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German soldiers 'drink and complain too much to fight Taleban'
The Times (UK) ^ | June 17, 2009 | Roger Boyes

Posted on 06/16/2009 6:27:26 PM PDT by PotatoHeadMick

They have a beer ration of up to a litre a day, and wurst for dinner. Taleban or no Taleban, Germans take a little bit of home with them when they serve in trouble spots. Even their carefully sorted rubbish gets dumped in wheelie bins before being sent from Afghanistan to Germany for recycling.

Now Germany’s most senior officer has berated his troops for going soft. “We cannot guarantee soldiers that they will have an all-round feel-good experience,” said General Wolfgang Schneiderhan.

His outburst follows complaints made by German soldiers to the official ombudsman about their tours abroad. Some have grumbled about unsuitable sleeping bags for their Congo peace-keeping mission — “there is no reason why this issue should have come before Parliament,” said General Schneiderhan — while others moaned about the long hours, a lack of childcare for their families at home and poor medical care.

(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Germany; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: afghanistan; germantroops; oef; willingcoalition
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My favourite part of this article was the guy in the Comments section who wrote;

"Lazy fat German soldiers is probably not a bad thing."

1 posted on 06/16/2009 6:27:27 PM PDT by PotatoHeadMick
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To: PotatoHeadMick
Hard to imagine these guys grandfathers were in SS or Fallschirmjaeger units. Politics asides, those guys could fight.
2 posted on 06/16/2009 6:36:01 PM PDT by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)
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To: PotatoHeadMick
Those Kraut troops are lucky they've got Schneiderhan. One can only imagine what those old tank generals would do -- like Heinz Guderian and "Panzer" Meyer, and any Feldmarschall with a Von in his name.

On the other hand, von Manstein and Rommel would be shaking hands with their Indian counterparts by now.

3 posted on 06/16/2009 6:37:03 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: PotatoHeadMick

...those fat louts need the ghost of Baron Fredrich von Steuben, Geo Washington’s drill officer....he’d whip that rabble into shape and run the lard off their fat asses.


4 posted on 06/16/2009 6:37:16 PM PDT by STONEWALLS
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To: PotatoHeadMick

It is a new Wehrmacht strategy called blitzedkrieg.


5 posted on 06/16/2009 6:37:48 PM PDT by A message (3 years 7 months 3 days)
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To: lentulusgracchus

I just watched the 4 part series on the Battle of the Bulge on YOUTUBE and the Germans were THIS CLOSE to beating the Americans at the Ardenennes. They had superior tanks, automatic weapons and commanders on the field. Who wouldathunk that their ‘superior” panzers couldn’t pass through the forest roads, had no fuel and their commanders couldn’t navigate in the thick forests.


6 posted on 06/16/2009 6:41:00 PM PDT by max americana
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To: 2banana

“Hard to imagine these guys grandfathers were in SS or Fallschirmjaeger units. Politics asides, those guys could fight.”

...you ain’t kidding....I served with men who fought in Europe in 1944 when most German formations were still intact....they were very hard men.


7 posted on 06/16/2009 6:43:07 PM PDT by STONEWALLS
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To: A message

This is why the Swiss have a corkscrew on their knives.


8 posted on 06/16/2009 6:44:53 PM PDT by DHSMostWanted (There wouldn't be a North Korea if MacArthur was allowed to finish the job.)
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To: PotatoHeadMick

The French are now relaxing! However they are still planting trees along their roads so the wohlbeleibt german
slodiers can walk in the shade.


9 posted on 06/16/2009 6:48:19 PM PDT by TaMoDee
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To: PotatoHeadMick

I thought the German Constitution forbid German troops from fighting in foreign lands. Anyone know for sure?


10 posted on 06/16/2009 6:48:35 PM PDT by csmusaret (http://www.aipnews.com/)
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To: PotatoHeadMick
Dean Vernon Wormer: Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son
11 posted on 06/16/2009 6:54:40 PM PDT by Recon Dad (Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum - MARSOC DAD)
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To: csmusaret

I thought the German Constitution forbid German troops from fighting in foreign lands. Anyone know for sure?

Not a chance anything they are doing in Afghanistan could be called fighting, their constitution is safe.


12 posted on 06/16/2009 6:59:32 PM PDT by Recon Dad (Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum - MARSOC DAD)
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To: 2banana

Yeah, it’s amazing to behold.


13 posted on 06/16/2009 7:07:03 PM PDT by Travis McGee (---www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com---)
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To: PotatoHeadMick
SGT Shultz Pictures, Images and Photos
14 posted on 06/16/2009 7:07:25 PM PDT by Snickering Hound
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To: max americana
[T]he Germans were THIS CLOSE to beating the Americans at the Ardenennes.

Eisenhower, alone among Allied top brass, immediately recognized that the German offensive was an opportunity to decimate the Wehrmacht in open instead of digging them out of burrows. The Ardenne offensive indisputably shortened the War by at least six months and never had any real chance of success.

As one Wehrmacht General observed, "The Americans in the Ardenne provided the artillery preparation for the Russian offensive in the east."

It was an offensive conceived by Hitler, premised on the assumption that the Americans would break under the German attack and allow the Germans to capture sufficient fuel to drive to Antwerp. In the event, the Americans did not cooperate and negligible amounts of fuel were captured. Of course, Hitler had nothing to lose, gamble everything on one roll of the dice or face gradual strangulation. He chose to go out in a futile blaze of glory.

15 posted on 06/16/2009 7:11:47 PM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (AGWT is very robust with respect to data. All observations confirm it at the 100% confidence level.)
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To: csmusaret
Germany was not permitted to have an armed force at all until 1954 when the US, UK, and France decided West Germany could reconstitute its armed forces as part of NATO.

Article 87 of the Basic Law (Germany's constitution) states that it's armed forces are only to be used for defensive purposes, but does not define these. In 1994, the German Federal Court ruled that defensive actions could sometimes be necessary outside Germany's borders. Since that time, it has been legal to deploy German armed forces as part of NATO forces or part of combined European Union Forces, or when military action is mandated by the United Nations. German troops serve in Afghanistan as part of a NATO force fighting a war prompted by the activation of the North Atlantic Treaty following an attack on the mainland United States - that meets the legal test. It is a war being fought under NATO command in defence of a NATO ally.

16 posted on 06/16/2009 7:15:07 PM PDT by naturalman1975 ("America was under attack. Australia was immediately there to help." - John Winston Howard)
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To: A message

Post of the day.


17 posted on 06/16/2009 7:19:31 PM PDT by caddie
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To: naturalman1975

Good explanation. I last served in Germany 81-84 and never heard about the change made in 94. Thank you.


18 posted on 06/16/2009 7:23:37 PM PDT by csmusaret (http://www.aipnews.com/)
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To: STONEWALLS

Growing up, I attended Von Steuben Junior High school, in Detroit.


19 posted on 06/16/2009 7:25:38 PM PDT by gigster
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To: PotatoHeadMick
German forces serving in Afghanistan consumed about 90,000 bottles of wine and 1.7 million pints of beer last year

War is hell.

20 posted on 06/16/2009 7:38:56 PM PDT by iowamark (certified by Michael Steele as "ugly and incendiary")
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