And We Are Off To The Races

[Leo Niehorster]

"Merkel "and "cute" in one sentence? Say it ain't so.

[Panzermann]

Whose vice-president? Links please?

[sunday]

https://www.google.es/search?q=soraya+saenz+de+santamaria&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=uhM&rls=org.mozilla:es-ES:official&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=e47LUbqdC4WEOPqhgPgH&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1280&bih=624#imgdii=_

[Simon Tan]

Looks a little like Nigella.

[Argus]

Sabina Schmidt in the Transit van......

fify

 

Sabina Schmidt

 

shane

[BansheeOne]

So I'm back at work after the I&I. In my absence, the opposition has discovered the NSA affair as a major issue to fill the summer recess headlines with, accusing the Merkel government of not being tough enough with the US over their spying on Germans. SPD candidate Steinbrück went as far as accusing Merkel of breaking her oath of office to "turn damage from the German people". The government seems either unwilling to give the question much play or is hindered by needs of operational secrecy to respond in force, though Merkel has made some airy suggestions of an international privacy agreement.

 

Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich went to Washington to inquire last week, but had little to show rather than American assurance that the program was not used for economical espionage and as many as five terrorist schemes were foiled in Germany alone through US-provided intelligence - but was only able to name two, the others not having been revealed to him as still classified. He was promptly ridiculed by the opposition, and the fire was fueled even more by media reports that German intelligence had requested communications data of German citizens kidnapped abroad etc., when they had no technical and legal capabilities themselves.

 

The obvious implication is that German authorities gladly make use of allied spying on Germans to circumvent domestic laws, and the Left and Greens have promptly called for another parliamentary investigation - though after the elections. The SPD is not so hot for this since it implies the race is already thought to be lost, as investigative committees are usually an instrument of the opposition; moreover, the question obviously predates both the Merkel and Obama governments, and former chancellor Gerhard Schröder and his chief of staff Frank-Walter Steinmeier - then responsible for overseeing federal intelligence, now SPD group leader in the Bundestag - might find themselves subpoened to talk about how things were done back then with ole' GWB. The Left promised as much already.

 

The best hope for the opposition is therefore to damage Merkel's overbearing image as a caring "mommy" and to mobilize their own clientele shortly after the lead of CDU/CSU over the SPD reached an eight-year high in the polls; currently it is 40-41 to 25-26, with Greens 12-14, FDP 4-6, Left 6-8. Despite the much bigger outrage here compared to domestic American feelings however, a recent poll found that only four percent consider this a major issue in German politics. This has been explained in part by people being quite aware that there is little privacy on the internet anyway, and the anti-American effect Gerhard Schröder capitalized on so well in the 2002 elections being still dampened by Obama's image of being "more like us".

 

Of the 58 minor groups which signed up to run in the elections, 38 have been admitted to the race. As stated before, none of them have much chances to actually make the five-percent threshold of votes needed to enter the Bundestag, with the possible exception of the Pirates and Euro-sceptic AfD; both are still stuck at 2-3 percent in the polls, though. While a new Grand Coalition remains the most likely outcome, the ruling conservative-liberal government has steadily increased its chances with the slow improvement of the FDP around the five-percent mark - now actually better than for a Red-Green coalition in my opinion. But the race between the camps remains tight, and we still have more than two months to go.

 

State elections: Bavaria remains likely to see a new absolute conservative majority with a possible return of the current conservative-liberal coalition as a fall-back option at CSU 47, SPD 19, Greens 11, FDP 5, Free Voters 10. Hesse perspectives have improved somewhat for the current state government with CDU 38, SPD 30, Greens 15, FDP 5, but for now the Red-Green camps stays ahead in the polls.

Edited July 16, 2013 by BansheeOne

[BansheeOne]

Spent a nice sunny summer recess day in the Eurohawk hearings yesterday. Former Bundeswehr inspector general Wolfgang Schneiderhan and former defense ministers Rudolf Scharping (SPD) and Franz Josef Jung (CDU) were heard as the first witnesses. They talked a lot about how Eurohawk was wanted by everybody, and problems were seen but considered solvable - in the words of Schneiderhan, "which defense procurement project has no problems?" Unsurprisingly, the opposition asked about flow of information in the MoD, preparing the ground for their accusations against current minister de Maizière that he was either ignorant or lied to parliament about when he knew the problems were now "unsolvable".

 

Afterwards, they and friendly parts of the media promtly claimed that Schneiderhan and Scharping severely implicated de Maizère. Which is funny since neither had been in office for years before de Maizière even became defense minister. The public reception might also have been more favorable if it hadn't been Scharping, who was quietly replaced in office after the first term of the Schröder government over bloopers like talking about details of the Bundeswehr deployment plans to Kosovo in a press conference and having himself photographed splashing in the pool with his countess lover for a weekly magazine while the troops prepared to deploy to Macedonia in 2001, which earned him the nickname of "Rudolf bin Baden [gone bathing]" ...

 

On the other hand, neither did the government coalition succeed in pinning any blame for early failures to get the development contracts right onto the Schröder government. Anyway, the main topic of public debate remains the NSA affair. To hear the opposition, apparently Chancellor Merkel personally wiretapped each and every German citizen and passed the information on to Obama. The latest "revelations" are that German intelligence agencies are using some of the same software as the NSA, and both sides have sometimes shared information. I'm shocked, shocked I tell you! Yet somehow, all the excitement has so far failed to make much of an impression in the polls.

 

Meanwhile, pollsters following the races in individual districts predict that the next Bundestag will not be all that much bigger despite the change of election law that will see supernumerary seats fully compensated. Election.de predicts 638 members vs. 622 after the 2009 election, a far cry from the more than 750 initially feared by some. The site also has a nice district race map (though they make you pay for individual information). Note that blue denotes the Conservatives and red the Social Democrats, the opposite of the weird American color attribution!

 

 

As you see, if we had a pure district-based system, there would be an overwhelming conservative majority since CDU/CSU tend to profit more from voters of smaller parties giving them their primary vote. Our district is a "likely" medium blue itself, number 211 (Pirmasens) in the souhwest jink right on the French border and Saarland state line.

 

Some entertainment is provided lately by Siegfried Kauder, little brother to Bundestag CDU leader Volker Kauder. He was defeated in the conservative nomination for his district of Schwarzwald-Baar due to complaints about his authoritarian style. Undeterred, he now intends to run as an independent, which might get him thrown out of the party. Apparently the brothers haven't talked much for some time - but then "Little Kauder" is the type of bloodless lawyer you imagine to sleep in a coffin and procreate by cell division ...

 

Meanwhile the Greens got some more trouble with the 80s pedophilia connection as two folks came out in the Sunday issue of conservative daily "Die Welt" about being regularly abused for years along with other kids in a community of the Emmaus movement in Northrhine-Westphalia headed by a member of the Green state leadership, since deceased.

 

The link to the party is thus a bit tenuous - though apparently there was a Green Youth and Children Congress at that site in 1983 which was a venue for the uncritical treatment of sex with minors that is now being criticized - but obviously that has never deterred anybody during campaign season. Conservatives promptly called for investigation results to be presented earlier than the project already underway with a target date in late 2014, and possible damage compensation for the victims.

[BansheeOne]

Another day spent in the final hearing of the Eurohawk committee yesterday. Defense Minister de Maizière and Federal Auditing Office President Dieter Engels were the last two witnesses, but of course the opposition grilled the minister from 1000 until 1730, after which the tired panel voted to drop Engels. Green defense speaker Omid Nouripour ran the last 45 minutes as a one-man show as usual until everybody's eyes had glazed over, even after Chairwoman Susanne Kastner of the SPD had asked him if he might avoid reasking questions for the second and third time. When he finally declared himself finished, I and another guy in the back seats of the coalition group actually started to clap ...

 

As expected, every party found their opinion confirmed by the hearings. The opposition still claims the minister lied about when he was informed about the debacle and has no good grip on his house, while the coalition declared all accusations soundly refuted. You know the attacks didn't score when pro-opposition media say that "everybody lost"; it certainly has had no impact on overal public opinion. Poll numbers just won't budge, with CDU/CSU 39-42, SPD 22-26, Greens 13-15, FDP 4-6 and Left 6-8.

 

The other minister still in the sights of the opposition is Merkel's chief of staff Ronald Pofalla who has been heard twice so far by the intelligence oversight committee on the government's knowledge about the NSA affair. Unsurprisingly again, the opposition has declared themselves dissatisfied with his statements and announced to cite him again "until we get some real answers". Of course hearings in a secret committee are a rather convenient thing to be publically dissatisfied with; since nobody outside knows what was actually said, I guess they will play that shtick right up to the election.

 

The SPD officially kicked off the "hot" campaign phase this week with the presentation of their campaign posters. Noticeably, chancellor candidate Steinbrück is not pictured on any of them. There are however three attacking Merkel, one showing her with de Maizière and Pofalla asking "Merkel's Competence Team?", one with Minister of Economy Philipp Rösler sitting dour-faced on the government bench titled "Best Governernment since Reunification?", and one digging in her handbag saying "Privacy - Virgin Territory for Merkel" in reference to an unfortunate remark she made about the internet during the recent Obama visit.

 

There are of course obvious implications for a party that starts a campaign with negative advertizing right from the beginning; moreover, they look to me like they are aimed at mobilizing the own supporters rather than winning over fencesitters, since the virgin territory thing is a bit obscure, and given the economic record of the current government many might reply to the question about the best since reunification "uh ... yes?" Anyway, Merkel herself is on vacation until mid-August, so the decisive campaigning is still ahead.

 

The anonymous plagiarism hunter using the pseudonym of "Robert Schmidt" who brought down Science Minister Annette Schavan has also found a new target in the person of Bundestag Speaker Norbert Lammert, also CDU. On a new webpage, he claims to have found various citations in the first third of Lammert's dissertation from 1976 that were taken over from other books without having read the original sources. The opposition has not made much of this so far as Lammert is popular across most aisles; there is also a growing unease about those anonymous internet denunciations.

 

"Robert Schmidt" emerged from a website that has outed other VIP science plagiators, but split over the Schavan issue which most others of the collective didn't consider worth going public with; apparently he is considered somewhat of a particularly pedantic crusader by the rest. Though he is not without fail himself either, as he charged that Lammert had cited a book that didn't even exist - but turned out to have simply been misquoted by the author from which the citation allegedly was copied. Obviously, Lammert has asked his alma mater in Bochum to review his dissertation, and we shall see what will become of it.

[BansheeOne]

With six weeks to go, the "official" campaign phase is upon us, with posters up on every other inner-city lamppost. Yet already, intellectuals and pundits are complaining about the lame campaigning, which usually translates to "I cannot believe The Stupid Masses seem so content with an unexiting leader like Merkel!!!!". But as I recently said to our American embassy-USAFE liaison, "When it comes to politics, I'll take boring and solid over exciting and dangerous any day", and I guess most Germans feel the same.

 

In fact the Conservatives have been rather successful throughout the last three national elections with their concept of "strategic demobilization" which basically goes "you don't have to bring out people to vote for you, you just have to prevent them from voting for the other guy". Which finds its application in denying the opposition controversy by the oft-criticized stealing of issues and topics to the point where the major parties look very much alike and voters will just go with the proven team, often decried as the "social-democratization of the CDU" by internal critics.

 

The dearth of excitement continues to get filled with speculation about who might partner with whom in government if the current conservative-liberal coalition doesn't get a majority again. All the possibilities of CDU/CSU going with the Greens or a Red-Green coalition partering or at least being tolerated by the Left Party are being chewed through once more.

 

Left godfather Gregor Gysi recently said the could well see a Red-Red-Green government with himself as foreign minister, magnaminously proposing that all he would demand was ruling out new combat deployments of the Bundeswehr, more social justice and the equalization of pensions in West and East Germany. Which is rather soft considering the party's election program calls for an "immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawl from Afghanistan" and a stop to all other overseas missions, among other things.

 

Gysi might feel this is his last chance to get into a position of power, but the rest of the bunch is largely set on fundamental opposition, and the SPD has already ruled out the Left as a partner despite the calls of intellectuals who want to see Merkel gone at any price. A new report by "Stern" magazine that she may step down in 2016 to pave the way for a successor can also probbly be filed under wishful thinking.

 

A lot of air seems about to go out of the last major topic the opposition seized upon in their desparation, namely German government involvement into the NSA affair. Lately, media had reported about an alleged mass forwarding of German meta-data by the BND in the last ten years, centered around a joint BND-NSA installation at the former Echelon site in Bad Aibling. This week, the BND stated that "yeah we've done that, but it's data we collected abroad in Afghanistan and elsewhere as is our job, and that cooperation is based upon a German-American agreement from 2002 following 9/11".

 

The government was quick to cheerfully point out that the German side in that agreement would have been represented by Frank-Walter Steinmeier, then Gerhard Schröder's chief of staff in charge of intelligence, and now the SPD group leader in the Bundestag. Politicians from both the coalition and the Left Party immediately jumped on the SPD with both feet for accusing the government of stalling for information when they could just have asked their own leadership.

 

In reply, Steinmeier broke his heretofore conspicious silence on the matter and said "that's just a diversion of the government trying to shift blame, because this had nothing to do with the blanket spying on German citizens!" Which is likely entirely correct, but then it follows that the current government hasn't condoned that either ...

[BansheeOne]

There was a mini-demonstration against intelligence surveillance just outside the Bundestag's no-protest zone when I came to work this morning; about a dozen people with just as many TV cameras in attendance. A lady was trying to lead a chant for spies to "pack up their microphones", but had some technical trouble with her own microphone ... maybe she could have used some professional expertise.

 

The SPD has run face-first into the wall at full tilt with their overblown accusations in the NSA affair, and I'm loving every minute of it. They are still going on about "blanket surveillance of German citizens", but have little proof to show for it while continueing their calls for the government to clear up the issue; I think the abovementioned protest is quite indicative of the public interest this still generates. Some Social Democrats are starting to get pissed off at the anti-American undertones of their leadership, too.

 

Sympathetic media are trying to salvage a bit of the outrage by referencing some of the Snowden papers depicting Germany as a medium-priority intelligence target among other European nations - though it remains unclear whether we should be angry that our allies may be spying on us, or that we don't have a higher priority. Others are trying to make the best of the NSA-BND cooperation by pointing out that the cellphone data from Afghanistan passed on by German intelligence might be used for targetted killings - OMGOMGOMG!!!!111!!

 

SPD candidate Steinbrück started off the street campaign phase somewhat burdened with another careless remark of his where he accused Angela Merkel of having no fervor for Europe because she grew up in East Germany, condescendingly adding "which is not her fault". There was the usual backlash by the oddball coalition of conservatives and liberals as well as the Left Party about stereotyping Ossis, but Easterners from the own camp were critical too.

 

Professor Franz Walter who is investigating the history of links between the Greens and pedophilia groups at the party's behest published an intermediate statement in the national daily "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" today, wherein he examines how they let themselves be influenced by child-sex promoters in the climate for more sexual openess in the late 70s/early 80s, but distanced themselves in the late 80s/early 90s when feminism became more dominant.

 

Funnily, the first personal victim his investigation has claimed is no Green politician, but a female Bundestag candidate of the Liberals who stepped down on the weekend after it was revealed she was a leadership member of the German Studies and Work Group Pedophilia as a university student 30 years ago, and wrote a text decrying the legal dangers of sex with kids. The youth organization of the Liberals was actually another venue of influence for pedophilia activists, but unlike the Greens the FDP itself never entered their proposals in party programs.

 

The Greens however are facing more public criticism for their proposal to introduce weekly meat-free days at canteens of public institutions, duely scandalized for the campaign by conservative media. The FDP for their part is under scrutiny for campaign flyers paid by their Bundestag group, which might be a violation of campaign financing rules. The most the CDU has to offer in entertainment is still the saga of rogue candidate Siegfried Kauder after the local party chapter voted to open exclusion procedures against him for his bid to run as an independent against the official local candidate. They all can't hold a candle to what fun the SPD is providing with their top candidate and bumbling campaign.

 

If we're looking beyond the boredom that is the weekly polls, election.de has a projection that currently predicts 39 percent for CDU/CSU, SPD 25, Greens 14, FDP 7, Left 7 - a draw between camps, though it's interesting they judge the FDP somewhat higher than current polls at the expense of CDU/CSU. Spiegel Online also has a running bet on the outcome by its users which is predicting CDU 38, SPD 26.6, Greens 14.2, FDP 5.8, Left 7.2; obviously the overall leftist bias of the audience there is influencing this a little, though they also see the Liberals above the straight five percent they're currently getting in polls.

Edited August 12, 2013 by BansheeOne

[Dave Clark]

With six weeks to go, the "official" campaign phase is upon us, with posters up on every other inner-city lamppost.

 

**SNIP**

 

Not quite! The Berliner Morgenpost recently had an article about where election posters are not allowed. The main area being around the Reichstag, Brandenburger Tor and the Holocaust Memorial. The Kreuzberg District Council has also banned them around the Jewish Museum because of the special significance of the museum for the city. They got into trouble in 2011 when they removed NPD posters in this area during the city elections citing the anti foreigner content. The Berlin Administrative Court rapped them on the knuckles for attempting to limit the NPD's freedom of speech.

 

The Schöneberg District Council has a similar problem in the area known as the Bayerischen Viertel. This area had a large Jewish population pre-war which is commemorated by an unusual memorial. On 80 lampposts throughout the area are mounted plaques which illuminate the succession of laws and ordnances which step by step limited the freedom of the Jewish population. During the city elections in 2011, the NPD gleefully plastered their posters all over these. This year the district council has explicitly ruled out the use of these lampposts for political propaganda.

 

The mayor of the Neukölln district almost sounded wistful when stating that election propaganda was allowed in the whole district "as we don't have any sensitive memorials in Neukölln".

[BansheeOne]

Apropos of the campaign and Jewish institutions, the Lower Saxony state rabbi reacted to the Green proposal of a "Veggie Day" with a lead article in this week's issue of the "Jüdische Allgemeine" entitled "God Loves Steak" (citing Torah rules on animal sacrifice).

 

Berlin's conservative press is targetting the Deutschlandfest the SPD will hold at the Brandenburg Gate this weekend, ostentatively to celebrate their 150th anniversary, for which the main traffic artery leading through the Platz des 18. März will have to be closed down for a week again - as it already is on about 100 days per year, playing havoc with Berlin traffic which is adventurous under the best of circumstances.

 

The borough of Berlin-Mitte originally denied them, citing their permission catalogue which requires a close relation to time and place for the event and pointing out the official celebration already took place back in March in Leipzig where the SPD was co-founded; but the SPD city government overruled them. Though the most acid article I read was in the leftist "Berliner Zeitung" which wondered what it might say about the party that they invited mostly cover bands "replaying the music of others", and called Peer Steinbrück "the outgoing chancellor candidate" ...

 

Outgoing long-time Social Democratic MP Franz Müntefering, former secretary general and two-time national chairman of the SPD, criticized the party's campaign and lack of support for Steinbrück in an interview this week, thought to be directed chiefly against current chairman Sigmar Gabriel and secretary general Andrea Nahles with whom his relation is reportedly strained. Steinbrück largely agreed with his criticism, which does nothing to counter the impression of a slow self-destruction of the SPD in the race.

 

Neither does the fact that Gabriel has called for a party convention two days after the election to decide on the party's future course; as Müntefering pointed out, if the SPD wins the election, there is no need to make grand decisions. Supposedly the convention could decide on whether to enter a grand coalition with CDU/CSU as a junior partner, but opponents of Gabriel suspect he wants to use it as a trial of mistakes others have made and position himself as the party's strong man for the time to come.

 

Meanwhile, the grasping at straws for campaign topics continues. The last attempt was made with the debacle Deutsche Bahn is currently experiencing with understaffing of railway switch controls in the Mainz area, leading to widespread delays and cancellation of trains. Since DB is still majority government-owned and expected to deliver a dividend for the federal budget, the opposition tried to get at Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer for purportedly saving the network to pieces. It made headlines for a week or so, but DB and the railway union came to an agreement about future personnel policy yesterday which might ease the strain.

[Mr King]

This would get you kicked right out of American politics, but you could always run for Mayor of New York.

 

Warning NSFW picture of Merkel

 

http://i.imgur.com/oK9Hixs.jpg

[BansheeOne]

Apparently that picture showed up first in Turkey, accompanied by rumors that it was from old KGB files and released by the Russians in revenge for Merkel's hard stance on the Cyprus bailout. The local audience seems to have taken it at face value and led a debate on German morals. Domestic media reported it in passing as a curiosity since they have some doubt if the picture is real - the Turkish publication having occurred on 1 April might have something to do with that.

 

It might well be real, since East Germany had, and still has, a prominent nude bathing/activities culture, so it would not be unusual. Merkel tried to come across more as a regular family person during the campaign runup in spring and had various private shots from her vacation in Italy published at the time this picture allegedly surfaced (while complaining a bit too much about the paparazzi). Don't think she would release nude shots of her younger self though - it would neither hurt no help her much, but she was reportedly not amused when fellow CDU MP Vera Lengsfeld had her picture from attending the Bayreuth Wagner festival photoshopped into a campaign poster during the 2009 campaign without asking, titled "We have more to offer" ...

 

 

By the way, our colleagues across the corridor have a Young Conservatives poster up at their office door reading "Keep Cool and Vote For Chancellor[ess]":

 

 

Also available as a t-shirt. To understand that you have to know that Merkel tends to form her fingers into a rhombus, which will show on many pictures of her and has led to some jokes:

 

[Simon Tan]

It's the secret sign. might as well go home now...she's gonna win and probably handily.

[BansheeOne]

Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäubele finally came clean and stated Greece will need another financial aid package after much non-committal grunting earlier. Obviously the government feels confident enough about the election outcome with four weeks top go now for some inconvenient truths, lest it blows up in their faces closer to the decision. In particular, the Euro-sceptic AfD is languishing between one and three percent in polls (the Pirates as the other dark horse seem to have at least solidified at three following the NSA affair, but are still not likely to enter the Bundestag).

 

In a nod to the more volatile voter base of today, public TV broadcaster ZDF will publish their last poll numbers just three days ahead of the election, while their colleagues from ARD will stick to the traditional self-imposed ten-day cutoff. In fact there is a slow but distinct trend towards greater likelihood of the current conservative-liberal coalition being reelected; five out of seven pollsters are now showing a narrow CDU/CSU-FDP majority - and some have for six weeks -, one a draw with the leftist camp. This is also borne out by election.de's district map; our's is now considered "safe", too.

 

 

The opposition might try to make something of the topic of course, and ex-chancellor Gerhard Schröder who joined SPD candidate Steinbrück on the campaign track this week already mentioned Merkel's European politics; unfortunately it was Schröder who agreed to the Euro accession of Greece and other current South European problem countries.

 

Social Democrats also evoked the impression of dithering on their tax plans to a disastrous media response when the leadership stated that maybe there was no need for so much rises after all if tax evasion could be stopped. Green top candidate Jürgen Trittin promptly accused his would-be coalition partners of putting out "chicken-hearted signals". Friendly media are so desparate that Spiegel Online speculated about alleged plans of unnamed strategists in the CDU to call for new elections if 22 October doesn't result in a conservative-liberal majority and the SPD proves difficult in talks for a grand coalition. I can't see that at all.

 

Conservative national daily "Die Welt" ran a story this week that Steinbrück may have been approached by the Stasi in the 70s. Apparently he was regularly visiting relatives in Suhl, East Germany back then, and the husband of his cousin - an actor playing an investigator in a popular DDR crime show - turned out to have been a Stasi informer in the "Welt" probe. This guy denied he had ever spied on or tried to recruit Steinbrück, but apparently there was a file card for the latter from the local Stasi office, of the type usually created when they were trying to approach a possible informer. Which is not unusual, as they were approaching lots of people; but if they weren't successful, the case was closed after nine months per regulations.

 

However, as Steinbrück rose in the SPD and took various government jobs in the late 70s/early 80s, allegedly both his and his cousin's husband's file ended up in the sub-unit of the Stasi's Berlin foreign intelligence branch tasked with subverting the Social Democrats, and were allegedly never closed. There are no documents to show that he was actually recruited, but helpful experts for the "Welt" said that unless it was just a bureaucratic cockup, this might mean the Stasi was either still hoping for success or protecting him from repeated recruiting attempts by lower echelons; apparently this was done when a source was already run by a friendly service, chiefly the KGB.

 

The article cited some circumstancial evidence like a handwritten note of "for the friends" in the files and the fact the original local case officer had a somewhat surprising carreer rise, but didn't really come out to say Steinbrück may have been an informer for Eastern intelligence. Steinbrück reacted by announcing to publish all documents of the Stasi Files Authority pertaining to him - something he says he never had much interest in - on the internet shortly. Outside the "Welt" insinuations, the story hasn't gotten much play other than "Stasi files show Steinbrück was no informer".

 

In the great spirit of bi-partisanship, the "Welt" also published a somewhat sensationalist piece about a recent incident wherein a lovesick pothead entered a VIP Airbus of the Luftwaffe parked in the military part of Cologne-Bonn airport at night. They made a big affair of the leisurely approach Bundeswehr and police took to eventually getting the guy out some hours after he had made his way in through an emergency exit, entered the cockpit and pushed the emergency locator emitter button.

 

Apparently the aircraft was fueled and had battery power, the latter contradictory to initial Bundeswehr statements; and the gist of the piece was that Defense Minister de Maizière, already weakened from the Eurohawk affair, would surely have had to resign if Pothead had managed to put it in motion and possibly destroy it. What if it had been an Islamist suicide attacker???!!!111!! But predictably, nobody really saw the opportunity or need for a major fuss.

 

A minor public debate arose ahead of Chancellor Merkel stopping by to visit the Dachau KZ memorial site yesterday between two campaign events at the invitation of the camp survivor's association. The president of the latter, 93-year-old Max Mannheimer, had extended same last fall when it became clear she would be campaigning in Dachau that day, and she accepted some months ago. Green Bundestag group leader Renate Künast promptly criticized her for showing a lack of proper remembrance by sandwiching the visit into her campaign tour as some sort of PR stunt and hopping from the KZ site into the beerfest tent.

 

Of course Mannheimer himself was quite aware of that when he invited her, and all he had to say on the issue was "she is the first chancellor to ever have visited the site". The Central Council of the Jews pointed out that if she had gone campaigning in Dachau without visiting the KZ, people would have criticized her, too. In the end, Merkel took more time than planned to talk with the camp survivors, and managed to work that into her subsequent campaign speech, too; so another storm in a tea cup blown over.

[Dave Clark]

**SNIP**

 

In the great spirit of bi-partisanship, the "Welt" also published a somewhat sensationalist piece about a recent incident wherein a lovesick pothead entered a VIP Airbus of the Luftwaffe parked in the military part of Cologne-Bonn airport at night. They made a big affair of the leisurely approach Bundeswehr and police took to eventually getting the guy out some hours after he had made his way in through an emergency exit, entered the cockpit and pushed the emergency locator emitter button.

 

Apparently the aircraft was fueled and had battery power, the latter contradictory to initial Bundeswehr statements; and the gist of the piece was that Defense Minister de Maizière, already weakened from the Eurohawk affair, would surely have had to resign if Pothead had managed to put it in motion and possibly destroy it. What if it had been an Islamist suicide attacker???!!!111!! But predictably, nobody really saw the opportunity or need for a major fuss.

 

**SNIP**

 

And to quote Der Spiegel, who really went to town on the story

 

 

German prosecutors are probing how a man was able to board an empty government jet used by Chancellor Angela Merkel... The man, a bodybuilder of Turkish descent named as Volkan T., proceeded to stage a raucous, one-man party. Reports said he stripped down to his underpants, sprayed fire extinguisher foam around the elegant cream and beige interior, pushed buttons in the cockpit, released an inflatable emergency slide and danced on the wing of the Airbus 319.

 

While playing with the cockpit buttons, he inadvertently triggered an alarm that was logged by military personnel at 8:40 p.m... At 9:54 p.m., the army heightened its alert level from three to one, its highest. The military police didn't arrive until 10:16 p.m., when the aircraft was surrounded but no one ventured inside. At 11:23 p.m., steps were rolled up to the aircraft and a police officer using a megaphone began urging the man to come out. He didn't.

 

Finally, at 12:16 a.m., dogs arrived to deal with the situation. Seven minutes later, Volkan T. was arrested, slightly injured from two bites to the leg. He has been detained in a secure psychiatric hospital ever since.

 

 

Full story at

 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/man-in-underpants-partied-in-german-government-jet-for-angela-merkel-a-917494.html]

[BansheeOne]

The Eurohawk investigative panel concluded its report yesterday; it will be debated on the Bundestag floor early next week on the fringes of the special session for a provisional 2014 budget, along with the report of this term's other major parliamentary investigation of the National Socialist Underground terror cell - a trio of neo-nazis which managed to kill eight Turkish and one Greek vendor as well as a police officer between 2000 and 2006 while police was looking everywhere but for a xenophobic background and only came across the NSU when the two males killed themselves after a botched bank robbery two years ago (the female survivor and some alleged supporters are currently on trial in Munich).

 

There are no surprises in the Eurohawk findings: The opposition maintains Defense Minister de Maizière mishandled the project, then lied about it and should resign, to which the government coalition replied it was a shame you couldn't demand the resignation of the opposition for the way they were misrepresenting facts. Aware that nobody's really bothering about Eurohawk anymore, the opposition also tried to use the platform of the committee's final session to create the next arms procurement scandal about the planned acquisition of 18 NH 90 helicopters for the Navy.

 

Background on this: Eurocopter thoroughly dropped the ball on the original MH 90 variant supposed to replace both the clapped-out shore-based Sea Kings and shipborne Sea Lynxes as the sensor suite didn't meet expectations, the landing gear turned out to be too weak in deck landing trials, etc.; also, after the long developmental phase, the Marine had changed its mind about the mission profile and wanted something with more growth potential for lifting cargo and personnel rather than ASW work. So they ran a new competition for 30 helicopters in 2010 in which they judged the MH 90 unfit for their uses and decided on the CH-148 Cyclone, nevermind that the latter is having its own fair share of problems with introduction in Canada.

 

However, at this point there was no money for a new Navy helicopter at all, and the project got cancelled while the old Sea Kings specifically were shedding parts. The NH 90 procurement for the Army and Air Force was already in trouble too due to excessive developmental delays and the downsizing of forces. The current Bundeswehr reform includes transferring all NH 90s to the Heer while the Luftwaffe will operate the CH-53s formerly run by the Heer, with a planned reduction from 122 to 80 NH 90 overall (as well as 80 to 40 Tiger attack helicopters).

 

Unlike the Navy contract, acquisition of 122 NH 90s and 80 Tigers was however already signed for, so the government had to enter into reduction negotiations with Eurocopter. In the end both sides agreed on 82 NH 90 for the Army and 18 for the Navy to replace just the Sea Kings under the new exciting name of Sea Lion; the Tigers were also cut to 57, with those excess to requirements planned to be sold on somehow. However, despite the 22 percent reduction in numbers, overall price was reduced by just 224 million Euro or 2.7 percent, already criticized by the opposition when the result was made public earlier this year.

 

They are now waving the Navy's 2011 report that the NH 90 is not suitable for them, and also scandalizing that the "new navy helicopter" was selected without a competition; a complaint to that effect was already lodged with the EU commission. Of course the inspector of the navy has stated that if they hadn't had the NH 90 foisted upon them now, they wouldn't have gotten any new helicopters at all because there's still no money, and delivery of the NH 90 was already agreed upon. It's not like Eurocopter was burning to reduce deliveries under a valid contract they had already in their pocket.

 

Meanwhile, SPD candidate Steinbrück has put the Stasi documents on him referred to in the "Welt" probe online as announced. They are not too exciting, about half of them reports by his cousin's husband about things he said and wrote to them, the other half observation reports from when he was a member of the West German permant mission in the DDR during the 80s; some information is blacked out to protect the privacy of third parties. The family informer depicts Steinbrück as a "distinct representative of the theory of Democratic Socialism per the West German SPD" and proceeds to cite various "hostile remarks" against the DDR system, which had nothing more to do with the theories of Marx, Engels and Lenin.

 

In a commentary, Steinbrück mocked that he had been "denounced as a Marxist" by the Stasi, and most media agreed that there was no evidence in the documents that he had been approached or recruited as an informer himself. Of course the "Welt" itself pointed out those were not Steinbrück's full files but just what could be found upon their inquiry, and that a "combined working and personnel file" alluded to therein was missing, likely destroyed like most files of the Stasi's HVA foreign intelligence arm; in fact the surviving Steinbrück file card was part of the "Rosenholz" HVA files salvaged by the CIA during the DDR breakdown and only returned to Germany in 2003. Anyway, in the absence of more documentation, the issue is not likely to play a major role in the campaign.

 

What could make an impact is of course the rapid shift towards likelihood of a Western military strike against Syria following the alleged chemical mass casuality event. Everybody full well remembers how Gerhard Schröder won reelection in 2002 in large part by pursuing an anti-Iraq war and rather anti-American stance. Both the government and opposition have ruled military action against Syria in the past, mostly because nobody saw what could possibly achieved by it.

 

However, with the present shift the government finds itself in the binds of international solidarity and has modified statements to stress the need of unspecified consequences if the allegations about the attack are proven true. They certainly don't want to end up like in the Libya crisis where they abstained in the UNSCR vote out of fear for the public reaction in the Baden-Württemberg state elections, promptly got criticized by SPD and Greens for failing our allies without the slightest apparent sense of the historical paradoxon, and lost the election to boot - to the Greens, even.

 

It's unclear whether the opposition would run another anti-war campaign with all the hue and cry about the humanitarian situation in Syria, including by themselves; the Left Party certainly will, but SPD and Greens are facing the prospect of ending up in government shortly and then bearing actual responsibility for relations with allies. There is really not much that could be contributed by Germany anyway, though. There are the two Patriot batteries in Turkey which could be reinforced to defend against a possible bcklash by Syria, including with NBC units for which there are contingency plans; current strength is 300 with an authorized limit of 400, so that could be done even without going back to parliament for an unpopular vote on more deployments.

 

The navy has ships in the Eastern Mediterranean under UNIFIL and OAE, but most interesting would probably be the ELINT vessel regularly deployed there under national command. There was also talk of air refueling capacities; the A310 MRTT earlier deployed to Senegal in support of French operations over Mali is back on standby in Germany, so we're fully bombed up there. If Israel asked for backup of its defenses against a Syrian or Iranian reaction, that would likely be done under Merkel's pro-Israeli politics, but she would probably not be enthusiast so close to elections, and I don't think we have much they could actually use either.

 

Overall, the domestic political trend continues as before; election.de now actually sees a slight CDU lead in Kaiserslautern, the traditional red stronghold just north of our own district. This means the only district with an SPD lead south of Marburg, Hesse remains Freiburg. Of course some of those leads are pretty narrow, and the Greens actually have a shot of winning a second direct seat after Kreuzberg, Berlin in the Baden-Württemberg capital of Stuttgart, where as mentioned a Green state minister president already resides. But the general desperation of the Red-Green camp is manifesting itself in renewed speculation about a threesome with the Left, though leaderships have repeatedly ruled that out.

 

The Euro-sceptic AfD doesn't seem to profit much from the allegations of a new Greek aid package; they made more headlines for being attacked by leftist extremists on the campaign trail, who accused them of being vaguely right-wing in the absence of real nazis to beat up. Two weeks ago there was already a scuffle at a campaign stand in Göttingen as local radicals and the Green Youth called for "action" against rightist vibes they were getting from the AfD; from having studied and worked as a journalist there for 15 years, that doesn't surprise me in the least. On Sunday, their national chair Bernd Lucke got assaulted on stage in Bremen, the attackers spraying CS and stabbing a volunteer who pursued them into the hand; three were arrested by police. The AfD is happily using those incidents for their campaign, too.

[sunday]

Axel, what's your take on this?

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/angela-merkel-says-greece-should-never-have-been-allowed-to-join-the-euro-8788435.html

[BansheeOne]

Funnily, Merkel would agree with Mr. Papantoniou that Germany was a rather bad role model in adhering to stability rules, because that is exactly what her current coalition has been accusing her predecessor Gerhard Schröder of ever since that happened. Which is of course the point of her remarks aimed at the domestic audience, since Greece was also admitted to the Euro on Schröder's watch. In fact national SPD chairman Sigmar Gabriel said that was a mistake in a "Spiegel" interview four days ago, which is yet another note in the party's bumbling campaign.

 

As expected, all parties are cautious to seize upon the Syrian crisis except for the Left which is driving its usual anti-war bandwagon and has requested a special session of the defense committee on Monday to be informed about possible German involvement into military action. Gabriel has demanded that Merkel go to Moscow and work some miracle for an American-Russian agreement on further action, but pollsters are warning to stay the heck off that topic due to the muddled situation, unfit for simple campaign slogans.

 

The only TV debate of SPD candidate Steinbrück with Merkel will be held on Sunday, touted as "Steinbrück's last chance" to reverse the trend. Allegedly he has been training hard to contain his rashness which made him look arrogant in a debate during the state race in Northrhine-Westphalia some years ago, which he lost as a sitting minister president. Conversely, it is widely held that the event cannot hurt Merkel if she just sticks to her usual persona. At this point, a continuation of the current conservative-liberal government is at least as likely as a grand CDU/CSU-SPD coalition, notwithstanding the moaning of intellectuals and leftist editorialists that the chance to form a Red-Green-Red government with the Left should be seized if at all possible, just to get rid of Merkel.

[BansheeOne]

The much-hyped TV debate between Merkel and Steinbrück went down last night, broadcast jointly on public chanels ARD and ZDF and private stations RTL and Pro 7 with one host each. Being the only event of its type, the media did their level best to go American on it, probably in part because the campaign has been rather boring so far and Merkel has avoided to even mention her contender at best she could. As usual, the really important part was the spin afterwards anyway, for which there was a lot of room; the ARD snap poll showed a slight overall lead in approval rates for Steinbrück at 49-44, ZDF had Merkel lead 40-33.

 

Steinbrück seems to have profited from low expectations, as 60 percent in the ARD poll thought he had performed better than expected, 47 in the ZDF poll; 33 percent told ARD Merkel had done worse, 16 in the ZDF poll (which offered the option of "no difference" for all items, explaining the lesser polarization). Unsurprisingly Steinbrück was also perceived as more aggressive, and Merkel conversely as fairer; he was also thought to be slightly more concise and more believable on the topic of social justice. Merkel led in all other fields, including sympathy, credibility and competence, with a ten-point lead on the issue of the Euro crisis. ARD found approval for Merkel had changed 54-48 after the debate, for Steinbrück 28-45, ZDF 63-57 for Merkel and 32-39 for Steinbrück. However, only ten percent told ARD that the debate had changed their decision of whom to vote for.

 

Overall, the debate was not too acrimonious. Merkel scored when Steinbrück talked about limiting growth of public pensions, telling policemen, firemen and soldiers to watch out for the SPD cutting pensions. Steinbrück had his chance when Merkel rebuffed calls of Bavarian minister president Horst Seehofer to introduce an autobahn fee for foreign users in the next term, which the opposition claims to be illegal under EU rules. Most of the press is judging it a draw today; apparently the high point was Merkel's necklace, colored in a random assembly of Germany's national colors black, red and gold, which got its own fake Twitter account even while the debate was still on.

[Soren Ras]

apparently the high point was Merkel's necklace, colored in a random assembly of Germany's national colors black, red and gold, which got its own fake Twitter account even while the debate was still on.

 

Well, all right then.

 

--

Soren

[sunday]

Thanks, B1, was looking forward to you posting on the debate.

[BansheeOne]

There will be an "also ran" debate tonight among the top candidates of the Liberals, Greens and Left, too, just so that nobody feels left out.

 

Also, regarding the previously mentioned "chancellor rhombus" campaign of the Young Conservatives: With a hefty dose of self-irony, the mother party has taken it over in literally giant proportions. Current view from my office:

 

 

Allegedly the biggest campaign poster in Germany ever (two, actually), fixed to a hotel building under construction next to Central Station. Title on the left: "Germany's Future in Good Hands".

 

[Soren Ras]

It that's not a potential advertising bonanza waiting for Pattex or other producer of sekundenkleber, then I don't know what is.

 

--

Soren