“Collective embarrassment”
Certainly not about the performance of the German team during the Euro 2024 championship.

But…
Germans don’t like what Euro 2024 has exposed about their country – Since Berlin became the capital again 25 years ago, German ingenuity, once applied to solving problems, has been applied to finding excuses. No wonder national team manager Julian Nagelsmann decided to give the whole country a pep talk.
“The championship has shown Europeans just how many things don’t work in this country.”
German of the day: Attentat-Komplott
That means assassination plot.

German shock at reported Russian assassination plot – German political figures have reacted angrily to a report that Russia had plotted to kill the head of Germany’s biggest arms company Rheinmetall, Armin Papperger...
The company is one of the world’s biggest producers of ammunition and has become key to supplying Ukraine with arms, armoured vehicles and other military equipment.
Rheinmetall recently opened a tank repair plant in western Ukraine. Last month, it signed an agreement with Ukraine to expand co-operation in the coming years, including a joint venture to produce artillery shells.
German of the day: Irrtum
German of the day: Aufrüstung
That means rearmament.

US to send Tomahawks, hypersonics, other long-range fires to Germany – The U.S. will start deploying long-range fires units to Germany in 2026, according to a joint statement from both the U.S. and German governments released today amid the NATO Summit in Washington, D.C.
The new capabilities will “have significantly longer range than current land-based fires in Europe. Exercising these advanced capabilities will demonstrate the United States’ commitment to NATO and its contributions to European integrated deterrence,” the joint statement reads.
And tax breaks for skilled German workers?
Out of the question.

Wir sind doch nicht blöd (we aren’t stupid). Somebody has to pay for this.
Germany debates tax breaks for skilled foreign workers – The German government wants to grant skilled foreign workers a tax rebate if they take up employment in Germany. But the idea has been met with resistance.
But he’ll get over it
Real fast. It’s just how they roll here.

German defence minister deplores meagre military spending – Boris Pistorius’s criticism comes on eve of Nato summit in Washington.
German defence minister Boris Pistorius has criticised his government for approving less than a fifth of the budget increase he said was needed by Germany’s military, in stark remarks on the eve of a Nato summit in Washington.
“Kai will pay”
Red marks the spot.

Berlin bans red triangle symbol used by Hamas to mark targets – Berlin has banned the inverted red triangle symbol due to its use by Hamas and their supporters to mark enemy targets in videos and graffiti.
The motion passed in the state senate said the scarlet arrow icon represents an immediate threat to Jews and to people committed to the freedom and security of Israel and should be banned at protests and in the context of the Middle East conflict.
The symbol has been used to target pro-Israel academics and politicians, including Kai Wegner, the Berlin mayor who ordered the eviction of pro-Palestine protesters from the city’s Free University by police.
“Kai will pay” was graffitied on the wall of a university under a red triangle.
“To our surprise,”
You didn’t want me to lecture you in person.

So I’ll just have to lecture from here at home.
Diplomatic tensions are escalating between Germany and Hungary after Budapest canceled a meeting between Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó and his German counterpart, Annalena Baerbock, that had been planned for Monday in Budapest.
The unusual last-minute cancellation — tantamount to a diplomatic éclat — comes after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other EU leaders strongly criticized a trip by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to Moscow, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.
Baerbock had planned to raise the issue of Orbán’s meeting with Putin during her visit to Budapest on Monday. But “to our surprise, the Hungarian side canceled” the appointment with Szijjártó “at short notice,” a German foreign ministry official told reporters late Friday.


