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Buchenwald Concentration Camp Was Liberated By Communist Prisoners

April 11, 2025 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. , , , ,
Eighty years ago, on 11 April 1945, units of General George S. Patton’s 4th Armoured Division of the US armed forces drove toward the city of Weimar, Germany, where the Buchenwald concentration camp was located. Patton’s troops eventually took control of the camp, but soldiers’ statements, which were collected later by historians, suggest that the US tanks were not what liberated Buchenwald: the camp had already been seized by the organisation and courage of the prisoners who took advantage of the flight of German soldiers in the face of the Allied advance.

Germany In Crisis Part 1: The Lost Man Of Europe

April 6, 2025 Patrick Lawrence, Scheer Post. , , ,
Of the many things said — insightful things, wise things, some foolish things — as the results of Germany’s national elections arrived on Sunday evening, Feb. 23, the most remarkable to me was the exclamation of the Federal Republic’s new chancellor-to-be: “We have won it,” Friedrich Merz declared before his supporters in Berlin as the exit polls, which proved accurate, gave the conservative Christian Democratic Union the largest share of the vote. Merz is one of those political figures given to speaking before he thinks, and nobody seems to have taken this outburst as anything more than the election-night utterance of an exuberant victor.

Germany Issues Deportation Orders Against US, EU Citizens Over Pro-Palestine Activism

April 2, 2025 News Desk, The Cradle. , , , , , , ,
German authorities are seeking to deport four foreign nationals, including three EU citizens, over their alleged involvement in pro-Palestinian protests in Berlin, a move that has sparked significant legal and civil rights concerns, 972 Magazine and The Intercept reported on 1 April. The individuals – Cooper Longbottom (US), Kasia Wlaszczyk (Poland), Shane O’Brien, and Roberta Murray (both Ireland) – have not been convicted of any crimes. However, they face expulsion orders under German migration law, citing vague accusations linked to demonstrations against Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

When The Banality Of Evil Becomes Normalized, It Grows Unchecked

March 23, 2025 Rafael Sergi, Portside. , , , ,
February tends to be a pretty harsh time of year in Berlin. Freezing temperatures, short days, and perpetually gray skies weigh heavy upon the city’s inhabitants, amplifying an already fraught atmosphere in Germany. Amidst a persistently bleak economic outlook, the country is undergoing a sharp rightward shift, with traditional parties increasingly mirroring the rhetoric of the far-right AfD, to the point where the distinctions between them are becoming negligible. This shift has been accompanied by the criminalization and escalating repression of any movement, initiative, or individual criticizing the Israeli government’s actions, or expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people — the victims of what numerous experts describe as an ongoing genocide.

Farmer In Peru Takes Major Germany Energy Firm To Court

March 19, 2025 Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch. , , , , , ,
A lawsuit filed by a Peruvian farmer against major German energy company RWE began on Monday. The claim, which argues that global heating fueled by the firm’s greenhouse gas emissions poses a risk to the farmer’s home, could set a new precedent for climate litigation, reported The Associated Press. “We have waited 10 years for this day, this decisive day,” said Saúl Luciano Lliuya, as supporters cheered outside the courthouse. “I’m very excited; I hope that everything goes well.” The lawsuit, filed in the Higher Regional Court in Hamm, western Germany, makes the case that RWE’s historical emissions have contributed to the global warming that has accelerated glacial melt near Lliuya’s hometown of Huaraz.

Columbia University’s Nazi Tradition

March 10, 2025 David Swanson, World Beyond War. , , , , , , , ,
According to Columbia Magazine, published by Columbia University’s Office of Alumni and Development, but ultimately named for a brutal imperialist mercenary, in 1933 while Nazis in Germany were burning books by Jews, Columbia’s president — and future Nobel Peace Prize recipient — Nicholas Murray Butler “welcomed Hans Luther, the German ambassador to the United States, to Morningside Heights, insisting that he be accorded ‘the greatest courtesy and respect.'” Columbia’s Daily Spectator newspaper “denounced what it saw as Butler’s courtship of the German government and its universities.”

Left Party Makes Comeback In German Election

February 24, 2025 Marcel Fürstenau, Portside. , , ,
Early projections put the socialist Left Party at over 8%, nearly twice as much as they garnered in the last election in 2021, when they won only 4.9% of the vote. Last year was a political nightmare for the Left Party: In January 2024, their former parliamentary group leader, Sahra Wagenknecht, founded her own eponymous party, then they saw their European Union representation cut in half to just 2.7%. The 2024 state elections were also a disaster, with the party losing its traditional foothold in eastern Germany. Their only state premier failed to hang on in Thuringia, while the party barely made it into Saxony's state parliament and was kicked out of Brandenburg entirely.

Berlin Police Again Try To Shut Down Meeting On Palestine

February 20, 2025 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. , , ,
After police and politicians in Germany tried to cancel a meeting Tuesday in Berlin featuring Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian Territories, organizers were forced to move the event to a smaller venue in defiance of the pressure to shut it down. Last year the police in Berlin broke up a Palestine meeting and barred speakers from entering the country. This time, the organizers, DiEM25, said in a statement on its website: “In a deeply concerning escalation, the organisers of ‘Reclaiming the Discourse: Palestine, Justice, and Truth’ – an event featuring UN Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese – are facing ruthless attacks on their fundamental rights to freedom of speech, assembly, and expression.

A Left Behind Europe (And Ukraine) Will Fall Into Chaos

February 20, 2025 Moon Of Alabama. , , , , , ,
Tuesday's talks (not yet 'negotiations') between the Foreign Ministers of the United States and the Russian Federation went well. More will follow. The readouts and interviews from the U.S. and Russia were all positive. Embassies and Consulates of both sides, shut down for absurd reasons during the Obama and Biden administration, will be reopened and restaffed. Normal diplomatic relations will resume. That in itself is a huge step forward. There were no negotiations yet about the war in Ukraine. Envoys and delegations will be named to crack that nut. It will be a challenge. The process will take some time.

What Greenlanders Make Of Donald Trump’s Advances

January 16, 2025 Jedidajah Otte and Jem Bartholomew, The Guardian. , , , , , , ,
Greenland’s prime minister has called for unity and calm after Donald Trump reheated his global row with Nato allies on Tuesday, when the US president-elect said he was prepared to use tariffs or military force to seize control of Greenland. The comments led the Greenlandic prime minister, Múte Egede, to say: “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders.” The UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, said on Thursday that the US seizure of Greenland is “not going to happen”, while Germany and France have warned Trump over annexation.

Marathon Negotiations Bring Key Breakthroughs For VW Workers

December 24, 2024 Ana Vračar, People's Dispatch. , , , , ,
Volkswagen workers in Germany secured major breakthroughs in their fight against the company’s planned cost-cutting measures. The agreement, finalized during the week of December 16 after marathon-length negotiations, preserves jobs, protects plant operations, and ensures long-term collective bargaining agreements, representing a significant departure from management’s initial proposals of plant closures, salary cuts, and mass redundancies. “No site will be closed, no one will be made redundant and our in-house collective bargaining agreement will be secured in the long term,” said works council chair Daniela Cavallo in the follow-up to the negotiations.

The Centrists Cannot Hold

December 13, 2024 Patrick Lawrence, Scheer Post. , , , ,
A lot of us are familiar with these lines from Yeats’s thoroughly anthologized and often-quoted The Second Coming. How can they not come to mind as the French government of Emmanuel Macron, the centrist par excellence, falls in a heap of high-handed hubris?  Everyone in Paris is blaming everyone since the Macron government’s energized opposition in the National Assembly forced Premier Michel Barnier from office with a vote of no confidence last week. The truth is that Barnier is a casualty of his own political camp — an arrogant “center” that is not, in fact, the center of anything.

German VW Workers Strike To Save Their Jobs

December 12, 2024 Martha Grevatt, Workers World. , , , , , ,
Over 100,000 autoworkers struck nine Volkswagen plants in Germany on Dec. 2. The primary issues are VW’s plans to close three German plants and cut workers’ pay. The plant closings would be the first in the company’s 87-year history. VW’s previous contract with IG Metall, the union representing German autoworkers, did not allow plant closures or job cuts, and workers’ wages were higher than most factory workers in Germany. But the contract, which expired in December, prevented workers from striking. The strikes, called by IG Metall, each lasted two hours. About 20,000 workers gathered inside and outside VW’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany, where its largest German plant is also located, on Dec. 5.

Amazon Workers Strike From Black Friday To Cyber Monday

November 30, 2024 Michelle Del Rey, Portside. , , , , , , ,
Amazon workers are planning to strike from Black Friday through Cyber Monday to hold the company accountable for “labor abuses, environmental degradation and threats to democracy,” organizers say. The “Make Amazon Pay” protest, organized by UNI Global Union and Progressive International, will take place in 20 different countries and major cities in the United Kingdom, United States, Germany, Japan and Brazil. “Amazon is everywhere, but so are we. By uniting our movements across borders, we can not only force Amazon to change its ways but lay the foundations of a world that prioritizes human dignity, not Jeff Bezos’ bank balance.”

Putin Tells German Leader That Ukraine Peace Deal Possible

November 17, 2024 Kyle Anzalone, Antiwar.com. , , , ,
Russian President Vladimir Putin held a phone call with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and offered to end the war in Ukraine. The Russian leader offered a deal similar to one proposed by Moscow in June. On Friday, Scholz spoke with Putin for the first time in nearly two years. According to the Kremlin, “The Russian president noted that the Russian side has never refused and remains open to the resumption of the negotiations that were interrupted by the Kiev regime.” Adding, “Russia’s proposals are well known and outlined, in particular, in a June speech at the Russian Foreign Ministry.”
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