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Europe
At least 12 injured in knife attack at Hamburg train station: emergency services
2025-05-24
[GEO.TV] A knife attack at the main station in the German city of Hamburg left at least 12 people injured with some of them in a life-threatening condition, local emergency services said.

"According to initial information, a person injured several people with a knife at the main train station," Hamburg police said in a post on X.

"The suspect was apprehended by the responding forces."

A front man for the Hamburg fire department told AFP that 12 people had been injured in the attack.

Among them were "six people with life-threatening injuries", the front man said.

Some of the victims were being treated in trains, according to the German daily Bild.

Germany has been rocked by a series of violent mostly peaceful attacks in recent months.

On Sunday, four people were maimed in a stabbing at a bar in the city of Bielefeld.

The investigation into the attack had been handed over to federal prosecutors after the suspect in the attack told the coppers who arrested him that he had murderous Moslem beliefs.
The Times of Israel adds:
German police on Friday said they had arrested a woman after at least 17 people were maimed in a knife attack at the main station in the northern city of Hamburg.

Some of the victims sustained life-threatening injuries in the stabbing, which took place in the middle of the city’s evening rush hour, emergency services said.

The suspect, a 39-year-old German woman,
…which does not tell us whether she was Moslem, nuts, or both…
was arrested at the scene by law enforcement, a Hamburg police front man said said.

Officers "approached her, and the woman allowed herself to be arrested without resistance," Florian Abbenseth told journalists in comments carried by public broadcaster ARD.

"We have no evidence so far that the woman may had a political motive," Abbenseth said.

"Rather, we have information based on which we now want to investigate whether she may have been experiencing a psychological emergency."

The suspect was thought to have "acted alone," Hamburg police said in a post on X.

Four of them had suffered life-threatening injuries, the front man said, revising down an initial figure.

A previous statement by the fire department said six people were in a life-threatening condition.

Among the 17 victims were six severely injured people and seven people with light injuries, the front man for the fire department said.

The attack was reported by German media to have taken place just after 6:00 p.m. local time on one of the platforms in front of a standing train.

The suspect was thought to have turned "against passengers" at the station, a spokeswoman for the Hanover federal police directorate, which also covers Hamburg, told AFP.
Courtesy of Skidmark, more from Breitbart:
Twelve people are injured and three of them are in “mortal danger” after a mass stabbing at Germany’s Hamburg Central railway station.

Update 2100 — Four are in critical condition

A clearer picture of today’s mass stabbing in Germany is developing, with Die Welt reporting the number of known injured has risen to four in critical condition. A further six are seriously injured and seven more suffering light wounds. 17 in all were injured.

The attack is the second mass stabbing in Germany in a matter of days. As previously reported, a stabbing in the early hours of Sunday morning in Bielefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia, allegedly by a Syrian migrant was days later classified as a possible terror attack after Islamist literature was found on the attacker and at his home. As well as using a knife, the man is alleged to have wielded a spear and a bottle of petrol.

More from Breitbart about the Bielefeld attack:
A Syrian migrant, identified 35-year-old as Mahmoud Mhemed, was arrested on Monday by police on attempted murder charges in relation to a mass stabbing in Bielefeld in North Rhine-Westphalia. Five people were injured, and four of them seriously: the German Justice minister revealed they “barely escaped with their lives”.

The bar where the attack took place said in a social media post that one of those “critically injured” men had been a member of the public who had bravely fought the knifeman to end the attack. They said: “Had it not been for him, things would probably have been even worse”.

Now the investigation into that attack has been taken over by the Federal Prosecutor on suspicion of a religious terrorism motive. Per a report by Germany’s Die Welt, they believe they have found evidence for Islamism, that the suspect had an interest in the Islamic State, and had been in contact with a known Islamist fundamentalist.

It is stated the attack, which took place at a bar in the city, saw football fans attacked by a man wielding a knife and a home made spear, being a knife tied to a pole. A group of patrons fought back, causing the suspect to flee. As previously reported, the man dropped a bag containing “multiple knives, a liquid that smelled of gasoline, and personal documents indicating Syrian nationality”.

Zeit states a spokesman for the Federal Prosecutor, which has specialist counter-terror investigators and takes suspected terror cases over from local non-specialised prosecutors, who said the mass stabbing is being treated as an attack on Germany’s liberal democratic order and that at the time of the suspect’s arrest “a document was found on him that suggests the crime may have been religiously motivated.”

Further, images concerning Hezbollah and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) are said to have been found at the suspect’s apartment.

Suspect Mhemed entered Europe through the territory of Turkey and was granted temporary refugee status by the German Migration Office in 2023. Earlier reports that he had no police record have been superseded, Focus reports, noting he had previously been investigated for “politically motivated crime” .

He was arrested on Monday after leading police on a 100 mile chase through Germany, taking several trains and other public transport from Bielefeld to Essen and to other towns beyond, finally being found in an apartment of a relative in Heiligenhaus.
Related:
Hamburg: 2025-05-12 'The Russians Are Coming!' Why Britain Killed Thousands of Soviet POWs
Hamburg: 2025-04-06 Belize's Great Blue Hole hides a 'concerning secret', scientists say after drilling to the bottom of the mysterious 410ft cave
Hamburg: 2025-03-20 Kursk II: On the streets are cemeteries of NATO equipment, and in the destroyed and looted houses are people, living and dead
Related:
Knife attack 05/17/2025 Assailant who stabbed author Salman Rushdie sentenced to 25 years
Knife attack 04/14/2025 Detroit Police and media say a fugitive ''woman'' was arrested over the brutal knife attack on a dog and cat
Knife attack 04/03/2025 Bulgaria to put five on trial over deaths of 18 Afghan refugees

Related:
Bielefeld: 2024-09-29 Giulio Meotti: How long will the UN continue to dine with the devil?
Bielefeld: 2024-08-28 Germany Mass Stabbing Suspect Pledged to ISIS, Groundswell to Mandate Enforcing Deportation Orders
Bielefeld: 2024-08-25 ISIS claims responsibility for German festival attack, Syrian knifeman turns himself in
Link


Europe
Germany 'foils Russian plot to bomb transport network in sabotage attacks' as European spy ring is dismantled
2025-05-15
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] German police have foiled an apparent Russian sabotage attack on Europe's transport networks, with four people charged with involvement in a plot to send out parcel bombs.

Three Ukrainian citizens, named as Vladyslav T, 24, his partner Lolita K, and Daniil B, 21, were arrested in Germany in connection with the operation and had their communication devices and computer storage devices seized for investigation.

A fourth individual named Yevhen B., who is believed to be the 'handler' who issued the orders to the Germany-based cohort, was detained in the Swiss canton of Thurgau and is due to appear before a judge after being transferred to Germany.

German and Swiss authorities suspect all four of being spies operating on behalf of Russia, with their alleged plan to send incendiary devices and explosives in parcel shipments reminiscent of recent sabotage attacks in Europe which the West has blamed on Moscow.

The suspects are said to have already sent two test packages containing GPS trackers to determine where the explosions could cause the most damage.

Their planned operation reportedly bore all the hallmarks of another attack last July, when packages sitting in depots managed by courier company DHL in Birmingham and the German city of Leipzig suddenly erupted into flames.
It is also believed that the alleged saboteurs planned to use the chemical thermite in incendiary devices, which can cause huge fires as it reaches temperatures of up to 2,400 degrees Celsius.

It is unclear whether the Ukrainian citizens, who were arrested in Cologne and Konstanz, were even aware of who they were working for.

Germany's BILD reported that investigators said the detainees were 'low-level agents' at the very bottom of the chain of command, according to investigative sources.

But their dastardly plan appears to fit perfectly with the established modus operandi of Russian security services in today's age of hybrid warfare in which 'handlers' recruit foreign spies - often petty criminals, drifters or financially desperate citizens - to carry out operations in a plausibly deniable manner.

According to investigators from North Rhine-Westphalia police and German security services, the alleged Russian spies had planned to send their incendiary devices via a private postal service called Nova Poshta.

This delivery service, also known as Nova Post, is headquartered in Ukraine but with operations throughout Eastern and Central Europe and allows customers to send packages of up to 30 kilograms in weight - more than enough for small incendiary devices.

Nova Post told MailOnline in a statement: 'We condemn any attempts to misuse our services for illegal purposes. Our company operates exclusively within the bounds of international and national law, and we have implemented safety controls to prevent any such misuse.

'All international shipments are carefully inspected by Nova Post, and those sent from Ukraine are additionally checked by Ukrainian and Polish customs authorities. We have established thorough procedures to detect and block any suspicious parcels at the processing stage.'

Investigators acted after receiving a tip-off to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution about Vladislav T, and began surveilling his movements in Cologne close to the apartment he shared with Lolita K.

In the course of their investigations, they also uncovered the alleged involvement of Daniil B, who was living at a refugee centre in Konstanz, and Yevhen B. in Switzerland.

Their planned operation reportedly bore all the hallmarks of another attack last July, when packages sitting in depots managed by courier company DHL in Birmingham and the German city of Leipzig suddenly erupted into flames.

At first glance the boxes, originating from Lithuania, contained a host of items that included sex toys, massage pillows and cosmetics.

Investigators soon uncovered a more troubling layer to the saga when another package, shipped from the same Lithuanian origin point, failed to detonate and was intercepted at a Polish depot.

Inside, forensic specialists discovered a crude yet effective ignition mechanism concealed within the casing of yet another erotic gadget, along with traces of an incendiary gel designed to ignite on contact with air.

Polish security services arrested four people in connection with the blazes and charged them with participating in sabotage or terrorist operations on behalf of a foreign intelligence agency.

Before long it emerged that they were suspected of involvement in a Russian-backed plot to distribute the explosive packages throughout Europe. It is suspected the incidents were test runs for a plot to target US-bound flights.

One of the alleged couriers was revealed in a recent investigation by the Guardian as Alexander Bezrukavyi, a Russian national with a criminal record and murky ties to Eastern European smuggling networks.

Bezrukavyi had vanished soon after the parcels were mailed but was eventually captured in Bosnia, where he was on the run and attempting to reach Russia using forged documents.
Related:
Russian sabotage: 2025-03-25 Ukrainian Perspective: Invasion of Ukraine: March 24, 2025
Russian sabotage: 2025-03-15 Ukrainian Perspective: Invasion of Ukraine: March 14, 2025
Russian sabotage: 2025-02-20 Putin launched a fake about an 'offensive' from Kursk region - TsPD
Link


Europe
AfD files lawsuit against German spy agency’s extremist classification
2025-05-06
See also here.
[IsraelTimes] Designation allows domestic intelligence agency to step up monitoring of far-right Alternative for Germany – largest opposition party in parliament

A German court said on Monday that far-right party Alternative for Germany had filed a lawsuit challenging the domestic intelligence agency’s decision to classify it as an murderous Moslem organization.

A spokesperson for the administrative court in Cologne
...the largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the fourth populated city in Germany....
said the lawsuit and a corresponding emergency petition had been submitted, both of which would be reviewed once the BfV domestic intelligence agency had confirmed that it had been notified.

The murderous Moslem classification announced on Friday allows the spy agency to step up monitoring of the AfD, the biggest opposition party in parliament, for example by recruiting informants and intercepting party communications.

The agency’s 1,100-page experts’ report, which is not to be released to the public, found the AfD to be a racist and anti-Moslem organization.

The German parliament could now attempt to limit or halt public funding for the AfD. The incoming government will also review whether to launch an attempt at an outright ban of the party, Social Democratic Party (SPD) leader Lars Klingbeil said last week.

The AfD has denounced the designation as a politically motivated attempt to discredit and criminalize it.

Its lawsuit comes one day before conservative leader Friedrich Merz is due to be elected chancellor by Germany’s lower house of parliament and amid a heated debate within his party over how to deal with the AfD.

AfD extremist label: Almost half of Germans in favor of ban, more think ban will damage democracy than bolster it
[DeutscheWelle] Almost half of Germans favor banning the Alternative for Germany (AfD) after the far-right party was officially categorized as a right-wing extremist organization by the domestic intelligence service.

According to a representative survey conducted by the polling institute INSA for the Bild am Sonntag newspaper this weekend, 61% of Germans agreed with the categorization of the AfD by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) as "confirmed right-wing extremist endeavor," with 48% supporting a ban.

Thirty-seven percent said they would oppose a ban; 15% said they didn't know.

As for the effects of any potential AfD ban, 35% of respondents said they thought such a measure would bolster democracy, while 39% thought it would damage democracy. Some 16% didn't think there would be any effect, while 10% didn't know.
Related:
AfD: 2025-05-03 German spy agency brands far-right AfD as ‘extremist’, opens way for closer surveillance
AfD: 2025-04-26 'Things Are Moving Quickly' in Maine State Rep's Censure Appeal
AfD: 2025-04-24 Predictions for the German Economy Call for No Growth and Blaming Trump
Link


Europe
Solingen knife attack: IS suspect charged with murder
2025-02-28
[DW] German prosecutors have charged a suspected "Islamic State" extremist with murder in the stabbing rampage in Solingen that left three people dead.

German prosecutors on Thursday charged the suspect behind a fatal knife attack at a local festival in the western German city of Solingen.

The suspect, identified as 26-year-old Issa Al H., was charged with three counts of murder, 10 counts of attempted murder and membership in the "Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
" (IS) terror group.

The Solingen knife attack and a series of similar incidents shook Germany and fueled the heated political debate about migration and deportation in the months leading up to last week's federal election.

WHAT HAPPENED IN SOLINGEN?
On the evening of August 23, 2024, three people were killed and 10 others injured at an outdoor festival celebrating Solingen's 650th anniversary.
The mills of Justice grinding slowly…
The suspect, a Syrian citizen, is accused of deliberately stabbing festival visitors with a knife.

Issa Al H. was arrested after a day-long manhunt. He has remained in jug ever since.

Within days of the stabbing rampage, prosecutors said they believed the attacker had radical Islamist beliefs and tried to kill as many people as possible because he considered them non-believers.

Islamic State grabbed credit for the attack.

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE SOLINGEN KNIFE ATTACK SUSPECT?
Issa Al H. had been slated for deportation from Germany to Bulgaria in 2023 under EU rules known as the Dublin regulation.

But he evaded law enforcement and managed to remain in the country. No further effort to deport him was made.

A committee of inquiry in the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia is investigating why the deportation to Bulgaria, which had been planned long before the attack, did not take place.
Related:
Solingen: 2025-02-15 Number of victims in Munich car crash into crowd rises to 36
Solingen: 2024-12-11 Germany arrests suspected Islamist extremists over attack plot
Solingen: 2024-11-13 Germany detains teen with ‘extremist Islamic views’ over suspected attack plot
Related:
Issa Al H 09/01/2024 Germany's hard-right AfD set for huge gains in key state elections amid mounting fury over deadly festival stabbing rampage by failed Syrian asylum seeker
Issa Al H 08/28/2024 Germany Mass Stabbing Suspect Pledged to ISIS, Groundswell to Mandate Enforcing Deportation Orders
Issa Al H 08/25/2024 ISIS claims responsibility for German festival attack, Syrian knifeman turns himself in

Link


Europe
Germany's Muslim voters undecided about upcoming election
2025-02-21
[Rudaw] Germany is home to millions of Moslems, but they are a diverse group. Some are influenced by their religious backgrounds, while others are more focused on voting for parties that promise better living conditions for immigrants colonists in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

Germans will go to the polls on Sunday.

Inside the Brotherhood Mosque in Gelsenkirchen, Imam Ibrahim speaks in Arabic and German about the importance of participating in the election for the future of their religion in this country. The mosque is fundamentally Kurdish, but Arabs regularly come to pray alongside Kurds. Imam Ibrahim himself was born to a German mother and a Paleostinian father. He believes voting is a right and Moslems should not be indifferent to it.

"It is like history repeating itself. Our situation is like 1933 before [Adolf] Hitler
...late Fuehrer of Germany, founder of the Third Reich, currently communing with his pals Himmler and Heydrich. He is reincarnated every few days, sometimes every few hour if it's an election year, as a politician somebody doesn't like...
came to power. The situation is nearly the same from a political perspective, and the media topics they discuss are almost identical. The only difference is that in the past, it was against Jews, now it's against Moslems," he told Rudaw on Monday.

Riyadh Bakr is a young Syrian who has been in Germany for ten years. He is waiting for the Islamic Association in Dusseldorf to decide which political party is suitable for Moslems so he can vote accordingly.

"There is not an ideal political party that meets all Moslem demands. We are in a Western country with its own laws, but we try our best to support the party that aligns with our goals and implements our objectives to a large extent," he said.

Along with the harsh rhetoric against immigrants colonists from Germany's right-wing parties, Moslems are sometimes directly and indirectly implicated. Moslems, like any other component of this country, believe the election results will affect their religious freedom in Germany.

Rawa Qaradaghi, a Kurdish-Moslem voter, said the upcoming election in Germany is "very important," adding that "For people like us who are not fully German, it is very important to go vote so we can have some power here in Germany."

Herish Hamakhan has been in Germany for 30 years. He has participated in most elections and even goes to vote wearing Kurdish clothes with his children.

The Social Democratic Party (SPD), the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), and the Greens "are all the parties that are at the forefront, truly at the front of the stage. There are other smaller parties too, but honestly, until now, although people don't usually share their voting preferences, I might vote for CDU perhaps," Hamakhan told Rudaw.

After Christians, Moslems are the second-largest population group in Germany, numbering over five million people.

Kurdish candidate plans to facilitate legal migration in Germany

[Rudaw] Serdar Yuksel, the prominent Kurdish member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), is running for the federal parliamentary elections after 14 years of serving in the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament.

"It is important for Kurds... to have representatives in the German parliament, so that Kurdish demands, especially from Kurdistan and northern Iraq, can be heard and the bridge we have built over the past 15 years can now be represented in Berlin," he told Rudaw on Monday.

Germans will go to the polls on Sunday.

The parents of the 51-year-old Yuksel are from Kurdish areas in southeast The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund...
. His family migrated to Germany in 1964, and he was born in Essen. He has been a member of the Social Democratic Party for 36 years. For this election, he campaigns tirelessly because he believes democracy is in danger.

He said his party "works to strengthen democracy," adding that "democracy in Germany has not been this endangered in the 75 years since the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany."

He warned against a potential win by far-right parties and called on people to go to the polls.

"We have a far-right holy warrior and fascist
...anybody you disagree with, damn them...
party that wants to destroy democracy here. This must be taken very, very seriously. In other countries, people take to the streets and sacrifice their lives to live in a democratic society and vote. But we see that many people unfortunately stay at home. I call on all Kurds to exercise their rights, go vote, and not leave this democracy to the enemies of democracy," he said.

Yuksel highlighted three key goals for his electoral campaign: preserving the right to dual citizenship for asylum-seekers, keeping borders open for refugees fleeing violence and instability, and facilitating the legal migration process for skilled individuals.

Serdar has been a parliamentarian for North Rhine-Westphalia since 2010 and has won the trust of voters in Germany's largest state in four consecutive elections, representing the voices of immigrant communities, particularly the Kurdish diaspora.
Link


Europe
Krefeld, Germany: German Police Shoot Down Iraqi Arsonist UPDATE: Known nut ran amok, arrived in Germany in 2002
2024-10-11
[KronenZeitung] A previously unknown man who tried to set fire to a cinema in the German city of Krefeld (North Rhine-Westphalia) on Thursday evening was shot and injured by police.

The dramatic scenes took place shortly before 8pm. Guns were fired in front of the moviegoers. Shortly beforehand, the suspect is said to have set fires in three other places. According to the police, these included a vehicle and a house near the train station.
Wie unordentlich.
38-YEAR-OLD WANTED TO SET FIRE IN THE FOYER OF THE CINEMA
The 38-year-old had tried to start a fire in the foyer of the cinema. However, the police officers who were alerted were able to prevent this with their intervention. The man who was shot was taken to hospital, where he is still receiving medical treatment. According to the police, the suspect is a man from Krefeld with Iraqi nationality.
Iraqi? What odds his final appeal for asylum was just rejected, so he decided to go Sudden Jihad Syndrome?
The motive for the crime is still under investigation. According to investigators, however, there are no indications of a terrorist background so far. According to the information available so far, no other people have been injured.
Inspired by this post, I checked Britbart — which has nothing yet — and Deutsche Welle, which adds:
The incident occurred after the man had reportedly set three fires in the Cracau district of the city, police said.

Authorities cordoned off the cinema, which is located inside Krefeld's main train station, and said they do not believe there is any further danger to the public.

Details as to the identity or motive of the man, who investigators say was acting alone, remain unclear.

Local police said they will issue an update on Friday morning.

TRAIL OF DAMAGE
Officers were first alerted at 7:50 p.m. local time after an incendiary device was thrown into the local employment office, about 700 meters away from the cinema and station.

Close by, a white minibus belonging to a local drug outreach charity had two smashed windows and was slightly blackened with soot.

Also nearby, police had cordoned off a building in which a top-floor flat was reported to have been on fire.

From there, the suspect made his way to the station where he was shot by police in the cinema foyer.
And a good time was had by all. Breitbart had this, published two days ago:
Germans Increasingly Worried About Risk of Terror Attacks, Only Israelis Feel More Threatened
The fear of a terrorist attack is soaring among Germans, a pollster finds, a worry rising in parallel with concern about crime and extremism.
Update from WDR Aktuell at noon ET:
A police spokesman said on Friday morning that the suspect was a 38-year-old from Krefeld. The motive is still unclear. In the meantime, however, there are indications of a possible mental illness of the man.

This was also confirmed by NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) on Friday. "He was known to the police, he was conspicuous and he was in our program area, which deals with the mentally ill." According to information from the "Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger", the alleged arsonist was already in prison in the past. According to this, he was sentenced to four and a half years by the Krefeld Regional Court in July 2021 for dangerous bodily injury in two cases, resistance to enforcement officers, attempted rape, threat and damage to property.

The first emergency call was received by the police at 7:50 p.m.: Gradually, the officers learned of three different fire sites in the Krefeld district of Cracau. According to the current state of the investigation, the suspect first smashed the window of a car on Schwertstraße and lit it. He then set fire to his apartment, which is also located on Schwertstraße. From there he went to an office building on Philadelphia Street, where he broke a window pane and ignited a fire fire.

The alleged perpetrator with Iranian nationality
…all the other articles thus far say Iraqi, so either that is a typo or updated information…
is currently under medical treatment. At the request of dpa, the NRW Ministry of Refugees in Düsseldorf announced that the 38-year-old had entered Germany for the first time in 2002 "and has a tolerance". According to current knowledge, the Essen police, who took over the investigation, assumes that he is a single perpetrator. A terrorist background is so far excluded.

A cinema employee praised the rapid intervention of the police to a dpa reporter. "Otherwise, this would have been a disaster here," he said. According to his information, about 150 people were in the cinema complex at the time of the crime, spread over several cinema halls. Reul made similar comments on Friday, saying that the situation could have ended "really dramatically". No one was injured in the fires.
Related:
Krefeld: 2020-01-02 3 women investigated for causing deadly blaze at German zoo
Krefeld: 2006-02-03 Al-Qaeda propaganda chief studied in Germany
Related:
North Rhine-Westphalia: 2024-09-26 'Green Transition': The Hydra That Strangled the German Economy Loses Two Heads
North Rhine-Westphalia: 2024-09-06 ‘Mohammed and Muhammed’: Analysis of Gang Rape Suspects’ Names in Germany Claims Majority more than 75% are Migrant-Heritage
North Rhine-Westphalia: 2024-09-05 Germany: Police raids target alleged people-smuggling ring
Link


Europe
'Green Transition': The Hydra That Strangled the German Economy Loses Two Heads
2024-09-26
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Gregor Spitzen

[REGNUM] The entire leadership of the German Greens is resigning. Which is quite natural: after all, the party showed a simply disastrous result in the recent elections to the East German Landtags

The Greens failed to overcome the 5% threshold in Brandenburg, Saxony or Thuringia. And it is not surprising that the electorate in the former GDR territory gave the political adventurers a firm "no!"

What is surprising is how a party that has repeatedly demonstrated its hypocrisy and, at times, outright disregard for the opinions of its own voters in recent years has been able to play such an important role in German political life for so long.

"GREEN TRANSITION"
The Green Party was founded in 1980 in West Germany amid demonstrations for peace, nuclear disarmament and environmental protection, and initially did indeed champion the ideals of humanism and universal values. But in less than twenty years, it took a sharp turn toward militarism, taking an active part in organizing NATO's invasion of Yugoslavia with the total bombing of its civilian infrastructure.

With the start of the SVO in Ukraine, the ugly metamorphoses of the German "greens" received a new impetus: it got to the point that even the mainstream magazine Spiegel called the party leaders "olive-green" militarists, placing their images in camouflage uniforms on the cover of one of its issues.

But the icing on the cake, perhaps, was the transformation of one of the party’s founding fathers, Yoschka Fischer, who in his youth belonged to a group of radical pro-Palestinian activists, into one of the main apologists of Israel, consistently defending the right of the Jewish state to cannibalistic military operations with catastrophic losses for the civilian population.

However, let's not judge the "greens" too harshly, because for European politicians, "changing their shoes in mid-air" is more the norm than a deviation.

It is enough to recall Sir Winston Churchill, who at one time correctly assessed the political situation and switched from the Whigs to the Tories with the words: "Whoever was not a liberal in his youth is a heartless person. Whoever has not become a conservative in his maturity is simply a fool."

However, God bless it, politics. After all, as Vladimir Ilyich Lenin said, it is only a concentrated expression of economics. And we can now observe the main "achievements" of the "green" party precisely on the economic front.

The economic decisions of the Vice Chancellor and Minister of Economics of Germany Robert Habeck to dismantle German nuclear power, to abandon cheap Russian energy sources and replace them with super-expensive North American and Qatari LNG, as well as the notorious “green transition”, which cost Germany €180 billion, have put the country on the brink of economic collapse.

The abstract fight for ecology and climate protection is, of course, wonderful. However, when such ill-conceived initiatives plunge the country into recession and provoke deindustrialization with the subsequent loss of jobs and dismantling of entire industries, even the most narrow-minded voters are able to put 2+2 together and draw the right conclusions.

Moreover, even the most liberal Germans have recently begun to be openly annoyed by the green messianism and disregard for the opinions of their own citizens, the best illustration of which is the words of the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Annalena Baerbock : “ I don’t care what my voters think about German aid to Ukraine.”

HYDRA HEADS
But does the failure in the regional elections and the resignation of the party leadership mean that the Greens will now play a significantly smaller role in German politics, and their ability to drive the German economy into depression with Green bills and anti-Russian initiatives will be significantly reduced?

Unfortunately no.

The fact is that the personnel changes in the leadership of the party, which was just practically spat in the face by voters in three German regions - Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg - are in some sense just the obligatory sacrifice on the altar of the "green" idea.

If the Greens had acted differently, neither the voters, nor their political partners, nor their sponsors from among the “fat cats” of German business, who are profiting from the “green transition” thanks to generous state subsidies, would have understood them.

However, the Green Party has not actually lost anything from the resignation of its leaders Ricarda Lang and Omid Nouripour. Quite the contrary.

The enormous 32-year-old Lang, who has neither a college degree nor any work experience in any kind of clear specialty, but who loves to talk about lofty matters with the aplomb of an ignoramus, has long been the object of pan-German hatred and caustic ridicule.

Nor did 49-year-old Nuripur manage to get a university degree: we have no doubt that this was not due to incomplete professional suitability or a significant lack of intelligence. It is simply the custom among German Greens: if studying is detrimental to political activism, so much the worse for studying.

The Greens could have painlessly sacrificed the empty and worthless talking heads in the post of formal party leaders, blaming them for all the failures and setbacks in party building. After all, there will always be talking heads willing to take up vacant positions in the party areopagus.

According to rumors, the vacancies of party leaders could be filled as early as November by Franziska Brantner, State Secretary for Economic Affairs and a close confidant of Economy Minister Robert Habeck, as well as Felix Banaschak, a member of the Bundestag who was previously the party leader in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

However, the real culprits of Germany's plunge into the abyss of economic crisis - the Minister of Economics and author of children's books Robert Habeck, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and a prominent intellectual Annalena Baerbock, the Minister of Agriculture Cem Özdemir, who is closely connected to American foundations, as well as Anton Hofreiter - the chairman of the Green faction in the Bundestag, a notorious Russophobe and one of the main warmongers in the German parliament - are clearly not going to resign. Moreover, Habeck clearly intends to fight for the post of Bundeskanzler next year.

Therefore, it is clearly premature to say that the Greens have sincerely realized that their policy is disastrous for Germany and its economy. The country will definitely suffer hardships with this company.

Link


Europe
‘Mohammed and Muhammed’: Analysis of Gang Rape Suspects’ Names in Germany Claims Majority more than 75% are Migrant-Heritage
2024-09-06
Hattip Skidmark.
[Breitbart] Germany’s AfD has has acquired a list of the forenames of all 2023 gang rape suspects in one federal state, claiming it shows the vast majority are of migrant heritage.
Not the hard jihad of the sword of the soft jihad of the law, but the fun jihad of rape.
"A clear trend is evident" in the forenames of those named as suspects in gang rapes in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), it is stated, after the Alternative for Germany (AfD) faction applied for a release of information not found in normal government data releases.

There were 209 reported ’gang rapes’ in NRW in 2023, a publication by the state’s interior ministry answering questions by two parliamentarians from the right-wing-populist, anti-mass migration AfD reports. The document notes while there is no actual definition of gang rape in German law, the research was facilitated by looking at reported rape cases where suspects were recorded as not working alone.

In those cases 155 suspects have been identified, and 71 of those are German citizens. Known migrants colonists are therefore already thought responsible for over half of attacks, the statistics reveal, but the disparity becomes even more clear when the forenames — which can be released in line with German privacy law, if not the surnames — are studied, it is claimed.

The state’s AfD faction say adding those known migrants colonists to German citizens with what it describes as obviously not German-heritage forenames suggests a massive 76 per cent of suspects are of foreign heritage. A separate analysis of the same data by German newspaper of record Die Welt states that even when counting out all "doubtful" name cases such as Jason or Luca, it still finds 78.1 per cent of suspects "in all probability had a migration background".

Welt notes "German" suspects on the list included individuals with names like "Bilal, Ibrahim or Muhammed". As previously reported, as mass migration continues to transform German society, names like Mohammed and its spelling variants are already becoming more popular in Germany for new-born babies.

The analysis by Welt is remarkable for a mainstream right-centrist European newspaper, given the now long accepted official position that nationality is defined by passport alone, and to question this or dig deeper in individual heritage is said to be a racist act.

Announcing the release of the data, the AfD reflected there had been a gang rape in NRW "every 42 hours" in 2023 and said they questioned the usefulness the less informative official statistics regularly published.

NRW AfD politicians Markus Wagner and Enxhi Seli-Zacharias had, consequently, requested more detailed information. Also revealed was the fact the most common NRW city for gang rapes was Cologne
...the largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the fourth populated city in Germany....
— already long-notorious for such crimes — and the most common countries of origin for suspected gang-rapists were Syria, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

Wagner said of the data he forced into the public domain: "Like knife violence, beatings, Islamist attacks or groping in public swimming pools, the increase in gang rapes is not a matter of fate. This form of abuse, which often lasts several hours, is a crime imported primarily by unbridled migration. The probability is high that right now, at this very moment, a group of immigrants colonists in NRW is raping an innocent victim. We owe it to our wives and daughters and everyone affected to stop unregulated migration immediately."

Indeed, just hours after Wagner made reference to Germany’s problem of sexual assaults at public pools, another such case in Germany hit the headlines, with a 12-year-old girl allegedly raped in a pool changing room, the suspect said to be a Syrian national.

The gang-rape statistics came from the NRW AfD faction just days after they secured the release of other statistics pertaining to knife crime in the state. It found 47 per cent of suspects were migrants colonists, but the AfD had not pulled off the name forename request trick with that dataset demand, and consequently were left only asking rhetorically how many of the German suspects were themselves of migrant background. The party accused the Green coalition government of covering up migrant crime by awarding German citizenship to migrants colonists.
Related:
North Rhine-Westphalia: 2024-08-25 ISIS claims responsibility for German festival attack, Syrian knifeman turns himself in
North Rhine-Westphalia: 2024-08-24 A number of people reported killed in a terror knife attack in the western German city of Solingen
North Rhine-Westphalia: 2024-08-19 Phone taps, sabotage and an assassination plot: Is Germany in Cold War 2.0?
Related:
Alternative for Germany: 2024-09-02 AfD wins in Thuringia State Elections; Socialists Coalition only gets 15%
Alternative for Germany: 2024-09-01 Germany's hard-right AfD set for huge gains in key state elections amid mounting fury over deadly festival stabbing rampage by failed Syrian asylum seeker
Alternative for Germany: 2024-08-28 In 25 years, there will be three times more Africans in the EU than Europeans
Related:
Gang rape 08/10/2024 German prosecutors, police and press continue to denounce and investigate an unending plague of 'Nazi salute' incidents
Gang rape 08/02/2024 Eight men in the Calderdale region, West Yorkshire have been charged with child sexual exploitation
Gang rape 07/27/2024 CM Gandapur vows not to allow any operation in KP

Related:
Cologne: 2024-08-28 In 25 years, there will be three times more Africans in the EU than Europeans
Cologne: 2024-08-24 A number of people reported killed in a terror knife attack in the western German city of Solingen
Cologne: 2024-06-27 Germany finds population less than previously thought
Link


Europe
Germany: Police raids target alleged people-smuggling ring
2024-09-05
[DW] More than 300 officers were deployed across five states, with the focal point the eastern city of Jena and state of Thuringia. Police said five arrests were made in Wednesday's raids, as part of a larger case.

German police launched widespread raids early on Wednesday targeting a suspected people-smuggling ring that's thought to have helped at least 140 people come to Germany via the Balkans illegally in exchange for payment.

A front man for the federal police said that the focal points of the operation were the eastern state of Thuringia and the city of Jena.

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE OPERATION?
Police said that 15 of the 19 properties searched were in Thuringia, and 10 of them in Jena itself.

Individuals brought into the country were initially being housed in an apartment there, police said.

A total of roughly 340 officers mobilized across five states in all, including special GSG9 units in Jena, with searches also taking place further west in Baden-Wurttemberg, Saxony-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia.

"The goal of the measures was the discovery and seizure of evidence that could prove the crimes," police said of Wednesday's raids. "Documents, electronic storage devices, cash and other valuables were the focus."

WHAT POLICE SAID ABOUT THE ALLEGED GROUP AND SUSPECTS
Police said five men were arrested in Wednesday's operation — three Syrian nationals and two with Iraqi citizenship. All five were arrested in Thuringia. Three were detained in the city of Jena, one in Sondershausen and another in Bad Sulza.

Police said that in total the case involved 18 suspects, ranging from 23 to 57 years of age, from drivers up to the more organizational level.

"Investigations indicate that since December 2022 at least 140 people were transported to Germany by the group," police said in a statement. "The smugglers are thought to have demanded around €700 (roughly $775) for transportation to Germany from Slovakia." For continued transportation to another country neighboring Germany, they would charge a further €500, police said.

This was done in exchange for payment made via intermediaries using the informal so-called "Hawala" transfer system that is outlawed in Germany. Two Hawala intermediaries, known as hawaldar, are among the suspects.

Investigators identified and tracked down the suspects after intercepting several vans, the group's preferred method of transport, at the borders.

A core responsibility of Germany's federal police force, or Bundespolizei, is policing Germany's borders.

The operation comes amid an increased political focus on the issue of migration of late, following a fatal knife attack in Solingen and the success of the anti-migration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in state elections in Thuringia and Saxony on Sunday.
Related:
Thuringia: 2024-09-02 AfD wins in Thuringia State Elections; Socialists Coalition only gets 15%
Thuringia: 2024-09-01 Germany's hard-right AfD set for huge gains in key state elections amid mounting fury over deadly festival stabbing rampage by failed Syrian asylum seeker
Thuringia: 2024-08-31 Germany Again Deporting Afghan Criminals
Related:
Jena: 2024-09-01 Germany's hard-right AfD set for huge gains in key state elections amid mounting fury over deadly festival stabbing rampage by failed Syrian asylum seeker
Jena: 2024-06-27 Georgia Supreme Court removes judge accused of pushing cop in foul-mouthed scuffle outside nightclub
Jena: 2024-06-26 Boebert wins House primary after switching districts after narrow 2022 win
Related:
Sondershausen: 2008-02-08 Man convicted of sending penis photo by phone
Link


Europe
ISIS claims responsibility for German festival attack, Syrian knifeman turns himself in
2024-08-25
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
Follow up to the attack yesterday.
[Regnum] The Islamic State (IS, a terrorist organization banned in Russia) group has claimed responsibility for a knife attack at a festival in the city of Solingen (North Rhine-Westphalia) in western Germany. Its representatives reported this on social media.

The terrorists' statement is quoted by Reuters. They claim that they carried out the attack "in retaliation" for Muslims in Palestine and around the world.

However, the group's representatives did not provide any evidence to support their claims. Journalists noted that it remained unclear how close the connection between ISIS and whoever carried out the attack in Solingen was.

As reported by the Regnum news agency, on the evening of August 23 in Solingen an unknown person attacked passers-by with a knife. The attacker struck indiscriminately and then fled the scene. As a result, at least three people died and eight more were injured.

Witnesses said the suspect had "Arabic features." Police began searching for the attacker.

As part of the investigation into this case, the police detained a 15-year-old teenager. According to preliminary information, he was not the direct perpetrator of the attack. The young man was accused of failing to report a crime being prepared.

Approximately 200 meters from the scene of the attack, law enforcement officers found a knife that could have been used by the criminal who committed the attack.

More from regnum.ru
Police storm refugee centre in Solingen, Germany, after terrorist attack
A search was conducted in a refugee center by police officers from the special operations command after a terrorist attack and the death of three people in the German city of Solingen. This was reported on August 24 by the Bild newspaper.

The refugee shelter is located 300 meters from the place where the attacker attacked people with a knife. The murder weapon - a knife with which the attacker killed three people - was found 150 meters from the shelter.

A dog handler with a dog was brought in to search for the criminal, and the dog led investigators from the place where the knife was found to a refugee shelter on Wupperstrasse. A special police unit surrounded the building and stormed it. The shelter is currently being searched and the people living there are being questioned.

Earlier, Regnum news agency reported that law enforcement officers detained a 15-year-old teenager after a man attacked festival guests with a knife in the city of Solingen. According to preliminary data, the teenager was not the direct perpetrator of the attack; he was accused of failing to report the planned crimes.

Investigators are still trying to determine the perpetrator's motives. Senior prosecutor Markus Kaspers said the attack could have been an act of terrorism.

On the evening of August 23, a man armed with a knife attacked people at the city festival "Diversity Festival", dedicated to the 650th anniversary of Solingen. As a result, at least three people died. The police specified that the victims were a 67-year-old and a 56-year-old man, as well as a 56-year-old woman. In addition, at least eight people were injured. According to the police, five of them were seriously injured.

The criminal fled the scene. German police are still searching for him. Deputy head of the German police union Michael Mertens emphasized that there is no specific information about the attacker yet, and descriptions of his personality are contradictory.
More from the Deutsche Welle liveblog:
SUSPECT TURNED HIMSELF IN, LOCAL MINISTRY SAYS
The man suspected of the stabbing in Solingen turned himself in to the police, a spokesperson for the Interior Ministry of North Rhine-Westphalia told the news agency DPA.

According to the German daily Bild, the man, still covered in blood, approached the officers shortly after 11 p.m. (2100 GMT) and said: "I'm the one you're looking for..."

He had reportedly been hiding in a backyard since the crime.

German news magazine Spiegel reported that the suspect is a 26-year-old Syrian, who came to Germany in 2022 and applied for asylum in Bielefeld.

Because he came from a country in civil war, he was allowed to stay in Germany.

SOLINGEN STABBING SUSPECT DETAINED, LOCAL MINISTER SAYS
Police have arrested a main suspect following the knife attack in Solingen, Interior Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Herbert Reul told German TV.

The minister spoke of a "real suspect" who police had been looking for all day, after a third person had been arrested in connection with the incident.

"They were very probably, still cautiously speaking, not the ones we really suspected," said Reul with regard to the two previous arrests.

"I myself am a bit relieved at the moment," the minister added. "I can only tell you that it is now more than a hunch. Not only did we have a lead on this person, but we've also found pieces of evidence."

The arrested suspect's clothes were dirty and covered in blood, the German news magazine Der Spiegel quoted security sources as saying.
And from the Times of Israel:
Officials earlier said a 15-year-old boy was arrested early Saturday on suspicion he knew about the planned attack and failed to inform authorities, but he was not the attacker. Two female witnesses told police they overheard the boy and an unknown person before the attack speaking about intentions that corresponded to the bloodshed, officials said.
Breitbart has a name:
At around 11 pm local time on Saturday, over 24 hours after the attack in Solingen, 26-year-old “Issa al H.” surrendered to police.

According to German tabloid Bild, he came up to a patrol car and said: “I am the one you are looking for.” He reportedly hid in a backyard to evade detection while the day-long police manhunt was underway.

During the attack, which took place in the city centre of Solingen at a “festival of diversity” as the city celebrated its 650th anniversary, three people were stabbed to death and six others were wounded, including four with life-threatening wounds.

The attacker was said to have specifically targeted his victim’s necks, leading to speculation that it was terror-related.

Der Spiegel reports that Issa al H. was born in Syria, in the city of Deir al-Zor, before coming to Germany in 2022 as an asylum seeker. Last year, he was granted protection, allowing him to remain in the country as a result of the civil war in his homeland.

He was reportedly not known to security authorities as an Islamic extremist, however, he is said to be a Sunni Muslim.

It was claimed that, according to witness statements gathered by police, the attacker had shouted out the Jihadi war cry “Allahu Akbar” as he carried out the attack on the diversity festival.
Update from Deutsche Welle at 12:15 p,m. ET:
German prosecutors on Sunday released the name of the 26-year-old Syrian man suspected of a multiple stabbing attack in the western city of Solingen that killed three people and injured eight others.

Issa Al H., who was identified without his family name due to German privacy laws, was flown by helicopter to the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe for his first hearing.

Al H. was remanded in custody on suspicion of murder and membership of the so-called "Islamic State" (IS) group, among other charges, the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office said.

Earlier Sunday, police said the suspect had turned himself in and admitted responsibility for the attack. German news magazine Spiegel reported that the suspect came to Germany in 2022 as a refugee and applied for asylum in the city of Bielefeld.

According to Germany's dpa news agency, the man's asylum claim was denied and he was to have been deported last year.
There’s the motivation for his Sudden Jihad Syndrome: punish the dhimmis for daring to refuse to pay their jizya.
The agency cited no sources for its information.

Al H. came from a home for refugees in Solingen that was searched on Saturday, according to Herbert Reul, the interior minister of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where Solingen is situated.
Related:
Solingen: 2024-08-24 A number of people reported killed in a terror knife attack in the western German city of Solingen
Solingen: 2020-06-06 German intel: Syrian teacher says 'all Jews belong in gas chamber'
Solingen:
2017-08-08 Children included on list of 173 IS suicide bombers who could strike Europe

Link


Europe
A number of people reported killed in a terror knife attack in the western German city of Solingen
2024-08-24
[X]

Police say the attack happened during a festival in the city centre on Friday evening. The attacker is believed to be still on the lam.

Bild website says a man randomly stabbed passers-by. A manhunt is now under way, with police helicopters seen hovering above the city.

The attack happened during the festival marking 650 years of Solingen.

The city authorities asked people to leave the Fronhof market area and police are imposing security cordons.

Emergency crews at the scene are now treating the injured, media reports say.

Philipp Muller, one of the concert co-organisers, said the emergency crews were fighting for the lives of nine people, the Solinger Tageblatt newspaper reports.

"People are shocked, but left the square peacefully," Mr Muller said.
Deutsche Welle adds:
An unknown assailant has killed three people and seriously injured four more with a knife, according to police. The attack took place as the city of Solingen was celebrating its 650th anniversary.

Philipp Müller, one of the co-organizers, said paramedics are fighting to save the lives of nine people.

The incident took place at Fronhof, a marketplace in the center of the city, where a stage had been set up for live music.

Authorities asked residents to leave the city center, according to the Solinger Tageblatt.

The police have issued a major alert and declared a manhunt. Armed officers are currently on the scene and have cordoned off large areas of the city. There are barriers all over the city. According to the German daily Bild, heavily armed SEK units with about 40 special vehicles from all over North Rhine-Westphalia had been deployed to Solingen. Road junctions have been blocked and residents have been asked to stay indoors and avoid the city center, the publication said.

Solingen has a population of about 160,000. It is located near the larger cities of Cologne and Düsseldorf in Germany's most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia.
More from Breitbart:
At least three people were reportedly killed and several others were left in serious condition after a mass stabbing at a “Festival of Diversity” in the German city of Solingen on Friday evening.

UPDATE 2315: Germany’s Bild newspaper has reported that eyewitnesses said that they saw an “Arab-looking man” flee from the scene of the attack. The suspect is still at large at the time of this reporting.
Looks like we have Sudden Jihad Syndrome. Odds are good the knifeman was a known refugee who had recently been rejected by the authorities, was receiving mental health treatment, a petty criminal, and had known connections jihadis or jihad-linked organizations.
Tragedy struck as the city of Solingen celebrated its 650th anniversary with a “Festival of Diversity” as a reported mass stabbing took place as festival goers gathered in the city centre.

According to the local Solinger Tageblatt newspaper, citing two sources at the scene, the believed knife attack left three people dead, six others were seriously injured, and another was injured.



The Times of Israel adds this final, sad note:
Festival organizer Mueller later told the Tageblatt that the rest of the festival would also be canceled.

“We’ve just informed all the artists and stand operators,” he said.

Courtesy of Skidmark, the Daily Mail adds:
Cops have launched a desperate manhunt for the killer who committed the 'brutal and senseless' strike at 9.45pm before fleeing - leaving a woman and two men from Solingen and nearby Dusseldorf dead.

Police are said to be classifying it as a terrorist attack, according to Bild. Germany's armed special police officers have been deployed to assist at the scene.

Police spokesperson Alexander Kresta said: 'We would like to have a precise description of the perpetrator. That is difficult. Witnesses are in shock or can't speak at the moment.

'We assume [it is] a single offender. He's on the run. He killed three people at the city festival and seriously injured at least four. So we can't say that he's not dangerous.

Germany's top security official, interior minister Nancy Faeser, recently proposed toughening weapons laws to allow only knives with a blade measuring up to 6cm (nearly 2.4in) to be carried in public, rather than the length of 12cm (4.7in), which is allowed now.

The country has seen a series of knife attacks over the past 12 months.
Related:
Solingen: 2020-06-06 German intel: Syrian teacher says 'all Jews belong in gas chamber'
Solingen: 2017-08-08 Children included on list of 173 IS suicide bombers who could strike Europe
Solingen: 2012-06-14 German police in major crackdown on Salafist Muslims
Link


Europe
Phone taps, sabotage and an assassination plot: Is Germany in Cold War 2.0?
2024-08-19
[BBC] Holes mysteriously found cut in army base fences.

An alleged plot to assassinate Germany’s top weapons manufacturer.

Phone taps on a high-level Luftwaffe call.

These aren’t storylines lifted from a 1960s spy novel but real-life events in Germany, this year.

Not all of these events can definitively be blamed on Moscow, but Germany is on heightened alert for possible acts of Russian sabotage, because of Berlin’s continued military support for Kyiv.

As a hot war rages between Russia and Ukraine, there are fears that Europe has slipped into a new Cold War.

“When we think of the Cold War, we have a tendency to think of the 1970s by which point the rules of the game had become established and accepted,” says Mark Galeotti, a senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) and director of Mayak Intelligence.

“In some way, we’re in the early Cold War – the Fifties and Sixties, so a much rawer time.”

But what does a rekindled Cold War look like for Europe’s biggest economy and a country that was once itself cut in half by the Iron Curtain?

The biggest bombshell dropped just last month when CNN reported that US officials had told Berlin of an alleged Russian plot to kill the chief executive of Germany’s biggest arms company Rheinmetall.

The Kremlin denied the report but German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who strikes a hawkish figure next to the more hesitant Chancellor Olaf Scholz, hit out at Russia for “waging a hybrid war of aggression".

I met Rheinmetall’s CEO, Armin Papperger, at a ground-breaking ceremony for a new ammunition factory in February.

Had a plot to kill him been successful, it would have sent shockwaves through the West.

A security blunder not long afterwards allowed spies to eavesdrop on a highly sensitive conversation between senior German air force officials, later broadcast on Russian TV. It was a cause of acute embarrassment for Berlin given that a brigadier general in the Luftwaffe appeared to allow spies into the secure call by dialling in on an insecure line.

The mega-blip, however isolated, fuelled accusations that Germany has long been a “weak link” within the European counter-intelligence due to a fragmented, federalised system that’s underpinned by a strong emphasis on individuals’ privacy.

Weeks later, two German-Russian nationals were arrested on suspicion of planning to sabotage US military facilities in Bavaria. Annalena Baerbock summoned the Russian ambassador to complain and announced: “We will not allow Putin to bring his terror to Germany.”

Only last week, holes were found cut into the fences of water facilities supplying two military bases in North Rhine-Westphalia, with concerns that someone has been seeking to contaminate supplies.

Germany is not the only European country being targeted by apparent acts of sabotage, but it has a lot of US military bases that were established in the wake of World War Two.

Mark Galeotti believes Moscow views Germany as a large but “flabby” power, making it the ideal pressure point.

By anyone’s measure, the greatest act of known sabotage to affect Germany in recent years was when the Nord Stream gas pipelines, running under the Baltic Sea from Russia, were blown up in 2022. Speculation over who ordered the attack has been rife ever since, but in a dramatic development Germany has now issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian diving instructor.

Last week the Wall Street Journal reported that the “shoestring” operation had been privately funded but overseen from Ukraine. Kyiv rejected the report as nonsense, and while there was always scepticism that President Putin would order the destruction of his own pipeline, it does show that the murky world of espionage can be full of twists and turns.

Each incident of apparent sabotage cannot, by any means, be immediately and certainly attributed to Russia.

In France it was far-left activists, not Russian agents, who were accused of targeting the country’s high-speed rail network on the eve of the Olympics. And Germany has had its own, extensive, history of far-left militant attacks.

The fact that Ukrainian figures are now under the spotlight for the Nord Stream blasts has fuelled fresh criticism from familiar political wings, within Germany, about the government’s support for Kyiv.

Co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Deutschland, Alice Weidel, has called for “aid payments” to Kyiv to be halted and the damage to Nord Stream “billed” to Ukraine. The AfD enjoys much of its support in the former communist east, where beyond Berlin you’re more likely to find lingering affection for Russia and dissatisfaction with the main parties that have, since reunification, dominated national politics.
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