GER politics thread

[mapuc]

The question is can they stop this movement or is it unavoidable that sooner or later-Either by coup or through election.

By following Skybirds writing about Germany and some of my Danish and German friends writing on FB on how the society is becoming unmanageable

Markus

[Jimbuna]

Night of the Long Knives part2

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by mapuc

The question is can they stop this movement or is it unavoidable that sooner or later-Either by coup or through election.

By following Skybirds writing about Germany and some of my Danish and German friends writing on FB on how the society is becoming unmanageable

Markus

The Reichsbürger are far from becoming a maintream movement. They are far more extreme - and individuals of theirs often being violently resisting to the state - than the mainstream clients of the AfD, though the AfD holds hardcore Nazis as well, but its spectrum is much wider, including more moderate criticis of the mainstream opinion and society as well. The Reichsbürger are a minority group, but an extremist group nevertheless, and often they are militant, and weapon fanatics. Usually they want to go back to the Germany even before Hitler - the imperial Germany, that is.

You are right, I said repeatedly that such movements are to be expected as the natural anti-reaction to the extreme left-swinging political and zeitgeist pendulum. A law in physics: every action has reaction, and the force you infolict, inevitably returns. You may remember that I repeatedly said the same about Trump: that he is not the origin, but a symptom of the mess associated with him. The harder you push people to become leftist-marxist, the more people will try to resist to that by becoming tolerant to political movements from the right, even if the individual is not right or extremist itself: it may find that it has no other space to move anymore due to the extreme pressure to become left. In the end it is about left brute force against right brute force.



I dispise both and do not ally with any of the two. If they fight against each other, then I cheer for both of them to make them maximise the damage to the other. I distribute my disgust equally to both of them, completely impartially. And when they go for each other's throats, I help at best to make sure that no one disturbs them.

[mapuc]

Two comment from fb.

The first is a friend who gives the muslim and the left wings all the blame

GERMANY: MAJOR POLICE ACTION AGAINST "RIGHT-WIGHT EXTREMISTS"
It is the sleazy politicians' own fault that desperate groups such as these arise.
Western Europe's politically correct collection of politicians, "experts", media etc. misses no opportunity to crow about the "threat from the right", but turns blind and deaf to the constant, insidious Islamic colonization of Europe and the influx of violent men from the Middle East and Africa.
So today is a really good day for political correctness. Finally something good to swallow.
But I dare say that it will not be "right-wing extremists" who are going to abolish democracy in Europe. It will be the people of Allah.
There is a lot of talk about division, polarization in our democracies. But who is it that divides and polarises? It is the sleazy politicians with their deeply irresponsible values, legal and immigration policy. And it is the puffed-up, better-informed "experts" and media people etc.

This one catch my eyes-Cause he could very well be true

25 people..??? I wonder how much "coup" there is in that when it comes down to it..? Isn't it rather a insignificant collection of lunatics' doings and actions, to introduce even more control, surveillance and even more restrictions in the German society...? I smell a rat here.

Markus

[Von Due]

Originally Posted by mapuc

Two comment from fb.

The first is a friend who gives the muslim and the left wings all the blame



This one catch my eyes-Cause he could very well be true



Markus

One gun can do an awful lot of damage. 25 guns even more so. Whether they would succeed or not, 25 guns shooting at people inside a building is a nightmare I can live without.

[mapuc]

Originally Posted by Von Due

One gun can do an awful lot of damage. 25 guns even more so. Whether they would succeed or not, 25 guns shooting at people inside a building is a nightmare I can live without.

No doubt about it-I think however this friends friend mean to make a coup you need A LOT more than just 25 ekstreme far Right people. What I meant by writing
"he could very well be true" Is that the government most likely will impose new restriction on the Germans democracy.

I've been searching this section GT. Because I know that a certain friend posted a yt video clip showing some neonazis conduct some training in the forrest of Bayern. How many years ago he posted the video I don't know.

Markus

[mapuc]

Coup

To make a coup it's not enough to occupy the parliament-Only thing is it would turn into a hostage situation-Like it happened in Spain some years after Franco's dead.

There are keyposition here and there in Germany who has to be taken under control. Radio and TV is one of them.

Another important key component is powerplant producing electricity and other important things to the Germans.

Meaning these 25 German lack knowledge-If they had they would have understood that the Bundestag isn't the most important.

Markus

[Skybird]

The Neue Zürcher Zeitung comments:
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The Putsch That Would Never Have Happened

Did Germany's security authorities really thwart the great Reichsbürger conspiracy, or were they possibly shooting at sparrows with cannons? The historic large-scale operation and the accompanying media coverage raise questions.


Even though there is great excitement about the alleged "Reichsbürger" conspiracy that German security authorities have uncovered and foiled, an upheaval or civil war is truly not imminent in Germany. The delusions of a few sectarian die-hards are in no way comprehensible to the overwhelming majority of Germans.

Constitutional protectors estimate that the entire "Reichsbürger" scene comprises around 21,000 people, or 0.025 percent of the population. In this specific case, 52 people have been arrested or accused. Good work by the authorities, one might say.

Nevertheless, there are points to be concerned about and questions to be asked. Point one concerns the danger posed by radicalized members or cells of extremist movements: Terror is always possible. An open society, a democratic-accessible government quarter, the transportation and energy infrastructure for 83 million people cannot be protected one hundred percent.

Violent overthrow by military means?

In this context, the record of German police authorities and intelligence services is to be commended: Neither right-wing extremist nor Islamist terror has hit the Federal Republic as hard as, for example, the United States, France, Belgium or Great Britain. Hopefully, this will continue - without excesses in surveillance legislation.

What is disturbing, however, and this is point two, is the involvement of active and former soldiers and police officers in plans for a "violent coup with possibly military means," as the Attorney General puts it. Again, the overwhelming majority of German police officers, soldiers and reservists are loyal to the constitution and are likely to be appalled by the confusion of their (former) comrades. But apparently the milieu of the security forces also always attracts some authoritarian anti-democrats.

Such people have no place in the civil service. The sooner they are identified and gotten rid of, the better. At the same time, the defense minister, the interior minister and their state colleagues have a duty to put themselves before all the others, the upright guardians of the state's monopoly on the use of force. The general suspicion that some media are always quick to formulate against the police and the Bundeswehr must be resolutely rejected by the leaders of the executive branch.

The confused logic of the conspiracy theorists

The self-declared Reichsbürger advocate ludicrous positions, such as that the German state does not exist at all, or that Germany is a "limited liability company" (GmbH) that regards its citizens as "personnel" - which, according to the logic of madness, can already be recognized by the name "identity card."

The third question that must be asked accordingly is: How do adult, apparently not even uneducated citizens come up with such ideas? And how can the emergence of such conspiracy-theory-based world views be prevented?

A look at the U.S., where former President Donald Trump is supported by the supporters of the QAnon group, shows that these can be politically dangerous. They are trying to abolish representative democracy, and to do so, they make use of ludicrous tales about "satanic elites" and politicians who allegedly drink the blood of children.

Radicalized educated citizens

What to do? In Germany, one knee-jerk reaction to right-wing extremism is to call for more political education. But would a Frankfurt financial advisor, a judge, a doctor of law, and a doctor (all of whom were probably slated for the "cabinet" of the new coup government) have been reached by this?

We are dealing with an extremism that, to all appearances, exists in the middle of society without causing any offense in everyday life. The alleged ringleader, Henry XIII Prince Reuss, is 71 years old. Possibly it is also about violent fantasies of pensioners who feel powerless - think of the 75-year-old woman who was unmasked in October as the head of a gang that had planned the kidnapping of the health minister.

Without wishing to offend any of the 20 million over-65s in Germany: Perhaps political moods that lead to conspiracy extremism today also have something to do with demographics? If so, it would be a matter of not remaining silent about aberrant opinions because it is so exhausting to argue with those who hold them: All democrats would be called upon to take that effort upon themselves.

A lot of press for police action

Finally, a fourth point is disturbing: there had been talk in political Berlin for days that there was "a big deal in the bush." Some media outlets obviously knew about the impending raids and arrests, because many editorial offices published extensive reports almost simultaneously - as if after a blackout period - on what was actually quite new breaking news.

A moderator of the parliamentary channel Phoenix used the peculiar formulation "We are quite glad that we have not heard anything about it beforehand, then the news afterwards is all the more stormy". This sounded almost as if someone felt obliged to reject the suspicion of broad advance information.


Why would organized media coverage of the operations be a problem? Because it could have meant either an incalculable risk for the success of the whole action. Or because it would indicate that the matter was not yet so dangerous. In the latter case, the impression could arise that this was primarily - or also - a political public relations exercise. That would then be water on the conspiracy theory mills, which must be fought.
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[Jimbuna]

'We're not a colony!' WW2 row explodes as Poland demands £1trn from Germany

The Deputy Speaker of the Polish Parliament has erupted at the German government's refusal to hand over €1.3trillion (£1.1trillion) in reparations for Nazi Germany's crimes in Poland during World War 2. Poland has made a formal request to Berlin for compensation which has been rejected out of hand by the German Government, leading to an escalating diplomatic row. Magorzata Gosiewska, from Poland's ruling Law and Justice Party, has levelled a brutal swipe at Germany's position in an interview with Express.co.uk and warned the Polish Government is not willing to back down over reparations.

Ms Gosiewska told Express.co.uk: "We have absolutely every legal right to ask for compensation. The Polish state has never legally dismissed the compensation, the Polish Foreign Office recently sent a note to Germany about this.

"We will never give up on this.

"We are not a German colony and we will never allow ourselves to be treated like one."

Ms Gosiewska recalled how the Polish capital Warsaw was reduced to rubble by the German Army, as countless cultural artefacts were looted and destroyed, and ordinary Poles were massacred or forced to work as slave labour.

Ms Gosiewska told Express.co.uk: "We are speaking from Warsaw, a Warsaw that was annihilated, the aim was for the city to never again stand up, it was the heart of Poland that was aimed to be destroyed.

"There was no one left in the city but the Germans continued to destroy every house, and every building one by one just to completely destroy it.

"Works of art were stolen and any monuments that were left were destroyed.

"Poles were not just tortured, not just killed, just shot those who survived were brought to camps where they had to work for German companies, so their work profited the German companies - some of whom are still operating to this day in Germany."

Poland lost as much as seventeen percent of its pre-war population during the Nazi occupation in World War Two.

Germany has maintained that Poland's claim to reparations was abandoned in the 1950s by the then-communist government in Warsaw, something strongly denied by the current Polish Government.

The German foreign ministry argues the country has already paid a total of €74 illion in reparations since the end of the war, with 29 billion of that earmarked to Isreal for victims of the Holocaust.

Warsaw in turn has threatened to take its case for reparations to all "international forums" - including the United Nations assembly.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...a6eaa392d10723

[Skybird]

If in need of money - turn for the Germans.


Kaczynski has really no more tightened all the screws.Der Spiegel writes:
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With a reference to Nazi Germany, the PiS leader warns against German dominance in Europe. The agitation against the neighbors is supposed to bring his party votes. Even the opposition is denounced as stooges of the Germans.

When it comes to Germany, Jaroslaw Kaczynski is particularly vicious. That was the case in Legnica, Lower Silesia, where the powerful leader of Poland's national conservative ruling PiS party gave an hour-and-a-half speech over the weekend. Germany is striving for supremacy in Europe, Kaczynski warned his audience. And followed up: Germans today want to achieve by peaceful means what they once set out to do by military means.

The allusion to Nazi Germany is typical of Kaczynski. For months, he has been touring the country weekend after weekend, railing against Germany. Behind this is above all a domestic political calculation: The PiS is sinking in the polls, and Kaczynski hopes that anti-German tones will bring it voters.

In Legnica, the 73-year-old also lashed out at Brussels. If one believes Kaczynski, then behind the EU lies a plan by the Germans to create a "European state" where they will call the shots. But Kaczynski stressed that his party sees the strength of Europe in the diversity and sovereignty of individual countries. "And a situation of dominance, a situation in which one of the European states - today the largest next to Russia - implements by peaceful means those plans it once wanted to impose by military means, is a path to crisis and disaster." This, he said, concerns both Poland and Europe. "And also this country itself, namely Germany."

Kaczynski holds no government office. And yet he is considered the strong man in Poland's politics. Polish media like to write that he controls both head of government Mateusz Morawiecki and President Andrzej Duda "from the back seat." Together with his twin brother Lech, Jaroslaw Kaczynski founded PiS in 2001. Lech Kaczynski later became Poland's head of state; in 2010, he died in the crash of the presidential plane in Smolensk.

What Kaczynski's "taxes from the back seat" looks like was recently experienced by Poland's Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak. He initially accepted the offer of German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) to protect Poland's airspace by deploying German Patriot air defense missiles. A day later, Kaczynski spoke up. German air defenses would be better stationed in Ukraine than in Poland, he suggested. Artfully, Blaszczak repeated the idea shortly thereafter. And Kaczynski had achieved his goal: Once again, Warsaw had given the Germans a good run for their money. In addition, the PiS government is using its demand for more than 1.3 trillion euros in reparations for the damage suffered during World War II to stir up public opinion against Berlin.

Poland is due to hold its next parliamentary election next fall. Whether the PiS, which has been in power since 2015, can win the election for a third time in a row is questionable. Poles are groaning under a horrendous inflation rate; in November, it was almost 18 percent.

The liberal-conservative opposition Civic Platform (PO) party of former EU Council President Donald Tusk currently leads the polls. During his tenure as Polish head of government, things went well between Warsaw and Berlin. This was reason enough for Kaczynski to put the cloak of the evil German on Tusk as well: "We have a German party in Poland," he said in mid-November at an appearance in the district town of Pabianice, referring to the PO.

Already once it has benefited the PiS in a dirty election campaign to link Donald Tusk with Germany. When the Gdansk native ran against Lech Kaczynski in the 2005 presidential campaign, PiS strategists floated the story of Tusk's "grandfather in the Wehrmacht." Tusk's grandfather Jozef had been recruited into the Wehrmacht in 1944 as a concentration camp inmate; he defected to Polish troops after a short time. The PiS's ploy caught on: Tusk lost the election.

The obsession with which Kaczynski and his followers are agitating against Germany and the opposition, which is supposedly dominated by Germany, is taking on strange forms. Last Thursday, when Germany's national team played Costa Rica in the World Cup in Qatar, Deputy Environment Minister Jacek Ozdoba asked for a recess in the Polish parliament - so that the deputies from Tusk's party could watch "the game of their German team.
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[Skybird]

I did not know the Germans had negotiated the F-35 deal this idiotically. Maybe I should have known, but I can hardly copyright for every pessimistic thought possible in the world.

FOCUS:
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Germany pays 286 million euros per aircraft, Switzerland 167 million

However, the terms of the procurement that are gradually leaking out are somewhat inconceivable, once again raising the question of whether all the players in political Berlin are still capable of living up to the responsibility entrusted to them. The German taxpayer is expected to pay ten billion euros for a complete package including service, maintenance and subsequent upgrades for 35 aircraft. That sounds expensive, and it is, because we're talking about a unit price of crun 286 million euros per flying unit.
F-35 over the Eifel
Harald Tittel/dpa An F-35 in the skies over the Eifel region.

Once again, before the German Michel goes black in the face, a look over the garden fence might help him: Last year, Switzerland launched its order, and Bern purchased a package almost identical in scope and duration. Admittedly, the Swiss government is shelling out pretty much exactly six billion Swiss francs for its 36 aircraft, which comes to about 167 million euros per unit for exactly the same F-35 version "off the shelf." But Switzerland can procure.
Success at any price to put it in the shop window?

Berlin, on the other hand, seems to specialize once again in shoveling the "dumb German money" of its taxpayers out the window with coal shovels. How is that possible, and who negotiates such things for Germany? Should the government in Berlin be so blindly committed to its F-35 "whammy" that it is willing to pay any price just to save the big hit for the showcase?

Some sources in the German Ministry of Defense (BMVg) suggest that this is the case, although the BMVg does not appear to be entirely innocent of this disastrous deal: the Tornado is 40 years old, and from the Air Force's point of view, naked necessity is now forcing them to close their eyes and get on with it; they want to have the 2022 contract signed and sealed.
Berlin foregoes compensation contracts for German industry

The consequences for German industry are devastating. Not only is the overpriced contract ludicrous, but Berlin has apparently completely dispensed with the so-called "off set", i.e. the usual compensation contracts for its own industry, while Bern has ensured that almost 50 percent of the contract sum will flow back to Switzerland through participation and countertrade.

Worst of all, maintenance and upgrades of the F-35s are to be carried out exclusively by U.S. defense contractors, so that Germany will have neither an insight into nor even a share in the technology ("intellectual property", IP) of the aircraft and will thus be left behind technologically for an entire generation cycle. And this also leaves Germany completely dependent on the continued goodwill of the U.S. for 25 years in terms of maintenance.

But what if Trump returns or another figure of this provenance? In view of such a negotiation outcome, once again only bewilderment remains among almost all experts who can show a little insight into arms matters in this country.
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[Skybird]

FOCUS:
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At the Christmas market we see the true reality of life for many Germans

If you are looking for the reasons for the alienation between politics and the population, for the increasing political apathy of large sections of society and thus also for the high proportion of non-voters, you can ask sociologists or read the dispatches of the pollsters.

But it would always be more promising to start looking for clues directly at the source, i.e. among the people themselves. For example, with people like Oliver Börner from the Eifel, a person unknown to me, who shared his view of the world with me this week:


We should not exclude that the Christmas market of Ochtendung is more representative for our country than the German Bundestag. In our mind's eye we see the festively decorated Christmas trees, the mulled wine stand and the charcoal grill. In reality, however, we are looking into the soul of the cultural and economic center of the country.

In places like Ochtendung, people don't want to save the world, but their own normality. People's favorite vocabulary is not Breakthrough Innovation, but Gemütlichkeit. This "inner life district of man," as Sebastian Haffner once put it, is defended by passive resistance against the hostilities of modernity. Here, people want prosperity and an after-work beer, not revolution and socialism.

In these cathedrals of normality, people don't dream of car sharing, but of carports. One does not fight against soil sealing, but for a plot in the new development area. One has nothing against binary personalities, but unfortunately one does not know them at all. One has here nothing against the call of the Greens for an extension of the public local traffic. Only one would like that apart from slogans also now and then a bus comes by.

It is not the construction of the new Federal Chancellery per se that is disturbing, but the simultaneity of new construction in Berlin and the closure of the library, swimming pool and savings bank in one's own town. In the past, the state built village community centers; today it builds homes for asylum seekers.

Given the choice between another evening at the Schwenkgrill or an identity politics lesson from Ricarda Lang, the majority of people in Germany would know how to decide. In places like Ochtendung, Winnetou is still an Indian and not a representative of an indigenous tribe. Here, people expect our national soccer team to hit the goal, not the note first.

And the youthful part of Ochtendung will presumably not gender at the Christmas market, but dance, drink and flirt. One feels part of a new, not the last generation. One hangs on to habits, but does not stick to the street.

One does not want to do without here, but travel. Of course, you would also like to save the world, but getting to know it first wouldn't be bad either. Because one suspects that behind the place name sign of Ochtendung there is a colorful, a crazy variety of countries and peoples to discover.

While young people are drawn to faraway places, politicians and capital city journalists should definitely travel in the opposite direction. Perhaps they will find in Ochtendung in the Eifel what they lost in Berlin many years ago: the political center.
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[Skybird]

FOCUS:

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Ten inconvenient truths about the budget of the traffic light coalition

The country's true opposition does not sit in the German Bundestag under the dome of the Reichstag, but resides at Adenauerallee 81 in Bonn. This is the control center of Kay Scheller, the president of the Federal Audit Office.

With his 900 auditors, he investigates the financial behavior of Berlin's politicians. His weapon is the slide rule. He draws his strength from the facts.

In the midst of a world of self-marketing and public relations, the Federal Audit Office is the small island of the factual. There are opinions. And there are facts. Here are the ten uncomfortable truths that Kay Scheller and his team have unearthed in recent weeks and published yesterday.

Truth 1: The state can do anything but be thrifty. It prefers, like Theodor Storm's little he-man, an eternal more, more, more. Compared with the last pre-crisis year, 2019, budget spending in 2021 rose by a peak of 200 billion euros to a high of 556.6 billion euros - an increase of almost 65 percent.

Truth 2: The future ranks below the rest for the state, contrary to what is promised in election campaigns. Around 12 percent of the budget is spent on investments. Some 88 percent of the budget is effectively withdrawn from change because it involves legal entitlements (for example, social benefits) or contractual obligations (for example, interest payments). Federal budgets, says the Court of Audit, are "largely fossilized."

Truth 3: By shifting debt into so-called special assets, the government is trying to disguise the situation, Scheller says. By 2020, the federal government's debt stood at 1.3 trillion euros and was built up over 70 years.

In the 2020, 2021 and 2022 crisis budgets, 800 billion in new debt was added, which is why the total federal debt now stands at 2.1 trillion. No wonder: real net borrowing is significantly higher than the amounts shown in the federal budget.

Truth 4: The interest burden will weigh heavily on future generations, especially now that the ECB's interest rates are rising and with them the debtor's borrowing costs. Four billion euros were the interest figures in 2021, for 2023 is now planned due to the interest rate increases of the ECB with about 40 billion euros.

Truth 5: The state is a big spender that primarily feeds its own bureaucracy. The basic pension that has been in effect since January 2021 - which primarily benefits those people who have worked hard and whose pensions are still not enough to live on - is a veritable bureaucratic monster. 1.3 billion euros in benefits are offset by 0.4 billion euros in administrative costs. That means 31 percent of the money goes to bureaucrats and not to those in need.

Truth 6: Unbelievable, but true - taxpayer money is in part not allocated according to measurable criteria, but raffled off. With its Digital Now program, the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology wanted to promote the digitization of companies in Germany. However, the companies are selected at random. The Federal Court of Auditors writes: "In the 500-million-euro Digital now program, the Federal Ministry of Economics is raffling off funding for the digitization of companies instead of aligning it with meaningful criteria."

Truth 7: Even climate protection is being misused to fund self-employment in the public sector. Only 16 percent of the Forest Climate Fund's funding - still 88 million euros over the past nine years - "directly served to adapt forests to climate change, reduce CO2 or increase CO2 sequestration." Most of the money went to monitoring forest dieback and producing brochures and websites. The Federal Court of Auditors judges, "For nine years, the federal government has been funding projects with 88 million euros from the Forest Climate Fund, most of which have no demonstrable improvement for forests and climate."

Truth 8: The state is cheating itself. For the stimulus package that was actually intended to deal with the Corona pandemic, the Department of Defense unceremoniously invented a new use of funds. The Federal Court of Auditors says: "Instead of bringing forward investments and thus providing short-term economic stimulus, the Federal Ministry of Defense used funds from the stimulus package to pay rents, leases and guarding of real estate."


Truth 9: When it comes to Europe, the German government deliberately looks the other way. It has "failed", writes the Court of Auditors, to determine the EU's liability risks. Borrowing from the EU pot, declared legal by the Constitutional Court yesterday, is being permanently expanded - without any risk assessment for the federal budget: "The federal government must keep an eye on whether and to what extent EU liabilities can impact the federal budget."
Conclusion:

These figures tell a story of longing for permanent presence. Or, to paraphrase Martin Luther, "A lie is like a snowball: The longer you roll it, the bigger it gets": truth number 10.
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[Skybird]

Neue Zürcher Zeitung:
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Germany is like its football: complacent and comfortable

2022 is a bankrupt year for the Federal Republic: high energy prices, a failed Russia policy, and now Qatar's exit. Once again, the country has hit rock bottom. But Germany has a trump card.

The German national team's disgraceful performance in Qatar serves as a parable for the state of the country. Typically, politics and soccer in Germany go through three phases:

Phase 1: First, the Federal Republic is strong, its economy dominates world markets. It is the world champion, whether in exports or in soccer. Then the country becomes complacent.
Phase 2: At the latest, when the country celebrates itself as "Model Germany," it is obvious: Things are going downhill. Efforts slacken, the descent begins.
Phase 3: At some point, the pressure of suffering becomes so high that Germany recalls its qualities. It then consistently tackles the problems and solves them with a thoroughness that sometimes makes you dizzy. Then comes the resurgence and with it a new round in the eternal pig cycle.

This is how it was in the 1990s, when Germany fell into a state of shock after reunification. The country was soon regarded as the sick man of Europe and ended up in one of the last places in the EU in economic comparison. The national team, too, was mainly a failure after winning the World Cup in 1990. Germany, pretty far down.

Representing the forward-looking part of the nation, German President Roman Herzog demanded that a jolt go through Germany. The German Football Association improved youth development and training methods. Jürgen Klinsmann played modern soccer and finally enchanted Germany with the summer fairy tale.

Gerhard Schröder tackled what his predecessor Helmut Kohl had lacked the strength to do. He gave the country a complete overhaul. His social reforms played their part in the rapid economic recovery. An achievement - by a Social Democrat, of all people - as improbable as the 7:1 victory over Brazil in Belo Horizonte.

Too many foreigners receive social welfare

To this day, Germany still thrives on the courage of a chancellor who accepted his party's crisis and an electoral defeat. Schröder still deserves a monument for this, even if he would be the first to tear it down with his behavior.

Since then, however, the country has done little to maintain or even increase its competitiveness. Like the 2014 soccer world champion, it is resting on its laurels. Angela Merkel did not use the sixteen years to build on Schröder's foundation. Instead, each group received a little subsidy: Retired women, young parents, drivers, builders and hoteliers.

Merkel became the Jogi Löw of German politics. She was glued to the coach's bench in an endless stoppage time. The final whistle was a salvation. Her team, the CDU, was relegated. It is still far from advancing to the government league in terms of content and personnel.

The German Football Association appointed Hansi Flick, Löw's former assistant, as national coach. Let there be no change, no breath of fresh air and no unconventional ideas.

The German voters were wiser and sent a new team onto the pitch a year ago. However, the new team quickly fell into the same old rut. In the economic and social spheres, it has only one reform to show for itself after one year. The citizen's income also serves to deal with the SPD's Hartz trauma. Additional costs of five billion euros are quite a lot of money for social democratic Vergangenheitsbewältigung.

At the same time, the reform does not take care of the elephant in the room of the welfare state: 40 percent of welfare recipients are migrants. In 2010, their share was still 20 percent. Ukraine refugees are not included in this figure.

All governments since the end of the Kohl era have tried to reduce the share of welfare state immigrants and increase the number of qualified migrants. The opposite has happened. In Germany, asylum seekers receive extensive benefits at an early stage compared to other European countries, even though a high percentage of them have no prospect of recognition.

The state keeps expanding

The welfare state is having a hard time with change. "Reforms," as in Merkel's day, are mainly limited to pumping more money into the system.

Genuine structural reforms like Schröder's Agenda 2010 are as absent as regulatory reforms. In the noughties, there was a spirit of optimism, and the state changed under the influence of the zeitgeist.

Some things succeeded permanently, such as the major reform of corporate taxation, which led to the dissolution of the "Deutschland AG. Some things remained piecemeal, such as the federalism reform and the reform of old-age security; and some things have been successively watered down since then, including Agenda 2010.

Instead of dynamism, comfort and stagnation now prevail. People are satisfied with the average. It's like in soccer. At the 2021 European Championship, Germany was eliminated in the round of 16. A warning shot, but the jolt failed to materialize. The receipt is painful. After Russia 2018, the team was knocked out in the preliminary round of a World Cup in Qatar for the second time in a row. There has been nothing like this in the last sixty years.

Not much is moving in politics either. The tax system is still one of the most complicated in the world. The inflexible labor laws make it seem more attractive in many cases to hire an employee in Switzerland than in Germany.

The reduction of subsidies, a favorite topic in Sunday speeches a few years ago, has not only come to a standstill. With pandemic aid and all the programs to make energy cheaper, the trend is rapidly moving in the opposite direction.

Less government and more freedom for private initiative? That's as out of the question as the last time Thomas Müller scored in the national jersey. On the contrary, in the pandemic, the chancellor and prime ministers imposed restrictions on freedom of a kind that previously would have been associated only with dictatorships.

Politicians and journalists patted each other on the back for initially managing the pandemic better than Italy and France. Model Germany. In the end, however, the mortality rate was not lower than in Switzerland, but at a much higher cost and with considerably more restrictions.

At the same time, politics spread an image of man that sees the citizen only as a source of danger: as a virus smuggler, and soon as a CO2 emitter. It does not take much imagination to imagine that the instruments created in the pandemic will one day be used to force citizens to behave in a climate-friendly manner.

Structural reforms are more urgent than ever

The traffic light coalition claims to be fully occupied with mitigating the consequences of the energy crisis and inflation. That is true, but the means used to do so are making the problems worse.

The government is reaching for the watering can to relieve the citizens. Once again, a lot of money is supposed to fix the unwillingness to make structural improvements.

There is no idea how the world's leading exporter can increase its competitiveness at a time when its strongest sector, the automotive industry, is coming under pressure from the regulation-hungry EU and Asian manufacturers of electric vehicles.

Germany is also being hit harder economically by the Ukraine war than other Western European countries. That's the price of its Faustian pact with Putin. Energy-intensive companies are toying with the idea of leaving Germany. Or they are foregoing investments and prefer to build new production sites abroad. BASF is building a huge chemical plant in China. At the same time, its CEO Martin Brudermüller announced that it would reduce its activities in Europe as quickly as possible and permanently. This is likely to have the greatest impact on the company's headquarters in Ludwigshafen.

Structural reforms would be all the more important to secure the company's position in Europe and the world. This is a difficult task. So for the time being, people prefer to bury their heads in the sand. At the moment, Germany is really playing the kind of football that suits its politics.

But the pressure of suffering is growing, and Germany has a strong capacity for self-criticism. That's why reforms will be tackled at some point. In soccer, this point seems to have been reached; after all, Oliver Bierhoff had to resign.

In politics, it will probably be a while before things start to look up again. Then the next round of the pig cycle will begin there, too.
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I believe it when I see it. Too many things are different this time.

[mapuc]

I could have remembered wrong.

It's about yesterdays event contra todays event in Germany.

Before Hitler and his few followers tried to complete this coup the so called Beer Hall Putsch, he had not so many followers beside those he had as the leader of NSDAP But the years after this fiasco the numbers of people being a member of the party supporting him exploded.

Back to todays event.

A group consist of 25 hardcore member of this radical right wing group was arrested for planning on completing a coup.

So here is my thought-Will History repeat itself ? Will we see a huge increase of Germans being loyal to this Radical group ? In the next couple of years to come.

Markus