In the last month there has been a great deal of concern about the “Eurocrisis” and the inability of the European political class to create a reliable system for the restructuring of European sovereign debt and the possibility of credit default of countries in the Eurozone. The possible default on the Greek debt and the needed restructuring of the Italian economy has led to widespread programs of austerity in those countries and in Spain, Ireland and Portugal and the replacement of Prime Ministers in Greece and Italy by the imposition of ‘technocrats’ to carry out the wishes of the  European Community.

However, it has not been the European Community behind these moves; it has been the tandem of Germany and France within the Eurozone which has made all the running on these processes – Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy in particular.  These two have been holding private summits to prepare the way for others to follow and have been issuing diktats on how other, once sovereign, nations should behave. This is a very unusual state of affairs in what purports to be a European democracy. However it is not out of character for the two perpetrators.

The Dynamic Duo

Angela Merkel has had a history of successful propaganda activities in ensuring an adherence to the East German party line as a Free Deutsche Youth (FDJ) “Agitprop” Secretary at the Academy of Sciences. This loyalty to the SED was not why the Germans voted her in as Chancellor of a CDU/CSU coalition, although there was some support from the ‘Ossies’ in her rise to power.. The weak position of her party alliance in Germany does not give her the absolute mandate to be an “Iron Chancellor”. She has to compromise with her several party factions and a recent history of mid-term election failures in the German regions. Among those who support her are security and intelligence officers not known for their fascination with democratic processes and include, as has been shown in the recent exposes of the “Comradeship Jena”, officers involved in a wide range of neo-Nazi activities; especially in Thuringia.

There is a very dark side to internal German politics and some of this dark side has been funded and protected by the Thuringia Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the local branch of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundes Verfassungsschutz – VS). The Thuringia Office for the Protection of the Constitution had, in fact, paid large amounts of DMs (in the six-digit range) to influential right-wing extremist militants. The militants used this money to set up neo-Nazi structures in Thuringia, including the "Thüringer Heimatschutz" (Thuringia Homeland Protection), an organization of violent neo-Nazis.

The members of the terror group, over the last 13 years murdered at least 10 Turkish and Greek immigrants, and carried out other violent crimes under the noses of German domestic intelligence agencies that were actively involved in building the broader far-right networks within which the Jena group operated. They are not the only ones who have their origins in this organization. Leading functionaries of today's extreme right are also coming from that organization, which has been officially disbanded, but is still at work in other structures. Today some of its militants, for example, are organizing neo-Nazi festivals with international participation aimed at networking the extreme right throughout Europe.[i]

The German security services’ ties to violent fascists underline the anti-democratic character of the ‘democratic’ state created after World War II. In the first years of the Cold War, as they fought the threat of socialist revolution in Europe, the Western powers recruited numerous ex-Nazi officials into the German state. Nowhere was this more the case than in the German intelligence service. Founded in 1950 by the Allies as an instrument of the Cold War, it employed large numbers of former Gestapo members, who saw Communists as their main enemy.

In 2009, under the headline “Brown Cellar Spirits,” the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote: “For many SS officers and Gestapo men, the formative years of the republic were a happy phase in the resumption of their old professions. Many of the men active in the persecution and mass killing machinery of Hitler succeeded in making the leap into the security agencies after 1949... In the federal central police force, the foreign intelligence service and also in the federal intelligence agency (BVS), old comrades of the Wehrmacht and the SS imparted elements of their Nazi ideology to operational style and training during the first 20 years.”

When the Allies returned the BVS to German government control in 1955, the Adenauer government selected Hubert Schrübbers—who had served the Nazi regime as an SA member and as attorney general—to run the agency. Under his supervision, many former SS members took leading posts in the BVS. Schrübbers was ultimately forced to resign in 1982, when details of his Nazi past came to light.[ii] Many of the others remain in place. Largely through German insistence the Greek government was removed and a new administration of ‘technocrats’ was installed.

This new “technocratic” regime in Greece includes several ministers of Greece’s fascistic LAOS party. As the right-wing New Democracy (ND) party takes control of the defence ministry and other key posts the Greeks now face a government that includes open supporters of the former military junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. This is strange democracy indeed.

If anything, Nicholas Sarkozy has even a worse record of death, destruction and meddling in his history. In his dealings in the Ivory Coast he forced the democratically-elected President from his seat and used his troops and helicopters to bombard the Presidential Palace, imprison the President and oversaw the wanton killing of over three thousand Ivoirian citizens, most of whom were unarmed. He supervised the subversion of national elections in Guinea, Chad, Togo, Gabon, and Benin and is now subverting the elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Not only is he restoring and maintaining French neo-colonialism in West Africa, he is collecting massive kickbacks from the African leaders who finance his campaigns and maintain his lifestyle. He is known in Africa as the ‘demented Hungarian dwarf’. He reached his apogee of interference in foreign affairs in his campaign against Gadhafi in Libya. There Sarkozy extended beyond any rational interpretation of the UN mandate for a ‘no-fly zone’ a policy of wanton bombing against Libyan civilians. When there was an arms embargo, France provided arms anyway. Sarkozy is a man with no scruples, no morals and no shame. He pretends to a world leadership position because of his perfidy. He may be vertically challenged and a foreigner but he is no Napoleon.

Fortunately for the Germans his European position is more on the Petain-wing of French nationalism than that of De Gaulle’s. For Sarkozy, the tandem he has established with the Germans is the kingpin in his foreign policy stance. This not entirely because he is a craven moral cripple, it is because France has run out of money and he is desperate that no one should find out in what a parlous state the French economy finds itself. France could not afford the luxury of killing Libyans. It had spent more than twice its defence budget in the first four months. It has been sheltered from financial collapse because the French Treasury holds the national reserves of its former colonies in Africa as a backing for the CFA currency which is tied to the Euro. About 80% of the African monetary reserves are banked with and controlled by the French Treasury and have been since 1960. Only nine Treasury officials know where this money is and its current value. The Africans don’t know and the French won’t answer their queries. Many African economists believe that this money has been put into French ‘gilts’ and is used as collateral against a wide range of French commercial investments and bank obligations. These have been dissipated in the decline of the Euro and the various bailouts. The Africans fear they will never see their money again. Sarkozy treads in fear that one day there must be an accounting and French credit will crack the BB- barrier.

Germany’s Worldwide Reach

One of the most enduring fictions about Germany is that it is an insular, hard-working nation concerned, ever since re-unification, with domestic and European projects. This is not true. Germany has involved itself across the globe, both militarily and politically. Despite the fact that the role of the Bundeswehr is described in the Constitution of Germany (Art. 87a) as absolutely defensive only it is active across the globe. After a ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court in 1994 the term "defence" has been defined to not only include protection of the borders of Germany, but also crisis reaction and conflict prevention, or more broadly as guarding the security of Germany anywhere in the world.. This has required the Bundeswehr to take part in operations outside of the borders of Germany, as part of NATO or the European Union or mandated by the UN. The impetus for this was the desire by Foreign Minister Genscher to support the breakup of Yugoslavia and to assist Croatia in the Croatian War of Independence after the attack on Vukovar by the Serbs. The Germans recognised that their old comrades of the Ustash (Croatian fascists who fought alongside the Waffen SS) were being threatened by their old enemies the Serbs (whom they had massacred and put in Croatian concentration camps during the war). The Germans pressured the other Europeans to support the German initiative and they found themselves at war in the Balkans. In Germany this counted as ‘defence’. It took the Americans and the Russians to remedy this doomed initiative. Since then the German troops have deployed around the world. As of this month German troops can be found at:

• Afghanistan -ISAF  4,925 personnel
• Kosovo - KFOR  1,535 personnel
• Bosnia and Herzegovina -  EUFOR (former SFOR) 110 personnel
• Horn of Africa/Indian Ocean
  • Operation Enduring Freedom / Operation Atalanta  295 personnel
  • Sudan – UNMIS 30 personnel
  • Lebanon – UNIFIL 235 personnel

To be fair, the Bundeswehr are at these places but they don’t actually fight, unless directly attacked. In the words of a U.S. Marine “They drink a lot of beer and stay out of trouble. They are like tits on a bull. They are there but serve no useful purpose”[i] They missed out on Iraq.

On the other hand the Germans have little to worry about when it comes to security or military preparedness. This comes to them free of charge from the US and the UK and has done so since 1945. Even after the reduction of forces in Germany after the Cold War, Britain still has over 56,000 personnel stationed in Germany. British Forces Germany (BFG) is the composite BFG Military and Civilian strengths name for the British Army, remaining elements of the Royal Air Force, family members and supporting civilian personnel stationed in Germany. The organisation is structured in two major commands, both located in North Rhine Westphalia. There are 23.000 in the Army’ 40,000 dependents; and 2,200 civilian staff.

The US has had a major military deployment in Germany. Before 1990 (re-unification) the US operated 37 Army bases and 10 Air force bases in Germany, costing almost USD $10 billion a year... After 1991 these numbers dropped. Now there remain 17 large bases and over 54,000 military personnel stationed in Germany. The US AFRICOM (Africa Command) is headquartered as well in Stuttgart. There are lots of tanks, artillery pieces and aircraft there with the military forces. The costs have dropped but are still substantial.

As a result of these foreign armies stationed in Germany the defence of Germany is a lot less costly than if the Germans had to pay for it all themselves. The German forces (and the other Europeans) are badly equipped with cargo transporters, as was found in Kosovo and Bosnia, and the lifting was done on US aircraft. Were it not for US aircraft the European armies would have to walk, swim or paddle to their battles. The united European Defence Force is not considered a major element in the defence of Europe. The Europeans are not willing or able to pay for their own defence.

However this has not deterred the Europeans, especially Germany, from attempting to play an active role in the governance of other nations weaker than they. The classic example is Greece. For years the German government has denigrated Greece and attacked it for its supposed profligacy. The German press has been full of contempt for Greek institutions and politics.

When the Germans entered Athens on April 27th 1941 they ordered Konstantinos Koukidis one of the evzones, the elite soldiers of the Greek army who are the guardians of the flag which flies over the Acropolis, to remove it. The soldier obeyed, then wrapped himself in the blue and white flag and leapt from the walls of the ancient fortress to his death. It was the first public act of resistance in the city. A few days later on the night of May 30th, Manolis Glezos and Apostolis Santas, both 18 years old, tore down the Nazi flag flying from the Acropolis. It was an act of courage and resistance to Nazi oppression that became an inspiration to all subjected people. It also foreshadowed that the occupiers would not have an easy time in Greece. (Glezos, who became a member of the Greek resistance, was condemned to death for treason in 1948 and imprisoned for being a communist. He is later was elected a member of the Pan Hellenic Socialist Party) In March 2010 several German politicians suggested that Greece sell the Acropolis, the Parthenon and a few islands to pay its debts. In addition to being deeply offensive, the wave of calumny from Germany about Greece and Greek institutions made the situation worse.

What the Germans chose to forget was that there are two museums in Berlin stuffed to the rafters with antiquities the Germans stole from Greece. More importantly, the Germans forgot that they still owed the Greeks a lot of money for reparations that they never paid and refused to pay.

Relatives of Greek Nazi victims have been trying since the 1990s to have their reparation demands met through legal action. Previous attempts to have Germany accept a negotiated settlement had failed. The relatives have adopted a two-fold legal action: one in Greece, the other in Germany, because Germany does not recognize Greek court rulings. In May 2000, the Supreme Court in Athens, the Areopag, ruled that in the Distomo case alone, the Federal Republic of Germany has to pay 28 Mio Euros in reparations (plus interest). Berlin refused and the Greek government had to intervene to prevent the foreclosure on German state property on Greek territory. In Italy, there is a similar case. The Berlusconi government had to intervene to prevent the foreclosure against German property in Italy, ruled admissible by the Italian Supreme Court - the Court of Cassation, in Rome in June 2008. The German judiciary has refused to admit lawsuits of the victims' relatives in Germany. The European Court of Human Rights has recently ruled in favour of Germany's position.

On December 23, 2003, Berlin filed a complaint against Italy with the objective of thwarting all future reparation procedures in other countries. The Federal Government  invoked  an alleged "state immunity," claiming that private persons cannot take legal action against sovereign actions of foreign states. This constitutes an affront to the highest courts of several EU member states by declaring their rulings are violations of international law. Berlin is also showing its intentions of becoming sacrosanct vis à vis foreign victims of the Nazis. This is essentially about murder, whose unjust nature has again become indisputable. As far as the Distomo massacre is concerned, the Nuremberg Military Tribunal, in its ruling on February 19, 1948, had already declared that "this has also been clear calculated murder." Even West German courts have adopted this position in principle, after the massacre had been characterized for a period of time as an admissible measure of retaliation. Nevertheless, the German government is still insisting on "immunity.

This has led to a great degree of hostility between Germany and both Greece and Italy. This was pronounced in the case heard this September in The Hague where Greece joined Italy in the effort to recover the reparations owed by Germany. There were anti-German demonstrations as the German government insisted on immunity for Nazi war crimes[ii]. If the German government is successful in The Hague, all hope of future reparations for victims of Nazi barbarism will be quashed. Both Berlusconi and Papandreou, however, are no longer in office.

Recently the Germans Chancellor Angela Merkel bluntly told Serbia that it must give up control of northern Kosovo if it wants to join the EU. Serbia has de facto control of an ethnic-Serb-dominated enclave in northern Kosovo. Merkel issued the ultimatum at a press conference with Serbian President Boris Tack in Belgrade on 23 August3020 during her first-ever state visit to the EU-aspirant country. "If Serbia wants to achieve [EU] candidate status it should resume the dialogue [with Kosovo] and achieve results in that dialogue, enable EUlex to work in all regions of Kosovo and abolish parallel structures and not create new ones," she said.[iii]

Germany continues to be a major worldwide arms supplier, especially in the Middle East. Through its companies like Siemens and Thyssen the Germans have been involved in massive corruption scandals in African dams, electronics, telephone sales and payoffs to African politicians. In Nigeria Siemens was shown to have paid USD$49 million in commissions to the President on one deal alone. German companies are enmired in corruption around the world. Lahmeyer International has been banned from Lesotho for bribing officials at the Lesotho High Water Dam project.

Even more importantly Germany interacts with the Third World through two major foundations; the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. These two charitable development foundations represent the two major political parties in Germany (Konrad Adenauer the CDU/CSU) and (Ebert the SPD). These channel foreign aid to the Third World, consult, run conferences, train foreigners and provide cover for German foreign intelligence operations. The Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) is a political foundation. In Germany, its offices abroad are in charge of more than 200 projects in more than 120 countries. The foundation’s headquarters are situated in Sankt Augustin near Bonn and in Berlin.

The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung is a non-profit German political foundation committed to the advancement of public policy issues through education, research, and international cooperation. The foundation, headquartered in Bonn and Berlin, was founded in 1925 and is named after Friedrich Ebert, Germany's first democratically elected president. Today, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation has six adult education centres and 13 regional offices throughout Germany, maintains branch offices in over 90 countries and carries out activities in more than 100 countries.

[i] “Government Development Aid for Neo-Nazis”, German Foreign Policy 16/11/11

[ii] “The German State and the Neo-Nazi Killings”,  Ulrich Rippert and Alex Lantier, WSWS 18 November 2011

[iii] “Germany – Sacrosanct, German Foreign Policy 12/9/11

[ix] Personal interview 12/3/11

[v] Germany Tells Serbia to Give Up Northern Kosovo, Andrew Rettman, EU Observer  25/8/11