Germany to send seven howitzers to Ukraine in further policy reversal – Germany will deliver seven self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine, Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht said on Friday, in a further reversal of a longtime policy not to send heavy weapons to war zones due to the country’s Nazi past.
The howitzer delivery, on top of five such artillery systems the Netherlands had already pledged, was another sign of Berlin heeding pressure at home and abroad for it to help Ukraine fend off a Russian invasion.
And seen (great flick). But 12 Germans? That movie title just doesn’t have enough punch.
By the way: Affe (monkey) in German is also used as an insult when calling someone an “idiot” or a “fool.”
12 Germans who got played by Putin – There’s no shortage of politicians, business leaders and intellectuals who have appeased Moscow over the years. Here are a few of them.
Russia’s war against Ukraine has thrust Germany’s establishment into the throes of a tortured process of introspection, self-doubt and recrimination.
After years of lecturing the West that a bit of Ostpolitik was all that was needed to keep Russia in check, Germany’s political, media and academic elites are now obsessing over a new question: How could we have been so wrong?
Literally: Insulted liverwurst. It means to be offended, to sulk, to be in a huff.
Like German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. He’s an insulted liverwurst and won’t visit Ukraine because Kyiv refused to invite his Parteifreund (fellow SPD party member) and Germany’s head of state, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
German opposition leader visits Kyiv, Scholz refuses to go – Germany’s conservative opposition leader has traveled to Kyiv for meetings with Ukrainian officials including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
That means brakeman or somebody who drags his feet and won’t get with the plan.
Germany, a world-class Bremser, has now dropped its opposition to an EU ban on Russian oil because, well, 1) they want to improve their image of being a Bremser and 2) they know that this ban won’t happen anyway because Hungary and Slovakia, being even more dependent upon Russian oil than Germany is (which is saying a lot), are being even bigger Bremser than the German Bremser is and for the ban to take place, all 27 EU countries must agree to it.
Two senior ministers in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government on Monday said Germany would be ready to back an immediate European Union ban on Russian oil imports, and that Europe’s biggest economy could weather shortages and price hikes.
The imprisonment in London of the tennis legend Boris Becker for bankruptcy offences has triggered an outpouring of shock and disappointment in his native Germany, where he was once hailed as a national hero.
One former fan spoke for many when he said: “He made mistakes for which he’s rightly being punished. But maybe he’ll get up again one day, just like Becker, the tennis player, so often did.”
That means to be obedient, servile, to be in bondage or a slave, etc.
You know, as in “Germany is in bondage to Putin?”
For weeks, Olaf Scholz (63, SPD) has been hesitant to supply Ukraine with heavy weapons. In an interview on Friday, he spoke about his reasons: Concern about World War III and a nuclear conflict.
This has met with sharp criticism not only in Germany, but also in Europe. And in the U.S., too, people are reacting with displeasure to the chancellor’s lurching course. “What must happen for Germany to finally stand up to Russia?” the Los Angeles Times now asks in a commentary.
That means incorrigible, unreformable, incurable, dyed-in-the-wool.
Take Gazprom Gerd, for instance. Please. The Germans have pretended to be upset by his post-chancellorship antics but have secretely admired him all along, handling him with kid gloves (anyone who stands up to evil US-Amerika is a hero here). Now, with this little Ukraine thing going on, the bill finally has to be paid and everyone’s upset and wondering how they got here. Will there be consequeces for him? Of course not. Gazprom Gerd is Gazprom Gerd, after all.
The former chancellor who became Putin’s man in Germany – On the evening of Dec. 9, 2005, 17 days after Gerhard Schröder left office as chancellor of Germany, he got a call on his cellphone. It was his friend President Vladimir Putin of Russia.
Putin was pressing Schröder to accept an offer to lead the shareholder committee of Nord Stream, a Russian-controlled company in charge of building the first undersea gas pipeline directly connecting Russia and Germany.
“Are you afraid to work for us?” Putin had joked. Schröder might well have been, given the appearance of possible impropriety; the pipeline he was now being asked to head had been agreed to in the final weeks of his chancellorship, with his strong support.
He took the job anyway.
Seventeen years later, the former chancellor, who recounted the events himself in a pair of rare interviews, remains as defiant as ever.
And Green Germans, of all Green people everywhere, are now allowing gas drilling to proceed in one of Germany’s most controversial territories. This is odd. Even rätselhaft (puzzling), as Green Germans normally preach to the rest of the world how humanity should follow their example as they bravely march down the renewable road to the coming Green utopian future.
Something serious most have happened. Something very serious must have brought about this change of Green heart. Something real-world-like. I bet you dollars to solar panels it was something real-world-like. The real world always raises its ugly little head eventually. Reality just ain’t fair, in other words. Much less Green.
Germany To Drill For Gas In North Sea To Reduce Reliance On Russia – In a concerted move to move away from its heavy reliance on Russia amid the Ukraine crisis, Germany authorities have finally given in and allowed gas drilling to proceed in one of its most controversial territories.
On Wednesday, a German regional authority responsible for the Wadden Sea Islands gave the green light to a Dutch company to drill for gas in the North Sea above the Wadden Islands.
Like Tesla’s goal of producing 1,000 Model Ys per week at its brand new German Gigafactory near Berlin.
Production is currently at around 350 Model Ys per week. By the end of the month, it is to be increased to 1,000 per week. For the whole of 2022, a total of around 30,000 Model Ys are planned. Real volume production will not take place there until 2023.
It’s a crazy new German concept the rest of the world ought to look into, I guess: The ever-expanding state taking on ever-expanding functions it finances by extorting a population ever-willing to pay up.
Ukraine war: How Germany pays for refugees – German leaders recently agreed on a €2 billion package helping states accommodate and integrate Ukrainian refugees fleeing Russia’s war. But money is not the only problem.
“Overall, we have found an acceptable compromise on the distribution of financial responsibility.”
