Swords To Pflugscharen?

You can stop the import of Mein Kampf in Germany, why not stop the export of expensive weapons systems out of Germany?

Mein Kampf

The Munich Institute for Contemporary History has been working for years on a “scientific edition” of Hitler’s book. In 2012 the state government gave the green light, now it wants to stop the project*.

Weapons

Meanwhile… On the occasion of his ninety-fifth birthday, Helmut Schmidt has called on the federal government to stop German weapons exports.”It is time to raise an objection,” the former chancellor wrote in the ZEIT. Germany is the world’s third largest weapons exporter and ranks before China, Japan, France and England, directly after the USA and Russia. “A development that displeases me greatly. And one that needs to be stopped by the coming coalition government in Berlin.”

Er habe Verständnis für “die Unlust der heutigen Deutschen”, “Aber ich halte es für abwegig, statt Soldaten Waffen zu schicken.”

Germany does not ban “Mein Kampf,” but Bavaria has used its ownership of the copyright to block domestic publication until now. Late Tuesday, the state premier’s chief of staff, Christine Haderthauer, said that Hitler’s anti-Semitic memoir amounts to incitement and that the state would file a criminal complaint if anyone tried to publish it in the future. In Germany, copyright expires 70 years after an author’s death.

Germany Suddenly Causing Global Economic Instability Again Or Something

The United States reprimanded Germany on Wednesday, saying its exporting prowess was hampering economic stability in Europe and hurting the global economy…

The criticism comes at a tricky juncture in relations between Washington and Berlin. German envoys met the White House national security adviser in Washington on Wednesday following reports the United States monitored German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone.

Export

Germany’s economic policies causing global instability? That would be nice and all but I smell a rat here somewhere. Although I must say that when it comes to instability, global or otherwise, I would certainly always take our current administration’s recommendations very seriously. They sure seem to know what they are talking about these days.

“Die Kritik ist nicht nachvollziehbar.”

A Tale Of Two Titles

Syria

Wat denn nu (well which is it then)? Which of these two headlines is correct?

“Germany offers help to Syria chemical mission”

or

“Germany supplied Syria with chemicals up until 2011?”

Both are, you say? OK, I get it. I mean, I kinda sorta do.

Germany is ready to give finance and technical support to the international operation to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said on Saturday.

“German System” Suffering From Irregularity

But only in other countries where “German system” weapons are being exported to, of course.

Guns

“How do these weapons end up in places they should not be?” a distressed Deutsche Welle asks with concerned Kulleraugen (big wide saucer eyes). They clearly don’t have proper gun control laws down there in those awful places. Not like we do here in Germany.

For example, in Mexico, police forces in states which are embroiled in a drug war are considered even by the central government as part of the security problem in their regions – nevertheless they have been issued with German-built G36 assault rifles, which can fire up to 750 rounds a minute. Germany’s Economics Ministry, which is responsible for export clearance, in fact sanctioned shipment of the weapons to Mexico – but not to the restive regions. The State Prosecutor in Stuttgart has launched an investigation into the German manufacturer of the G36 assault rifle, Heckler & Koch. The arms company told Deutsche Welle that individual employees, who have since left Heckler & Koch, were to blame for the irregularities.

Germany prides itself on having “strict, even restrictive regulations” for the export of weapons of war.