What’s wrong with Germans these days?

February 16, 2026 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology Tags: AI, Drones, Germans, Germany, Killer Robots, Polls, Robots, Soldiers, Technology, War Leave a comment

Two-thirds of them don’t welcome killer robots.

They’re stuck in the past, man.

One in three Germans welcome killer robots, new poll says – AI-enabled technologies like drones are transforming warfare but face criticism from rights groups.

Call it “bots on the ground.”

One in three Germans think their country should allow artificial intelligence to make life-or-death decisions on the battle field, according to The POLITICO Poll.

A third of respondents in Germany said they favor AI systems to be used in weapons in place of human decision makers, even if these systems are less transparent, the poll showed.

Germany to finally bow to the United States’ wishes

December 10, 2025 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking Tags: Dependency, Economy, EU, Europe, Germany, Military, Technology, United States Leave a comment

And become less dependent on the United States.

Germany’s Merz: Europe must become less dependent on United States – German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Tuesday rejected a blistering attack on European democracies by the Trump administration, which issued a strategy paper last week declaring that the continent faced “civilizational erasure.”

The U.S. National Security Strategy, made public last week, caused shock across Europe, with a broadside that accused European governments of “subversion of democratic processes” and said U.S. policy should include “cultivating resistance” within the European Union.

“Reducing bureaucracy will be one of our top priorities!”

April 12, 2025 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Hideology Tags: Bureaucracy, Germany, Government, Politicians, Research, Science, Spending, Technology, Waste Leave a comment

This is why we are going to create a new ‘super–high-tech ministry’ for research, technology, and aerospace.

Germany to create ‘super–high-tech ministry’ for research, technology, and aerospace – New governing coalition also plans to woo scientists from abroad and make it easier for universities to collaborate with the military on defense research.

The announcement is one of several nods to science in the 144-page agreement, unveiled on 9 April following weeks of negotiations between the center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) and its sister party, the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU)—who together won the most seats in February’s federal elections—and the center-left Social Democrats. The agreement is expected to be formally approved by the three parties by early May, paving the way for CDU leader Friedrich Merz to be elected chancellor.

“Everything that could go wrong went wrong, or is going wrong”

October 24, 2024 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: Automobiles, Bureaucracy, Economy, Energy, German, Germany, Industry, Language, Technology 1 Comment

Other than that though, alles ist in Ordnung (everything’s OK).

Germany’s lost decade: How the Fortune 500 Europe giant is flirting with long-term irrelevance – There is an elephant in the room of the 2024 edition of the Fortune 500 Europe. It’s not a crisis-riddled company or scandal-hit CEO. Rather, it’s the whole German economy.

For most of the 21st century, economists and neighboring countries have looked to Germany with admiration and envy as it managed to weather economic storms with relative ease, capitalizing on trade with growing economies and expanding the power of its industrial giants in the process.

However, a shifting world order has pulled the carpet out from underneath Germany. The industrial quirks that once helped it outgrow its European peers are fast becoming a burden, and crisis after crisis has exposed a lack of planning at the top of government.

Germany first to figure out what’s going on with Chinese 5G components

July 19, 2024 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking Tags: 5G, Bans, China, Chips, Dependency, Espionage, Huawei, Spies, Spying, Technology, ZTE Leave a comment

If you start counting at the end of the line.

Why Chinese technology set off alarm bells in Germany – Even as the German government moves to bar components made by China’s Huawei and ZTE from core parts of the country’s 5G networks, some German companies are looking to work with Chinese firms in other critical areas…

The ban comes as Chinese technology firms are increasingly viewed with suspicions for their allegedly too close ties to the government in Beijing. Especially Beijing’s drive to make companies like Huawei and ZTE world leaders in high-tech sectors makes Western governments wary of giving them too much influence on their national infrastructures.

Green German Hippy Chick Foreign Minister Finds The Real World Shocking

April 20, 2023 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hideology Tags: China, Exports, Germany, Greens, Illusions, Politicians, Reality, Technology, Trade Leave a comment

Even “more than shocking,” if such a thing is possible. Other than for her, I mean.

And somebody somewhere needs to do something about all this more than shocking stuff real pronto, I bet she’s thinking.

Germany’s foreign minister: Parts of China trip ‘more than shocking’ – German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Wednesday described parts of her recent trip to China as “more than shocking” and said Beijing was increasingly becoming a systemic rival more than a trade partner and competitor.

The blunt remarks followed Baerbock’s visit to Beijing last week where she warned that any attempt by China to control Taiwan would be unacceptable.

European Greens Against Huge Investments In Green Technologies

February 8, 2023 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Hurt Feelings Tags: EU, Greens, Inflation Reduction Act, Investments, IRA, Technology Leave a comment

Because they’re not the right shade of Green. They’re not European Green, in other words.

They’re more of a Greenback shade of Green. And this makes them Green with envy. Or maybe it’s more like Green about the gills.

German Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Robert Habeck was holding talks in Washington on Tuesday focused on the controversial US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which foresees huge investments in green technologies.

A large portion of the Inflation Reduction Act, somewhere in the region of $370 billion (roughly €350 billion at current exchange rates), is earmarked for spending and subsidies designed to support the green transition in the US.

For instance, it includes government incentives for consumers to buy electric vehicles, but only if the vehicles and batteries were produced either in the US or a country with a trade deal with the US.

Now Is Your Chance To Become An Über Driver

October 2, 2020 By Hermann Observer in Heconomy, Hi-tech, Home Cooking Tags: Air Shows, German, Germans, Germany, Helicopters, Language, Paris, Taxis, Technology, Uber Leave a comment

Über, get it? Hardy, har, har. That means over or above in German.

German-made Flying Taxi Unveiled in Paris – A German tech company, along with French regional officials, have unveiled a prototype of a flying taxi that could begin demonstration flights in Paris as early as 2024.

At a news conference Wednesday at the Pontoise airport near Cergy, west of Paris, the Volocopter company presented the VoloCity air taxi, an electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle, which the company will begin testing at the airport in June.

U-1021 2020

July 22, 2020 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Hi-tech, History Tags: Cornwall, Divings, German, Germans, Germany, Submarines, Technology, U-Boats, UK, War, WWII 2 Comments

A German U-boat that sank off the British coast during World War II has been captured on camera in remarkable images.

The pictures were taken by diving contractor Dive Newquay, which took a group of divers to see the remains of U-1021, British news agency SWNS reports. The vessel lies 9 nautical miles off the coast of Cornwall.

“The U1021 lies about nine nautical miles from Newquay Harbour and sits in 55m [180 feet] of water,” a Dive Newquay spokesperson told the news outlet. “Dives of this depth are considered technical, which require special planning and different breathing gasses.”

The wreck is near two other U-boats that also sank during the war.

U-1021 served with 31st U-boat Flotilla before disappearing in March 1945.

The Spy Who Left Me

February 19, 2020 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hideology, History Tags: Cold War, East Germany, Espionage, German, Germans, Germany, Iron Curtain, Radios, Soviet Union, Spies, Spy, Spying, Technology, West Germany Leave a comment

Buried in the woods somewhere in West Germany thirty years ago.

Sophisticated Soviet spy radio discovered buried in former forest in Germany – Archaeologists digging for the remains of a Roman villa near the German city of Cologne have found a sophisticated Soviet spy radio that was buried there shortly before the fall of the Iron Curtain.

The spy radio was buried inside a large metal box that was hermetically sealed with a rubber ring and metal screws. Although the radio’s batteries had run down after almost 30 years in the ground, the box hissed with inrushing air when it was opened…

The scientists suspect agents would have used the spy radio to send secret reports back to the Soviet Union about observation of the Jülich Nuclear Research Centre, about 6 miles (10 km) west of where it was found; or of the military air base at Nörvenich, about the same distance to the southeast, where U.S. Pershing nuclear missiles were based until 1995.

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

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