Present-day politics in Germany.

US to force Germany into unhappy marriage with unloved chancellor, by Dmitry Bavyrin for RiaNovosti. 09.22.2024.

It is easier to guess the name of the next German chancellor than the next US president. If everything goes on as usual, Kamala Harris will become president. If another economic "bubble" bursts, Donald Trump will take revenge. But both have a chance.

But you don't even have to guess the name of the German Chancellor. Even though there's still a year until the elections, and a lot will have time to change, his name is Friedrich Merz , the leader of the CDU party . He will head the German government regardless of whether the Germans want it or not.

They don't want to, by the way. According to opinion polls, less than 20% of German citizens name Merz as a suitable chancellor. But there is no choice, even if the procedure is formally connected with elections.

Everything was decided when Merz's potential rivals within the party renounced their claims to power in his favor. At that moment, in the Berlin district of Dorothea, an old lady known to everyone as Angela Merkel sighed sadly . She is one of those Germans who cannot stand Merz.

It is difficult to like him in principle. Firstly, Merz is unbearably boring. Murderously tedious. Outdated in every way. Take a dusty doll out of grandma's chest and hand it to a modern child - you will get the average reaction of the German voter to Friedrich Merz, even if there are still some fans of the old days among them.

To be fair, charisma is not the most important thing for a German politician. Having been burned by the rabid charisma of the thirties and forties, the Germans have sincerely come to love office boredom and are not upset if their leader is as charming as a cabbage. Both the current Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his predecessor Merkel lack charisma. Frau Chancellor successfully exploited the image of the all-German mother or grandmother, and mothers and grandmothers are loved regardless of whether they have charisma or not.

The country was touched, for example, by grandma's modesty: all the years of Merkel's chancellorship she lived in her small apartment in Dorothea. Merz is a multimillionaire with two private jets, which he manages himself. But even while managing his private jets, he manages to remain boring.

For a German politician of his stature (the future chancellor is no joke!) he is unique in that he has no experience in public administration, which has not happened to chancellors since the time of that same rabid charismatic. Merz became an MP and an expensive lawyer early on, is known as a brilliant financial specialist and a talented legislator, but has never risen to power. Because as a politician, Merz is a chronic loser.

Merz passionately fought with Merkel for power in the party, representing the conservative wing. The conservative wing of the CDU is distinguished by a caricatured hatred of communism and extreme liberalism in the economy, which in the modern world only suits Trump. Merkel herself had a leftist bias. She tried to please all the moderates, succeeded in this - and ate Merz. He could not bear the defeat and left politics for many years, announcing his return only when Merkel herself announced her retirement.

Upon his return, Merz lost the fight for the party leadership to two successors of Merkel in a row. And only after the CDU lost power, he finally overtook his obviously weak competitors. He crushed everyone with his stubbornness and disarmed them with his stifling boredom.

And in 2025, his CDU, together with its Bavarian confidant, the CSU, will win the federal elections. Recession, deindustrialization, falling living standards, an influx of migrants, social contradictions - all this will ensure the defeat of Scholz's "traffic light coalition", and it will not be able to fix the situation, there is neither money nor ideas for this.

Merz also has neither money nor ideas for the Germans. But he will become chancellor even if the CDU-CSU bloc (currently the most popular political force in the country) loses the elections to the Alternative for Germany party, taking only second place. According to the principle nicknamed the "firewall", the remaining parties unite into any motley and internally contradictory coalition, just to keep the AfD out of power and the wind of change out of Germany.

Therefore, reform in the brothel is possible only by rearranging the beds. Despite the intention of the Germans to remove from the government the characters who have become boring and have failed, they will not be allowed to do even this in full. The current Chancellor Scholz will most likely remain as head of the Foreign Ministry or the Finance Ministry, his SPD will become the "junior partner" of the coalition led by Merz, and this coalition will pursue more or less the same policy that is being pursued now, causing mainly irritation among citizens.

This is a pan-German Groundhog Day, running in circles around an axis, where the axis is Berlin's de facto subordination to Washington . Merz is an ideological Atlanticist, so it no longer matters what he thinks about migration (he criticizes) or even about the conflict in Ukraine (he used to demand that Kiev be armed to the teeth, now he advocates the start of peace talks).

The loss of industrial competitiveness, the need to spend billions on Ukraine, the destruction of economic cooperation with Russia , the energy crisis - all this is only a consequence of Germany's orientation towards the United States. Whoever is president, Biden, Trump or Harris, Merz fervently believes in America as a reference point, and Scholz did not believe it before, but now he still obeys.

If Germany's external governance is further simplified, with no change of faces even within parties, Merz will still be working as Foreign Minister for the new-old Chancellor Scholz in five years. Since it was not possible to escape from this vicious circle during the period of prosperity, which coincided with the Merkel period, now there will be even less strength.

This is truly a deathly melancholy. In other words, Friedrich Merz.

https://ria.ru/20240922/germaniya-1974048810.html

Scholz's party wins at home against Scholz without Scholz, by Vladimir Kornilov for RiaNovosti. 09.23.2024.

On Monday night, the news feeds were full of headlines: "Scholz's party beats the far right in the elections in the federal state of Germany." This is written about by English, French, American and, let's face it, some Russian publications. In Germany itself, it is difficult to find such headlines. Because everyone there knows that the "merit" of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in this conditional victory of the Social Democratic Party he leads is only that he was completely pushed out of the campaign in Brandenburg. That is, the Chancellor not only did not participate in it, but his name, portraits, even the logo of his party were nowhere to be found.

The most striking thing is that Brandenburg is Scholz's place of residence. His apartment is on the central square of Potsdam , literally two steps away from the Landtag building, where the deputies are elected. Moreover, his wife Britta Ernst worked for six years as the Minister of Education in the Brandenburg government, but last year she was expelled from there by Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke, that is, in some way, Scholz's subordinate along party lines.

The entire campaign of the Social Democrats was built around Woidke, who has headed the Brandenburg government since 2013. They created a personality cult of their state leader, who is much more popular than Scholz. And that is why Scholz was categorically required not to interfere in the local campaign, and Woidke carefully avoided personal meetings so as not to be seen in the same photo with the "toxic" chancellor.

Only once in recent months have they found themselves together at a summer party festival, where, despite the Brandenburg premier's attempts to avoid meeting the chancellor, photographers nevertheless caught them together once. The Tagensspiegel newspaper reasonably suggests: "Woidke would probably have preferred to avoid this joint photo. Because he declared the chancellor persona non grata during his election campaign in Brandenburg." In the end, Scholz even voted by mail, explaining that he had to be in New York on election day.

It should be noted that Brandenburg has always been the patrimony of the Social Democrats. That is, in absolutely every election since the reunification of Germany, the SPD has taken first place, sometimes with a result well over 50%. But it was the failure of the "traffic light" coalition and the personal unpopularity of Scholz that almost led to a catastrophe for this party even in this land. According to some polls, at the beginning of the summer of this year, the SPD in Brandenburg was even in fourth place, behind not only the confidently leading "Alternative for Germany" (AfD), but also the Christian Democratic Union ( CDU ) and the Sahra Wagenknecht Union (SW).

It was then that the local Social Democrats decided to distance themselves completely from Scholz and build their campaign exclusively around Woidke. Portraits of the Brandenburg Prime Minister were everywhere. Even his baldness was played up - towards the end of the campaign, most SPD posters bore the slogan: "If we're going to have skinheads, then Woidke is better." And the main PR move by the Social Democrats' headquarters was the printing and mailing of 1.2 million copies of the glossy magazine "Woidke," where every page featured his photo - with his wife, his children, his voters, the contents of his refrigerator, a playlist of his favorite songs. Just one of the 16 pages briefly listed three points from his political program. And imagine, all this was supposed to make voters vote for the entire party list!

But the decisive factor in the last three weeks before the vote was the success of the AfD in the elections in Thuringia and Saxony . This is where the entire arsenal of intimidation of the left-wing voters of Brandenburg was turned on. "Us or them. Only the SDP can stop the victory of the Alternative" - ​​this was the main argument that was heard from all irons. In fact, the technology of the second round of the parliamentary elections in France worked , when left-wing voters were called on to vote tactically in order to prevent the victory of Le Pen's party. And in the end, Woidke generally resorted to a kind of ultimatum, declaring that he would immediately resign if the Alternative took first place. And the tactics, in general, worked.

But this turned out to be a double-edged sword. By calling for a vote "against the far right", the Social Democrats were draining the votes of their potential allies - primarily the Left and the Greens. The latter even called the SPD vampires that were sucking out their voters. As a result, the Greens failed to get into the Brandenburg Landtag for the first time since 2009, failing to overcome the five percent barrier.

The fate of the coalition is now in the hands of the SSV, which took third place. Only by uniting with it (and the SPD categorically rejects an alliance with the Alternative), will the Social Democrats be able to gain a majority. Here we will see how true Wagenknecht's supporters are to her promise to make the partners' refusal to supply weapons to Ukraine a condition of any coalition . In any case, immediately after the vote, representatives of her political force in Brandenburg declared their readiness to form a bloc with the SPD on the condition that it would be "right for the people of Brandenburg" - Ukraine was not mentioned.

Well, the Alternative also claims success, emphasizing that it has become the party that is most supported by young people. "If you're not far-right, you're not cool," The Times quotes a student at a local elite gymnasium as saying, claiming that belonging to the Alternative has become a countercultural social status indicator for Generation Z. Immediately after the election, AfD supporters did not seem upset, declaring that they are looking to the long term and are the "party of the future" of Germany.

It is therefore not surprising that the "victory of Scholz's party" (as it is presented by foreign media) has not removed the question of the German Chancellor. On Tuesday, the SPD leader is expected to return from America and discuss the party's future strategy. Following the results of the elections in Brandenburg, it became clear that the Social Democrats are performing better without Scholz, and the "traffic light coalition" is dragging the party's ratings down. Therefore, the voices calling for replacing the party leader before the federal elections are becoming louder. The main candidate is the much more popular Defense Minister Boris Pistorius . Thus, the "victory of Scholz's party" could be Pyrrhic for him personally.

https://ria.ru/20240923/germaniya-1974161584.html

The political situation in Germany is changing not in Scholz's favor, by Anastasia Kulikova for VZGLYAD. 09.23.2024.

Experts assess the results of the state elections in Brandenburg.

Olaf Scholz's SPD party won the election in Brandenburg, but its lead over the Alternative for Germany is only one percent. Moreover, in order to create a state government of the majority, the SPD will have to negotiate with another political opponent - the Union of Sahra Wagenknecht. What is happening in the German political system?

The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, won the state elections in Brandenburg by a small margin. According to the final results , 30.89% of voters voted for it. In second place with 29.23% of the votes is the Alternative for Germany (AfD). Next comes the Sahra Wagenknecht Union (SWU) with 13.48%. The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) rounds out the top four with 12.1%.

The Greens and Free Democrats (FDP), members of the ruling coalition, failed to enter the regional parliament because they failed to overcome the five percent barrier. The Left Party failed to overcome the electoral limit. The electoral commission reported that the turnout in the elections was 72.9%.

According to the data provided, the SPD and AfD have improved their positions in the region since the last elections (2019), while the CDU showed a lower result than five years ago. Let us recall that in the elections in Brandenburg, the Social Democrats have traditionally gained the majority of votes since 1990.

Elections in the eastern states of Germany generally produce extremely sensational results. Thus, at the beginning of September, the AfD won in Thuringia , gaining 32.8% of the votes. The CDU and SSV also made it into the top three, while the SPD managed to secure the support of only 6.1% of voters.

In turn, the Christian Democrats emerged as leaders in the elections in Saxony with a result of 30.6% . However, AfD lost to them by only 1.3%. Sahra Wagenknecht's party also managed to exceed the expectations of skeptics: 11.8% of Germans voted for it. Even then, the co-chairs of the Alternative Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla called the results of the campaign a "historic success", ZDF reported .

The current regional elections are attracting enormous attention from European experts. Thus, the Bild publication reported at the end of August that this vote could change German policy forever by significantly strengthening the opposition AfD and SSV. The Vzglyad newspaper also examined how the campaign in the territory of the former GDR could affect the volume of Berlin's aid to Ukraine.

"The elections in Brandenburg can hardly be called democratic. The SPD won only thanks to collusion," says Waldemar Gerdt, a former member of the Bundestag. He believes that after the failure in Thuringia and Saxony, they deliberately united with traditional political forces against the Alternative for Germany. "Their main argument was that the victory of the AfD would trigger a series of processes that would be unpleasant for the ruling authorities," the source explained.

That is why, for example, some politicians from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) openly campaigned for the SPD, Gerdt pointed out. "Angela Merkel's party was counting on the fact that as a result of this collusion, small parties - the Greens and the Liberals - would lose votes, and these players would remain a potential partner for the coalition.

However, in reality, the manipulation of voters' votes turned out to be a shot in the knee.

The CDU has shown a lower result than five years ago. They can no longer govern alone," the politician specified. Moreover, plans to stop the growth of AfD's popularity are also doomed to failure, he added. "Alternative" is the future. Although it must be recognized that the issue of modernization has matured within the association: being an opposition force is one thing, but governing a country is quite another," Gerdt reasons.

According to his forecasts, difficult negotiations on the creation of a state government will take place after the elections in Brandenburg. "It is possible that the SPD will have to negotiate with the SSV. However, there are significant contradictions between them, one of which is assistance to Ukraine," the speaker said.

"If a coalition is formed, either Wagenknecht will "go into reverse" and nullify all his previous statements on the issue of interaction with Kiev, or the Social Democrats will be forced to make concessions. Then, by the way, the role of the SSV will also be clear - was it not created in order to divide the AfD," the interlocutor reasons.

However, he allows for a scenario in which the CDU and SPD come together and Brandenburg becomes a state with a minority government. "This has happened before. If this scenario is realized, we should expect serious fights and battles in parliament on every issue," Gerdt added. In his opinion, despite the success of the right-wing forces, their voice is not decisive -


It will be virtually impossible for them to influence Berlin's actions.


"If you add up the results of the SVS and AfD, it turns out that about 43% of people voted against Berlin's policies, as well as the current German government," the speaker noted. He pointed out the paradox: the SPD is considered the party of workers, but it was during the rule of this political force that the largest reduction in jobs and the number of business bankruptcies were recorded.

"The German population should give a tough assessment of the SPD. I think the western states will also start to wake up, and this will be reflected in the results of the Bundestag vote. Of course, if we do not fall into unrest before that moment, which will make the elections impossible," Gerdt reasons.

Germany is on the threshold of changes in the political landscape, believes German political scientist Alexander Rahr. "The emergence of the SSN and the growing influence of the AfD weaken traditional parties. The liberal elites have accepted this challenge and will now seriously fight for power," he noted. According to him, the local politician Dietmar Woidke, who "fought the elections using populist methods," won in Brandenburg. This is precisely why, according to the interlocutor, the SPD won.

“However, there are difficult negotiations ahead on the creation of a land government.

“It is currently unclear how the SSV, SPD and CDU will find a common political foundation,” Rahr pointed out.

Political scientist Yegor Belyachkov, who specializes in German studies, in turn drew attention to the fact that traditional parties, despite the victory of the SPD, are losing support from voters, especially among East Germans. According to the expert, in this situation, it is advantageous for the AfD to remain in opposition. "A year before the Bundestag elections, such tactics leave the field open for active criticism not only of the parties of the "traffic light coalition", but also of the "Sahra Wagenknecht Union", if it enters the state government," he explained. In essence, we are talking about a potential coalition of the SVN and the SPD.

According to the interlocutor, the Alternative for Germany has proven over the past three state campaigns that it can be a party of a "broad electorate". "Also, the electorate of almost all factions has stabilized. The only exception is the Left Party, which is faced with the question of its continued existence. In general, the 2024 state elections have become a "touchstone" before the vote in the Bundestag in 2025," Belyachkov concluded.

https://vz.ru/world/2024/9/23/1288735.html

German opposition leader pressing for change of course on Ukraine, 10.13.2024.

The conflict between Moscow and Kiev cannot be resolved with “more weapons,” Sahra Wagenknecht has said.

Berlin should make more active diplomatic efforts if it wants the conflict between Moscow and Kiev to end, German MP Sahra Wagenknecht told Funke Media Group on Friday. “More weapons” for Ukraine will not bring peace to Europe, she argued.

The veteran politician has repeatedly criticized Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government over its stance on the Ukraine conflict, saying Berlin’s current policy only helps to fan the flames of war.

“We need more diplomatic efforts,” said Wagenknecht, a former member of the Left Party who established her own party this year – the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW).

“There is a good peace plan by Brazil and China. I hope that Germany and the EU will support such initiatives,” Wagenknecht said. In May, the two nations presented a joint six-point proposal calling for de-escalation, negotiations, and an international peace conference recognized by both Russia and Ukraine.

Brasilia and Beijing tried to advance their initiative at a 17-nation meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September. Kiev immediately rejected their plan, calling it “unacceptable.” Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky branded it “destructive.”

Moscow welcomed China’s and Brazil’s peace proposals and expressed appreciation that they have received international backing. It expressed doubt, however, about Kiev’s willingness to engage in talks.

In Wagenknecht’s view, Germany should put pressure on Zelensky to “force” him to agree to a certain compromise. China could exert influence on Moscow to make talks possible, she said. “There will be no peace without compromise,” the politician stated.

The lawmaker also warned that current Western policy towards the Ukraine conflict is “insanely dangerous” since it gets NATO “drawn ever deeper into this war.” If the US-led bloc becomes a party to the conflict, this would lead to a direct confrontation with Moscow, she warned. “And this conflict will then very quickly escalate into a nuclear war.”

Asked by journalists whether she is doing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “bidding,” Wagenknecht replied that it is “not about being a friend or enemy to Russia, but about peace in Europe and [ending] the war in Ukraine.”

“Without peace, everything else is nothing,” she said, adding that it is high time Germany became “an internationally respected voice that mediates in conflicts and advocates diplomacy.”

Moscow has warned that Western military aid to Kiev drags NATO ever closer to direct involvement in the conflict. This summer, Putin said that Western support for Ukrainian strikes deep into Russian territory is a significant escalation that could spark an “asymmetric” response. Last month, he also suggested changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine that would allow a nuclear response in case of a conventional attack by a non-nuclear state that is backed by a nuclear state.

https://www.rt.com/news/605627-german-mp-change-course-ukraine/

Germany Caught Between Trump and Ukraine, by Pëtr Akopov for RiaNovosti. 11.12.2024.

The ripples from Trump's victory are spreading across the Western world - the Germans were the first to react. Of course, not because Donald is German by origin and is set on a showdown (not just trade) with Berlin-led Europe: the ruling coalition had long been cracking at the seams, and the news from overseas only coincided with its impending collapse. The chances that Scholz's government would last until the next elections scheduled for next September were slim, and after the leader of the Free Democratic Party - the smallest of the entire coalition - Finance Minister Lindner refused to support an increase in the budget deficit, everything was predetermined. Scholz fired Lindner, and it became clear that early elections were ahead. The only question was when to hold them: early spring or earlier. Scholz wanted to drag out time, but already on Monday he agreed that the question of a vote of confidence could be raised in the coming weeks. The Bundestag will refuse to support the cabinet, and early elections will be called – most likely for early February. As a result, by March the new American president will have a new main European partner: Friedrich Merz, the head of the CDU, will become chancellor. So everything is so simple and easy?

No. Firstly, because the Bundestag elections themselves will be a test for the German political system, and secondly, because one of the main topics of the election campaign will be support for Ukraine. More precisely, it has already become one - Chancellor Scholz accused Lindner of wanting to finance Kiev at the expense of German pensioners: "There are not many other countries that can afford to direct more than 12 billion euros to support another country that is at war, while saying: we will do this at the expense of the budget. We have tried this several times.

But now we have reached the point where, according to the plans of the former finance minister, the talk is about financing by cutting pensions, by taking money from local communities, by using funds that are not enough to modernize our country. Among the proposals was a small change in the pension calculation formula, which ultimately always means cutting pensions. Should citizens, pensioners, men and women pay for this? The answer is no."

If we add to these words of Scholz his statement yesterday that he decided to talk to Putin in the near future ("Soon"), it might seem that the outgoing chancellor has decided to change his policy towards Ukraine. But this is not so: the Ukrainian issue is simply becoming an increasingly important domestic political factor, so the SPD led by Scholz will play it up in every possible way in the fight against its competitors.

And they are absolutely all the other parties that have a chance of getting into the Bundestag - except for the SPD, there are five more. The Social Democrats are guaranteed to lose the post of chancellor - the new coalition will no longer be formed under their leadership. But they may well remain in power as a junior partner - already under the leadership of the CDU headed by Merz. This option - the so-called grand coalition, which has already formed more than once in the history of the FRG - now seems the most likely, but for it to become a reality, the SPD needs to perform well in the elections.

"Good" means not to fall below 15 percent, and to do that they need to do everything they can to drown their rivals. The Social Democrats cannot take votes away from the CDU: Merz's party will get more than 30 percent, if not all 35. The Alternative for Germany will be second: they will have around 20 percent, or even more. The SPD seems to be guaranteed third place, but it is one thing if it is with 15 percent, and quite another if it is with 10-12 percent. Then they will be closely followed by the heavily weakened Greens and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance , which will enter the Bundestag for the first time. The alliance attracts former SPD and Left voters. That is, the Social Democrats need to stop the flight of their supporters and make themselves the only partner for the CDU - and the Ukrainian issue is best suited for this.

When Scholz accuses Lindner of wanting to help Ukraine at the expense of German pensioners, he practically sinks the liberal FDP - it is already teetering on the edge of the five percent barrier to enter the Bundestag (if there are no liberals in parliament, the CDU will not have the opportunity to invite them into the coalition). Talking about plans to talk to Putin, Scholz signals to that part of the voters who are against escalating the conflict with Russia and for negotiations with Moscow : why should you go to Sahra Wagenknecht, we are also ready for a settlement. Will they believe Scholz? Unlikely, but the chancellor can't come up with anything better.

The Social Democrats, the oldest party in Germany, have already effectively sunk into the ranks of minor parties, and the rise of the newborn "Sahra Wagenknecht Union" is a death sentence for the SPD. Of course, they will not be dealt a fatal blow in this election, but their relative "victory" may well be Pyrrhic.

Because, by entering into a coalition with the openly Atlanticist CDU (Merz proposes to issue an ultimatum to the Kremlin to cease hostilities, and in case of its rejection to start supplying long-range missiles), the SPD will finally lose its face. They will do to it the same thing that it did before (for example, during Merkel's time) to junior coalition partners, that is, "they will suck all the blood." And the "Sahra Wagenknecht Union", which is in opposition, will gain popularity and by the next Bundestag elections it will be able to overtake the SPD.

The Alternative for Germany will not waste any time either: while the Alliance criticizes the new government from the left, targeting the SPD, the AfD will strike from the right, hitting the CDU. So both participants of the future "grand coalition" will come to the 2029 elections in their worst shape and will not even be able to get a majority of votes together. While the AfD together with the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance will control up to 40 percent of the seats in the Bundestag.

And this will, in essence, mean the collapse of the German political system, built around cutting off the “radicals,” that is, those who do not agree with Germany’s limited sovereignty and the stranglehold of “Atlantic solidarity,” with all the ensuing consequences—for Europe first and foremost.

https://ria.ru/20241112/germaniya-1983170983.html

"The chances have become even smaller." Russia has intercepted an important ally of Ukraine, 11.26.2024.

Political scientist Topornin: Trump can help Scholz win parliamentary elections.

MOSCOW, November 26 — RIA Novosti, Mikhail Katkov. If Olaf Scholz's government does not receive a vote of confidence on December 16, early parliamentary elections will be held on February 23. Most likely, this will happen, so the main political forces are already starting their campaign. What awaits Germany — in the RIA Novosti article.

We must hurry

According to Focus magazine, virtually no party in Germany is ready for the elections. Firstly, not everyone has decided on candidates for the post of prime minister. Secondly, no one has any fresh ideas. And there is no time to warm up either – the Christmas holidays are coming up.

The CDU/CSU already has a candidate for chancellor – Friedrich Merz. The same one who threatened Moscow with an ultimatum: if the SVO does not stop, Kyiv will receive German Taurus cruise missiles.

The Greens' favorite is the current Minister of Economy Robert Habeck. He also wants to give Ukraine the Taurus. And Habeck's party comrade and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock warmly approved of the American permission for the Ukrainian Armed Forces to fire missiles deep into Russia. She considers this to be Kyiv's right to defend itself.

The SPD is in the most difficult situation. According to all polls, the party's rating has fallen by about ten percent in the three years of Scholz's rule. He himself is in last place in the country's top 20 politicians, according to the INSA institute. In first place is Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, also a Social Democrat.

"We have two possible candidates: one is the most popular politician in Germany, the other is the least popular. That basically says it all," Maifeld Mayor Maximilian Mumm, a member of the SPD, told the Financial Times.

However, as a result of internal party struggle, Pistorius recused himself in favor of his senior comrade. "Olaf Scholz is a strong chancellor and the right candidate for this post," he said. And he added: the current head of government stands for "reason and well-being," which is especially important in these difficult times.

Speaking at an event in Berlin on November 22, Scholz promised to avoid escalating the conflict with Russia. "Many people in Europe are worried and scared," he said. "That's why I will do everything to prevent an even greater escalation."

Kyiv will not get Taurus missiles from him. "It is important that we set a clear course that everyone can rely on. <…> I am absolutely sure that citizens who vote for democratic parties know very well which of them is committed to maintaining prudence," Scholz specified.

As for election programmes, the most striking ones are those of the Alternative for Germany and the Sahra Wagenknecht Union. The right, for example, propose abandoning the euro in favor of the German mark and reorienting financial flows from supporting migrants to social security for the native population. The left demands raising pensions by a thousand euros and stopping arming Kyiv.

Pressure from all sides

According to opinion polls, Scholz's reluctance to hand over the Taurus to Ukraine is not enough for the SPD to win. The Bild publication, citing the INSA institute, reports that the Social Democrats' rating has dropped to 14%.

The CDU/CSU has 32%, the Alternative for Germany has 19%, and the Greens have 11%. The Free Democratic Party, which left the ruling coalition, has five percent, at the threshold for entering parliament. The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, despite recent success in some eastern states, has only seven percent, and the Left has four.

The Ukrainian lobby in the West is trying to pressure the German government on the issue of cruise missiles. "This demand has broad support. Let's see what happens after the federal elections. Perhaps the course will change earlier, because there are different positions in the Berlin coalition," said the head of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola.

Former Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Andriy Melnyk is sure that Kyiv will receive long-range missiles from Berlin if the CDU/CSU wins and Merz is appointed chancellor. And he has no doubt about that either.

"For things to turn out differently, there would have to be some kind of political earthquake, some kind of super scandal, which, for example, would cause image losses to Merz," Melnik said. Scholz, according to him, is no longer able to prevent this.

It's not evening yet

Nikolai Topornin, associate professor of the European Law Department at MGIMO, notes that the Social Democrats have very little time to regroup. "You don't change horses in midstream. In addition, it is unclear how the replacement of the leader will affect the party's ratings," he said in a conversation with RIA Novosti.

So Scholz will stay. And he is a much more acceptable figure for Moscow than the radical Russophobe Merz.

"On the other hand, it is still unknown how he will behave when he will have to make decisions himself instead of criticizing the government for its timid foreign policy. And in general, nothing is clear yet. The elections in Germany will take place after Donald Trump's inauguration. Perhaps Scholz will have time to call him and even meet. If they find a common language on Ukraine, this could greatly increase the SPD's chances of success," the expert reasons.

Vladimir Olenchenko, senior research fellow at the European Economics Sector at the Center for European Studies at the IMEMO RAS, also believes that it is too early to write off Scholz. The SPD has a good chance of making it into the next ruling coalition.

"Scholz could become the Minister of Economy. When it comes to transferring missiles, he will say that there is no money for this. In fact, the government is already saying this," the political scientist explained to RIA Novosti.

He added: the CDU/CSU will most likely win, but no party has a chance of forming a government on its own. This means that the SPD remains an attractive ally whose opinion must be taken into account.

https://ria.ru/20241126/germaniya-1985630898.html

The German public are chumps

https://t.me/vicktop55/29326

Western media propaganda is very effective. After all, they legislatively and systematically block the path of information from Russian sources. 65% of Germans are afraid of Russia's invasion of Germany

This is indicated by the results of a new Bundeswehr study.

As a result, Spiegel believes, 49% of respondents approve of military support for Ukraine. And this, by the way, is 4% more than last year. Also, against the backdrop of a tangible threat, 60% of citizens are convinced that the introduction of compulsory military service will increase the country's defense capability, and 42% even expressed their readiness to defend the Motherland with weapons in hand.

Another surprising thing: 85% of citizens trust (!) the Bundeswehr, despite the current security situation.

The population has been thoroughly processed, nothing to say - kanzlerdaddy

Their current US stooge is their only hope for avoiding a war with Russia. No matter how unpopular or incompetent he is - it makes little sense to replace him with someone who promises only 200% of the same ruinous anti-Russian policies, the same dumb green agenda, and an attack on Russia via the Taurus missiles to boot. Yet that same prospective replacement is apparently leading in the popularity ratings.

How can you expect anything different from an occupied country like German. Of course other EU countries and the UK are no better.

Will be interesting to see how far the US drags them through the mud before they grow a pair...

I can and do expect

Yeah of course there's propaganda, and all that

But still the people themselves, do at least need to have a few functional brain cells between them

@flamingpython: for me I wonder which sample of the population that the German parliament take to study. The survey and its results smell fishy.

The german population is known for being easily manipulated.

They grew up from childhood with the propaganda, that they live in a free world, free media and no state affiliation is taking place and they literally can not lie to the public. They believe this.

Then you have constant propaganda that Russia is a dictatorship, automatically all elections are fake, but when confronted with the fact that majority is actually voting for Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, then they call it propaganda even when multiple people tell that to them.

Covid times have shown me how much the germans accept and like using fascist regime methods to beat down and silence anyone saying anything not aligned with western narrative. Everything is a conspiracy theory and directly associated by media manipulation with Ultra right wing and flat earth theorists. The media controls this narratives and the population is stupid and not worthy to be asked or educated to be quite honest.

I was naive enough before 2019 to vouch for germans and their ability to see through this nonsense anti german policy and how suicidal the government is. I stopped after I saw and felt on my own skin how cruel and eager the liberals are to use fascist methods to silence and punish anyone who even questioned the government.

I do not uphold anymore any illusions or hope for this people or country.

When freedom of speech only extends to being free to sing any verse from our Hymn book, but no tolerance for alternative views or opinions then freedom of speech is an empty slogan that is as meaningless as the words democracy and human rights.

All of which the west no longer understands the meanings of... they are just weapons... we have these things and the bad guys don't and that is how we define the good guys from the bad guys.

Russia should make possible the maximum transfer of votes from the SPD to the BSW party in the next February 23, 2025 parliament snap election in Germany.

Scholz Rules Out Coalition With Wagenknecht at Federal Level, 12.15.2024.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - German Chancellor Olaf Scholz ruled out the possibility of entering into a coalition after the parliamentary elections with the recently created Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance – Reason and Justice (BSW) party.

"This is hardly imaginable given the topics that BSW calls for," Scholz said at the SPD congress, as quoted by media.
In particular, the chancellor pointed out the differences in their positions on the issue of supporting Ukraine.

"We are in favour of not leaving Ukraine alone," the chancellor explained.

The BSW was founded in January of this year. In the Bundestag, the party is represented by ten members who left The Left (Die Linke) party. In the European Parliament elections last summer, the BSW won 6.2% of the vote, and the party also came in third in elections in three federal states in the east of the country. Party leader Sahra Wagenknecht regularly calls for a peaceful resolution of the Ukrainian conflict and an end to arms supplies to Kiev.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20241215/scholz-rules-out-coalition-with-wagenknecht-at-federal-level-1121172495.html

Wagenknecht nominated as candidate for German chancellor, by Elizaveta Shishkova for VZGLYAD. 12.17.2024.

The BSW party has nominated Sahra Wagenknecht as a candidate for German chancellor

The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance for Reason and Justice party will nominate its leader Sahra Wagenknecht as a candidate for chancellor of Germany, the party's general secretary Christian Laye announced.

He noted that this step was taken to avoid “unfair advantages” that competitors could receive due to “inflation of candidates for chancellor,” RIA Novosti reports .

Laye explained that the party has no illusions about its real chances of winning. However, he said, "the Greens' and AfD's candidates' chances of winning the chancellor's post are no better than ours." Wagenknecht's nomination will allow the party to participate in political television programmes and discussions where only chancellor candidates are allowed.

Earlier, Wagenknecht and human rights activist Alice Schwarzer, together with 36 German activists, published an open letter calling for the prevention of a possible European war and for a ceasefire in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the Alternative for Germany party has nominated Alice Weidel as its candidate for chancellor.

https://m.vz.ru/news/2024/12/17/1303992.html

Germany faces dirtiest election in history, by Igor Maltsev, writer, journalist, publicist, for VZGLYAD. 12.24.2024.

The upcoming election campaign in Germany will be a bitter one. Personal attacks and populist promises have long since supplanted actual policy, and the divisions between the parties are deeper than ever. The question is how long Germans will tolerate this political theatre.

The German governing coalition, which had previously been destroyed by a conspiracy by one of its members, the Free Democratic Party of Germany (FDP), has finally ceased to exist.

All this time, the current Chancellor of the country, Olaf Scholz (SPD party), believed that he was in control of the process. And he was even sure that his trip to the vote of confidence in the Bundestag would save his carcass in the chair, and also preserve the title of the ruling party for the Social Democrats. But the performance was played out by a completely different conductor.

Outwardly, it looks as if the coalition fell apart over the issue of new government debts – Scholz demanded that the “covid” money be re-registered to plug holes in social policy and a little bit for Ukraine.

In reality – because the three ruling parties (the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Free Democrats) have led the country to deindustrialization, involvement in the war in the East, a decline in the standard of living of the population, and an increase in migration in three years. And most importantly – a complete disregard for all these processes. Only two parties have spoken out about war and peace, as well as unrealistic migration – the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, for which other parties and pro-government media call them ultra-right and ultra-left, respectively. But they are not in the government and have no chance of getting into the government.

The ruling elite of Germany, completely ignoring the interests of the people, has jumped to the point that the government has collapsed, the Bundestag will be dissolved and new elections will be called. Almost a year before the official end of the old one's term.

Actually, it's a disgrace and impotence.

But these people live in some parallel world. And Scholz really thought that his powers would be supported by the Bundestag in a vote of confidence.

His election speech in the parliament was the speech of an alien who landed in Berlin only yesterday. Or simply impudence.

There was no reflection, let alone self-criticism, instead an election campaign steeped in an incomprehensible populism. No answers to the question of what lessons he had learned from the system’s failure. Not a word. Instead of acknowledging the failures, of which there were many, Scholz focused on apportioning blame – a remarkable defense against the backdrop of the country’s deindustrialization and free fall of the economy.

And he vaguely promised millions for the economy, which would be found by raising taxes and increasing the national debt.

"His respect apparently ends where other opinions begin. The attacks on his former finance minister Christian Lindner (FDP), whom he ousted, bordered on the obscene and were "pure impudence", as the CDU/CSU chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz later said. "Is that how you talk about three years of working together in government?" Before the confidence vote, the chancellor was told: "You are disgracing Germany. It is a disgrace!" writes the Berliner Zeitung.

Scholz lost the vote in the Bundestag. He lacked the necessary majority: only 207 members of the Bundestag voted for a vote of confidence in him. 394 deputies voted against, and 116 abstained.

The number one contender for the seat of German Chancellor is Friedrich Merz, whose CDU party (Merkel) is listed as opposition, but is responsible for all the prerequisites for today's catastrophe - from the closure of nuclear power plants to unlimited migration. The nomination of Robert Habeck as a candidate from the Greens looks incredibly impudent - this is a man who is literally strangling the German energy and industry with his own hands, forcing the population to pay for the failure of "green energy". Both candidates are absolutely crazy about the war with Russia and are obsessed with "defeating the Russians on the battlefield". Both are ready to send "Tauruses" with orders to bomb Moscow today.

Friedrich Merz has the highest trust rating – 17%. But he was quickly caught up by AfD co-chair Alice Weidel – also 17%.

This is incredible - because she is not allowed on TV, nothing positive is published in the press, only abuse and accusations of racism, Nazism and Putinism. There is a study of 5.6 thousand articles in the German press on this matter.

True, they suddenly stopped accusing them of anti-migration policy – ​​because, almost 9 years after the unprecedented migration to Germany, the “systemic” parties demand its cessation and deportations – something for which the AfD has been labeled “racists” and “far-right” for nine years in a row. Now there’s a new trick – since the AfD demands to stop arming the Ukrainian side with German weapons, they are now “Putin’s Party” and traitors to the motherland.

The mechanism for cutting the AfD off from power has already been created in those states where it won first and second place in regional elections: it is simply cut off by assembling coalitions of losers – having previously abolished the eternal principle of “the winner assembles the government”. A world based on rules, not laws, instantly changes these “rules” – and now the winner of the elections finds himself in the opposition and outside the government.

Therefore, the upcoming Bundestag elections on February 23 are quite critical – AfD can only enter the coalition if it gains more than 50%, which is not very realistic. Part of the protest electorate is being bought off by the “Sahra Wagenknecht Union”, which was allowed to be created only for the purpose of countering AfD.

Sahra Wagenknecht herself claims that she understands that she will not be able to become chancellor in the coming decades, but she is still running, simply so that other aspiring candidates do not gain an unnecessary advantage.

Regarding the "Sahra Wagenknecht Union", Scholz, who had lost confidence, said the following: "I support what has made our Federal Republic strong over the past 75 years: membership in NATO, the transatlantic alliance, the European Union, the common values ​​of democracy and the rule of law, which are important to us. And you cannot look to Russia, as the BSW does."

That is, the Wagenknechtists, like the AfD, also go around with the label of "Putin's party". Only because they demand that Germany not participate in someone else's war and refuse to supply weapons. But their rating does not exceed 7-10%.

So far it looks like this: election programmes look like wish lists that have no connection with reality. In short: gifts for everyone, investments are handed out like confetti to the economy and the population. Olaf Scholz's programme in particular is like a journey into the land of madmen: 95% of workers will receive tax breaks, the minimum wage will increase to 15 euros per hour, VAT on food will be reduced, and energy prices will also fall. Who should finance all this? The rich, and of course future generations through debt.

The topic of migration is almost completely ignored. Instead of the once promised tough deportation policy, Scholz now advocates a “humanitarian asylum policy”. Private “sea rescuers” (aka “Jihad taxis”) are to be unequivocally supported: “Civilian sea rescue organizations must not be criminalized,” Scholz’s program states. Scholz is thus once again taking a confrontational stance toward the CDU/CSU, but above all toward the vast majority of citizens who finally want to put an end to illegal migration.

The Greens' candidate Habeck has even surpassed Scholz in generosity: he promises 1,000-euro subsidies for student drivers' licenses and billions in aid for businesses through the "Germany Fund." The word "competitiveness" does not appear in the speeches of the red and green parties. The programs look less like serious political plans and more like a competition for the most spectacular promises - of dubious feasibility.

The upcoming election campaign in Germany will not only be bitter, but also dirty. Personal attacks and populist promises have long since supplanted actual politics, and the divisions between the parties are deeper than ever. The heated phase will begin after Christmas – and it will not be about decisions, but about apportioning blame and maintaining power. The question is how long Germans will tolerate this political theatre.

https://m.vz.ru/opinions/2024/12/24/1304078.html

German president dissolves the Bundestag, 12.27.2024.

Early legislative elections will be held in the country on February 23, 2025.

The President of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, dissolved the country's parliament, the Bundestag, on Friday.

Yandex Translate from Spanish.

https://esrt.space/actualidad/535226-presidente-alemania-disolver-bundestag.

I'd better insert this here:

Modern Western ideologists have become the heirs of German Nazism, by Igor Karaulov, poet, publicist, for VZGLYAD. 01.20.2025.

The wave of targeted Russophobic propaganda has probably already passed. It seems that now we see the intellectual and mental landscape that it left behind.

Recently, the attention of the Russian public has been drawn to two books found in bookstores in our country. These are "Irena's Children" by Tilar Mazzeo and "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Dorr. Both books contain passages that discredit the image of the Soviet soldier-liberator.

In Dorr we find a colorful scene designed to squeeze tears out of the reader: Russian soldiers rape an entire German family, while an officer, for some unknown reason, pronounces the names of his dead comrades. Elsewhere, the author describes Soviet partisans as "pathetic loners, ragged and dirty."

And if you read Mazzeo’s book, dedicated to the heroic savior of Polish Jews, Irena Sendler, then at some point you will see information that Soviet soldiers allegedly raped almost all the women in Krakow (this time not Germans, but Polish women).

What is striking here? Not even the denigration of the victors as such. This is nothing new to us. Although the book by Helke Sander and Barbara Yohr, “Liberators and Liberated,” from which the fable about “two million raped German women” originated, was apparently never published in our country, the work by the British writer Anthony Beevor, “The Fall of Berlin. 1945,” in which this fable was reproduced, was published in Russian translation twenty years ago. It was quoted, referred to as an allegedly authoritative, objective study.

Therefore, I would not say that the books by Mazzeo and Dorr are part of some targeted wave of Russophobic propaganda. It seems that the wave passed earlier, and now we see the intellectual and mental landscape that it left behind. What is striking is that Soviet soldiers smear themselves with black paint casually, without a clear goal or plot necessity, simply because that is the accepted practice now. And “now” does not mean after the start of the SVO; Mazzeo’s book was published in 2016, and Dorr’s novel – in 2014.

One could say that the new Western optics have taken place. In this optics, everything that happened on the "Eastern Front" is generally outside the field of view of the sensitive and thoughtful Western intellectual. What did the German soldiers forget near Moscow, on the Volga, in the Donbass? What difference does it make. They wandered into the land of creatures with dog heads; probably by pure chance.

In this optics, the cause-and-effect relationship between events is broken: Soviet soldiers appear on the territory of Poland, Hungary, Germany in 1945 as if from nowhere and interfere with everyone. They interfere with normal life, saving Jews, using slave labor. And their appearance, after more than three years of military deprivation, does not at all resemble liberators in polished armour.

In many places in Europe, monuments to Soviet soldiers are no longer an eyesore for ordinary people. They have been "decommunized." Accordingly, the memory of liberation in people's minds is also crumbling. And the authorities and media of European countries are successfully finishing off this memory.

For example, the French newspaper Le Monde recently published an article about the Treblinka death camp. It tells a very touching story about pensioners Pavel and Eva Sawicki, who collect information about the dead and annually read out their names on the memorial. It also talks about the sad fate of pre-war Poland, which was "destroyed by the Holocaust and the Yalta agreements." But there is no Red Army in this picture, which liberated the prisoners of the camp. The liberators are superfluous here, they came for no clear reason and brought only misfortunes with them.

It is not surprising that Russia was not invited to the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, which will be celebrated on January 27. A year ago, Ursula von der Leyen already stated that the camp was liberated by British and American troops. Russia's absence from the anniversary ceremony should cement this lie in the minds of Westerners, including the fashionable writers of today and tomorrow. They will no longer have to make any effort to falsify history; all the work has been done.

It must be admitted that difficult facts about the war are not hidden in our country. There is a novel by the outstanding writer and war veteran Vladimir Bogomolov, “My Life, or Did You Dream of Me?” The novel is largely documentary, and the numerous documents cited by the author speak for themselves. Cases of drunkenness, looting, and rape are described in detail. Some descriptions are harsher than the fantasies of Anthony Dorr. However, there is a nuance: we are talking about criminals who were detained and punished according to the law and orders of the command; most often, they were shot. The Soviet leadership did not allow any dehumanization of the German people. That is why in the part of Germany we occupied, we managed to create a state that became the most loyal ally of the USSR for decades.

But Bogomolov also cites other interesting documents. Among them are letters from German soldiers to their homeland, to their dear Frau. And without these documents, the picture of the war would also be incomplete. "Our brilliant Fuhrer calculated everything correctly and attacked these savages in time." Or: "There is no compassion for the Russians at all, and we are destroying fleeing Russians in huge numbers." Or: "In retaliation, they shot everything that moved in the village and set fire to the houses."

Here is a letter from the head of the Wehrmacht chronicler group, Heinrich Dehmel: "We must immediately, clearly and convincingly show the German people and all of Europe that Soviet Russia is a multi-million-strong gathering of racially inferior, degenerate bastards: Jews and Asians, who represent a monstrous danger to civilized humanity. In this regard, the experience of Dr. Müller, who filmed about twenty mentally ill people in one of the mental hospitals in the Ukraine, having dressed them in the uniform of commissars and commanders of the Red Army, deserves attention. Filmed from different angles, dirty and unshaven, they represent a whole gallery of disgusting, repulsive, aggressive idiots."

Thus, the war crimes of the Nazis on Soviet soil were not the excesses of individual unconscious soldiers, but the result of systematic ideological processing, the purpose of which was to dehumanize Russians and other peoples of our country.

And now, in our days, the population of Western countries is subjected to exactly the same treatment. That is why modern Western ideologists can rightfully be called the heirs of German Nazism.

What should we do with this? Probably, first of all, we should put our own house in order and think about what and how we publish. After all, another book about the war, written in a Western perspective, may not need to be published; we already have hundreds of them. Pulitzer Prize winner Anthony Doerr probably should have been published, but for this case there are prefaces, notes, and commentaries. Alas, for some reason we publish questionable texts “as is”, without a close reading and thoughtful work by an editor. This situation needs to be corrected.

As for promoting our, Russian point of view in countries affected by the Nazi optics, I am afraid that there is work to be done for decades, the disease is too advanced. However, a drop wears away a stone, and if we do not stubbornly defend every inch of historical truth, no one will do it for us.

https://m.vz.ru/opinions/2025/1/20/1308604.html

AfD overtakes Scholz's party in popularity in Germany, by Olga Ivanova for VZGLYAD. 01.29.2025.

Alternative for Germany beats Scholz's party by 8% in YouGov polls.

The right-wing Alternative for Germany party has overtaken the Social Democrats in popularity in Germany, according to the latest YouGov poll, increasing its rating by 4% in a week.

Alternative for Germany (AfD), a right-wing German party, has overtaken the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), represented by current Chancellor Olaf Scholz, in popularity, Lenta.Ru reports . This became known from the results of a sociological study conducted by the company YouGov.

According to the survey, 23% of respondents are ready to vote for AfD in possible early elections to the Bundestag. At the same time, the level of support for the SPD is 15%. It is noteworthy that the AfD rating has increased by 4% over the past week.

The rise of the AfD while the SPD is falling could change the political landscape of Germany. This has sparked discussions about the possible consequences for future elections and the current political situation in the country. With the AfD gaining ground, the SPD and its leader Olaf Scholz are facing difficulties in winning voter support.

As Vzglyad newspaper reported, Scholz expressed outrage at American billionaire Elon Musk's support for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, calling it disgusting and dangerous for democracy in Europe.

https://m.vz.ru/news/2025/1/29/1311609.html