Tag Archives | Berlin Bulletin

Germany, long a synonym for economic brawn and muscle, is beginning to recall words like lumbago or sciatica instead. Though still leading in Europe, and fourth in the world, it faces an economic mess, a political mess, and a mood of general stress. Schools lack repairs and teachers, clinics and hospitals lack staff, its key […]

Some world events can look different to those of us onthis side of the Atlantic, also, more precisely, in Berlin. God knows, here too I’m frightened at what Trump, Vance and Musk are doing and planning. Nor do I love Putin. But what I hate above all else is war—and is closer over here. I’m […]

For good people these are times to weep, rage and, above all, to fight back!

2025 started off with many a bang.

Billions were spent both on aid to the Zelensky government…as an urgent defense necessity to counter “the Russian threat.” This threat has appeared and reappeared in Germany in 1914, the 1930s, after 1945 and now again, louder than ever, with similar barked Prussian commands: “Achtung! Die Russen kommen!” as dangerously false as ever, and often followed by eastward expansion, invasion and, far too often, catastrophe, with atomic annihilation an added danger this time around.

While so many in the world hold their breath for Harris or Trump it would also be wise to keep an eye on Germany. A sharp eye!

Despite all the many years, those who hated the GDR still hate it today. Indeed, they seem to fear it, and continue almost daily to revile its memories—like kicking an old horse cadaver which might yet bite or strike out with a hoof or two.

Most worried of all are the people in eastern Germany, the one-time German Democratic Republic founded so hopefully almost exactly 75 years ago, October 7, 1949, and buried—triumphantly for a large number—41 years later, on October 3, 1990.

Is the AfD a fascist party? Björn Höcke, its boss  in Thuringia, one of its three best-known national leaders and its main rabble-rouser, has never concealed his admiration for Germany’s days of swastika glory.

One can hate or admire any of the gentlemen now involved [in the push for peace in Ukraine]; I would endorse Satan himself if he could help end this God-awful war and move towards the urgently-needed peace in the area—and elsewhere.

Far from water-logged Bavaria, immensely worse destruction is bloodily wrecking two million lives, and with Germany, though so distant, deeply involved. Of course I mean Palestine, especially Gaza. For decades the media has distorted or ignored what has been happening there. After October 7th ignoring it was no longer possible, here or anywhere.

It was May 10^th in Germany’s terrible year 1933, Hitler had been in power for hardly three months, when students and staff emptied the university libraries of forbidden books and threw them, an estimated 20,000 books by over a hundred authors, into the flames of a giant bonfire.… No books were burned this time in early May. But there were ironic parallels, some all too alarming!

Weapons, weapons, weapons—the more the better! With ever louder talk about “the foe” and “protective measures”, as if Putin were amassing troops or maneuvering warships along German borders—instead of just the opposite taking place in the Baltic and Lithuania…The blitzkrieg-laden spirit of 1941 Germany is all over the media.

Is it a tragedy or a new hope? After months, in fact years of inner-party squabbling in Germany’s LINKE party (The Left), the die has been cast, the Rubicon crossed, and Sahra Wagenknecht, with nine other Bundestag deputies, has quit the party and announced their decision to found a new party in January.

Again the USA marked Veterans’ Day. Now all leading German parties also want such a “Veteranentag”—to honor all those past patriots who wore uniforms, voluntarily or not, and certainly to inspire many more reluctant young men or women to put on army boots and shoulder arms.… Not so many may recall that the earlier “Armistice Day” marked the end of World War One.

If I were in Israel today I might well have fears from above, but immensely worse ones if I were in Gaza. Or the West Bank. As for Trump, I do still have fears of a come-back, despite his legal troubles. But my fears for world peace: are they unfounded, perhaps nightmare products of an upset stomach?

The war in Ukraine, a horrific tragedy for the people of that unhappy country, fateful as well for many young Russians and potentially menacing for all the world, with burnished weapons of every size and destructive power waiting in silos or submarines for a slip, a blunder, a provocation.

“NATO—the U.S.-dominated global war machine—whose policy is ‘full dominance spectrum,’ contrary to its claims, is not a defensive organization. Its purpose has been to act as an instrument for U.S. world domination and to prevent all challenges to U.S. hegemony.” —Mairead Maguire

The fearful destruction, the displacement of families, above all the killing and maiming must be deplored, condemned and brought to an end. But the underlying reasons for this terrible war, concealed in the media, must also be mercilessly examined, regardless of well-orchestrated accusations of “Putin-friendship” or “left-over allegiance to a past Soviet Russia”.

I recall a circle game from my childhood; after each round another chair was removed, leaving one more child out. We called it “Going to Jerusalem.” Last week Israeli boss Netanyahu arrived FROM Jerusalem. After two days he was out of the Berlin circle—one day too early.