Remember This Guy?

Martin Schmidt? Or was it Meier? Müller? … Schlitz?

Schulz

Anyway, he’s back again or something. For a few seconds. Now that his fifteen minutes are up, I mean.

He and his comrades over at the SPD are mad as hell at US-Amerika‘s new Ambassador, Richard Grenell, because of, well, “perceived breaches of diplomatic etiquette” (how diplomatic).

He said in a recent Breitbart interview, for instance (Breitbart is a German news service, Breitbart meaning “wide beard” in our language), that he wanted to empower conservative forces throughout Europe. I know, right? And then he did this and then he said that and yada, yada, yada and now everyone on the left (and that’s a whole lot over here) is completely outraged because, well, it’s a slow news day/week/month so it’s time to call for somebody to fire his red, white and blue ass. If it wasn’t for outrage they wouldn’t have no rage at all.

“I think there is a groundswell of conservative policies that are taking hold because of the failed policies of the left.”

“Ich hoffe, dass der Kurz-Besuch zu einem Kurz-Aufenthalt von Herrn Grenell in seiner Funktion als Botschafter in Deutschland führt.”

German Of The Day: Vogelschiss

That means bird shit. You know, like “Hitler and the National Socialists are just bird shit in 1,000 years of successful German history” kind of bird shit?

Vogelschiss

Personally, I think that was quite a lot of bird shit, 1,000 years or not, but maybe that’s just me.

The German government condemned on Monday an apparent attempt by the co-leader of the anti-immigrant AfD party to play down the significance of the Nazis in Germany’s history, and it stressed the unique nature of the Holocaust.

On Sunday politicians rebuked Alexander Gauland, one of the leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), after he told a party gathering: “Hitler and the National Socialists are just bird shit in 1,000 years of successful German history.”

“For me, ‘bird shit’ is and remains the lowest piece of filth – animal excrement that I compared National Socialism with.”

Times Change

Not. Not when it comes to government creating problems by having good intentions and then creating even greater problems by trying to solve the self-inflicted problems it just created. On and on this process goes. Politician generation to generation. Just like the families who now live around Berlin’s Sonnenallee in Neukölln (Little Beirut) will experience, being welfare recipients for many generations to come – instead of working  for a living like the Arab refugees who came before them, albeit “in an orderly manner.”

Neukölln

Of the nearly 695,000 migrants who applied for asylum in Germany in 2016, more than 62 percent received refugee status or humanitarian protection, which enabled them to work and receive welfare benefits, according to data from the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (the same scandal-ridden authority we’ve been reading about these days). Among applicants from Syria, the figure was higher, at around 97 percent.

In contrast, 10 years earlier less than seven percent of asylum applicants in Germany received refugee status. A 2016 study by Bielefeld University found more than half of established migrants in Germany believe the newcomers should settle for less.

“When I saw what they received, I wished I was a refugee.”

Poland Gets It

The U.S. doesn’t stand to lose anything by accepting Poland’s generous proposal and gradually relocating troops there from Germany. A move of this kind would be consistent with stated U.S. goals, such as deterring Russia. It would also allow the U.S. to support an ally eager for closer military ties.

Poland

It might also force Germany to give more thought to its position. Would it feel unprotected with a smaller U.S. presence? Would it, perhaps, be motivated to enhance its own defense? Or would it still be secure in its apparent conviction that no one is interested in attacking it?

The U.S. should offer protection to the countries that want it most, and reduce its involvement with nations that benefited in the mid-20th century. The American military presence should be aligned with its allies’ sense of being threatened. This anxiety gets stronger the closer a country is to Russia’s borders. Ignoring that makes little military or political sense.

Hard As Jello-O

This guy is. When it comes to Germany’s dealings with Russia. He’s making Vlad Putin shake in his boots as we speak or something.

Maas

And that’s why his comrades over at the SPD are expressing their irritation over Foreign Minister Heiko Maas’ “harsh criticism of Moscow” these days. Harsh criticism of Moscow? From Germany? From the SPD? I must have slept right through that.

Since taking over the reigns of the Foreign Ministry some 10 weeks ago, Maas has accused Moscow of “increasingly hostile behavior,” particularly over its actions in Syria where it continues to prop up the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Maas was also quick to point the finger at Moscow for alleged interference in western elections, last year’s cyber attack on the German government’s computer network, and the poison attack on ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, England.

But a Russia hardliner from the SPD? Let’s get real. That would be like Gazprom Gerd climbing into to bed with somebody in the White House.

PS: You’ll always find the people who stand for something somewhere else.

Memorial Day

Speaking Of Corruption…

As far as I can tell, there isn’t a German automobile company that isn’t involved in emissions manipulation. Or maybe this is just another misunderstanding/accident kind of thing again.

Daimler

Remember when Germany used to have a clean image? Me, neither. It has been a while now, hasn’t it?

Daimler faces a recall order for more than 600,000 diesel-engine vehicles including C-Class and G-Class models because of suspected emissions manipulation, German magazine Der Spiegel reported on Friday.

Auch Daimler soll bei Diesel-Pkw bei den Abgaswerten getrickst haben. Das Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt könnte einen Rückruf von über einer halben Millionen Autos anordnen.

German Of The Day: BAMF

That stands for Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge, which means the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees. It turns out they should have translated that as the Bureau for Asylum and Migrant Fraud, however.

BAMF

This is one of those tip of the iceberg stories, folks. Employees at Bremen’s BAMF have been accused of improperly granting asylum in 1,200 cases between 2013 and 2017 and now an investigation has been launched in which 18,000 additional successful asylum applications will be reviewed. In the meantime irregularities at other BAMF offices have come to light.

Internal email correspondence at the Bremen office has emerged in which an upper-level manager appears to be aware of this systemic problem but asks that an internal investigation be carried out in a “noiseless” manner.  Nor should “everything be examined down to the last detail.”

Same old same old, isn’t it? We’re from the government and we’re here to help.

Angeschrieben wegen möglicher Unregelmäßigkeiten in den Bremer Asylverfahren, habe der zuständige Abteilungsleiter des Bundesamts im Februar 2017 zwar eine Prüfung angeordnet, zugleich aber verfügt, dass diese „geräuschlos“ geschehen solle. Er wolle nicht, heiße es in seiner E-Mail, „dass alles bis ins Detail geprüft wird.”

GETTING Fed Up?

Whoever wrote this doesn’t know much about Germany yet: Why Germans Are Getting Fed Up with America.

Germany

Check this out: It’s getting harder for Angela Merkel and the German elite to hold back growing anti-Americanism. Hilarious. I could read nonsensical stuff like this all day.

The poor hack who wrote this. If you don’t understand that anti-Americanism is one of the seven pillars of wisdom that defines what being German is all about, you’ll never get the rest of it (the other six are just variations on anti-Americanism – anti-capitalism, anti-freemarketism, anti-individualism, anti-Israelism, anti-hightechism, anti-anythingnewthatisnotGermanism).

But maybe this article is satirical or something. Some of this stuff is really, really good. As in funny as hell: The cautious German elite, led by Merkel with her preference for compromise in any situation, has been holding back the anti-American sentiment so far. But that position may become untenable as Germans realize their country isn’t getting much out of being a U.S. ally. A majority can’t imagine a situation in which U.S. soldiers would need to defend Germany against aggression, and as the values gap with the U.S. grows and the economic benefits of partnership shrink, anti-Americanism can become an increasingly attractive political card to play.

Germany has done the U.S. a favor by not seeking a leadership role in the decades since its reunification. There’s no guarantee, however, that post-Merkel it won’t take a more assertive stance, using the European Union as a vehicle for its ambition. Even if a post-Trump U.S. government walks back some of his unilateralism, the mistrust that’s been building up for years won’t go away overnight.

Please write more!

German Women Clearly Upset

Or at least that one down here is.

Women

There is simply not enough female leadership in Germany, they say. Boy oh boy can you ever say that again. I couln’t agree more.

Oh. They mean in cooperations. Yeah, I guess they could show a little more leadership there, too.

The biggest corporations in Germany lag behind their blue-chip counterparts in France, Poland, Sweden, the US and the UK when it comes to the amount of women they have in key leadership positions, according to a new report.

The study by the German-Swedish Allbright Foundation, a charitable organization which campaigns for higher female representation in business and economic leadership positions, finds that of the six countries examined, no country has a more male-dominated corporate culture than Germany.

The Trouble With Diversity Is That It’s So Monotonous

Take Eurovision, for instance. Please.

Eurovision

And this competition is so rigged. At least it was this year. It had to have been. Germany didn’t get last place.

Israel’s win at 529 points was followed by Eleni Foureira from Cyprus in second place (436 points). Austria (342 points) ranked third, Germany (340 points) came fourth and Italy (308 points) fifth. The other countries in the top ten, in descending order, were the Czech Republic, Sweden, Estonia, Denmark and Moldova.