Germany, where art thou?

Vulture

Essentially defeat in two World wars knocked out of Germany any desire to dominate Europe by military means.

The country is averse to fighting anywhere, for anything. Pacifism is now in its DNA just as militarism was before 1945. By a horrible irony Hitler turned his people into a nation of peaceniks.

Goering promised the Germans guns before butter. Today they'll go for butter every time. The end result of that will be stasis, depopulation and takeover by the Slavs or Islam.

Michael Booth

Germany, where art thou?

well, not marching into Poland this time, that's for sure...

Herbert Thornton

Vulture has hit one of several nails firmly on the head.

The similarities between the nails are immediately obvious if you read Vulture's posting and substitute, e.g., "Britain" or "The Netherlands" or almost any other western European country for "Germany".

Chancellor Merkel refers to a "Procrustean bed". It is indeed that - and moreover, a Politically Correct Procrustean bed. It already includes an element of violence eagerly supplied by Islamic extremism as the murders in the Netherlands and the London tube bombings demonstrate.

A question we need to consider very seriously is - what will the Political Correct do next? They already infest the Labour Party and have seriously infiltrated the Tories and Liberal Democrats. They have already succeeded in limiting our freedom of speech. They are clearly also determined or supinely willing to see our freedoms suppressed even more as the continuing witch hunt against the BNP demonstrates.

Will the Politically Correct concoct even more drastic and surreptitious ways to rub our noses in their twisted, "multicultural" Utopia? The answer, I am afraid, is "Yes".

TomTom

A far better article in FT Deutschland shows that Merkel is presiding over a Socialist Administration which is ramping up the deficit at a record pace and destroying incentives to work.

Westerwelle is taking his gay partner on foreign trips so he can promote his own business interests and is accompanied by businessmen who have funded the FDP Party.

Merkel has an Environment Minister who is more anti-nuclear than the Greens. The CDU is no longer conservative but loike its old East German counterpart it is a Socialist Party with no market orientation.

Merkel cannot lead she is a committee politician prone to muddy compromises. Germany is being destroyed by politicians who spend and tax in that order and emigration is at record levels

charles hercock

We all snakingly admire the german eagle.Consolidation of power will lead to break out.Now the German dog wags the French tail but soon it will turn to snap it and ouselves and the French will get back in to bed.Remember leopards

Zoo keeper (Elephant House)

Yes Charles,
I remember leopards well.

Fabio P.Barbieri

Herbert Thornton and Tom Tom, you have seen a little of the pattern, but not the whole thing. The story of Angela Merkel's rise would be a great deal more interesting than what we think we know, and will probably not be known for a very long time. Consider this: her parents, a Protestant ministerm and his wife, actually left West Germany for the Communist tyranny of the East, where the treatment they received proves that they were government favourites. Then their daughter, a research scientist (a genuine one, with several papers to her credit) who had never shown any interest in politics, suddenly turns up in a leadership position in the East German “Christian Democrat” party just as the tyranny is collapsing. Now let us remember that all the four so-called non-Communist parties in East Germany were not only set up but led and staffed by Communists. For instance, the founder of the “nationalist” party NDPD was the Communist Lothar Bolz, who later became Foreign Minister of East Germany (a post which proves that he was not only a reliable Communist, but a member of the secret services). The East German CDU was the most shameless Soviet front I ever heard of (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Democratic_Union_(East_Germany) ), to the point where one has to wonder how stupid the Communists were to pretend that such unctuous flattery was anything but servitude. However, when the Communist tyranny collapsed, the whole party merged into the Western Christian Democrats, without, so far as I can see, any kind of control for Communists and Stasi men - only a half-dozen previous leaders, whose names were on too many Communist laws and Communist crimes, were dismissed. The East German parties' structure was never purified of its Stasi underpinning. And so, out of nowhere, this research scientist (a job that gets great respect in Germany) is propelled to the very centre of German politics. The unifier, Chancellor Kohl, welcomes her with open arms; and by way of thanks, she is the first to stab him when his time comes, and, following the failure of Edmund Stoiber, steps into Kohl's. An improbable career, wouldn’t you say? A scientist from a former Communist country, the daughter of two indubitable True Believers, who never gave any evidence of religious faith, seizes control of the leading Christian party in Europe - where, on the religious scene, her most notable performances are repeated attacks on the Pope.

Let me add this. The career of Vladimir Putin in Russia proves that the old KGB never died; it merely adapted to new conditions. Now they are certainly no longer Communists; only a murderous super-mafia in control of a vast country and immense mineral resources. And I don’t think anyone doubts that our Angela is their friend. Look at how she has encouraged the EU to yeld in the matter of gas prices and supplies; look at how, after an empty show of support, she has slowly and carefully sold Georgia down the river, till the Georgians are now helpless between enemies. Angela Merkel is not in power by chance.

Otto

The Germans have grown up or at least largely outgrown their history whereas Britain has not. This is the consequence of those little incidents called WW's 1 and 2 but also the aftermath which involved loss of territory, heritage destruction and divided the country for 45 years. Basically, the Germans are fat, rich and happy and not awfully interested in sending their sons to get their heads blown off in pursuit of chimeras or to support the latest American idee fixe. Were German sovereign territory seriously threatened I have absolutely no doubt that a 1000 years of history would reassert itself and that today's young Germans would acquit themselves as well as their grandfathers in the Werhmacht or their great grandfathers in the Kaiser's army. Could you say the same about us? The Germans and the French, because of our fecklessness and obsessions with myths like the special relationship with the US, run Europe and see their future as part of the larger whole. Ultimately the economic accession of places like Poland and Czecho is going to strengthen the EU polity even if in the short term it creates problems. Eventually economic forces will compel their full and eager adherence because they have no option unlike us (even if that option is a mirage). Economically, Britain is completely and absolutely part of the European imperium and departure is simply not economically feasible although we have a majority of one of our major parties (but not the leadership really!!) that thinks so (but then one of the major parties in the US keeps talking about small govt when total state/federal govt expenditures are about $4.5 trillion a year so our self delusion is not unique). Germany is the greatest power in Europe and has a business partnership with France to run its subsidiaries.....they are going to do what makes sense for this partnership not go chasing rainbows that politicans and conservative thinkers in London or Washington are dreaming up for them.

Otto

Fabio P.Barbieri
March 14th, 2010 9:05am

.....Merkel's a Stasi plant?.....an interesting...... but entirely paranoid theory