Germany Could Send Troops into Streets for First Time Since War

THE TELEGRAPH: Berlin debates contentious move as France extends state of emergency and Italy boosts protection

Germany could deploy armed soldiers on its streets for the first time since the Second World War, as Europe went into lockdown in the wake of the Paris attacks.

The German proposals would be highly controversial in a country that remains deeply reluctant to use its armed forces because of its Nazi past.

Ministers raised the idea after Tuesday night’s friendly football match between Germany and Holland in Hanover was cancelled minutes before kick-off following a tip-off from intelligence in another EU state.

According to German media, a group of attackers had planned to set off multiple explosives at the stadium, where Angela Merkel was due to attend the match, and to detonate a bomb in the city centre.

Wolfgang Schäuble, the finance minister, has publicly called for the military to be used in the event of coordinated terror attacks on a German city.

“If we had a situation like Paris, perhaps with attacks in three of four places, we’d have to think about whether our police capabilities are enough,” Mr Schäuble told the Rheinische Post newspaper. “What can we do to support security forces that are already overwhelmed on some normal weekends in the face of great challenges?” » | Justin Huggler in Berlin and Henry Samuel in Paris | Thursday, November 19, 2015

RHEINISCHE POST: Schäuble will Diskussion über Bundeswehr-Einsatz im Inneren » | Quelle: RP | Mittwoch, 18. November 2015

German Army Rules on Beards and Tattoos

BBC: The German defence ministry has issued new rules on how soldiers should look. "Pornographic" tattoos, ostentatious piercings and bushy beards have all been outlawed, it seems.

"Ordinance A.26301.1l, on the Appearance of Federal Troops" caught the eye of military blogger Thomas Wiegold - "something of a weathervane of army opinion" according to Der Spiegel magazine. The 200-plus comments from soldiers on his blog post outnumber those on more serious issues.

As well as the ban on mohawks and bushy beards, new rules on tattoos proved particularly controversial. They are permitted, but "discriminatory, pornographic and unconstitutional" images must always be covered up when soldiers are in uniform. The rule applies even if they appear on the hands, neck or face - which, as the comments note, could prove difficult. » | Wednesday, January 22, 2014

German Army 'to Suspend' Conscription in 2011
BBC: Germany is to suspend conscription in July 2011 and switch to a volunteer military service, defence minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg has said.

Conscription of German men will end but will remain in the country's constitution, Mr zu Guttenberg said.

The 250,000-strong German army, the Bundeswehr, is to be cut to around 185,000 soldiers, he added.

Currently all young German men are called to serve, but conscientious objectors can opt for social work.

Mr zu Guttenberg said the slimmed-down German army would focus on missions abroad. >>> | Monday, November 22, 2010

Holy Land Visit a Minefield for Pope
GLOBEAND MAIL: Benedict aims to ease tensions with both Jews and Muslims

JERUSALEM — On a self-declared pilgrimage of peace, Pope Benedict XVI is walking into a minefield.

In the four short years of his papacy, he has succeeded in upsetting the Muslim world with his reference to an anti-Islamic tract, and in alienating many Jews by his resuscitation of a Holocaust-denying bishop and backing of the beatification of Nazi-era Pope Pius XII.

Yet, here he is today, hoping to make amends, wading into one of the holiest sites of both religions, with recent conflicts still smouldering and the eyes of the world upon him.

“The thing that worries me most is the speech that the Pope will deliver here,” said Fouad Twal, the Pope's Latin Patriarch in Jerusalem. “One word for the Muslims and I'm in trouble; one word for the Jews and I'm in trouble. At the end of the visit the Pope goes back to Rome and I stay here with the consequences.”

Regardless of the risks, the Pope began his homage to Judaism on Saturday at Mount Nebo, in Jordan. Looking across the valley at Moses's Promised Land, he spoke of the inseparable bond between his church and the Jewish people.

“From the beginning, the church in these lands has commemorated in her liturgy the great figures of the [Jewish] patriarchs and prophets, as a sign of her profound appreciation of the unity of the two testaments [of the Bible],” the Pope said.

With the ancient link established, the Pope, as his first order of business today, visits Yad Vashem, Israel's shrine to the victims of the Holocaust and touchstone of the modern Jewish state.

“We expect that Pope Benedict XVI's speech at Yad Vashem will include a reference to the memory of the Holocaust in the present as well as in the future,” Avner Shalev, Yad Vashem's chairman of the directorate, told reporters. Mr. Shalev recalled that the Pope, as Joseph Ratzinger, spent his childhood as a member of the Hitler Youth and later enlisted in the German army.

“It is impossible to claim that these things do not have an impact,” he said. “A person's habitat bears an influence on him, despite the fact that immediately after the war he disengaged from these things and devoted himself to studying religion.” >>> Patrick Martin | Sunday, May 10, 2009

New Dark Age Alert! Muslim Converts Accused of Holy War Bomb Plots
TIMESONLINE: Two Muslim converts and two Turks go on trial in a bomb-proof courtroom in Düsseldorf today accused of plotting to blow up German civilians and US soldiers.

“The world will burn!” boasted an intercepted e-mail sent between the accused, who are alleged to have wanted to wage an Islamic holy war in the heart of Europe.

Three of the men — Fritz Gelowicz, 29, Daniel Schneider, 23 and the Turkish national Adem Yilmaz, 30 — are accused of attending a training camp on the Afghan-Pakistani frontier run by an Uzbek-based terror organisation known as the Islamic Jihad Union.

Intelligence services say that it has links with al-Qaeda. Using detonators — supplied, the state prosecutor claims, by Attila Selek, 24, a German citizen of Turkish origin — the gang prepared bombs with the explosive force of 410kg (904lb) of TNT, to be set off in and around the US Ramstein air base and other targets. The bombers in London on July 7, 2005, had 4kg of explosive.

It is alleged that the gang wanted the attacks to influence a parliamentary debate extending the mandate of the German Army in Afghanistan in the autumn of 2007. >>> Roger Boyes in Berlin | Wednesday, April 22, 2009

The New-Look German Army: Overweight Chainsmokers!
Whatever happened to Eintopf-Sonntag?
THE TELEGRAPH: A new report has forced Germany to admit that many of its soldiers are not lean killing machines but overweight chainsmokers.

The government-sponsored study indicated that over 40 percent of German soldiers were overweight and 70 percent were heavy smokers who did not engage in regular exercise.

Almost nine percent of professional soldiers, some of whom are involved in dangerous overseas missions such as the one in Afghanistan, were found to be clinically obese. Over 27 percent admitted to never engaging in sports or other physical activities. 



Reinhold Robbe, the German Army Ombudsman, who coordinated the study and whose job is to provide civilian oversight of the armed forces, said: "Plainly put, the soldiers are too fat, do too little sport and take little care of their diet. The revelations are alarming." 



The study, published on Tuesday, sparked a public outcry and calls for a parliamentary debate. Its authors blame a "passive lifestyle" practiced in the Bundeswehr or the Federal Army, as well as a bad diet and a wrong approach to fitness and health.

Instead of fruits and vegetables, the soldiers' diet included fat-rich sausages, the preferred fast-food of Germans, as well as large quantities of beer. The bureaucracy troops were left to deal with on daily basis was also quoted as a factor that contributed to their "alarmingly" poor form. The new-look German army: Fat chainsmokers >>> By Bojan Pancevski in Vienna

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