bills that are guaranteed to explode under the next government.

Collapse seems to be the only solution. Exitus as a problem-solving strategy. Coming to this realization would actually be a "new mind-set" worth to be called that. Though suicidal.

[Skybird]

The Achse des Guten has this:
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Bundeswehr: Sleeping longer for Germany

(The author writes under a pseudonym, he is 59 years old, studied personnel development, reserve officer of the Bundeswehr and looks back on almost 40 years of civilian and military leadership experience).

What the Bundeswehr needs most urgently are men and women with fighting ability, the will to fight and the ability to fight. With the qualities of perseverance and the ability to suffer. The result of this zeitgeisty snowflake advertising is that the army is full of people who are good for anything, but not for being soldiers.

The issue that will occupy the Bundeswehr most intensively at present and in the coming years is the personnel shortage. The latest idea of the personnel development (PE) in the troops is to let the volunteers sleep until 8 o'clock, because getting up early leads to many early terminations. If the force continues down this path, it will fail on this key issue. From my point of view, the discussion about reinstating conscription is just a sham in this regard. The problem lies elsewhere.

The Bundeswehr is making several mistakes that are considered to be the classic "deadly sins" of personnel development.

The first deadly sin is always when an organization does not know what its actual personnel requirements are. This concerns not only the sheer number, but also the qualifications, availability and motivational situation of the potential new employees. In terms of numbers and qualifications, the Bundeswehr seems to be halfway there when it comes to formulating requirements. But that's where it stops.

Since such "soft" factors as availability, motivation and flexibility are not considered at all or only inadequately when formulating requirements, this inevitably leads to the second deadly sin:

The personnel requirement. And this is where the Bundeswehr has its hands full. The army is addressing the completely wrong target group with its recruitment advertising. Just look at the advertising posters you see in public. Paramedics, logisticians, IT nerds, at most protocol soldiers. Gladly female, colored, and always gendered. If you take this at face value, the Bundeswehr is looking for woken stage stallions [Etappenhengste, Skybird] and mares (I'm deliberately exaggerating - I'm aware that medics also do tough jobs in the field, that's not my point here). Add to that the self-promotion as a modern part-time operation with a nursery and refrigerator.

A glut of woken warm-shower-takers

What the Bundeswehr needs most urgently is not mentioned anywhere: men and women with fighting strength, the will to fight and the ability to fight. With the qualities of resilience, perseverance and the ability to suffer. Many - very many of them. You won't find an advertisement for that anywhere. In turn, the zeitgeisty snowflake advertising results in masses of people in the force who are good for anything, but not soldiers. A culture is establishing itself in the Bundeswehr that indulges the woken zeitgeist of oppressed minorities and does not shirk from writing topics such as waste separation, climate protection and counter-gendered ranks on its agenda. This radiates to all areas, all of which are impaired and hindered as a result.

Another point is also overlooked: The "real" soldiers in the force feel made fun of by the glut of woken warm-shower-takers [Warmduscher, Skybird]. They no longer take each other seriously and sometimes like to work against each other. Under the keyword BAAINBw (Bundesamt für Ausrüstung, Informationstechnik und Nutzung der Bundeswehr - Federal Office for Equipment, Information Technology and Use of the German Armed Forces) you can find many entries on this topic.

This is ultimately due to the third deadly sin of personnel development: The quality of personnel developers in the Ministry of Defense and the Federal Office of Personnel Management of the Bundeswehr is subterraneously poor. Both the active soldiers and the reserves are somehow kept alive in SAP, but not developed or managed. In this regard, there is a golden rule in personnel development that is apparently completely unknown in the Bundeswehr: "First class hires first class. Second class hires third class." Until the Bundeswehr leadership hires first class PE people, the troops must continue to count gender stars.

Why am I harping on the gender issue? Quite simply, a female soldier who doesn't feel "included" when her company is addressed as "Comrades!" or who has trouble getting up at 5 a.m. would be better off enlisting in the next district administration. In my eyes, the security of Germany has absolute priority over woken weakmatism issues. If the troops continue to deal with such insanity, they will never again become a powerful army.

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[Skybird]

FOCUS:
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Putin's war reveals how tired our chancellor has become


The fact that Olaf Scholz suddenly seems so tired and so touched is due to Putin's war. And the burden he is placing on the German chancellor. But there are other reasons as well. Two, to be precise.

How exhausting it can be, how tiring it can be to spend all one's energy on not letting oneself be made "crazy" could now be seen with the chancellor. After this Scholz solo show on Maybrit Illner [a talk show format on German state TV, Skybird], the FAZ judged that every question was a "threat to his psycho-hygiene.

For a year now, Olaf Scholz has been saying that he has a concept from which he will not be dissuaded. The only problem is that important people don't understand it. The most recent example: the chancellor says the debate about fighter jets for Ukraine "makes no sense. And a day later, London says it is preparing a "ring swap" so that Poland, for example, can supply Ukraine with old Mig-29 fighter jets, which it will replace with NATO jets.

These 365 days of war have also left their mark on Scholz

Scholz is thin-skinned, he always has been, you could see that with all the Cum-Ex inquiries. The second trait is his self-assurance, one can marvel at that, but it was exactly this steadfastness against all odds that carried him into the chancellorship. Crisis situations bring out the true qualities even of leaders. These 365 days of war have also left their mark on Scholz. If you will, Putin's war reveals how tired the chancellor has become.

It's not that something new has emerged in him, it's just that what has been there for a long time is coming to the fore. Scholz said at Illner that he basically sleeps little. And there he also looked the way you look when the burden of war has simply worn you down. Why is this so striking right now?

Because there are two "players" in particular in this Scholz "game" field who are so different from him. On Twitter, more and more people are asking where Scholz hid Boris Pistorius for a year. It's a compliment, and after Pistorius's solo appearance on Markus Lanz, it was also completely clear why the new defense minister could become the "shooting star" of the traffic light government.

Pistorius' passion and dedication is what people want to see right now in all their uncertainty

Pistorius communicates with somnambulistic confidence. He is simply not afraid to make a mistake. He is disarmingly honest. And most importantly, he explains why he really enjoys doing this "****ty job." Out of a desire for responsibility, probably also as a desire to be on stage.

Passion and dedication, that's what people want to see right now. In all their uncertainty. The population is divided, you can see it in every survey, which only means: What is needed most right now is orientation. And now there is this self-confident Boris Pistorius from self-confident Osnabrück, and he provides what is needed most right now.

One example, compared to Scholz: Unlike the chancellor, Pistorius doesn't even try to push away the difficult fighter jet issue, but simply says: We don't have any that we could hand over to Ukraine. And to the question that Scholz now refuses to answer, even when asked several times, Pistorius answers crystal clear: Ukraine should win.
Annalena Baerbock makes mistakes, but she proves her "passion for job"

The second minister who is so strikingly different from the chancellor is Annalena Baerbock. She wears her heart on her sleeve, and that's why she makes outrageous mistakes that she has to pick up again afterwards. Like this "at war" with Russia. Or the "360 degrees" (instead of 180 degrees) around which Putin would have to turn. With such a thing she makes herself ridiculous with many, but with most something else prevails - her devotion. "Passion for job," is what the Yanks call it.

The US Secretary of State Anthoy Blinken is her fan, one could witness it at the security conference in Munich. Ukraine asked her to speak last before the UN General Assembly vote. And she did it really well. "Very cleverly," foreign policy expert Thomas Jäger, who also writes for FOCUS online, thought afterwards - how Baerbock avoided a vote on Russia. By making the vote on the aggressor Putin a vote on the United Nations Charter.

So in the end only questionable, because Russophile countries like North Korea and Nicaragua still openly stood by Russia's side. 141 pro-votes - if we wrote yesterday that Baerbock would get a certificate in New York, then we must also say today after the certificate award: Goal achieved. Two plus (because there were no more than last time).

If you want to convince, you can hardly do it better rhetorically than Baerbock

Baerbock's speeches are not cool analyses, but warm-hearted narratives from life and from her own experience. If you want to convince, you can hardly do better rhetorically. Baerbock introduced her speech at the United Nations like this:

"45 seconds. That's how long it takes Russian missiles to reach Kharkiv after you hear the sirens. I have met teenagers in Ukraine for whom counting to 45 is part of daily life... "

So it's no wonder that Boris Pistorius and Annalena Baerbock are now perceived as an alternative to Olaf Scholz. Whereby Pistorius has placed himself in the judgment of the population still before Baerbock. The difference between the Social Democrat and the Green: Pistorius has not yet made a mistake.

And with him, you notice the dedication, but also: the renunciation of exuberance. Instead, self-reflection: "I could never have imagined that I would have to spend billions on weapons in such a position." Plus the clear renunciation of party-political "bashing," which military expert Carlo Masala likes so much: "That's how an honest explanation of the Bundeswehr's development over the past 30 years, not one aimed at blame and shame, works." No party still had external security on the screen, Pistorius had said disarmingly honestly. And people feel: for this top job, this is probably the more appropriate attitude.

Baerbock and Pistorius go "all in," Scholz pursues reinsurance policy

The war aims, by the way, are not a trivial matter, as Scholz is trying to wipe away. It may yet become decisive. For anyone who, like Baerbock and Pistorius, wants Ukraine to win shares its war aims. Those who, like Scholz, say that Russia must not win and Ukraine must not lose are keeping everything open. Baerbock and Pistorius go "all in," while Scholz pursues reinsurance policy. He calls what Americans and Poles perceive as hesitancy "prudence.

Prudence is the formula Scholz needs to keep the more fearful part of the population with him. But prudence is also the formula Scholz needs to keep his own store, the SPD, in line.

Will "prudence" carry Scholz for another 365 days?
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[Catfish]

Everyone is an "alternative" to Scholz, and most are better. This FdJ clown and cum-ex fraud can go.

[Skybird]

A total green dominance does not sound like fun either.

There are no alternatives to Scholz or anyone else in the meaning of "this is the lesser evil than that". All, including Scholz, are utmost negative options. And then there is the infinite stupidity of the plebs, making sure nobody escapes the horror.

Arsenic, cyanide or strichnyn - enjoy your freedom to chose. Negotiate a "reasonable compromise". Some more foam from the mouth, or do you prefer uncontrolled cramps and suffocation? Blood from the eyes or preferrably from the nose? More or less minutes of agony? Excecution in the morning, noontime, or in the afternoon? Green, red or yellow coating on the poison pill?

Dont hold back, we can talk about everything, we are flexible and ready to accept compromises of any kind - as long as you end up dead by the end of the day. No thinking taboos!

[Skybird]

It has come about exactly as I predicted a year ago: the turning point in Germany's defense policy does not exist. And it will not come. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung draws this bitter conclusion (markings by underlining by me):
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Lofty goals, hardly any results: Germany's "turnaround" [Zeitenwende] in defense policy is stuck

The Chancellor's big words have been followed by little. True, the government in Berlin backed away from its ban on arms exports to war zones. But the country's defense capability has not improved one iota.

The change was felt immediately when the war began a year ago.

The German navy launched everything that could float, when the Russian attack on Ukraine was just a few hours old. That should have been a sign of determination not to be intimidated by Putin.

The inspector of Germany's land forces sent out a Linkedin post to the world on the morning of the raid in which he admitted, with rare candor, that the army was pretty much not operational - "more or less bare." That was honest.

And the armaments chief in Berlin's Defense Ministry rounded up the CEOs of the German arms industry and its suppliers for a video conference. They were to help quickly boost the Bundeswehr's operational readiness. Such a meeting was unimaginable until then.

This was the turn of the times, as described by Chancellor Olaf Scholz to the German Bundestag on Feb. 27, 2022: "The world after this is no longer the same as the world before."

Germany back to military dominance in Europe?

But what has remained of this determination, this honesty, this changed mindset? Have times changed, has Germany's security and defense policy changed? Or have times remained the same as they were for three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, except that it is now harder for Germans to close their eyes to realities? The short answer: yes. The long answer: it's complicated.

"We need to invest significantly more in the security of our country to protect our freedom and our democracy in this way." So said Chancellor Scholz in his turn-of-the-century [Zeitenwende] speech, announcing a "special fund" for the Bundeswehr: 100 billion euros. That sounded like such a huge sum that some countries worriedly asked whether Germany was heading back toward military domination in the center of Europe.

They can rest assured. There is still a long way to go before that happens.

Germany's turnaround in defense spending has so far failed to materialize. The "special assets" are only enough to close equipment gaps that have resulted from cutbacks and underfunding over the past thirty years. More would be needed to eliminate all deficiencies in the short term and make the Bundeswehr operational in the long term. Scholz had recognized this: "From now on, we will invest more than two percent of the gross domestic product in our defense year after year," he said a year ago.

But just one month later, when presenting the federal budget for 2022, he again called this target into question.

Scholz has said goodbye to the two percent target

The defense budget did increase by almost 7 percent to just over 50 billion euros. But that was only 1.5 percent of German economic output, especially since inflation ate up the increase. This is where things are set to stay in the coming years. The budget for 2023 does not show any increases, and neither does the German government's medium-term financial planning. The Institute of the German Economy estimates that Germany will miss the two percent target in 2023 and from 2026 on. [Inflation will further increase the gaps in the defence budget, Skybird]

Germany will miss the two percent target
Defense spending including special assets in billions of euros
Defense spending from special assets / According to NATO definition
Difference to two percent target / Forecast (from 2024)



1 Assumption: special assets are used to achieve the two percent target.
Source: Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft / NZZ / ski.

So Scholz has long since rescinded his announcement. At the security conference in Munich a week ago, he no longer spoke of "more than two percent," but only of "two percent" of the gross domestic product for the Bundeswehr.

But even this amount is not enough for the government. To reach the two-percent target this year, 18 billion euros are missing. Expenditures of about 8 billion are earmarked from the "special assets." That's why Defense Minister Boris Pistorius is now demanding 10 billion euros more, but not until 2024. His predecessor, Christine Lambrecht, could have already done that for this year. But she didn't.

For Pistorius, there is another problem: He does not have 100 billion. The so-called special assets are financed by debt, and interest already reduced it by 13 billion. If the defense minister wants more money for the defense budget, either Finance Minister Christian Lindner would have to raise taxes. Or the other departments would have to give up money. Both scenarios are unlikely.

"Special assets": more money budgeted than available

The turnaround in the Bundeswehr is being put into perspective even before it can really be implemented. But has anything at least already been done with the money? The answer is no. But the Bundeswehr has plans for what it is to be spent on. The largest part (41 billion euros) will go to the air force for fighter jets, helicopters, drones and air defense systems.

The navy is to get frigates, guided missiles, reconnaissance aircraft, multi-purpose combat boats and submarines worth 19 billion euros, while the army is to receive armored personnel carriers and armored transport vehicles (17 billion). In addition, 20 billion will be spent on digital radio and command and control systems for the entire Bundeswehr. All in all, this is already more than is available in funds minus the interest burden.

Not much of all this has yet been ordered. Last December, the Bundestag approved the purchase of 35 F-35s and part of the 20 billion package for digital radio.

And even if orders have been placed, it does not mean that results will be visible tomorrow: It will be many years before the needed weapons arrive. It simply takes time to build a fighter aircraft like the F-35 and the infrastructure needed for it in Germany. The first U.S.-made aircraft is scheduled to arrive in Germany in 2027, but training will begin in the U.S. in just two years.

New weapons: Nothing happens for four months

Other delays are systemic and homemade. When Scholz announced the additional 100 billion a year ago, there was no budget for the current year. The government was new, and deliberations did not begin until a month later. It was June before the Bundestag approved the spending. That was four months in which nothing happened.

Another five months followed before the first procurement projects were presented to parliament. After that, Germany's top soldier, Inspector General Eberhard Zorn, said that the Bundeswehr had never before committed to funding such sums so quickly. But the question is why the Defense Ministry did not work ahead to get the procurement of urgently needed equipment underway immediately after the "special fund" was passed.

The Bundeswehr knew what it lacked above all: ammunition. Instead, it was business as usual. The Ministry of Defense and the Bundeswehr wasted time with months of deliberations, for example, about whether a future artillery system or a new infantry fighting vehicle should be tracked or wheeled.

Germany is structurally incapable of defense

The overtaxed and disinterested Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht let it happen, including the fact that the wrong priorities continued to be set at the procurement office in Koblenz. All of a sudden, the Bundeswehr again has a lot of money that this office has to convert into concrete projects. In previous years, the maximum amount of money to be implemented by the agency per year was around 7 billion euros. Now it will be significantly more.

Lambrecht could have relieved the authority in Koblenz of a time-consuming and personnel-intensive task last year. The material used by the armed forces is managed from Koblenz. This includes, for example, the purchase and storage of spare parts. The Army, Air Force and Navy can do that themselves, just as they used to. But Lambrecht and her leadership team did nothing. [Skybird: she instead brought in many party friends of her mindset and massively increased the bureaucratic staff in the defence ministry, bogging things down further: thats one of the reasons why I said repeatedly she was not only incapable and uninterested, but had an interest to actively sabotage the defence capability of Germany, she is counted as an extreme left in the SPD].

As a result, policymakers still find themselves in an arms procurement jungle that has grown over decades. It is the result of political aimlessness and half-heartedness - for more than three decades, armaments were not a relevant topic as part of security provision in Germany. So writes the military expert of the German Council on Foreign Relations, Christian Mölling, in a recent study. And further: "This political-strategic vacuum was filled with the loving care of bureaucratic processes. These exist by the thousands and multiply without the intervention of politics!"

Germany is structurally incapable of defense. Whether that is the bureaucracy taking on a life of its own or a lack of political will: The system is failing. This has not changed even after the turnaround proclaimed by Scholz.

Germany simply carries on as before

It still makes no difference whether the new construction of a highway section or the procurement of weapons is put out to tender. Award procedures in Germany continue to be conducted as if there were no new security situation in Europe. As a result, other nations have already placed orders with the German arms industry ahead of the domestic Bundeswehr.

By the parliamentary summer recess in July, 24 procurement projects will now be submitted to the Bundestag for approval, including heavy transport helicopters (Chinook), guided missiles, air defense systems (Iris-T) and guns to replace howitzers supplied to Ukraine. [Means: it will last even longer, Skybird]

The Germans have shaken their heads at their dysfunctional armed forces and their equipment for decades. No wonder, the main mission of the Bundeswehr was in Afghanistan for more than twenty years, and that country was far away. But changing times is not just about money, defense, arms procurement and armed forces. It starts in the mind.

The mental turnaround threatens to get stuck

The number of Germans who want everything to be the way it was before the attack is growing. They are calling for negotiations and rejecting arms deliveries. But at the moment that would be nothing more than giving Putin what he wants. The mental turnaround in Germany is threatening to stall. In order for the turnaround proclaimed by Scholz to actually become such, he must break down the deeply rooted rejection of fundamental change.

That it can be done in principle is evident in the German government. The left wing of the Social Democrats, in particular, has painfully abandoned its strict rejection of arms exports to war zones and its basic stance of "creating peace without weapons. Reality beats ideology. [There is also a strong camp that wants to block the "militarization" of Germany, Skybird].

Last year, the German government delivered "lethal and non-lethal equipment" worth 2.2 billion euros to Ukraine, including howitzers, air defense systems, machine guns, armored vehicles and ammunition. This year, further arms assistance worth 2 billion euros is planned, including battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. All in all, Germany is Ukraine's third-largest supporter after the United States and the United Kingdom.

So far, the turn of the tide in Germany has largely remained just a buzzword. Only gradually are the Germans realizing that they have to say goodbye to the cherished illusion of a self-evident peaceful world order. Slowly, something is returning to the reality of their lives that was already found in the writings of Plato some 2,500 years ago: "If you want peace, prepare for war.
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Das wird nix mehr mit Deutschland. Zu kaputt.

[Skybird]

Its getting worse and worse - and intentionally so.

"Ethically unacceptable": Christian nursing home puts old and infirm on the street - now refugees arrive.

A nursing home in Berlin-Wedding is being evacuated. Helpless residents have nowhere to go, as there is a shortage of places throughout the city. The owner is now taking in refugees.

https://www.nzz.ch/international/chr...&_x_tr_sl=auto

Slowly and insidiously, Germany is becoming more and more of a nasty, dark hole. The case is not an isolated one. From all over Germany, there are increasing reports of de-housing in order to accommodate migrants. But the government still categorically refuses to limit the influx of migrants.

The overwhelming majpority of migrants form Syria and Afghanistan do not work, are social net receivers. And of the Uukrainian refugees, after one year only 17% found a job due to overwhelming bureaucratic hurdles and refusal to accept their Ukrainian diploma and qualifications.

Interior social fat cat Faeser strictly refuses to limit the number of migrants or to sort them. A categorical No from her, and being snapped if pressed by further questions for the sense in this.


Before the middle of this century this mental asylum named Germany will blow up from all its inbred stupidity. Or its torso simply collapses one day and blows dry dust up in clouds after having been hollowed out and rotting in the hidden for all these years. Either the one, or the other.

[Skybird]

Deutsche Welle:
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What happened to the German military's €100 billion fund?

A year ago, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised to upgrade the Bundeswehr with a massive one-off fund. Critics say not much has happened since.

Just over a year ago, Chancellor Olaf Scholz gave a speech to the German parliament that is likely to define his chancellorship — and he was barely two months into it. The "Zeitenwende" speech (literally "turning of the times"), a response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, was built on the announcement that the German military would receive a special one-off fund of €100 billion to be upgraded.
On June 3, the center-right opposition in the Bundestag joined forces with the ruling parties to change the constitution and allow the additional debt — an unprecedented occurrence in the history of the Federal Republic.
Since then, Scholz's center-left coalition has been dogged by broadsides from the conservative opposition and critics who say Germany's troops have not benefited from this windfall. "The Bundeswehr has tremendous deficits, and the Zeitenwende hasn't even started in it," Roderich Kiesewetter, foreign policy spokesman for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper on Monday. "The military has lost a year and is barer than it was at the start of 2022."

Why Germany's military is in a bad state, and what's being done to fix it

In response, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, head of the Bundestag defense committee and a member of the governing coalition's Free Democratic Party (FDP), remarked pointedly to the Deutschlandfunk public radio station that, in the 16 years the CDU had occupied the Defense Ministry under Angela Merkel, "nothing at all" had been done to modernize the army.
She then listed what she said were the government's achievements of the past year: new orders of F-35 fighter jets and heavy transport helicopters from the United States and a new digitalization drive to modernize the forces.
For its part, the Defense Ministry says €30 billion of the €100 billion has already been earmarked for major purchases. There has been some criticism from European allies, and within Germany, that so many big orders have been placed in the United States, though ultimately most of the special fund is likely to stay in Germany, which has a strong weapons industry.
And anyway, Strack-Zimmermann said, €100 billion isn't something that can easily be spent in a year. Manufacturing sophisticated new equipment takes time. The first eight F-35s, for example, are expected to be delivered in 2026 (they will initially stay in the US while Bundeswehr pilots are trained), with the remaining 27 to be delivered by 2029. Some goods, like new digital communication equipment, will be available more quickly, while others will take even longer.

Time is pressing. Economic forces are eating away at the €100 billion. Rafael Loss, a defense specialist at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), told DW that the original estimate was that only €8 billion of the special fund would have to go toward the interest payments on the loan that the government had taken out. Now, thanks to rising interest rates, that estimate has gone up to €13 billion. So that leaves €87 billion of actual money to spend.
On top of that, there's inflation, dollar-euro exchange rates, and the value-added tax, all of which mean that, once all the extra costs have been covered, only about €50 to €70 billion will be left over to spend on actual hardware. "The longer you have this money sit around somewhere, the longer factors like inflation and interest payments have to eat away at this pile," Loss said.
To some extent, Loss agrees that the government could have acted quicker. "In some ways, last year was a lost year for the Bundeswehr," he said. "But the new defense minister (Boris Pistorius) seems to be pushing for a lot of things to happen on accelerated timelines, like the replacement of the Leopard tanks."
Boris Pistorius took office just over a month ago, after his predecessor Christine Lambrecht, also a Social Democrat, resigned in part because of a wave of discontent with her leadership that leaked from within the army ranks.
And the new minister has been pushing for more money: This week he suggested that the special fund was not enough to cover the military's needs, and called for his ministry's budget to be increased by an extra €10 billion. Some of his colleagues, among them his party's co-leader Saskia Esken, appeared less than enthusiastic about the idea.

Pistorius' apparent urgency is a shift for the German military, which has for many years suffered from inefficiency in its procurement. In 2022, that was a familiar complaint made Hans Christoph Atzpodien, head of the German security and defense industry association BDSV, whose members include all of Germany's biggest suppliers of heavy military equipment, including Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, which makes the Leopard 2 tank.
Atzpodien has argued that the bureaucratic colossus that is the military's procurement system suffers from a "perfectionism" in its regulations that often means the troops don't actually get what they need — citing the example of the German tank crews who don't have the same radio equipment their international partners do, even though these have been specifically requested.
That particular wrinkle has since been ironed out. "I have to give the procurement process credit for the fact that in December 2022 a procurement decision was made for precisely this equipment — even with a German company — which we of course welcome," he told DW.
This is a new tone. As recently as December, Atzpodien was getting into public rows with senior government figures who alleged that the arms industry should be working harder to increase capacity. Now, the two sides appear to be on the same page: "We are very confident that the orders that were essentially held up by budgetary bureaucratic processes will now get underway on an appropriate scale," he said.

The procurement ecosystem

Loss said the complexities of procurement remained an issue that defies easy fixes: "It's a very complex ecosystem between parliament as the budget holder, the Defense Ministry, procurement agencies and the armed forces."
After the Cold War, he said, the Bundeswehr settled into a culture in which speed was not a priority. "There was an enormous risk aversion to doing anything wrong and spending maybe a little bit too much money on things to get them through the procurement pipeline faster," he said.
On top of that, Loss thinks that the regional interests of Bundestag members often played a part in how procurement decisions were made — with Bavarian politicians pushing for Bavaria-based aviation companies to win contracts, for example. "This leads to budget processes being less oriented towards military needs," said Loss. "I suppose in the US they would call this pork-barrel politics."
In other words, Scholz's famous "turning of the times" involves turning around the colossal ocean tanker that is the German military, its culture and its bureaucracy. Even one year isn't enough to do that.

[Skybird]

Deutsche Welle, German edition:
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Germany: Inflation remains at a high level

As in January, consumer prices in February were 8.7 percent higher than in the same month a year earlier. This is the result of an estimate by the Federal Statistical Office. Experts had expected a decline.

The decline in general inflation in Germany surprisingly failed to materialize in February. Goods and services became more expensive, as in January, by an average of 8.7 percent compared to the same month last year, as announced by the Federal Statistical Office on Wednesday after its first estimate. Economists polled by Reuters news agency had predicted a drop to 8.5 percent. Prices rose 0.8 percent from January to February.

Energy cost 19.1 percent more in February than a year earlier. The upward trend in prices thus weakened here: In January, there had still been an increase of 23.1 percent. Food, on the other hand, rose by 21.8 percent, more than the recent increase of 20.2 percent. Services cost an average of 4.7 percent more than in February 2022.

Experts now expect a turn for the better next month at the latest. "As the explosive rise in energy and food prices following the start of the war in late February 2022 will drop out of the year-on-year comparison from March onwards, the overall inflation rate should fall noticeably from March onwards," said Berenberg Bank's chief economist Holger Schmieding.

It is true that in quite a few German states, the cost of fuel and light heating oil did not rise quite as much in February. "However, this welcome news is more than offset by higher prices in other areas," Schmieding said. For example, people's increasing desire to travel is likely to have contributed to the fact that package tours in North Rhine-Westphalia, for example, cost 8.1 percent more in February than a year earlier, following a rate of 6.2 percent in January. Citizens also had to spend significantly more on overnight stays in hotels and on eating out in restaurants. "High heating costs, expensive food and the shortage of waiters and other staff is probably making itself felt here," Schmieding said.

A survey by the Munich-based Ifo Institute also points to a slowdown in inflation. According to the survey, significantly fewer German companies than before intend to raise their prices in the next three months. The index of price expectations fell in February for the fifth time in a row to 29.1 points, as the Munich-based economic researchers announced on Wednesday.

The bad news for consumers is that a large number of retailers are still planning price increases. In the food and beverage sector, for example, it is still more than three quarters (77.2 balance points), according to the Ifo survey. According to the survey, the majority of tour operators (63.2) and restaurateurs (52.7) also intend to further increase the price of their services, even though the index in these two sectors has also fallen.

To a large extent the wave of the price increases on the building had died down against it. According to the report, in the main construction sector, on average the fewest companies want to pass on increased purchase prices to their customers, with the index falling to 18.7 points, the lowest value since April 2021. "Companies have already passed on a large part of the increased costs to their customers, while at the same time demand is weakening in almost all sectors of the economy," summed up Ifo's head of economic activity, Timo Wollmershäuser. "This should reduce inflationary pressure in the coming months."

Real wage losses in Germany last year were not as severe as previously indicated because of the corrected inflation rate. Gross monthly earnings of employees, including special payments, increased by 3.5 percent, but consumer prices rose much more strongly at 6.9 percent. Thus, real wages fell at a record pace of 3.1 percent and for the third year in a row, as reported by the Federal Statistical Office on Wednesday. An earlier estimate had even shown a minus of 4.1 percent, but has now been corrected significantly downward.

This became necessary because the inflation rate for the past year was recalculated. The basket of goods used to determine prices was changed to the consumption patterns from 2020, previously 2015 served as the basis. As a result, the inflation rate was corrected significantly downward - namely from 7.9 to 6.9 percent, because energy, which has recently become much more expensive, has less weight in the new basket of goods.

"As before, this is the highest increase in nominal wages accompanied by the strongest real wage loss for employees measured in Germany since the start of the time series in 2008," the statisticians emphasized. While in 2020 the increased use of short-time work due to the Corona pandemic in particular had contributed to the negative nominal and real wage development, in 2021 and 2022 high inflation eroded the nominal wage increase. Most recently, the trend was also negative: In the fourth quarter of 2022, real wages fell by 3.7 percent.

[Skybird]

Neue Zürcher Zeitung:
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Government statement on the "turn of the times": Olaf Scholz wants to have weapons produced continuously again

The German chancellor announces long-term contracts and down payments for the arms industry in the Bundestag. At the same time, he revises his funding pledges for the Bundeswehr, calling into question his own "turn of the times."

One year after his speech on the "turn of the times" caused by the Russian war of aggression, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has announced a strengthening of the German defense industry. "We need ongoing production of important weapons, equipment and ammunition," he said Thursday morning in a government statement in the Bundestag. With "long-term contracts and down payments," the government wants to ensure that companies expand their capacities, he said. In this way, he said, an industrial base was to be created in Germany that would contribute to securing peace and freedom in Europe.

The government in Berlin is thus continuing its course of making Germany defensible again. A year ago, Scholz announced a special fund of 100 billion euros for the German armed forces. After decades of decline, the German army is to be modernized with these funds. In his review of the past year, the chancellor failed to mention that his government has hardly placed any orders with weapons manufacturers since the outbreak of war.

Instead, he announced that the contracts for the majority of the procurement projects from the special fund would be concluded this year. These are mainly aircraft and helicopters, but also frigates, submarines, armored personnel carriers and radio equipment. Howitzers, rocket launchers, air defense systems, battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles supplied to the Ukrainian armed forces from Bundeswehr stocks are also to be reordered this year. However, ammunition, which is most urgently lacking for the Bundeswehr, has not yet been included in the special fund. It is to be financed from the current defense budget.

No more talk of more than two percent of GDP for the military

A year ago, Scholz announced that the budget for the Bundeswehr would be raised permanently to "more than two percent" of the gross domestic product. As he did at the security conference in Munich two weeks ago, he now wanted nothing more to do with this in his government declaration. Instead, he spoke only of wanting to achieve NATO's two percent target on a permanent basis. In view of the planned spending from the special fund (8 billion euros) and the defense budget of almost 50 billion euros, he will not keep his promise this year.

Scholz rejected criticism of the arms deliveries to Ukraine. You don't create peace when you shout "never again war" in Berlin and at the same time demand that all arms deliveries to Ukraine be stopped, he said, alluding to recent protests. Last weekend, an initiative led by left-wing politician Sahra Wagenknecht and author Alice Schwarzer held a demonstration in Berlin demanding an immediate end to arms deliveries and the start of peace negotiations with Putin. "With a gun to the temple, it is impossible to negotiate except about one's own submission," Scholz complained to the demonstrators.

As expected, he praised the work of his government. Scholz considered it a success for Germany that a large majority in the UN General Assembly the previous week condemned the Russian attack. However, 32 states had again abstained from voting, including China and India. Scholz also chalked up as his success the fact that Beijing had "unequivocally" opposed any threat of nuclear weapons and their use a few months ago. "Do not supply weapons to the aggressor Russia," he said, addressing the government in Beijing directly.

More arms deliveries for Ukraine

Germany will maintain its military support for Ukraine for as long as necessary, he said. Scholz announced that more equipment would soon be delivered, including anti-tank weapons, howitzers, five Gepard anti-aircraft tanks, an Iris-T air defense system and ammunition. He said progress is also being made on the tank alliance. Poland, Sweden, Norway, Spain, Canada, Portugal, the Netherlands and Denmark have agreed to support Germany in supplying Leopard tanks to Ukraine.

Scholz remained vague on the most interesting point of his government statement. He said Germany would help Ukraine achieve a just peace. "That is why we are also talking with Kiev and other partners about future security commitments for Ukraine," he said. But he did not say what he specifically meant by "security commitments" and what that meant for Germany and the Bundeswehr.
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Smoke screens, evasive phrases and vague Bla-bla, spiced up with his usual self-appraisal. Forget the Zeitenwende, he never meant that serious anyway, nor did he ever mean to keep the promise of sticking to the 2% goal.

[Skybird]

I would be speechless - if I wouldn't be used to scandalous sentences like this since many years by now. FOCUS writes:
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"On track to become normal citizen "Syrian rapes 15-year-old and gets off with probation


In July 2022, a drunk Syrian raped a 15-year-old girl in Osnabrück. This Friday, the verdict was: probation. The court's reasoning: the man was on his way to becoming a normal fellow citizen and the girl would thus at least receive compensation for her pain.

"You are well on your way to becoming a normal citizen here," said the judge at the end of the trial against a 30-year-old man from Syria. He was charged with drunkenly raping a 15-year-old girl in Osnabrück. The court also established this beyond doubt. Nevertheless, the man got off with a suspended sentence and compensation for the victim. The "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung" reports that.

"It was the first time I drank alcohol," the 30-year-old testified in court. "Possibly he was piqued by the alcohol," argues his defense attorney. The fact is that on his way home from a disco, the Syrian met the girl, who was on her way to her boyfriend. In Möserstraße, he asked her for a cigarette, smoked it and talked to her as far as his language skills allowed.

Later, he pushed her against a wall, fiddled with her and did not let go of the girl even when she fled into a staircase. Using violence, he finally raped the girl. Exactly why remains an open question to this day.

During the trial, it also emerged that the Syrian had given the 15-year-old a bag containing half a gram of cannabis. This was another reason why the 30-year-old was finally sentenced - but only to a suspended sentence.

"I'm not allowed to say anything about the content of the counseling, but we had a hard time," said the judge in charge at the district court after the verdict. In favor of the defendant, he said, was that he was disinhibited due to alcohol and had no significant criminal record. The intensity of the rape was also "on the lower edge" from a purely legal point of view.

Finally, the judge highlighted another aspect. The man, who fled from Syria in 2015, could show an apartment and soon also a job, he said. "You are, after all, on a good path to becoming a normal fellow citizen here."

All this saved the 30-year-old from prison. Instead, he is now on probation for three years, may not approach his victim more than 50 meters and must leave immediately if he sees the girl anywhere. In addition, he must pay 3000 euros in damages to the 15-year-old.

According to the judge, this should also be seen as positive for the victim. Thus, the 15-year-old finally also has more from the suspended sentence than she would have from a stay in prison. "Because this way you can at least work and pay her the pain money that she would otherwise certainly never get."
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Thats cynism at the finest. I spit into the face of this comically so-called "judge".

And new ordinary citizens like this they can use to isolate reactor cores with. I dont want such new "citizens", I dont need them, I dont tolerate them.


And I spit on this "justice system". Its a cynical joke. Too many, way too many sentences like this, Even in my own biography me and my family were affected by such terrible failures of a court sentence. THREE times. Two times it costed lives, and several seriously injured. One time it costed me over half a million. Im done with the german "justice system".

[Skybird]

The era of the Merkel. Desastrous. The Focus has this bitter bilance:
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Merkel's true record reveals Germany as an investment ruin

When Angela Merkel retired from the Federal Chancellery after 16 years, the media rained red roses. But the true record reveals Germany to be an investment ruin. Five examples.

"A woman who changed the world," raved Steffen Richter in Die Zeit. Alexander Osang of Der Spiegel compared the era of Elizabeth II to Merkel's reign: "An age of reason, predictability, perseverance." For Osang, Angela Merkel was "the German queen."

If media misjudgements were treated the same way as a new car with transmission damage, warranty claims would have to be filed with the publishers immediately. And Osang would have to drive up with a replacement vehicle.

Because it has now become clear that the true legacy of Angela Merkel is a toxic one. It looked reasonable, but that reasonableness has oxidized. What felt like perseverance brought torpor. It left Germany not as a thriving landscape but as an investment ruin.

Example Bundeswehr

The Bundeswehr looks bombed out. The suspension of compulsory military service and the percentage cut in the defense budget, started by others and continued by it, means that Germany cannot defend itself today. Less than half of the large-scale equipment, such as tanks or combat aircraft, is currently operational, found Eva Högl, Germany's defense commissioner. Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger also concludes, "We lack everything."

With his special fund of 100 billion euros, Chancellor Olaf Scholz promises to remedy the situation - but even his Defense Minister Boris Pistorius knows and says so that this is not enough. On Monday aboard Pioneer One, Papperger fleshed out the scale of investment needed for a defensible Bundeswehr:

"My feeling is that it's between 200 and 300 billion, which means that between 100 and 200 billion euros are still missing."

Merkel knew - at least since Putin's invasion of Crimea - that Germany's armed forces were only conditionally deployable. But she needed the money to expand the welfare state, which grew strongly during her time in office.

Example: railroads

During the Merkel era, the infrastructure of Deutsche Bahn AG was allowed to deteriorate with a clear eye. According to Deutsche Bahn itself, the investment backlog amounts to 60 billion euros. Only with rail transport will we achieve our climate targets, Merkel said in her Sunday speeches - only to ignore this realization on weekdays. She sent her CDU Secretary General Ronald Pofalla to the rail board, but even his admonitions went unheeded. She didn't want to modernize the railroads; she expected Pofalla to keep the rail workers quiet.

Example: traffic

Angela Merkel even let road traffic fall into disrepair - even though all department heads drew her attention to it. In the next few years, more than 13,000 highway bridges will have to be renovated - this is the bitter legacy of that time. In the next ten years, Transport Minister Wissing wants to rehabilitate 4,000 highway bridges - that is, 400 per year, four times more than are currently being rehabilitated annually.

Autobahn GmbH, responsible for the maintenance, financing and construction of trunk roads and thus also the 28,000 highway bridges nationwide, is clearer than clear:

"If the necessary maintenance measures on the thousands of structures are not implemented to the required extent and in a timely manner, there will be significant traffic restrictions and even closures of bridge structures in the coming years."

Example: education

Merkel has never really been interested in education policy. In many places, the eternal chalk era prevails. The digitization of schools and universities made no progress in her 16 years. Maike Finnern from the GEW executive board says, "The education system in Germany has been significantly underfunded for decades - with dramatic consequences." She calls for a "turnaround" in education as well - with a 100-billion investment program attached.

Only the tone has changed under Merkel. While Chancellor Schröder still called teachers "lazy sods," Merkel ingratiated herself with the teaching staff with sentences like this: "Educators are one of the most important professions in society."

Still, nothing happened.

Example Russia

The need to restore energy sovereignty is also part of the legacy of Merkel's Russia policy. During her tenure, dependence on Russian gas has steadily increased.

The construction of Nord Stream 1 was completed under Merkel, and that of Nord Stream 2 was initiated.

As recently as 2011, Russian gas accounted for just under 37 percent of total imports; by 2020, it will account for 65 percent.

Conclusion

The Merkel era was a time in which the welfare state, above all, expanded: statutory minimum wage, maternity pension, pension at 63, East-West pension harmonization, basic pension. The political benefits of this systematic equalization by the CDU and SPD paid off for them on election day.


This proves that in advanced capitalism, everything can be bought - including the chancellorship.

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[Skybird]

The Boxer APC is a German development, and was sold, amongst others, to Australia, where it is build in license.

The Bundeswehr now wants to buy 100 Boxers from the Australian production plants becasue the Australians can get the order fulfilled much faster than the Germans.




Meanwhile it got known that the tank batallion specified for supplying and holding ready 30 MBTs for NATOs very high readiness quick reaction force cannot fulfill this duty, and for the whole year will have only 14-20 tanks ready, the others will be in maintenance and repair. The batallion has - on paper - a strength of 40 Leopards. That means the "Klarstand" (ready-for-mission status) for many months this year again will be not even 50%. They now try to cannibalize Leopards from other units. But so many other units with Leopards there are not.



Gimme back the 80s. In the mid-80s the BW was at the height of its capabilities and potentials, was seen by many as the best conscript army in NATO. Today? It is unreliable, incapable of way too many tasks, and the running joke at NATO HQ.

[Jimbuna]

You want to hope and pray Putin isn't reading your post

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

You want to hope and pray Putin isn't reading your post

But maybe he would laugh himself to death if reading it. Worth a try.