Free Republic

Last Thursday we previewed that in today's regional election in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the home state of Angela Merkel, she was looking at the unthinkable: losing and not just to anyone but to her nemesis, the anti-immigration AfD. This is what we reported: "According to the latest shock poll, released late on Wednesday, the AfD is leading the CDU by 23 percent to 20 percent, with the Social Democrats, who currently run the rural state in coalition with Merkel’s party, at 28 percent support. What’s more, according to Bloomberg the AfD’s recent history in regional votes suggests it will perform better...

BERLIN – The teachers union in the city of Oldenburg published an article in its September paper calling for a complete boycott of the Jewish state, sparking criticism from Israel’s embassy, German teachers and pro-Israel activists, as well as the Simon Wiesenthal Center. It appears to be the first call to boycott Israel or Jews from a German organized labor group since the Holocaust.

> The Chief of Frankfurt’s police is warning lawmakers to take the threat of underage radical Salafist children seriously in order to prevent potential future acts of terror. The threat of Islamic terrorism in Germany has greatly increased over the past year, in a large part due to the migrant crisis as well as the radicalisation of very young Muslim boys and men. The chief of Frankfurt’s police force warns that the trend could continue as more young Muslim boys are educated in Salafist schools that put them on the path to terrorism reports Die Welt. Wolfgang Trusheim, head of...

The leaders of EU heavyweights Germany and France on Friday called for a new push to invigorate the bloc after Britain’s shock Brexit vote. Twenty-seven EU leaders will meet without Britain in Slovakia on September 16 and France’s François Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a joint statement that a “new impulse” was required. “With Brexit and the rise of populism and even questions on the very idea of Europe, a new impulse is needed for the European Union,” they said. “France and Germany will assume their responsibilities” to do this, they added. …

The BND, Germany’s version of the CIA, has been accused of massive breaches of the constitution in a leaked report by the government’s representative for data protection. “The BND [Bundesnachrichtendienst] systematically lifted and used personal data without a legal basis to do so,” wrote Federal Data Protection Commissioner Andrea Voßhoff in a report seen by public broadcasters NDR and WDR. Voßhoff is responsible for ensuring that government agencies do not infringe on German citizens’ legal rights when using their personal data. …

An Indian Navy Sea Hawk taking off from INS Vikrant | Photo: The personal collection of Commander G.V.K. Unnithan (retired), Indian Navy If this were fiction, it could hardly be a more remarkable story. But a decorated ex-Nazi-turned arms dealer actually sold fighter aircraft to both India and Pakistan, which were facing an arms embargo after the ’65 war. The episode is recorded in the authoritative books, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade, written by former South African MP Andrew Feinstein, and earlier, Private Warriors, written by Ken Silverstein and Daniel Burton-Rose. It is also narrated in detail...

The Christian Democrats and their Bavarian allies in the Christian Social Union are looking into measures against the problem that they have identified as “child marriage,” defined as unions in which at least one partner is younger than 18 years old. “The priority of child welfare and the equal treatment of men and women are pillars of our society and our understanding of our values,” legislators from the right-wing bloc wrote in a strategy paper quoted in Thursday’s edition of the Passauer Neue Presse. That paper estimates more than 1,000 such unions have been registered in Germany — largely connected...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday stressed her continued support for an EU-US trade agreement being negotiated but recently declared dead by her deputy and by a French minister. “It is in our interest not to fall behind other world regions, such as the Asian region which has concluded such an agreement with the United States,” the conservative leader told public broadcaster NDR. “I believe that such an agreement would mean job opportunities for us, and we urgently need jobs in Europe.” …

Germany has told its citizens to stock up on water and food in the event of a terrorist attack or national catastrophe and be ready to support the military in the country's first overhaul of civil defenses for two decades. Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet approved the 70-page plan at a time when Germans are particularly on edge after two Islamist militant attacks in July and several much larger-scale, deadly assaults in France and Belgium this year. The German word for stocking up on provisions in case of an emergency is "Hamsterkaeufe" and some media have mocked the plan for encouraging...

The trend of underage migrant girls entering Germany married to older men is on the rise, with the city of Berlin recording 100 child marriages this year alone. While the majority of underage migrants flowing into Germany are young boys, underage girls tend to come as ‘child brides’ to older migrant men who are more often adults. In the German capital of Berlin a new report claims that the local government has registered around 100 child marriages and the trend shows little signs of slowing down, reports broadcaster Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg. Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party member and Berlin Senator for...

A man in a refugee shelter died on Thursday while trying to set his wife on fire, leaving the woman seriously injured and part of the building ablaze, police said. The 45-year-old man, whose nationality was not given, was previously known to police, said authorities in Rüdesheim on the Rhine river in the central state of Hesse. The woman, who had previously separated from her husband, was taken to hospital by helicopter, police said. …

Germany’s plan to lease Israeli drones has been put on hold after a legal challenge by US weapons manufacturer. In January, German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen announced the plan to lease Israel Aerospace Industries’ Eitan (“Steadfast”) Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. The drones, also known as Heron TPs, have a range of over 7,400 kilometers (4,600 miles), and can remain airborne for more than 70 hours. This lease was intended to serve a temporary need until 2025, when Germany, Italy and France expect to complete development of a joint drone. However, on Monday, US firm General Atomics, maker of the...

More than 125,000 Germans have filed the largest citizen lawsuit in German history against the controversial proposed CETA trade deal between Canada and the EU. The lawsuit’s power of attorney letters filled some 70 boxes and were brought by truck on Wednesday to Germany’s top court located in Karlsruhe, the Constitutional Court. The proposed Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) would eliminate about 98 percent of the tariffs between the EU and Canada, but it has been condemned by opponents who say it will too greatly expand the power of corporations and may lower certain EU standards for things like...

The German army are planning stricter checks of their soldiers as officials fear that jihadists could be using the armed forces as a way to train. The German Cabinet finalized an amendment on Wednesday to military law that will have military intelligence agency MAD soon more thoroughly scrutinize each applicant for connections to jihadist or extremist groups. “There are currently indications that Islamist circles are trying to send so-called ‘short-term soldiers’ into the Bundeswehr so that they can receive such training,” according to the explanation of the amendment, which will come into force on July 1st 2017. […] Since 2007,...

"Guests" Angela Merkel will go down in history as the woman who destroyed theBundesrepublik Deutschland, and for absolutely no reason. The childless Ossie, with zero stake in the future of a country she was raised to loathe, opened up the heart of central Europe to Muslim "immigration" -- and now, finally, the Germans have had enough: Germany’s Angela Merkel urged European Union countries that have refused to take on a share of the bloc’s refugees to reconsider, as a new poll indicated that half of Germans don’t want her to seek another term as chancellor. “What I still say...

HAMBURG—German savers are leaving the security of savings banks for what many now consider an even safer place to park their cash: home safes.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly survived what European press are calling an assassination attempt Thursday afternoon as she was visiting the Czech Republic. Merkel was leaving the airport in Prague when a man with weapons "attempted to join the motorcade" in a Mercedes and began to "run down police" while doing so, the Sun reported. "He is suspected of attempting to cause a crime — specifically, an attempt to use violence against an official," Josef Bocan, a spokesman for the Czech police, told Express. "He tried to join the procession at all costs, cutting off a police vehicle that was...

Critics have been questioning the German Foreign Minister’s recent series of comments about working closer with Russia, with some labeling the diplomat a “Russia sympathizer”. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier continued to push his ideas for détente towards Russia on Monday, arguing for better relations between the two countries at a conference in Berlin. “We cannot simply wish away a Russia that has become immensely more difficult,” he said, calling for Germany and Russia to go from “a phase of confrontation and growing tensions, back to a reliable understanding of common security”. His comments followed an opinion piece he wrote...

Unknown people have bricked up the entrance to a mosque in northeastern Germany and stuck racist flyers to their masonry work. Police in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania have opened an investigation after the 1 meter-high brickwork was found in the doorway of the mosque, which is currently under construction, on the morning of August 26th, a police report states. According to broadcaster NDR, police are investigating two charges — one of property damage, the other of incitement of hatred. …

The refusal of some EU countries to accept Muslim refugees is “unacceptable”, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Sunday as Germany called for quotas to divide the influx throughout the bloc. “That’s not right at all that some countries say: ‘generally speaking, we don’t want to have Muslims in our countries’,” Merkel told German public television channel ARD.