Category Archives: History
Israel
Beautiful German weapon sale of the week.
Because somebody has to admire them.
Israel is seeking to buy advanced missile boats from Germany to protect drilling operations in its offshore natural gas fields.
What’s All The Excitement About?
I’ve never made any secret about being an unrepenting communist.
This is another one of those “only in Germany” kind of things. Well, to be fair, it’s more like an “only in Berlin” kind of thing.
It goes like this: The Left Party – a “democratic socialist” party stemming directly from the PDS (some of us referred to it as the Partei der Stasi) which in turn was a creature that had stemmed directly from the black lagoon of GDR SED East German Communism, never stops going through the motions of pretending that it isn’t communist in nature (if not in deed) while everyone here knows of course that it is. It’s just some kind of weird parlour game that Germans play.
The Left Party is the refuge for all of those hundreds of thousands of incorrigible die-hard Ostalgie dinosaurs who cannot except the fact that their worldview is in fact irretrievably gone (I feel for some of them in a way, it is unrealistic of us to think that the older ones can except it). Check out this election map of Berlin from two months ago if you don’t believe me.
Occasionally this game gets a little out of hand, however, and folks have to speak up to have them tone it down again for awhile so the game can continue in a more civilized and orderly fashion. That just happened once again with the Left Party attempt to have their ex-party boss Gesine Lötzsch herself (hardliner is the nice word for her) placed at the head of the Bundestag‘s Budget Committee.
Now everyone is suddenly surprized and concerned, it seems – to include the “regular” green kind of left-wing dream-world crowd, albeit from the West – that she is not prepared “to distance herself” from her communist past. This is unfair irgendwie (somehow). I understand completely why she has no business being there in the Bundestag and all. But how can you be expected to distance yourself from a past that is still your present?
Abgeordnete von Union und Grünen wollen die Linke Gesine Lötzsch als Vorsitzende des Haushaltsausschusses los werden. Der Grund dafür ist ihr unkritischer Umgang mit der DDR-Vergangenheit.
Calling All Baseball Fans
In Berlin (all two or three of you?). Please sign this petition in support of the old baseball fields on Columbiadamm at Tempelhofer Feld (click the picture).
The Berlin Senat is planning to get rid of one of them to make room for a Friedhofserweiterung (cemetary expansion)? That about says it all, doesn’t it?
Thanks for the link, Indeterminacy. And yes, an ape may just have been keeping score there.
Ein weiterer Softballplatz in Zehlendorf wurde aufgrund zahlreichen Protestes eines Bewohners eines Einfamilienhauses vernichtet und steht ebenfalls nicht mehr zur Verfügung.
“Rethinking German Pacifism”
Would the Germany of today help liberate the Germany of 1944? You don’t need to tap Angela Merkel’s phone to find the answer: It’s no.
Defense-minded politicians in Berlin rail against this picture, arguing that postwar Germany has participated in major military operations. Take Kosovo! Take Afghanistan! Big missions! Don’t be fooled. It is perfectly clear by now that these interventions hardly represent the rule; rather, they are two exceptions from a convenient and holier-than-thou foreign policy attitude, one the Germans have cultivated over the past 70 years.
Jochen Bittner is a political editor for the weekly newspaper Die Zeit.
American Archaeologist Adventurer Discovers Secret Nazi Treasure While Searching For Ark Of The Covenant
The art world was stunned yesterday by the discovery in Munich of 1,500 lost works of art by a lone wolf treasure hunting hardboiled detective American patriot archaeologist college professor on a quest, wearing a fedora and carrying a bullwhip.
The mysterious professor, Prof. Dr. Dr. Prof. I. Jones, refused to comment on the find other than to say that his discovery “raises fresh questions about the Nazis’ attitude to the modern art they loved to hate.”
Bei dem spektakulären Kunstfund in München sind 1285 ungerahmte und 121 gerahmte Bilder sichergestellt worden. Darunter befinden sich auch bisher unbekannte Meisterwerke wie ein Selbstbildnis von Dix.
Some Things Never Change
And this is supposed to be news? “Berlin is the European capital for secret agents.”
Or how about this one: “Most of the foreign agents active in Berlin enjoy diplomatic status and can therefore not be collared by German law enforcement authorities.”
Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like I’m living in Wunderland sometimes. In “the old days” everybody knew the deal and nobody ever even raised an eyebrow (“früher war alles besser“). Now everybody’s got hurt feelings all the time. I do wish someone would finally call their parents and have this all explained to them.
“Die meisten ausländischen Agenten, die in Berlin tätig sind, verfügen über einen Diplomatenstatus und sind damit für die deutschen Strafverfolgungsbehörden nicht fassbar.”
Bundeswehr Afghan Troops Now Marching Through Leipzig
With nowhere to put their dreaded and battle-tried Bundeswehr troops after the recent pullout from the Afghan province of Kunduz (German troops in Afghanistan are now being reduced from 4,000 to 800), Bundeswehr strategists have decided to use them for what they hope will be the decisive battle between Napoleon’s forces and allied troops from Austria, Prussia, Russia and Sweden instead.
German Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere noted that a victory against the cunning French emperor would be “a turning point not only for the Bundeswehr, but also for German society itself” and would finally prove to the GermanVolk and even the rest of the world out there that the Bundeswehr “will actually shoot at people if they like absolutely, positively have to, but of course only if the UN and Starfleet Command have OK’d it in writing first.”
Thousands of people will don period costumes, mount horses and raise their muskets and sabers to recreate the decisive battle between Napoleon’s forces and allied troops from Austria, Prussia, Russia and Sweden.
With A Little Help From My Friends
To keep Willy Brandt as Chancellor, the GDR was prepared to bribe members of German Parliament. Brandt’s intimate friend Egon Bahr (both SPD) negotiated with a GDR mediator in 1972 about payoffs for CDU and CSU parliamentarians. This has emerged in Stasi documents available to Der Spiegel. Brandt should thereby be kept in office. Bahr was State Secretary of the Chancellery at that time.
And this is completely unrelated, of course, but for you history buffs out there: There was a very controversial Misstrauensvotum (vote of no confidence) in German Parliament back in 1972 which Willy Brandt won – with two decisive votes mysteriously missing for the conservative opposition that had proposed it.
“Das muss absolut verschwiegen bleiben.”
The Red Parts Is Where All Them There German-Americans Live
California still looks like a pretty safe bet.
It’s time to break out the bratwurst as the United States celebrates German-American Day on Oct. 6.
Commemorating the founding of Germantown, Pa. in 1683, the holiday celebrates America’s largest ancestry group, with 49 million people claiming part or full German heritage.
Observing Hermann 