There’s an app for that

For the bunker nearest you.

Germany draws up list of bunkers amid Russia tensions – App planned for public to find emergency shelter in places including underground train stations and car parks…

A digital directory of bunkers and emergency shelters will be drawn up so people can find them quickly using a planned phone app. People would also be encouraged to create protective shelters in their homes by converting basements and garages, the spokesperson told a press briefing.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say…

No.

Would Benjamin Netanyahu be arrested in Germany?

Germany says it is “examining” its possible response to the ICC arrest warrant against Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Germany supports the ICC, but is also committed to its special relationship with Israel.

She’s denying it

“I never died,” said the dead woman.

“It never happened.”

Ursula Haverbeck, German far-right activist repeatedly convicted for Holocaust denial, dies at 96 – Ursula Haverbeck, a prominent German far-right activist who accumulated a string of convictions for denying the Holocaust, has died. She was 96.

Haverbeck died on Wednesday, her lawyer Wolfram Nahrath told German news agency dpa on Thursday.

Haverbeck repeatedly asserted that Auschwitz was just a work camp. In fact, historians say at least 1.1 million Jews were murdered there by the Nazis.

The hostage collection process has begun!

You’ve got to have chips to play sabotage poker.

Russia arrests German citizen on sabotage charges – The Russian Federal Security Service said a German man was involved in organizing an explosion in Kaliningrad and had returned to Russia “to organize acts of sabotage…”

Russian authorities have repeatedly arrested foreign citizens on hotly disputed charges, including in several incidents that Western governments have denounced as false or trumped-up cases.

Sabotage?

Really?

Germany suspects sabotage behind severed undersea cables – German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has said damage to two undersea cables in the Baltic Sea looks like an act of sabotage and a “hybrid action”, without knowing who is to blame.

A 1,170km (730-mile) telecommunications cable between Finland and Germany was severed in the early hours of Monday, while a 218km internet link between Lithuania and Sweden’s Gotland Island stopped working on Sunday.

The incidents came at a time of heightened tension with Russia and Pistorius said “nobody believes that these cables were cut accidentally”.

Maybe this will help me keep my job…

I know. I’ll call Vladimir Putin and ask him to stop the war and pull out of Ukraine.

That’s never been tried before.

Zelensky accuses German chancellor of opening ‘Pandora’s box’ with Putin…

Facing a snap election on Feb. 23, Scholz’s Social Democrats are coming under pressure from Russia-friendly populist parties on both sides of the political spectrum that argue the government has not deployed enough diplomacy to end the war, according to Reuters.

The Trump Effect

It’s more than just getting rid of your pronouns.

German poll shows approval for more defense spending as NATO steels itself for Trump 2.0 – A majority of Germans support significant defense spending increases, an outlook that coincides with the imminent return of Donald Trump to the White House and an anticipated pressure campaign on allied militaries to step up, a new public opinion survey found.

In September, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius proposed pushing the amount of spending dedicated to the military from 2% of gross domestic product to between 3 and 3.5%.

In a new poll released Monday by the Koerber-Stiftung Institute, 50% of respondents supported Pistorius’ idea, while a further 15% said even more should be spent on German defense.

Germany helps Ukraine…

By sending Russia more Russian soldiers.

Russian conscientious objectors in Germany face deportation – A ruling by the Higher Administrative Court of Berlin-Brandenburg means Russian conscientious objectors who fled their country have less chance of being granted asylum in Germany. Human rights activists are concerned.

Germany is deporting more and more Russian citizens back to Russia, even though there is not a single direct flight between the two countries. The number of deportations could increase if the courts and authorities consider a ruling by the Higher Administrative Court of Berlin-Brandenburg as a precedent…

“I wouldn’t say that German courts are adopting positions held by the Russian government. I interpret it as an unwillingness to consider information provded by human rights activists and the United Nations. It is easier to echo Russia’s state media outlets, who claim there is no mobilization.”

Don’t choose between security and prosperity…

Because you won’t get either.

Scholz, fighting for survival, says Germans should not choose between security and prosperity – Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday appealed to parties to pass measures such as raising child benefits and lifting tax thresholds before a February snap election, stressing that Germans did not need to choose between security and prosperity.

Scholz was addressing parliament in political leaders’ first public head-to-head since the collapse of the chancellor’s ruling coalition last week forced the country into a snap election that will likely take place in February.