Chemnitz protests - Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association

German spy scandal exposes deep divisions in Merkel government

Paul Carrel — Fri, 14 Sep 2018 07:57:03 +0000

BERLIN (Reuters) – A scandal over migrants being chased through the streets has exposed a rift between Angela Merkel and Germany’s security establishment that is dividing her coalition and hindering efforts to contain the fall-out from her “open door” refugee policy.

The crisis blew up when Hans-Georg Maassen, chief of the BfV intelligence agency, said he was not convinced far-right extremists had attacked migrants in the eastern city of Chemnitz last month and a video said to show the violence may be fake.

That put Maassen at odds with Merkel, who said the pictures “very clearly revealed hate” which could not be tolerated.

“For a more decisive chancellor, this would have been enough to fire him,” said Carsten Nickel at political consultancy Teneo Intelligence, adding that support for Maassen from Merkel’s conservative Bavarian allies was staying her hand.

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Now, Merkel is caught between her Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), which backs Maassen, and her other coalition partner, the left-leaning Social Democrats (SPD), who say he has lost credibility and must go.

The upshot is that the chancellor looks weak, her coalition is in crisis and she is less able to deal with pressing issues such as Brexit, European Union reform and trade problems with the United States.

“The migration issue will certainly continue to haunt Merkel until the end of her term,” said Nickel.

The Maassen row has its roots in Merkel’s 2015 decision to open Germany’s borders to refugees fleeing war in the Middle East. More than one million came in total.

“Maassen is not an isolated case. Maassen is part of the security community,” said Robin Alexander, author of ‘Die Getriebenen, or ‘Those Driven by Events’, an account of how Merkel and her lieutenants handled the refugee crisis.

“For this security community, autumn 2015 was a disaster – not just for Maassen, but for all of them,” he added. “There is a deep alienation of the whole security community from the chancellor, and that was not the case in Germany previously.”

FRUSTRATED SPIES

The rift opened up in October 2015, when Merkel put her chief of staff, Peter Altmaier, in charge of Germany’s response to the refugee crisis, with Emily Haber – a diplomat – acting as point person in the Interior Ministry.

That chain of command effectively shut out the security services, which couldn’t get face time with Merkel.

“That totally frustrated these people … they were horrified,” said Alexander.

In private, Maassen complained about the difficulty of keeping tabs on the refugees and assessing whether they posed a security risk.

His cause got a boost with the 2017 election, when the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) surged into parliament for the first time and Merkel had to reshuffle her government.

CSU leader Horst Seehofer, who had called Merkel’s handling of the refugee crisis a “reign of injustice”, was made interior minister. He gave Maassen political cover to push his security agenda, which he duly did.

In an interview with Reuters in January, Maassen, 55, called for a review of laws restricting the surveillance of minors to guard against the children of Islamist fighters returning to Germany as “sleeper agents” who could carry out attacks.

Maassen also clashed with other more circumspect government officials when he said Russia was the likely culprit behind cyber attacks on Germany.

SPOKE TOO SOON

Then came Chemnitz. This time, Maassen publicly questioned the authenticity of the video before his agency had finished its work on the incident.

“The bottom line is that he spoke before the agency finished its assessment,” said one source familiar with the issue.

In a Sept. 10 letter to the Interior Ministry, seen by Reuters, in which he explained his comments on Chemnitz, Maassen said he wanted to shed light on events after the state premier of Saxony, where the city is located, denied migrants had been hounded.

But the letter failed to draw a line under a scandal that has also revived questions about Maassen’s ties to the far-right AfD.

A former leader of the AfD’s youth wing, Franziska Schreiber, wrote in a book she published this year – “Inside AfD: The report of a drop-out” – that Maassen had advised ex-AfD leader Frauke Petry on how the party could avoid being put under surveillance by his agency. He has denied giving such counsel.

Fresh allegations arose on Thursday, when the BfV was forced to deny a report by public broadcaster ARD that Maassen had told an AfD lawmaker about parts of a report from his agency before it was published.

But Maassen has the backing of Seehofer, who said the intelligence chief “gave a convincing explanation of his actions” to a committee of lawmakers on Wednesday.

The SPD nonetheless called a crisis meeting of governing party leaders on Thursday.

Coalition sources said the decision by the leaders of the three ruling parties to adjourn the Thursday meeting until next Tuesday could mean they hope Maassen will voluntarily step down.

However, the situation could be complicated by a meeting of the CSU on Saturday. If it supports Seehofer’s decision to back Maassen and he does not quit, coalition leaders will be under pressure to take a decision on Tuesday.

Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal and Andreas Rinke; Editing by Giles Elgood

Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-protests-spy/german-spy-scandal-exposes-deep-divisions-in-merkel-government-idUSKCN1LU1NS

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Angela Merkel approval rating at all-time LOW amid migration row and VIOLENT riots

Matt Drake — Sun, 09 Sep 2018 08:41:50 +0000

ANGELA Merkel’s approval rating has dropped to an all-time low amid the ongoing row over migration policy and a spate of violent far-right protests in Chemnitz.

Support for Germany’s grand coalition between Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc and the Social Democrats has fallen to an all-time low, Bild am Sonntag reports.

The ruling Christian Democrats and their Bavarian counterparts, the Christian Social Union, had their approval rating fall one percentage points to 29 percent while support for the Social Democrats dropped by two percentage points to 17 percent – a poll in the German paper reveals.

Both parties’ combined 46 percent marks a record low for the coalition.

But Merkel has suffered a series of political setbacks over migration and protests.

Riots in Chemnitz, Eastern Germany, began after a man was stabbed to death, allegedly by two immigrants.

The poll is based on opinions of 2,472 German voters between August 30 and September 5.

They found support for the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party remained unchanged at 15 percent.

Far-left party Die Linke saw a boost of 1 percentage point, polling at 10 percent.

Both parties’combined 46 percent marks a record low for the coalition (Image: GETTY)

Merkel has suffered a series of political setbacks over migration and protests (Image: GETTY)

Germany’s interior minister put pressure on Angela Merkel by describing the migrant crisis as the “mother of all political problems”.

In a shock warning, he said voters risked turning towards far-right parties if the government was not seen to be tackling the issue.

The hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has repeatedly railed against Mrs Merkel’s open-door immigration policy introduced in 2015.

Mr Seehofer said: “The migration issue is the mother of all political problems in this country. I have been saying this for three years.

The riots in Chemnitz, Eastern Germany, began after a man was stabbed to death (Image: GETTY)

“This is confirmed by many surveys – many people now associate their social concerns with the migration issue.”

But Angela Merkel shrugged off his outspoken remarks, telling the RTL broadcaster: “I say it differently.

“Migration presents us with challenges and here we have problems but also successes.”

Source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1015154/angela-merkel-germany-migration-riots-chemnitz-afd-christian-democrats

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Chemnitz Protests Show New Strength of Germany’s Far Right

Katrin Bennhold - New York Times — Thu, 30 Aug 2018 22:27:53 +0000

CHEMNITZ, Germany — Waving German flags, with some flashing Nazi salutes, the angry mob made its way through the streets, chasing after dark-skinned bystanders as police officers, vastly outnumbered, were too afraid to intervene.

A Syrian refugee and father of two, Anas al-Nahlawie, watched horrified from a friend’s fourth-floor balcony. They were hunting in packs for immigrants just like him, he said. “Like wolves.”

For a few perilous hours over two days this week, the mob owned the streets of Chemnitz, where anger exploded after word spread that an Iraqi and a Syrian asylum seeker were suspected in a knife attack that killed a German man early Sunday.

Chemnitz, a city of some 250,000 in eastern Germany, has a history of neo-Nazi protests. Usually they draw a few hundred from the fringes of society — and far larger counter-demonstrations, city officials say. The crowd this time was 8,000-strong. Led by several hundred identifiable neo-Nazis, it appeared to be joined by thousands of ordinary citizens. More marches are planned Saturday.

The city had never seen anything like this — and, to some degree, neither had post-World War II Germany. The rampage now stands as a high-water mark in the outpouring of anti-immigrant hatred that has swelled as Germany struggles to absorb the nearly one million asylum seekers who arrived in the country after Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to open the borders in 2015.

That decision sharply divided Germany, with critics soon arguing that Ms. Merkel’s administration had lost control of the situation. Three years later, what the government is struggling to control is an anti-immigrant backlash.

Neo-Nazis are growing bolder and stronger, and they are better organized, officials and sociologists say. The far-right Alternative for Germany party is a growing power in Parliament — another shock to the system — and has started to normalize angry sentiments about immigrants that before would not have been uttered aloud, bringing them into the mainstream.

In the face of this newly assertive far right, Chemnitz has become a test of state authority. Some say it has even become a test of Germany’s postwar democracy.

“They are challenging our democratic state in a way they have not done before,” said Barbara Ludwig, the mayor of Chemnitz, a Social Democrat, sitting in her second-floor city hall office one recent morning. “We must pass this test.”

Chemnitz Germany [red dot]

By New York Times

That is precisely what the groups behind this week’s disorder see: A pivotal moment they want to use to change the direction of Germany.

Benjamin Jahn Zschocke, 32, a leading member of Pro Chemnitz, the nationalist citizens’ movement that registered Monday’s march, described the week’s events as a turning point and drew two historical parallels.

Just as the death of a student demonstrator in 1967 set off widespread rioting and ultimately a student revolt that marked the beginning of the liberal progressive era in West Germany, the murder in Chemnitz would mark the beginning of a period of far-right resistance, he predicted.

And just as in 1989, when thousands — including his own parents — took to the streets to demand the end of Communism, this week’s marches were aimed at bringing down a “failed system,” he said.

“People were sick of the system then and now they are sick of the system again,” he said, adding that he had never voted and did not believe in parliamentary democracy.

Mayor Ludwig says the comparison hurts. She, too, marched in 1989. “But we marched for law and order, for democracy, for freedom of speech,” she said. “They want to undermine all of these institutions and are instrumentalizing people’s grief over the terrible murder of a young man.”

A thriving industrial hub in the 19th century, Chemnitz was badly damaged during World War II, then rebuilt as a model socialist city under East Germany’s Communist regime and temporarily renamed Karl-Marx-Town.

The 7-meter-tall bronze head of Marx in the city center was once a rallying point for demonstrations that took place each Monday to demand the end of Communism; this week it was the rallying point of the far right.

Neo-Nazis have a long tradition of holding demonstrations in Chemnitz, the mayor said. For years they would take to the streets on March 5, mourning the day the city was bombed by allied forces in 1945. “But they were always in the hundreds, and the counter-demonstration was always bigger,” Ms. Ludwig said.

This week was different.

“This mix of far-right extremists and AfD voters was new,” said Hajo Funke, a political scientist at the Free University of Berlin and a veteran expert of the far right.

Benjamin Jahn Zschocke, a member of Pro Chemnitz, a nationalist group, described the clashes as a turning point for the country.Credit Sean Gallup/Getty Images

The Alternative for Germany garnered 27 percent in the eastern state of Saxony, where Chemnitz is located, in last year’s national election. Empowered by that success, far-right activists have been able to channel the fears and discontent of voters and, often using social media, mobilize crowds that a few years ago would have been unthinkable, Mr. Funke said.

The events in Chemnitz, analysts say, showcase the symbiotic relationship between the neo-Nazis and the Alternative for Germany, which officially distances itself from such groups.

The party has done a lot to normalize the language of the far right. If the slogans heard on the streets of Chemnitz this week — from “lying press” to “Germany for the Germans” — have lost their shock value, it is because variations of them are now regularly heard in Parliament.

“We have a strong neo-Nazi scene in eastern Germany, but we also have a strong current of far-right extremism in all of Germany — not just in Parliament but in society,” said Matthias Quent, who runs an institute that studies democracy and civil society in the eastern state of Thuringia.

That is why the far right is so self-confident, he said: “They think their day has come.”

Social media played a significant role in mobilizing the mobs.

Within hours of the stabbing last Sunday, soccer hooligans with links to the neo-Nazis posted an appeal online: “Let’s show together who has the say in this city.”

Soon rumors started circulating. The victim had been defending a woman who had been molested by the killer. A second victim had died in hospital. Neither was true. But within a few hours, some 800 protesters were on the streets, outnumbering the police 10 to one.

The AfD was quick to chime in. “When the state can’t protect its citizens anymore, the citizens take to the street and protect themselves,” Markus Frohnmaier, a lawmaker for the party, said in a Twitter post. “Today it is a citizen’s duty to stop the deadly ‘knife migration!’ ”

On Monday, the number of protesters grew tenfold, again catching the police unprepared and again making national headlines with riotous scenes of street battles. Another march on Thursday was much smaller, and largely calm, after the local police were reinforced with federal units.

The mass mobilizations highlight worrying new gains for an extremist fringe that for many years was underestimated and — some say willfully — neglected by the German authorities.

A memorial for the victim of a stabbing in Chemnitz.CreditOdd Andersen/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The feeling of insecurity was palpable this week in Chemnitz across neighborhoods and communities.

At the scene of Sunday’s murder, a stone’s throw from City Hall, Wolfgang Grosser, 61, and his wife, Sabine, were lighting a candle. They had known the victim. He was a friend of their son’s, and once helped them move house.

“He did not deserve this,” Mr. Grosser said. “He was the nicest possible human being.”

“We don’t feel safe in our own city anymore,” he said to the bitter nods of bystanders.

“No one bothers calling the police anymore,” Mr. Grosser said. “They are totally overwhelmed and don’t come anyway. So what’s the point?”

It is a feeling shared by refugees in Chemnitz.

Mahmoud, a 19-year-old Syrian, who declined to give his last name for fear of being targeted by the far right, said the manhunts witnessed on the streets of Chemnitz in recent days were “nothing unusual.”

“I have been chased before, and so have my friends,” he said. “Once we called the police, but nothing happened. So the next time we didn’t.”

Some accused the authorities of leaking sensitive information about the suspects to the far right. On Tuesday night, the arrest warrant for one of the murder suspects was posted online by three far-right groups. It gave the full names of the suspects, the victim, witnesses and the judge involved.

On Thursday, a corrections officer admitted to sending the warrant to Pro Chemnitz, according to the German media, and was suspended from his duties.

After the first round of violence on Sunday, refugee organizations warned migrants to stay inside.

Mr. Nahlawie said he had heeded the call. But one of his neighbors, a Bulgarian, did not. He was sitting in a cafe with his family on Sunday afternoon, he said, when he suddenly found a knife at the back of his neck.

The police swiftly intervened.

Still, Mr. Nahlawie says, he worries. When he fled the war in Syria in 2015, he took his wife and young children to Germany — and to safety. Or so he thought.

“I’m again afraid for my family,” he said.

Christopher F. Schuetze and Karam Shoumali contributed reporting from Berlin.

A version of this article appears in print on Aug. 30, 2018, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Mob Protests in Germany Show Vigor of Far Right. Order Reprints

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/world/europe/germany-neo-nazi-protests-chemnitz.html

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