German of the day: Kriegstüchtig

That means fit for war.

The German army. Today. Fit for war? A small town police force in US-Amerika maybe, but the Bundeswehr? It’ll never happen and everybody here knows it. How ridiculous.

German military must be ‘fit for war’ – German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has said that the country’s military must become combat-ready quickly. But that will require a major long-term overhaul, and experts doubt that will be easy.

Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned on Sunday night that in the current global situation, Germany needed to be prepared for war and able to defend the country. But that required a fundamental re-think about what the Bundeswehr was for.

We Germans work the fewest hours

That’s why we desperately need a four-day work week.

To, uh, increase the hours worked each week? I don’t get it.

Germans work fewer hours over their lifetime than their European neighbours – In comparison to their European neighbours, people in Germany work fewer hours throughout their lifetime, a new study has revealed, but there is still a big appetite for a four-day week in the federal republic.

Germans work an average of 52.662 hours throughout their lives.

A new study from the Roman Herzog Institute has laid out the working habits of people in European countries. In comparison to their neighbours, Germans are on the clock for fewer hours throughout their lives, clocking in an estimated 52.662 hours of work, which means 39,3 years of their lives are solely occupied by work.

Human robots don’t cut it in Germany anymore

They’re just not as, well, robotic as their parents and grandparents used to be.

It’s time to replace them with the real thing.

As baby boomers retire, German businesses turn to robots – At machine parts producer S&D Blech, the head of the grinding unit is retiring. With Germany’s acute labour shortage leaving few candidates to take on the skilled but dirty and hazardous manual work, the company will replace him with a robot.

Other small and medium-sized companies are also turning to automation as the gradual exit from the workplace of Germany’s post-war “baby boom” generation tightens the labour squeeze.

Education Does Not Make You Smarter

Check out this German professor if you don’t believe me.

An Indian student’s internship application mail to a German professor has gone viral on the internet. The viral response from German professor sparked debate on racism and climate activism on Twitter. A student sent an internship application to a professor at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, hoping to get a positive response. But the reply by the professor has confused netizens.

So, everybody in the country loses their citizenship, or what?

That doesn’t seem fair to me.

Anti-Semites cannot be granted German citizenship under new law – minister.

A law under consideration by the German parliament would mean that people who have committed anti-Semitic acts can never be granted citizenship, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said on Wednesday.

“Our draft for the new citizenship law, which we will now discuss in the Bundestag, provides a clear exclusion of anti-Semites,” Faeser said in a statement issued after she met with Israeli ambassador to Germany, Ron Prosor.

What’s left of the Left?

Not much. The little that is left of the Left is falling apart. Right and left, so-to-speak.

More power to you, lady.

German hard-left icon set to start a new populist party – The new party would further scramble Germany’s fracturing political landscape — and likely peel away support from the far right.

Sahra Wagenknecht, the longtime face of The Left, which has roots in East Germany’s Communist Party, says her new faction will represent the large swath of the German electorate that is deeply frustrated with mainstream politics.

It Can’t Happen Here

Antisemitism? In Germany? No way.

Or… Way? And if way, what do you mean it’s not the Germans who are being the antisemites?

Antisemitism Among Muslim Migrants Unsettles a Germany Haunted by the Holocaust – Authorities prohibit pro-Palestinian demonstrations and displays of support for Hamas, as incidents of antisemitic crimes surge.

German of the day: Grenzkontrolle

That means border control.

You know, like increased German border controls in “border-free” Europe? If even the Germans are finally starting to get it you know how bad it’s got.

Germany prepares to widen stationary border checks – Germany is expected to notify the EU about plans to introduce fixed border checks on the Polish, Czech Republic and Swiss borders. Previously, this had only been possible at the Austrian frontier.

The German Interior Ministry is expected to register stationary border controls with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland with the European Commission in light of a high number of refugees entering Germany.

And the Wackedelic Wacko Award goes to…

The climate scientist who faces getting fired for refusing to fly back to Germany from the Solomon Islands.

Dr Gianluca Grimalda told by Kiel Institute for World Economy he must be at his desk on Monday after finishing fieldwork – A climate researcher has been threatened with the sack by his employer after refusing to fly back to Germany at short notice after finishing fieldwork in the Solomon Islands archipelago.

On Friday Dr Gianluca Grimalda, an environmental campaigner who refuses to fly on principle, was told by his employer, Germany’s Kiel Institute for World Economy, that if he was not at his desk on Monday he would no longer have a job to return to.

Instead this week he was still waiting in Buka Town, Bougainville, to embark on a cargo ship to begin his journey back to Europe, after six months studying the impact of climate change and globalisation on communities in Papua New Guinea.

PS: See #WackedelicWackoAward on X for more wackedelic fun!

German Politicians Bewildered

Like, what are we supposed to do? Take the concerns of our fellow citizens seriously (see Migrant Madness, unaffordable energy, the housing crisis, inflation, Ukraine, etc.)?

That’s out of the question.

Germany bewildered about how to halt the rise of the AfD – The far right’s rise is sending shock waves through the country’s political landscape.

In Germany, news regarding the seemingly unstoppable rise of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) appears on an almost weekly basis. But nowadays this isn’t just true of the notoriously AfD-friendly states in east Germany, it’s also spreading further west.

In Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg, the AfD is currently running well above 30 percent. The party is gaining ground in the former West German states of Hesse and Bavaria as well, where it is expected to land at around 15 percent in this weekend’s elections.