Germany at Heart of Europe"s Political Predicament; Squaring the Circle; When is the Breaking Point?

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Germany at Heart of Europe"s Political Predicament; Squaring the Circle; When is the Breaking Point?

Germany, France to mastermind European data network – bypassing US

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel and France’s President Francois Hollande (R) (Reuters / Francois Lenoir)

Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande will review plans to build up a trustworthy data protection network in Europe. The challenge is to avoid data passing through the US after revelations of mass NSA spying in Germany and France.

Merkel has been one of the biggest supporters of greater data protection in Europe since the revelations that the US tapped her phone emerged in a Der Spiegel news report in October, based on information leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Earlier, France learned from reports in Le Monde that the NSA has also been recording dozens of millions of French phone calls, including those of the French authorities. According to the report, in just one month between December 10, 2012 and January 8, 2013, the NSA recorded a total of 70.3 million French phone calls.

Meanwhile, according to the Snowden revelations, the German Chancellor’s mobile phone has been on an NSA target list since 2002 and was codenamed “GE Chancellor Merkel.” The monitoring operation was allegedly still in force even a few weeks before US President Barack Obama’s visit to Berlin in June 2013.

Washington has denied it monitored Merkel’s personal phone, insisting that its surveillance practices are focused on threats to national security, namely terrorism. Merkel, who grew up in East Germany, where phone tapping was common practice, compared the NSA’s spying to that of the Stasi secret police in the former German Democratic Republic, and accused the US of a grave breach of trust. According to polls, the Germans have lost confidence in the US as a trustworthy partner, and a majority of Germans consider Edward Snowden a hero. It’s believed that his revelations have hit Berlin particularly hard since Germany is not a member of the so-called “Five Eyes’ intelligence alliance which includes NSA-equivalent agencies in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, exchanging intelligence with each other on a regular basis.

In the wake of the revelations about US global spying activities, the German government has made it mandatory for ministers to use encryption on their phones to secure their communications against intrusion. Berlin has also prohibited the use of iPhones for official business, as they are not compatible with encryption.

France and Germany have been seeking bilateral talks with the United States to discuss the issue of the snooping, with Merkel’s government pressing for a “no spying” agreement with Washington. Negotiations on an anti-spying agreement began in August 2013, but the US has been reluctant to sign such a deal, Süddeutsche Zeitung reported in mid-January, citing a Federal Intelligence Service (BND) employee as saying: “We’re getting nothing.”

Merkel, who is due to visit France on Wednesday, said in her weekly podcast that she disapproved of companies such as Google and Facebook, basing their operations in countries with low levels of data protection, while in reality being active in countries with high data protection.

“Above all, we’ll talk about European providers that offer security for our citizens, so that one shouldn’t have to send emails and other information across the Atlantic. Rather, one could build up a communication network inside Europe,” she said.

Hollande’s office said France agrees with Berlin’s proposals, Reuters reported, citing an official as saying: “Now that the German government is formed, it is important that we take up the initiative together.”

Source: RT

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Germany, France to mastermind European data network – bypassing US

Miley Cyrus Shows More Nipple In Vogue Germany And In W Magazine Outtakes

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Bright UFO over Bremen, Germany on 01/06/2014

UFO Update – Featured videos:

World War II-era bomb explodes in Germany, killing 1 (VIDEO)

The driver of an excavator was killed, and 13 other people injured when a World War II-era bomb blew up during earthworks in Germany on Friday, police said.

The blast wave from the sleeper bomb blew out nearby house and car windows, ripped off roof tiles and could be felt several miles away, said police and residents.

The incident, in which two of the wounded suffered serious injuries, shook an industrial area in the town of Euskirchen near the former capital Bonn in western Germany.

“During earth works an excavator hit a World War II bomb which exploded,” a local police spokesman told AFP, adding that the type of munition was still being investigated.

“There was a huge blast wave. In the vicinity of the accident site and surrounding streets, home windows shattered and garage doors were pushed in.”

The ground below many Germany cities still contains unexploded ordnance dropped by Allied and Soviet forces in the Second World War, but most is safely defused when found.

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World War II-era bomb explodes in Germany, killing 1 (VIDEO)

VIDEO: New Year"s Fireworks From Around the World

Remember that in other parts of the world it is already 2014. See fireworks shows from New Year’s Eve celebrations around the world. (Photo: AP)

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Germany wants to charge US-based former SS commander ‘Wolf’ with murder

Germany wants to charge US-based former SS commander ‘Wolf’ with murder
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Published time: November 18, 2013 17:20

Michael Karkoc, AKA ‘Wolf’.

A German prosecutor responsible for hunting down war criminals says murder charges should be filed against 94-year-old Minnesota resident, Michael Karkoc. Mounting evidence suggests the ethnic Ukrainian ordered a village to be burned in 1944.

“We have determined the requirements for murder charges are there,” said a statement from federal prosecutor, Thomas Will. The official will now pass the dossier on Karkoc, who has lived in the US for over 60 years, to state prosecutors, who will decide whether to file charges and request extradition of the former Nazi collaborator.

The news has emerged on the same day as the AP news agency published yet another eyewitness report from a former Karkoc underling, who described his superior ordering SS-collaborator troops to kill over forty people in the village of Chlaniow, as retribution for the killing of a German SS commander.

Karkoc’s family has repeatedly denied the charges.

Michael Karkoc was born in 1919 in Lutsk, currently in western Ukraine, but then a part of Poland. Following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which carved up Poland between the USSR and Germany, Lutsk was annexed by Soviet troops in 1939.

When Germany invaded the territory during its subsequent war with the Soviet Union, Karkoc, whose combat name was Wolf, first fought for the Germans and then he formed a company in the Ukrainian Self-Defense Legion (USDL).

The SS-directed collaboration unit was engaged in local policing and suppressing anti-Nazi resistance.

In the summer of 1944, resistance fighters killed USDL commander Siegfried Assmuss (who Karkoc described as “irreplaceable” in his memoirs). Ivan Sharko, a soldier who served under Karkoc, told Soviet investigators what happened next, in a 1968-dated file uncovered by AP in the archives of a Ukrainian prosecutor’s office.

“The commander of our company, Wolf, gave the order to cordon off the village [Chlaniow] and check all the houses, and to find and punish the partisans,” said Sharko.

“The legionaries surrounded the homes, set fire to them with matches, or with incendiary bullets, and they shot anyone who was found in the homes or anywhere in the streets. Most of the houses were burned as a result of this action. How many people were killed in all, I don’t know. I personally saw three corpses of peaceful inhabitants who had been killed.”

Between 40 and 80 people are estimated to have died in the massacre, many of them women and children. The testimony matches that of another private in Karkoc’s unit, Vasyl Malazhenski, who told Soviet investigators in 1944 that Karkoc ordered his men to “liquidate all the residents” of Chlaniow.

The interview with Sharko, who died nearly 30 years ago, also links the unit with another “punitive action” in Sagryn the same year. Previous civilian accounts also claimed that Karkoc’s company killed over 20 people in the settlement of Pidhaitsi the year before.

Following the war, Karkoc emigrated to the United States, and took up carpentry, spending the next fifty years living quietly in Minneapolis. On his residency application in 1949 he stated that he performed no military service at all.

Nonetheless, he did little to hide his past. In the mid-1990s he published a memoir, proudly detailing his fights against “Communists”, though he did not describe the murders of any civilians. He has also visited Ukraine, where he was warmly received by nationalists, who see the USDL as part of a struggle against Soviet imperialism.

Since the accusations surfaced this summer, his family has refused to let the media speak to Karkoc.

When presented with the latest testimony from Sharko by AP, Karkoc’s son, Andriy, challenged the reporters to produce more substantial evidence, and called the massacre account “a defamatory and slanderous allegation.”

The United States does not customarily conduct trials of war criminals, though it has previously extradited them to countries such as Poland, Israel and Germany, which still vigorously prosecute World War II participants, no matter how old, as a matter of principle.

Lying on his initial application form could be legally sufficient to earn Karkoc deportation. Alleged Nazi concentration camp guard John Demjanjuk was extradited to Israel on this basis, but after decades of court proceedings in several countries, he died last year. As his appeal to a German court had still not been heard at the time of his death, he was technically never proven guilty.

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Germany, under pressure, speeds investigation of Nazi-looted art

By Erik Kirschbaum

BERLIN Sun Nov 10, 2013 10:57am EST

1 of 8. File photo of a print of the painting ‘Lion-Tamer’ by artist Max Beckmann is displayed in a book about the German expressionist at Lempertz auction house in Cologne November 4, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Wolfgang Rattay/Files

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany, under pressure to hasten inquiries into Nazi-looted art works stashed in a recluse’s flat, has sent legal experts to help local authorities in Munich resolve myriad ownership issues, Focus magazine reported on Sunday.

The federal government’s intervention follows criticism that authorities stayed silent too long about 1,406 art works by European masters they stumbled upon last year.

Focus, based in Munich, said the government sent “several staffers” to the Bavaria justice ministry on Friday.

“The federal government is working hard to ensure that information about the confiscated works of art is made available as there are now indications that Nazi persecution could be involved,” Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert said the same day.

Focus, which broke the Nazi art story a week ago, also said on Sunday customs experts believe some of the art cannot be legally returned to its original owners because it came from state museums – and restitution claims would likely fail.

Customs officials seized the paintings, sketches and sculptures from Cornelius Gurlitt in February 2012. They were hoarded by his father Hildebrand, a war-era art dealer put in charge of selling “degenerate” art by Adolf Hitler.

“A large portion of Hildebrand Gurlitt’s treasure confiscated from his son can probably not be returned to the rightful owners,” Focus magazine said, quoting from an internal customs office analysis made for the Finance Ministry that refers to 315 pieces of the “degenerate” art work found.

The legal status of the art remains murky and disputed nearly 70 years after World War Two. Some legal experts say Gurlitt may even get to keep it but others say Germany could nullify his ownership under the 1998 Washington Declaration, a set of principles for dealing with looted art.

The secrecy and the delay in publishing an inventory of the works, estimated to be worth up to 1 billion euros ($ 1.34 billion), has been criticized by those who say that publicizing such finds is vital to finding their rightful owners.

The Nazis plundered hundreds of thousands of art works from museums and individuals across Europe. Many are still missing.

The Munich trove been hailed as one of the most significant discoveries of looted art, fuelling speculation about its provenance and claims from heirs of Jewish collectors who were robbed, dispossessed or murdered by the Nazis.

The 79-year-old recluse at the centre of the mystery, Cornelius Gurlitt, has vanished. He has not been charged but has been under investigation for tax evasion and concealment.

On Sunday Bild am Sonntag newspaper said Gurlitt had been seen near his Munich apartment last Monday. Der Spiegel news magazine said it had received a confused-sounding letter signed by Gurlitt dated November 4 asking that it not use his name.

“The good news is about that is that Cornelius Gurlitt alive,” Der Spiegel wrote.

Separately, German authorities confiscated 22 paintings on Saturday from the house of Gurlitt’s brother-in-law Nikolaus Fraessle near Stuttgart, Bild am Sonntag said, after Fraessle called police himself to hand the art works over.

The federal government, which ordinarily leaves such cases to state justice officials, stepped up its involvement after the United States asked it to publish a list of the art works.

Focus quoted German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle as saying he was taking a personal interest in the case and that behind many of the paintings found “are quite likely dramatic stories of people pressured and persecuted” by the Nazis.

The apparent official reluctance to publish an inventory infuriated families whose ancestors were robbed by the Nazis.

Charlotte Knobloch, a leader of the German Jewish community in Munich, said it was bad enough that the looted art had not been returned sooner, but it would be a scandal if it turned out officials had wasted 18 months since its discovery.

“It can’t be possible that the injustices of the past are compounded now,” she said, appealing to Merkel to take charge.

(Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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Germany, under pressure, speeds investigation of Nazi-looted art

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Germany Creates 3rd Gender

(Newser) – Baby boy or baby girl? As of today, parents in Germany have the option of choosing neither, leaving the gender spot on their newborn’s birth certificate blank if the baby’s sex can’t be determined. As many as one in 2,000 people are born with ambiguous genitalia, and the new law basically creates a third gender category for “indeterminate” or “intersex” people, the BBC reports. Currently, passport holders in the country are listed as either M (male) or F (female); with this change, a third option will be added: X (intersex). Individuals whose gender is left blank at birth can choose later to become male or female, or can remain intersex, Der Spiegel reports.

Germany, the first European country to make such an allowance, reviewed cases of intersex babies and found that many who were subjected to sex assignment surgery at a young age ended up unhappy. The law is an attempt to relax the pressure on parents, who may feel forced to make a quick decision about gender and surgery. But the Wall Street Journal explains the law’s wording could actually have the unplanned effect of pushing parents toward surgery. It reads that if a male or female gender can’t be assigned, the child “shall be entered without such information in the register of births.” Some fear that might lead stigma-wary parents to request surgery that would allow for a definitive determination of sex. Another fear: that intersex people won’t have “a space … to be themselves,” as one LGBT activist points out to AFP, noting that schools separate things like bathrooms and sports activities by gender.

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Germany Creates 3rd Gender

VIDEO: Imprisoned by the Stasi, back to tell his story

Before the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, East Germany jailed thousands for crimes against the state, including distributing banned books. We introduce you to one former prisoner and how he exacted some small revenge years later.

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Merkel"s Germany Necklace" clear winner of debate on Twitter

A TV duel of German Chancellor Angela Merkel of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) with her challenger, the top candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the upcoming German general elections Peer Steinbrueck, is shown on a screen in Berlin, September 1, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Fabrizio Bensch

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Merkel"s Germany Necklace" clear winner of debate on Twitter

VIDEO: GAME OF THRONES DRAGONS EFFECTS EXCLUSIVE - WIRED DESIGN FX

Daenerys Targaryen’s dragons on HBO’s Games of Thrones are fan favorites, and WIRED has an incredible, exclusive look at how they were brought to life with feature film quality by the visual effects artists at Pixmondo. Virtual wind tunnels, water simulations and real world references all played a part in constructing their realistic behaviors.

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Germany, France pull euro zone out of recession

France’s President Francois Hollande (R) and German Chancellor Angela Merkel attend a joint news conference at the Elysee Palace in Paris, May 30, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Charles Platiau

By Martin Santa

BRUSSELS | Wed Aug 14, 2013 3:38am EDT

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The euro zone’s two biggest economies, Germany and France, both grew more than forecast in the second quarter, reinforcing expectations that data later on Wednesday will show the currency bloc has moved out of recession.

The German economy grew by 0.7 percent in the second quarter of 2013, its largest expansion in more than a year, thanks largely to domestic private and public consumption.

France’s economy expanded 0.5 percent, pulling out of a shallow recession to post its strongest quarterly growth since early 2011. The expansion was driven by consumer spending and industrial output, although investment dropped again.

Overall euro zone figures due at 0900 GMT (4:00 a.m. EDT) are likely to show the euro zone economy grew in the three months to June, moving out of recession after seven quarters.

“The euro zone is set for a gradual economic recovery, helped by a sharp slowing in the pace of austerity, an acceleration in global demand growth and a sustained easing of uncertainty and financial stress,” said ABN AMRO’s head of macro research Nick Kounis, adding that a number of drags on growth remain.

A Reuters poll taken before the German and French releases forecast an expansion of 0.2 percent in the second quarter, the same amount the 18-nation bloc’s economy shrank by in Q1.

The overall picture is likely to be mixed, as peripheral countries such as Spain, Greece and Portugal continue to struggle with high double-digit unemployment, on-and-off political rows and painful austerity.

The Reuters poll, published on Tuesday, suggested the euro zone economy is not likely to gain real momentum before 2015, with quarterly growth not seen exceeding 0.4 percent before then despite recent signs of improvement.

Euro zone industrial production rose in April and June, construction output picked up after a weak first quarter hit by bad weather and joblessness fell for the first time in more than two years in June.

“I suspect there was likely a modest overall pick-up in consumer spending, given improved confidence, moderate inflation and slowing job losses,” said Howard Archer, chief European economist at IHS.

“Business investment also likely fell at a reduced rate given improved business confidence and the fact that it has fallen markedly for an extended period.”

The European Central Bank has said it will keep interest rates at record lows for an extended period of time to assist the fragile recovery.

UNEVEN, BUMPY RECOVERY AHEAD

Recent economic data and sentiment surveys had suggested the German economy was picking up after contracting in late 2012 and a weak start to 2013.

But look south and there is a different picture.

The International Monetary Fund said earlier this month that Madrid’s reform progress, fiscal consolidation and crackdown on external imbalances were bearing fruit, but that urgent action was needed to create jobs and stimulate growth.

The scope and form of the austerity drive in the European Union is now changing. Policymakers still say adjustments in excessive deficits and high debt are essential. But they now emphasize that any action taken must not choke growth and must help create jobs.

ECB President Mario Draghi said this month that labor market conditions remained weak, though he expected the bloc’s growth to benefit from a gradual recovery in global demand.

“Overall, euro area economic activity should stabilize and recover at a slow pace. The risks surrounding the economic outlook for the euro area continue to be on the downside,” Draghi said after the ECB rate meeting on August 1.

(Writing by Catherine Evans; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt and Toby Chopra)

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Germany, France pull euro zone out of recession

VIDEO: Floods hit profits at Munich Re

German reinsurer Munich Re says first-quarter net profit fell 33%, as losses from floods in central Europe weighed on earnings.

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Germany learning to open arms to immigrants

BERLIN (Reuters) – Ata Ucertas, a doctor from Istanbul with a moustache that curls up his cheeks, was welcomed with open arms when he came to Germany this year, evidence of a shift in German attitudes as its population shrinks and labor becomes scarce.

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Germany learning to open arms to immigrants

Report links Germany to NSA

Michael Dalder / REUTERS

A former monitoring base of the U.S. National Security Agency in Bad Aibling south of Munich, Germany, is seen in a July 10 photo. Chancellor Angela Merkel has defended Germany’s cooperation with U.S. intelligence, dismissing comparisons of its techniques to those used in communist East Germany.

By Andrew Rafferty, Staff Writer, NBC News

German intelligence agencies have used a secret National Security Agency program as part of a U.S. effort to detect possible terrorist activities across the globe, the German magazine Der Spiegel reported Saturday.

Germany’s foreign intelligence service and its domestic intelligence agency were equipped with a program called XKeyScore that, according to documents seen by Der Spiegel reporters, was meant to “expand their ability to support NSA as we jointly prosecute CT [counter-terrorism] targets.”

The German news outlet reported that a 2008 NSA presentation described the program as an effective espionage tool that gathers metadata and can retroactively reveal any terms a target has typed into an online search engine.

The program is also capable of receiving all unfiltered data that a target has accessed over several days, including, in part, the content of communications, the magazine said.

---

Der Spiegel reported that documents reviewed by its writers said Germany has shown an “eagerness and desire” to aid in U.S. global intelligence gathering efforts.

Another document describes Germany’s foreign intelligence service as the NSA’s “most prolific partner” in its intelligence gathering efforts.

The German intelligence agencies and NSA declined to comment to Der Spiegel when asked about the newly reported revelations.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said the country is not a “surveillance state” and has pushed back on questions on whether Germany engages in the broad sweeping intelligence gathering programs that alleged NSA leaker Edward Snowden has revealed to the media.

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VIDEO: Latest Business News: ECB "looking Carefully" at Forward Guidance: Report

ECB ‘looking carefully’ at forward guidance: report. France to seek 14 billion euros in cuts next year. German finance minister slams Irish bankers as ‘aloof super humans’

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Germany investigates commander of Nazi-led unit

BERLIN (AP) — German prosecutors said Monday that they opened a formal preliminary investigation of a Minnesota man who was a commander of a Nazi-led unit during World War II, to determine whether there is enough evidence to bring charges and seek his extradition.

The Associated Press found that 94-year-old Michael Karkoc entered the U.S. in 1949 by lying to American authorities about his role in the SS-led Ukrainian Self Defense Legion, which is accused of torching villages and killing civilians in Poland. AP’s evidence indicates that Karkoc was in the area of the massacres, although no records link him directly to atrocities.

Kurt Schrimm, the head of the special German prosecutors’ office responsible for investigating Nazi-era crimes, said prosecutors “have opened a preliminary investigation procedure to examine the matter (and) seek documentation.” It was unclear how long their examination might take.

Schrimm’s office is responsible for determining whether there is enough evidence against alleged Nazi war criminals for state prosecutors to proceed with a full investigation and possible charges. The only charges that can be brought in such cases are murder and accessory to murder, as all other offenses fall under the statute of limitations under German law.

Germany has taken the position that people involved in Nazi crimes must be prosecuted, no matter how old or infirm, as it did in the case of retired Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk, who died last year at age 91 while appealing his conviction as a guard at the Sobibor death camp.

Poland’s National Remembrance Institute, which investigates Nazi and Soviet crimes, has said prosecutors are reviewing files on Karkoc’s unit for any evidence that would justify charges and an extradition request.

It says the files were gathered during separate investigations into the killings of civilians in the village of Chlaniow, in southeastern Poland, and into Nazi suppression of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising against German occupation. The AP found documentation showing that Karkoc’s unit was involved in both.

Karkoc told U.S. authorities in 1949 that he had performed no military service during World War II, according to records obtained by the AP through a Freedom of Information Act request

The U.S. Department of Justice has used lies in immigration papers to deport dozens of suspected Nazi war criminals. But the department had no comment on the German decision to investigate Karkoc when contacted Monday by AP in Washington.

Karkoc’s son, Andriy Karkos, has said that his father “was never a Nazi,” and pointed to the portion of the AP story that said records don’t show Karkoc had a direct hand in war crimes. He has said the family won’t comment further until it has obtained its own documents and reviewed witnesses and sources.

A woman who answered the phone at Karkoc’s Minneapolis home Monday refused to comment when a reporter from the AP made contact.

__

Associated Press correspondent Doug Glass contributed to this report from Minneapolis.

Associated Press

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Germany investigates commander of Nazi-led unit