More. Much more.

Durig the cold war., the Bundeswehr alone hat 495,000 personnel in active service, reserves not counted.

There was a time the Bundeswehr had ten full divisions and one brigade sized special division! Not brigades - divisions!

If the ukraine war teaches one thing beside the relevanc of drones than: higher numbers matter.

In Germany, they now want to sue the old Bundestag constellation to bring through two additional special budgets (a sugercoated way to say "new debts"), that would need a two third majority that in the new Bundestag CDU and SPD (and Greens) would not have, since Die Linke and AfD strictkly oppose it: 500 bn for defence in the next 10 years, and 500 bn for infrastructure, schools, roads and bridges. This way Merz wants to make new debts without needing to soften up - formally - the debt brake that is in place. It shows that for him it just is word gymnastics, and it shows that the comrades of the SPD still have not understood it if they think they must be bribed with this way to let the military increase pass.

You see, it happens what I preicted before the elections: the CDU takes on the colour of its coalition partner and does socialist policy.

In four years the AfD will become strongest party. Then the real fun begins. Just with many, many more debts. The CDU repeats the same mistake the FDP did in the traffic light coaltion: doing left stuff and then triyng to tell the people that it is no left stuff they are doing. They lost two thirds of their votes and now are out at 4.4%. Idioten.

[NZZ] A merger between the Union and the AfD is seen as a threat to democracy. But the right-wing populists should finally be allowed to fail. [!!!, or to prove themselves, Skybird]

For a 20 percent party like the AfD currently has, only political competition can make voters think again. A lengthy judicial review process, on the other hand, creates legends.

For decades, it was good - that is to say, historically conscious - political tone in the Federal Republic to make comparisons without hesitation in every crisis and to ask with concern: will Bonn, will Berlin become Weimar? The question is currently being asked again. Political "firewalls" against coalitions with the AfD are being invoked, and even communication bans are being practiced, as was the case at the Munich Security Conference. Now it has become the second strongest party in Germany - ahead of the Social Democrats and the Greens. Will Berlin become Weimar after all? No.

The Black (CDU) and the Blue (AfD) are the winners of February 23. Thanks to high voter turnout, young people voted left this time and not green. Coalitions between the CDU/SPD and the CDU/AfD are mathematically possible. A government made up of the CDU/CSU and the SPD is considered likely, but a party that has suffered "historic" losses has been voted out by the voters, and not in order to govern again.

If MPs do not respect the will of the voters, they should not be surprised that people are disillusioned with politics. A merger between the CDU/CSU and the AfD is seen as a threat to democracy, which it is not. What is overlooked is that a 20 percent party can no longer be ignored in parliament. Anyone who wants to overcome Germany's ongoing internal division in the long term should try to integrate voters in the east, particularly through parliamentary coalitions.

The right-wing populists must participate in democratic competition, prove themselves in coalitions or fail. In doing so, they will adapt their programs, perhaps divide, radicalize in parts and may not escape a ban. Anyone who calls the AfD a "partly anti-constitutional party" suggests that proceedings will soon be held and have good prospects. Politically, it would be appropriate to calmly call them right-wing or German nationalist and to control them when governing. If the AfD members embarrass themselves, they will fail themselves. Competition convinces voters, while a lengthy judicial review process creates legends.

In the Weimar Republic, the greater danger came from parties breaking up or refusing to form coalitions. Not only the conservative, partly right-wing nationalist German People's Party (DVP) was involved in decisive breaks, but also the social democratic founder of the republic. In the crisis year of 1923, with occupation, Ruhr struggle, inflation, hunger riots and putsch, Weimar was on the brink of collapse for the first time, and again in 1930.

Both parties, the DVP and the SPD, were unwilling or unable to form a coalition. The right wing of Stresemann's party and the left wing of the SPD, the former independents who only returned to the mother party in September 1922, were far apart.

The parties had not been able to learn to form coalitions and make compromises in the German Empire. In Bismarck's constitutional monarchy they were excluded from governing. The highly polarized Weimar Republic did not allow the parties to make up for this failure.

However, it remains important to realize that in the event of political conflict, the integrity, skill and experience of those in leadership roles are always of great importance. This is especially true for the AfD, which is relatively new in the Bundestag and opaque in terms of its program, finances and personnel. Some of its parliamentary group members are repeatedly under scrutiny.

The top candidates of this party have only once so far attracted attention due to their high level of popularity, political competence and confident manner in public speaking. That was the founding period with Frauke Petry, Konrad Adam, Hans-Olaf Henkel and Bernd Lucke, among others. They left the party with the realization: "Our baby is a failure." One of their fathers, Alexander Gauland, is still there, a bitter former CDU man from Hesse. He is now back in the Bundestag and has achieved dubious prominence as one of the spokesmen for the neo-Nazi wing of his party through his ugly "bird ****" comparison of the Holocaust.

The dispute over Gauland's comparison has once again reminded the public of the political and moral obligation of all German citizens to live with a permanent awareness of history. Auschwitz survivor Jean Améry wrote in the 1960s that Hitler's empire would "one day be history per se" and that schoolchildren would "learn less about the selection ramps" than "about an astonishing triumph over general unemployment". Everything would "sink in a summary 'century of barbarism'".

In the internationally praised German culture of remembrance, commemoration of the victims has long been at the forefront. The confrontation with the perpetrators and the industrially organized murder of millions of people of Jewish and Slavic descent has lagged behind. Such a shift is not without concern.

Not unexpectedly, 152 AfD members have now entered the Bundestag. One can assume that the historical awareness of many of them is more likely to be in a grey area between trivialisation and admiration of the National Socialist past. Sooner or later, the AfD MPs will give the Bundestag reason to discuss these issues in parliament again.

In the 1940s, the German-Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt turned from America to her German teacher Karl Jaspers: she wrote that she had no legal or political concepts for the innocence of the victims, which lies "beyond virtue", and for "guilt beyond crime". Do we have them today?
-----------------


Maybe you recall the diagram with a map of Germany showing that all voting districts in east Germany were painted AfD-Blue, and most of the Western districts were CDU-black. What many people may not know is that most, the majority of the black districts in the West where the CDU won, had the AfD already as second biggest political power. They won all the East, and are already second in most of the West.

[NZZ] Friedrich Merz gets off to a brilliant false start with a debt orgy

In Germany, the Union and SPD have agreed on a radical departure from the previous, cautious financial policy. Infrastructure and defense are to be (co-)financed through massive debt. Future generations will pay the price.

Few observers expected such an extensive German debt program: Visibly worried, if not shocked, by the global political developments of the past few days, the conservative Union parties CDU and CSU and the Social Democrats (SPD) have agreed on a debt-financed defense and infrastructure package. The agreement was reached as part of the ongoing exploratory talks on the formation of a future government. Regardless of how these progress, the financial package is to be approved by the old Bundestag next week.

The Union and SPD are counting on finding the necessary two-thirds majority in the old Bundestag for the necessary changes to the Basic Law thanks to support from the Greens (or the FDP). After the constitution of the new Bundestag elected ten days ago, this could become more difficult because the AfD and the Left Party together have a blocking minority.

In detail, the package that the CDU leader and likely future Chancellor Friedrich Merz presented on Tuesday evening together with the leaders of the SPD and CSU has four elements: Firstly, all defense spending that exceeds 1 percent of gross domestic product, or currently around 44 billion euros per year, is to be exempt from the debt brake. Everything above that could therefore be financed through debt in the future.

Secondly, the Union and SPD want to create a "special fund" of 500 billion euros with which they want to finance infrastructure spending for ten years. This means taking on debt on this enormous scale, which is not counted towards the debt brake. The third element is to allow the federal states to take on a small amount of new debt in the future. Fourthly, an expert commission is to draw up proposals for further, long-term reforms to the debt brake over the course of the legislative period.

Overall, the package amounts to a radical turnaround in German financial policy. The debt brake, which has until now set strict limits on new borrowing and has ensured that Germans have a moderate level of debt, is de facto becoming largely meaningless.

It is true that, in view of the behavior of American President Donald Trump, Europe and thus Germany must urgently prepare themselves to be able to defend themselves and support Ukraine without the USA if necessary. This requires significantly higher defense spending. Although the military, as a permanent core state task, must normally be financed from current income if a state does not want to slide into steadily increasing debt. However, given the almost daily increasing urgency, a special fund could be justified for a transitional period in order to gain time for the necessary reallocations in the regular budget.

Inexplicably, the agreement between the SPD and the Union remains non-binding in this area in particular: How high defense spending will be in the future is still open for the time being. The only thing that is clear is that a significant part of it will be financed through debt in the long term. The opposite would be correct.

The second regulatory sin is the infrastructure fund. Of course, rails, bridges and schools are run down after years, if not decades, of neglect. But that has nothing to do with Trump, is no more urgent today than it was two weeks or two years ago and will have to be corrected over a longer period of time. It can and must be financed from the regular budget.

In the short term, this debt orgy, if it comes, will result in significantly higher interest costs for the state budget and thus for taxpayers. Anyone who pumps so much additional money into the economy also risks inflation because the necessary capacities, for example in the construction industry, are not available for the time being and therefore prices will initially rise.

Above all, however, with this preliminary agreement, the Union and SPD are removing any pressure to finally set priorities in the state budget in the next legislative period and to make savings, for example in the excessive social and subsidy system. Instead, they can muddle along as before, everyone can provide for his clientele - and the price for this is left to future generations in the form of higher debts. That is not fair. And it is the opposite of what Merz promised during the election campaign.

This infrastructure package is for the Host Nation Support, connecting military and civil services since Germany will be a turntable for military logistics, at least during the beginning of the expected war against the baltic states.

Thats clear, and still - the debt brake is gone, de facto, and they set the path for future more debts and easier debts.

The CDU did exactly the opposite of what it claimed it would and what ti claimed it stands for. And worse:

die CDU ist schon wieder am rummerkeln wie in alten Zeiten.

And where are the savings? The policy corrections? The move away from stupid and overpriced ideologically blinded delusional projects? Nothing...! We are once again seeing classic SPD politics in action, even though it has just taken a beating and is only number three among the parties in the Bundestag. Did CDU voters vote CDU for this...?

Of course it was foreseeable, and I said before the elcitosn that right this would happen. Nevertheless: it is a betrayal of the people voting CDU.

In four years, the AfD will be strongest party. Not by its own power, but by the stupidity and ignorrance of the other parties. Especially the stupidity of the CDU.

Its like I dsaid before: the future of Germany is eternal red-green doom. Market economics have no chance anynmore. Its all about getting planned economy and total state-control.


There is no sustainability in what they do now. Once the debt.based funds are eaten up, the terrible bill will be presented. It will break Germans' necks. The years until then already is plastered with growing inflation.

Adjusting the constitutional debt brake requires a two-thirds majority of seats in the German parliament, the Bundestag, which the three parties do not have. This paragraph of the agreement is necessary:

Hence the hectic to get it done with the majorities of the old bundestag constellation, including the greens, and the FDP. From March 23rd on when the new Bundestag must have its first meeting at the latest, the two third majority of seats of SPD, Greens, FDP and CDU of the old Bundestag is no more present, then nothing can be done anymore. AfD and Die Linke will never let it pass, they have a blockign minority then.

Hence they want to play their tricks within the next two weeks, after that they have run out of time. If they Greens and FDP do not accept, its over already earlier.

The new Bundestag must have first meeting 30 days after election day at the latest. Until then the old Bundestag can still make decisions, though it leaves a bad taste.


https://www-focus-de.translate.goog/..._x_tr_pto=wapp

The title is BS of course, but he got the main points

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvqsqWyVMcE

My squirrels would sooner dance to Riverdance on my windowsill than Merz would achieve anything great. Look, he has already caved in to the SPD and he will make that routine. In his party they already scratch their heads, and he is not even announced as chancellor.
In other words, let him talk, but don't take him at his word. He breaks it. Immer. Schon immer. Immerdar.

How come, every time new politicians are elected, expectations rise to the sky. We could really have learned better by now from the many crashes we have experienced.


I do not expetc much form the comign govenrment. And I also think Merz will not last a full term.


Lets be honest: we have no capable and serious Staatsmänner. Thats part of the crisis we are in.

Trump Shakes Up EU by Moving Soldiers From "Unfriendly to Friendly Countries"

President Trump is exploring a significant military repositioning by potentially withdrawing 35,000 US troops from Germany and relocating them to Hungary. This strategic move challenges NATO's current defense framework and signals a dramatic shift in US military deployment. With tensions rising over defense spending commitments, Trump aims to pressure European allies while strengthening relationships with more aligned nations. The potential redeployment highlights complex geopolitical dynamics and could fundamentally reshape transatlantic security arrangements. Watch as we break down the implications of this unprecedented military strategy.
https://youtu.be/fzg2YVvph9s?si=UAjL1RlbkF4ht8bX


I think they would be better positioned there anyways, on Poland's southern flank.

There is, what I understand, an ongoing heated debate in the German Bundestag about changes in the German constitution- It have to do with their military, what kind of changes there are being discussed I can't tell.

Markus

I think the Left German governing elite will have most problem with the idea of an increased sized military, because it tends to be Right to the political spectrum, that will eventually have an impact on decision making as it increases in influence.

It's by no means just about the defense budget.

In Germany, there is a debt brake with constitutional status. The old SPD-Green government attempted to "reform" it (in effect: abolish or circumvent it), but failed to gain a two-thirds majority, and the CDU balked.

Would-be chancellor Friedrich Merz campaigned on his unwavering support for the debt brake. Barely had the elections been over when Merz, ever the turncoat, did a 180° turnaround and proposed establishing a special debt item of €500 billion for defense. The SPD, the intended coalition partner (that is, the SPD that resoundingly lost the elections with the heaviest defeat in its history and now wants to get back into government...), said no, not without proposing a new debt fund for schools and roads. So Merz said: Okay, let's add another half a trillion, let's make it a trillion in new debt. What do I care about my chatter from yesterday?

But that's still not enough for a two-thirds majority; he also needs the Greens. They want climate stuff because that also has to do with defense and Russia, as everyone obviously knows. So Merz says: Okay, you'll also get another 50 billion in debt for free for your hobby. So the Greens are now back at the table of the new government. And this despite the fact that they won't even be the strongest opposition party in the new Bundestag; that will be the AfD: they are the second strongest party and, together with the SED (The Left), have a blocking minority.

Never before has a chancellor broken so many pre-election promises, even before becoming chancellor. On top of that, Merz has made a whole series of stylistic blunders and further alienated people. Apparently, the man thinks everyone and anyone is completely stupid and he is, like Merkel, his personal nemesis, determined not to allow any principles or tenets to stand in his way on his path to the top job. The CDU then bought it for him with incredibly far-reaching gifts to the Left. Many say the CDU let itself be ripped off by the SPD, and that's true. Even now, more left-wing demands are still coming in. Even from the Greens, who also want to get their chance to pull the CDU over the table - and then they say No because they're furious at Merz. And the SPD let it slip that they have boundless contempt for Merz, and for the entire CDU, just because of his lack of principles. And that's before the coalition has even been formed! The climate is already worse than it was at the end of the old coalition. He is not beign trusted, this little Friedrich who wants to become a great Friedrich. No chance!

Then there's the problem that there won't be a 2/3 majority in the new Bundestag for the plan to amend the constitution and abolish the debt brake. The SPD, Greens, and CDU no longer have a 2/3 majority there, and the AfD and SED have a blocking minority. Therefore, they're now trying to ram it through the old Bundestag with its 2/3 majority for the SPD, CDU, and Greens at lightning speed – in only two sessions. One has already taken place. Ironically, this is to push through a plan that the old SPD-led government also wanted to implement, but was blocked by the CDU. Now the CDU wants the same thing and much more, and the Left and the Greens are furious.

I told you before. Merz is exceeding all my expectations. I expected nothing less from this turncoat. He can't do it. And he's vastly overrated abroad. The CDU is not an election winner. It's the election loser, because it can't do without the SPD and/or the Greens, because it doesn't even want to try with the AfD. Yet the CDU has more in common with the AfD than with any other party on substantive issues. It's a fact!

Added to that, Merz's government program envisages no savings or cuts, no reforms, nothing. And the clocks have stood still in the Ministry of Defense for many years; the incompetence and bureaucratic overregulation in the Procurement Office are legendary; the 500 billion couldn't even be spent because people are too stupid to know how to do it sensibly. Of the 100 billion from three years ago, when Russia started the war, over 30 billion has now been lost to inflation because they took too long to place orders and the money was left sitting idle. All new debt.

The new government, if it comes into power, will wreak even more havoc than the old one, which was already an imposition tantamount to a natural disaster.

Young people in Germany have now smelled a rat and know that the debt is their responsibility. Therefore, they are abandoning the established old parties and voting for extreme fringe parties, both left and right. Anger is also growing that Conscription is supposed to return (we no longer have the structures and barracks for it; when the Bundeswehr was founded, it took 20-25 years for it to actually become a war-ready army of rank...). First, the crimes of the corona, isolation, and vaccination policies at the expense of the young, then the debt-based labor without the slightest willingness to reform on the part of the parties, and now the young are also supposed to take the blame for the long-established' errors in defense policy and risking their lives mandatorily. There's even talk of a "compulsory social service year." If military service is going to be mandatory, then of opcurse also a parallel compulsory year to support the social care system, which has been driven into the ground by the elder generations and politicians, again at the expense of the young – who know that the pension system will no longer support them one day and that they will have to provide for themselves, with low wages and one of the world's highest tax levels, both of which no longer allow for self-provision for young people who are also expected to start families.

Two days ago, the President of the Federal Constitutional Court, which certainly isn't suspected of being critical of the EU or the Left, warned that Germany is currently sinking to the status of a secondary and even tertiary state, and that, in fact, a general inability of the state and its institutions to shape things is increasingly taking hold. He described this not as something that's about to happen, but as something that IS already happening. And he's right. I've been saying that for years!

Politics in this country is nothing but a whore's bed. No lie is too shameless not to be spoken, no fraud too scandalous not to be practiced. It's a filthy ####house. "The political parties have made the state their prey" (Richard von Weizsäcker). The orgy is in full swing; everyone's drinking, everyone's vomiting, everyone's having sex with everyone else, and not a crumb will be left behind.

Burning everything down is all I can think of. I can't stand this scum and their blasé grinning faces anymore.

I read there are high expectations in other countries towards Germany, and Merz, and the new debts, and the regrowing of the army, and NATO and Germany here, hooray, and Germany there, hooray, and now all will be good - FORGET IT, now and in the future. GERMANY IS DONE, and it is our own parties that have ruined it. The only thing you can expect Germany to do ever in the future, is more big-mouthed words, lecturing lessons and a thunderous barrage of moral phrasings. The old virtues and wirk and education ethics that made Germany successful, spiced with a lil' of good ol' Prussian sense of fulfilling duty, are no more there. Changing demographcis and cultural change with them will prevent them from ever returning.

Forget Germany. Find a better horse to put your money on.

Thank you so much for your in-deep explanation on what's going on in the Bundestag. It was a lot more than what I heard in the news here.

Markus

No, in fact, because given the circumstances increasing the defence budget is just common sense (and 2/3 of the German population agree with that, according to the latest opinion polls). Even the paficist Greens are not categorically opposed to it.
Right now, only the far right and the far left are opposed towards any increase, both of which are sympathetic toward Russia.