Former German Chancellor Schröder’s and J. Fischer right-wing offensive

For the past two weeks, former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (Social Democratic Party—SPD) and Joschka Fischer's 'Green' has dominated the German media. He was featured in the weekly magazine Der Spiegel, has appeared on a succession of TV shows and has given numerous interviews to the press.

The publicity campaign began with an October 26 appearance by Schröder to present his new book, Decisions—My Life in Politics, at the Willy Brandt House, the SPD headquarters in Berlin. He has since commenced a series of meetings and readings encompassing 20 cities.

At the Willy Brandt House event, a laudatory introduction to Schröder’s book was given by Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean Claude Junker. The conservative Christian Democrat was full of praise for his “social democratic friend,” declaring, “Gerd, you were a great chancellor!”

Junker was above all impressed by the way in which someone “who came from such a low position in society” had fought his way to the top. It took time for Schröder to advance to the point where he could take over the German chancellorship, but then he made “courageous decisions” that are of lasting importance, Junker said.

Most media commentaries have taken a very superficial view of the contents of the book. Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote of the 544-page volume: “A heavy book, undoubtedly, but is it also heavy in content?” The newspaper went on to describe it as a “very airy book” with “much room for notes, thick paper and large letters” and noted that “malicious gossip says the book is like its author—a little puffed up.”

In fact, the book is far more than a “skilfully staged money-making operation,” as other commentators have claimed. Schröder’s book and the former chancellor’s intense media campaign to promote it are part of a deliberate right-wing offensive.

The book has little to offer that is either new or surprising, but Schröder does make two things unmistakably clear: first, he unconditionally defends the policies of his SPD-Green Party government, although the disastrous social and political consequences of that government’s two terms in office (1998-2005) are visible for all to see. Since the social catastrophe of the 1930s, no government has carried out such an aggressive redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich and so brazenly ridden roughshod over accepted democratic norms as the government of Schröder and his Green Party foreign minister, Joschka Fischer.

Second, Schröder is adamant that the offensive he initiated be carried forward regardless of the popular opposition.

In an interview prior to the publication of the book, Schröder accused the current chancellor, Angela Merkel (Christian Democratic Union—CDU), of weak leadership. He accused his successor of lacking the will and drive to continue the measures that he had begun. By means of his memoir, Schröder has sought to forcefully intervene in the current political debate.

In recent weeks, the grand coalition government headed by Merkel, consisting of the traditional conservative parties—the CDU and the Christian Social Union (CSU)—and the SPD, has come under fierce criticism. Business circles and the media have demanded a “faster pace of reforms”—i.e., an intensification of the programme of dismantling the welfare state. Chancellor Merkel has been accused of having no real control over either her party or the government she heads.

When the CDU prime minister for the state of North-Rhine Westphalia, Jürgen Rüttgers, recently suggested a mild softening of the Hartz IV unemployment law, big business and the media responded with a storm of criticism. Rüttgers had suggested that workers who have paid into the unemployment insurance system for decades not lose unemployment benefits after only 12 months, as the law introduced by the SPD and the Greens stipulates.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung derided Rüttger’s proposal, writing that “it is time to start worrying about the expertise of the CDU when it comes to matters of economic policy,” and warning against any return to the economic and social policies of former CDU Chancellor Helmut Kohl. The current labour minister, Franz Müntefering (SPD), was applauded by business circles when he harshly rejected Rüttger’s initiative and declared that he would not allow Germany’s conservative parties to water down the job market reforms that had been so labouriously fought for and implemented by the former SPD-Green government.

Schröder is now intervening directly in this dispute. He is stepping up the pressure on the grand coalition to throw caution to the wind and intensify the onslaught on welfare benefits—if necessary, through openly anti-democratic means.

The meaning of the early election of 2005

A central section of Schröder’s book is devoted to his decision in May of 2005 to precipitate an early national election. An entire chapter is devoted to this topic under the heading “The Election.” He also begins a long chapter entitled “Courage for Change,” which deals in detail with the government’s draconian programme of welfare cuts (the Agenda 2010 reforms and four Hartz laws), with his decision to call an early election.

Schröder describes the discussions he had with his closest ally in the SPD, party chairman Franz Müntefering, after the defeats suffered by the SPD in state elections in Schleswig-Holstein (March 2005) and North Rhine-Westphalia (May 2005): “Franz Müntefering and I had agreed that we would decide how to proceed on the basis of the election results. We met at noon on May 22, 2005, in my office at the chancellery and were prepared for the worst. We were, nevertheless, shocked by the figures we eventually received. The result was catastrophic for the SPD, enabling the CDU to obtain a rather convincing victory in the former SPD stronghold of North Rhine-Westphalia.... Franz had prepared two alternatives. One possible response to the North-Rhine Westphalia election was a cabinet reorganisation; the other—a fresh election.”

Schröder makes no secret of the fact that his party’s defeat in North-Rhine Westphalia—the most densely populated German state and a former industrial centre—was due to broad popular opposition to his social policies. He writes: “We had lost 11 elections in a row...even I was surprised by the extent and intensity of the wave of protests against Agenda 2010.” He acknowledges that “the attempts at reform in 2003 and 2004 led to turbulence across the country.”

Looking back at that time, Schröder makes clear that his conception of democracy has absolutely nothing to do with the will of the people. As opposition and public outrage with the SPD grew to a point where eggs “and even stones” were thrown at Schröder on demonstrations, he decided to launch a counteroffensive. “From this point onwards, I was determined to continue my course even more vehemently and make clear to the public that such assaults did not impress me. I also wanted to make this particularly clear in the east of Germany.”

Unemployment in the east of Germany was, and still is, twice as high as in the west, and opposition to the policies of the SPD-Green government was particularly intense in that region. It was the large pro-SPD vote in the east of Germany that had secured Schröder’s election victory in 1998, but by the summer of 2004 hundreds of thousands of east Germans were participating in protests against the Hartz IV laws, in the futile hope that they could bring the government to its knees—just as the old East German Stalinist regime had been toppled following mass protests in 1989.

Schröder took the protesters head-on and made clear that the slogans referring to “democracy and freedom” that had been glorified at the time of German reunification had nothing to do with genuine popular democracy or making government responsive to the wishes of the majority.

“One thing was completely evident and always clear to me,” Schröder writes. “I had to stick to the political course we had begun. The Agenda 2010 was a decisive policy, and any change of course on my part was inconceivable and would have been a disaster for the SPD. If pressure from parts of the party or its parliamentary group had forced such a change, my resignation would have been inevitable. That was how I saw the situation, and that was the reason why I confronted Franz Müntefering with the idea of early elections.”

Thus, the decision for early elections was clearly part of an offensive to implement social cuts against widespread popular opposition. “I remain convinced—it was a decision of national political necessity,” Schröder writes.

The formulation “of national political necessity” is revealing. Who determines what is “national political necessity?” The democratic will of the majority of the people, or the profit interests of a small, privileged elite? Schröder comes down unmistakably on the side of the latter.

Because such a policy is bound to encounter resistance, “national political necessity” requires drastic measures by an authoritarian state. Schröder argues bluntly for casting away all democratic inhibitions. In so doing, he evokes a tradition that had disastrous consequences in the previous century.

Ever since its historic vote in favour of war credits in 1914, the SPD has elevated the defence of the bourgeois order above the defence of the interests of the working class. In the 1930s, the party supported Chancellor Brüning’s emergency decrees against the workers. Even the West German welfare state was primarily conceived of by the Social Democrats as an instrument of control. In the 1970s, SPD Chancellor Willy Brandt was still able to combine such undemocratic measures as the Emergency Laws and the ban on public employment for radicals with a rise in living standards, but the globalisation of production has stripped away any basis for lasting and serious social reforms under capitalism.

As a result, the SPD has ever more directly turned to the promotion of authoritarian forms of rule in the interests of “national political necessity.” To what extent it rejects democratic principles emerges in those passages where Schröder deals with the judgement by the German Constitutional Court on his move for early elections.

The German Constitution proscribes the dissolution of parliament on the basis of a staged vote of no confidence. This provision was drawn up at the end of the Second World War precisely to avoid the sort of political instability that characterised the pre-war Weimar Republic. Schröder, however, repudiated this constitutional norm—and won the support of all the other constitutional organs: the president, the parliament and the Constitutional Court. Looking back, Schröder describes this coup as a great success.

He praises the judgement issued by the Constitutional Court legitimising an early election, writing that Germany’s highest court gave the chancellor the right to stage “a fake vote of confidence—i.e., to deliberately bring about the dissolution of parliament—if he has the impression that he lacks a sufficient majority in the Bundestag [parliament] for his policies.”

Thereby, according to Schröder, the role of “the chancellor is clearly strengthened in the constitutional structure.” To put it another way: in future, the executive is empowered to act much more independently of parliament and the will of the electorate.

Alliance with Putin

Schröder’s contempt for democratic structures and his support for authoritarian forms of rule emerge as well in other sections of his book. On page 34, he praises Vladimir Putin as a great statesman and personal friend, and applauds the close cooperation between Germany and Russia. While in office, Schröder had referred to the Russian president as a “flawless democrat.”

Schröder has not a critical word to say about Putin’s Russia, simply ignoring the growing attacks on the freedom of the press, the murder of journalists, the increasingly flagrant turn to militarism at home and abroad, the signs of racism and anti-Semitism, and the worsening social misery in the country. Echoing Putin, Schröder speaks of a “resurrection of Russia” and praises Putin as a guarantor of “free-market thinking” and western-oriented “economic values.”

Since Putin has assumed political responsibility for Russia, investors no longer have to fear for their investments, writes Schröder. He continues: “In his function as president, Putin made possible the reestablishment of national structures and for the first time established for its citizens as well as for entrepreneurs and investors something like legal security. This constitutes his real historical merit.”

In light of “America’s disastrous foreign policy,” Schröder contends that Germany must work towards a closer cooperation between the European Union and Russia and use Moscow’s traditionally good relations with Syria and Iran to stabilise the situation in the Middle East. “Instead of encirclement fantasies,” as still favoured by conservative circles, Russia’s security interests should be taken seriously and efforts made to secure close economic, political, cultural and military cooperation.

In his section on Russia, Schröder makes clear that he has fully integrated himself into the corrupt elite that consolidated power in the Soviet Union 15 years ago, plundered the country’s resources and wealth on the basis of capitalist restorationist policies, and then discovered its most important ally in the former KGB functionary Vladimir Putin. Indeed, just a few months after stepping down as German chancellor, Schröder announced that he would take over the presidency of the North European gas pipeline company under the direction of Gazprom—with an appropriately lavish salary.

Welfare cuts and militarism

In his book, Schröder bluntly spells out the close connection between the main plank of his domestic policy—the Agenda 2010—and the foreign policy pursued by his government, aimed at establishing Germany as a “medium power” on the basis of increased militarism.

German military participation in the 1999 Kosovo War was “undoubtedly the turning point of the first legislative period,” Schröder writes. “In our discussions, the connection between tackling foreign policy crises and the domestic strength of the country always played a considerable role. We were increasingly aware of how foreign policy sovereignty was bound up with the economic potential of Germany.”

“We would only be able to maintain our independence in foreign and security policy decisions by increasing our economic potential and being socially and politically mobile,” Schröder writes in a further passage. “Therefore, we had to be prepared for change on the domestic front.”

When one puts aside the euphemisms, two conclusions emerge: first, Schröder’s opposition to the Iraq war was predominantly based on the desire to step outside of the shadow of the US in order to translate the postulate of “German sovereignty” into political practice. Second, the government’s programme of social cuts was directly bound up with the revival of German militarism. Billions that had been saved in the sphere of social and welfare insurance could now be directed towards transforming the German military into a well-equipped army of intervention.

Schröder does not directly draw out the connection between militarism abroad and the militarisation of society at home, but it can be clearly read between the lines.

Responsibility for the grand coalition

In the closing pages of his book, Schröder returns once again to the early elections of last year. In the course of a short and vigorous election campaign, the SPD was able to cut back greatly on the 20 percent lead enjoyed by the conservative parties at the start of the campaign. As a result, the SPD became the driving force in the grand coalition that was formed after the election. “The SPD could impose its unmistakable stamp upon the agreed government programme,” Schröder stresses.

The result of coalition negotiations was a “moderate social democratic programme,” which “on the whole...could have been supported by a Red-Green government.” As a result, the “task of the SPD is basically laid down: the Agenda 2010 course must be defended and consistently implemented.”

A few pages later, Schröder demands the continuation and intensification of welfare cuts through the elaboration of a so-called “Agenda 2020.” The SPD, he argues, has now begun its third consecutive legislative term in government and is thereby the most crucial and formative force in German politics.

There could be no clearer way of putting it: the “social-democratic era” to which Schröder refers “with great satisfaction” is, in fact, a conspiracy against the working people by all of Germany’s established political parties, under the leadership of the SPD.

While containing no new revelations, Schröder’s book is useful in demonstrating how far social democracy has moved to the right. Over the past 15 years, 400,000 members—nearly half of the membership—have quit the party, and recent reports speak of entire local organisations disbanding themselves.

But make no mistake, Schröder, Müntefering and company are less concerned about such losses than they pretend. They are quite prepared to accept the departure of all those who expected from the SPD some sort of policies aimed at social justice. The current SPD leadership is willing to head a rump party capable of carrying forward the interests of the ruling elite in Germany. After all, they do have the slightest concern for the needs and problems that confront the working people who make up the vast majority of the population.

Schröder’s new book makes absolutely clear how misplaced are the arguments and hopes of those who maintain that the SPD can be reformed by grass-roots pressure. The opposite is the case: In response to pressure from below, the party responds with a further shift to the right.

Germany’s role in illegal US “anti-terror” activities

A number of media reports over the last weeks have served to make clear the complicity of the German government in illegal practices carried out by the US as part of its so-called “war on terror.” Not only have the German authorities been aware of instances of kidnapping and the severe abuse of alleged terror suspects since the end of September 2001, they also assisted interrogators by promising to keep silent over US violations of human rights.

At the end of October the British daily paper the Guardian reported that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the US struck an ugly deal with the German government at the end of 2001. Under this arrangement German officials would be allowed access to a German citizen imprisoned in Morocco if the German government used its influence in the European Union to pressure the EU to drop its criticism of human rights violations in that country. This information emerges from a confidential report over the activities of the German Intelligence Service (BND) in the “anti-terror struggle,” released by the government to parliamentary deputies in February of this year.

According to the Guardian report, following the deal there was a pronounced reduction of criticism by EU countries of those states cooperating with the US and involved in the incarceration of alleged terror suspects. Apparently the German government had accepted the US offer.

In all probability the German citizen involved was Haydar Mohammed Zammar, who was arrested in Morocco in November 2001 and later flown to Syria, where he faces trial and a possible death sentence. The case of Zammar shows that German intelligence and security agencies were involved at an early stage in violations of human rights practised by the US.

Zammar is alleged to have visited training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan and been friendly with Mohammed Atta, one the organisers of the September 11 terrorist attack. However, investigations in Germany failed to produce any evidence to justify the arrest or prosecution of Zammar. When Zammar set off for Morocco at the end of 2001, however, the German criminal investigation agency (BKA) immediately informed its colleagues in the CIA. These in turn insured that the Moroccan secret services arrested Zammar.

In December 2001 the CIA transferred Zammar to Syria, where he was incarcerated and severely tortured in the infamous Filastin prison. As is now clear, the German government was informed of these developments from the outset.

Following the deal with the CIA additional bartering with the Syrian government made it possible for a German official to cross-examine Zammar. According to the Guardian, Damascus demanded the release of six Syrian intelligence agents held in Germany and accused of plotting against Syrian oppositionists. Germany’s former Social Democratic Party (SPD)-Green Party government has denied any involvement in these activities, but it is more than a “coincidence” when five BND and BKA agents were allowed access to Zammar at the very same time the six accused Syrians were set free.

The purpose of the intervention by the German agents was not to ensure the release of Zammar, to protect him from torture, or to assure his return to Germany. Instead the agents sought information from Zammar and attempted to force a confession out of him. At the time, the police officers involved noted somewhat cynically that although Zammar had clearly lost weight, he appeared “physically and psychologically” healthy. It is obvious that these remarks were primarily aimed at justifying the ongoing interrogation of the “suspect.”

Although the SPD-Green government and German security agencies were well aware of, or even actively involved in, the practices of illegal arrests, transferrals and abuse of prisoners, they gave the impression of knowing nothing and thoroughly deceived the public.

The German attorney for Zammar, Gül Pinar, also suffered from this deception. Having made a series of inquiries to the German State Department—headed by the foreign minister at the time, Joschka Fischer (of the Greens)—Pinar was repeatedly informed that the ministry knew nothing about Zammar’s situation. This was at a time when German authorities had already maintained extensive contact with Damascus.

The case of Khafagy: early knowledge of secret prisons

The German parliamentary committee of inquiry, which is looking into the secret activities of the BND in the “anti-terror struggle,” is also dealing with the case of Zammar. Amongst the details brought to light by the committee is another incident which exposes the hypocritical and lying assertions that German authorities only became aware of the activities of US secret prisons, illegal arrests, transferrals and tortures in Europe through media reports.

The incident concerns the Egyptian-born Munich-based publisher Abdel Halim Khafagy, who journeyed to Bosnia in September 2001 in order to distribute copies of the Koran. On the night of September 24—i.e., two weeks after the terrorist attacks of September 11—Khafagy’s hotel room in Sarajevo was stormed by masked men who brutally hit the 69-year-old man and then arrested him along with a Jordanian companion. The two were abducted to the US military Eagle base in Tuzla (Bosnia) and remained at their undisclosed location for several weeks.

Two days after the arrival of the two alleged terror suspects in Tuzla the BND received an order to back up the Americans by sending an interpreter and two criminal investigation officers. The Germans were to assist in interrogations and help examine documents.

The officials arrived in Tuzla on October 2. According to the testimony of one BND to the German television program Frontal21, “I can still remember that the majority of . . . seized documents were heavily covered in blood. . . The Americans were obviously proud of the fact that the head wound incurred during the arrest had needed 20 stitches.”

The BKA official Klaus Z., who recently gave testimony to the committee of inquiry into the BND, refused at the time to interrogate Khafagy because of the abuse he had received. The German officers also learned of additional cases of arrests and abuse, which led them to break short their mission. According to Stern magazine, on their return home via Sarajevo the BKA officials compared American activity in Tuzla with those crimes “for which the Serbs were being prosecuted by the ICTY in the Hague”—i.e., the war crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia.

After their return to Germany the BKA agents drew up a detailed report for the next meeting of the intelligence affairs committee in the chancellery. Taking part in the discussions at the time were the head of the chancellery (and current foreign minister) Frank Walter Steinmeier (SPD), the head of the BND and current interior undersecretary of state, August Hanning, as well as Ernst Uhrlau, at that time intelligence service coordinator for the chancellery and today Hanning’s successor as president of the BND.

This means that knowledge of the activities at the US military bases in Bosnia was not limited to the intelligence services but was available at the highest levels of political leadership. Nevertheless, the German government remains adamant that it only became aware of US secret prisons in Europe through media reports. However, what other description fits the US military base Eagle in Tuzla, in which illegally arrested persons were tortured and abused, than a “US secret prison?”

At every opportunity the German authorities sought to cover their tracks. After the family of Khafagy engaged the services of attorney Walter Lechner to investigate the disappearance of the publisher, he confronted a wall of silence from the German authorities. In the course of his telephone enquiries Lechner accidentally made contact in Bosnia with a BND agent, who had intimate knowledge of the kidnapping and abuse of Khafagy. However, the agent then refused to confirm over the telephone that he worked for the BND and had been informed about the abduction.

Lechner recently told Frontal21, “If I have been lied to . . . then that would be intolerable. That is something I never could have contemplated at that time. And I can only contemplate it with difficulty today. After all we are not talking about a trifle. It concerns a person who had disappeared, who was in the hands of undisclosed forces, beaten up, kidnapped, and one did not even know whether he was still alive.”

In the event, Khafygy was only released after two months following his transfer to Egypt—a state known for its brutal treatment of prisoners. Lechner can still clearly remember Khafagy’s arrival in Munich. He told tagesschau.de that he met a “severely haggard elderly gentleman, who was under heavy shock, his nerves had been shattered and he was not fully aware of what had happened to him.”

According to secret government documents passed on to the press, it is likely that Khafagy, who no longer lives in Germany, had been confused with another person. His lawyer is currently exploring the possibilities of legal action against the German government, which as Lechner maintains must at least be suspected of denying his client any assistance.

US prison in Tuzla

The suspicions go further, however, and extend to the accusation that German agents were involved in the interrogations and mishandling carried out at in Tuzla.

The BKA and BND were withdrawn from Tuzla in October 2001 but, according to one report by a BND agent active in Bosnia, members of the Allied Military Intelligence Battalion (AMIB) may have been involved in interrogations carried out at the US Eagle military base. The AMIB is an intelligence unit belonging to NATO, which was also employed in Bosnia and includes officers from the German Military Defence (MAD) as well as a BND official. The BND has refused to reply to newspaper inquiries on this issue, while the German Defence Ministry has merely responded by saying the matter would be looked into. There has been no official denial, however, of the reports.

Criticism of US practices at its military base in Tuzla is not new. In May 2002 the human rights organization Amnesty International drew attention to the fact that SFOR occupation forces in Bosnia under NATO command had repeatedly imprisoned persons without an arrest warrant, abused them and then held them for days at a time without access to a lawyer.

In another case the so-called “Algerian six,” whose illegal arrest and detention by SFOR troops is currently the subject of a committee of inquiry by the European parliament, were flown via the US Tuzla base and Rammstein base in Germany to Guantánamo. In 2003 the German army had drawn up a detailed report on the “utterly dubious deportations” of the six men from Bosnia. The report was also submitted to the Defence Ministry in Berlin, which now claims that this highly controversial document has disappeared from its archives.

Any mention of the events in Tuzla is also missing from the alleged “comprehensive report” by the German government, which was made to its own parliamentary control committee (PKG) in February 2006.

The events dealt with in the PKG investigation took place primarily within the period in office of Germany’s former Social Democratic Party-Green Party government (1998-2005), but members of that government have been reluctant to speak out over the disclosures. The former interior minister, Otto Schily (SPD), who had declared his ignorance of any untoward practices in December 2005, has refused to make a statement to the press. When asked recently about the US secret prisons the chancellor at the time, Gerhard Schröder (SPD), brusquely declared that he “does not know and knew nothing” about the illegal practices of the CIA and made clear that he is unwilling to broach the topic in future.

It is increasingly evident that public claims by the SPD-Green government aimed at distancing itself from the activities of the US security forces in connection with the “war against terror” were utterly hypocritical. It now seems clear that Berlin was not only informed about illegal US practices in Europe from the very beginning, but also kept quiet on the issue while cooperating with the CIA on a number of fronts. In so doing the German authorities acted as accomplices in the abuses of human rights carried out by Bush administration.

Germany’s current ruling grand coalition of the SPD and conservative parties (Christian Democratic Union, CDU, and Christian Social Union, CSU) has continued the policy of its political predecessor. In December 2005, Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) declared the readiness of his ministry to continue to use information obtained from interrogations carried out abroad of alleged terrorist suspects, even if confessions had been obtained under torture.

The current committee of inquiry, which is dominated by government parties, has been refused access to documents and statements have been blocked. Deliberations and acknowledgements are restricted to matters that have already been made public via the press. In July this year chancellery minister Thomas de Maizière (CDU) had declared that internal government documents could not be made available because “when in doubt the security of the Federal Republic has priority over any short-term investigative interests.”

His statement must be taken as a serious warning. With his reference to “national security interests” the minister is not only justifying the violation of international law and constitutional principles, but also any right to proper democratic control of the activities of government agencies. His statement amounts to a blank cheque for dictatorial state measures.

A terrible consequence of social polarisation and militarism: School shooting and suicide in Germany

At 9:30 a.m. on Monday, November 20, a heavily armed 18-year-old man stormed into his former junior high school, Geschwister-Scholl, opened fire on students and threw smoke bombs, injuring more than 30 before taking his own life. The attack took place in the town of Emsdetten in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state.

Bastian B. entered the school wearing a combat mask and clad in black. He was armed with a suicide explosive belt, pipe bombs, smoke canisters, rifles and pistols as he burst into the school firing wildly at teachers and pupils. A female teacher was shot in the face with a non-lethal gas-powered gun. When the school’s janitor came to her aid, Bastian B. shot him in the stomach with another gun. The janitor is now in hospital in critical condition.

Bastian B. then proceeded to shoot and wound four pupils. Most of the rest of the wounded, including a number of police officers, suffered asphyxiation from the smoke bombs he threw. Prior to November 20, he had announced his intention to carry out such a attack in a number of postings in the Internet.

The school shooting in Emsdetten is the latest in a series of outbursts of violence in German schools in recent years. In November 1999 a 15-year-old school student stabbed and killed his teacher in the East German town of Meissen. In April 2002, 19-year-old Robert Steinhäuser ran amok in his former school in the East German city of Erfurt, killing 17 people, including teachers, two pupils and one policeman. A few months before the Erfurt shooting Steinhäuser had been expelled from the town’s Gutenberg-Gymnasium. The shooting was the worst single act of violence in Germany since World War II.

Just over a year later in the Bavarian town of Coburg, a 16-year-old youth wounded his teacher and then took his own life. And this year, on the evening of May 26, 16-year-old Mike P. used a knife to slash his way through a crowd, indiscriminately wounding over 30 people. The incident took place at the official opening of Berlin’s new central railway station.

In a predictable fashion, leading politicians have joined sociologists to express their shock and astonishment at this “inexplicable” outrage. At the same time they have been quick to identify violent video games as a main contributing factor for Bastian B.’s behaviour. Politicians from across the political spectrum have called for a ban on video games, such as the war game Counterstrike, which Bastian B. is known to have played.

While such games can certainly contribute to stimulating atavistic and anti-social attitudes, the production and marketing of such games is big business. Millions of copies of Counterstrike and similar games have been sold to young people all over the world, but it is only a handful of youth who resort to such terrible acts as the shooting in Emsdetten.

Monday’s shooting was a despicable and deplorable act, but it was by no means inexplicable.

The deeper roots of such a crime lie in the rapidly developing social decline in Germany, which denies young people the prospect of a secure, harmonious and worthwhile life. Abandoned and ignored by the established political parties that are responsible for social disintegration and growing militarism, millions of youth—while deploring the brutal revenge killing by Bastian B.—nevertheless confront problems similar to those that produced the profound sense of social alienation, bitterness and desperation he must have felt.

Fellow students have confirmed that Bastian B. was an intelligent student who had in the past received good grades. However, he had developed a fascination with violence and killing, erecting his own Internet site where he posed dressed in combat gear and holding weapons. He had also told acquaintances he wanted to join the German army. At the same time in a number of comments on his web site he clearly outlined the basis for his growing frustration with the school system and society as a whole, which found such an explosive form.

“The only thing I learned intensively at school was that I’m a loser,” he wrote. In another section he writes, “What’s the point of working? Should I work myself to the bone, only to take retirement at 65 and then die five years later?”

With regard to the atmosphere in his school he wrote, “One has to have the latest handy (cell phone), the newest clothes and the right ‘friends.’ If you don’t have them then one is not considered worthy of respect.”

He concludes, “Life as it is today is the most miserable thing the world has to offer.”

From his experiences Bastian B. draws the conclusion that humanity as a whole is to blame for this state of affairs, and had to be punished. In a final message he bid farewell to all of those who genuinely care for him and apologises for what he is about to do. The letter ends with the words, “I am gone.”

Social conditions in North Rhine-Westphalia

Bastian B.’s comments on the lack of prospects in German society for working class youth are not plucked from thin air. Following the school atrocities in Meissen and Erfurt some commentators drew attention to the contributory role played in such incidents by the devastation of industry, and the lack of full-time jobs and cultural alternatives afflicting large regions of Eastern Germany following reunification in 1990.

The recent debate on the emergence of a so-called “under class,” though predominantly of a right-wing character, has at least revealed that large swathes of western Germany are suffering from very similar forms of social decay and a haemorrhaging of decent-paying jobs in favour of more precarious forms of work.

The last report by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), based on outdated statistics from 2004, estimated the actual level of poverty in Germany to be 16 percent, which indicates an increase of nearly 5 percent since 1999. According to the institute, this total increased by half a percent in the course of 2005 alone—to 16.5 percent. The states of the former East Germany are even worse off, with poverty rates of 21.5 percent, though recent statistics reveal that some western regions are now as poor as the east.

In the postwar period the iron, steel and coal industries of the Ruhr industrial area played a major role in the German economic miracle. In recent decades, hundreds of thousands of jobs have been cut, and those industries have been reduced to skeletons of their former selves. Many towns and cities in North Rhine-Westphalia are plagued by high levels of unemployment, and youth unemployment in the state exceeds 20 percent. Under these conditions, levels of poverty in many regions of NRW certainly exceed the average rates given in the DIW report.

According to one recent study there has been an enormous increase in the growth of irregular, part-time and low-paid jobs. Workers in such jobs can earn as little as one euro per hour and lose any entitlement to proper health and pension insurance. Forced to take on a number of jobs to earn a survival wage, they are part of the rapidly-growing army of the “working poor.” In the eastern region of North Rhine-Westphalia there has been an increase of 34.9 percent in the number of such jobs between 2000 and 2005.

Young people leaving school are especially targeted for such work, while many others take on non-paid positions as apprentices or student trainees in the often vain hope of eventually obtaining full-time employment.

The enormous and rapid decline in work prospects for young people is the direct result of the social policies introduced by the forerunner of the current grand coalition government, the Social Democratic Party (SPD)-Green coalition government led by Gerhard Schröder and Joshka Fischer from 1998 to 2005. It was this government that implemented the most sweeping and vicious attacks on the welfare state in German postwar history. In his Internet comments Bastian B. expressed his fears of working in a dead-end job until he was 65. In fact, Germany’s current vice chancellor, Franz Müntefering of the SPD, is agitating for the retirement age to be raised to 67.

The militarization of German society

Today in Germany it is not necessary to load a video game to encounter military violence in the most brutal form. Alongside tens of millions of other Europeans, the German public have witnessed countless images on television screens over the past few years depicting the horrendous violence arising from the military occupation of Iraq.

Only recently, newspaper reports in Germany dealt with the case of US soldiers involved in the rape of a young Iraqi girl and the subsequent cold-blooded execution of the rape victim and members of her family. Mimicking scenes from the resistance to the occupation of Iraq, which millions have seen on television or via the internet, Bastian B. garbed himself with a suicide belt of explosives to take revenge on those he so very falsely assumed to be his enemy.

At the same time, the German establishment is in the midst of its own debate, in which media outlets and leading political and military circles are stressing the need for an intensified military involvement by Germany all over the world.

On the very same day as the outrage in Emsdetten one of Germany’s most popular weekly news magazines, Der Spiegel, appeared with a front-page cover of a young German soldier garbed in almost identical fashion to the Bastian B. in the pictures of himself, decked out in military fatigues, that he posted on the Internet. The headline spelled out in large characters, “The Germans Have to Learn How to Kill.” The accompanying article dealt with increasing international pressure for Germany to send troops into the war zone of southern Afghanistan.

The same SPD-Green government that introduced drastic cuts to Germany’s welfare state, and which has exposed millions of youth and workers to new levels of poverty and exploitation, was also responsible for the enormous growth in recent German military involvement abroad. The German army currently has a total of over 10,000 soldiers on active duty in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The number of casualties from such deployments has also grown. A total of 56 German soldiers have died over the past eight years, with most of the deaths occurring in Afghanistan.

The inevitable brutalisation of these young recruits was recently highlighted by the publication of a number of photographs of German soldiers posing with a human skull and simulating oral sex with it. Some soldiers daubed their vehicles with slogans and symbols similar to those of the Nazi Wehrmacht.

Not content with military interventions in three continents, the new Grand Coalition government of the Christian Democratic Union-Christian Social Union and the SPD is preparing for a qualitative expansion of its imperialist activities abroad. It has recently published a White Paper detailing the new tasks and responsibilities of the German army in the twenty-first century.

Thus, amidst the feigned outrage over the Afghan photos and the professions of astonishment over the Emsdetten shootings, the government and the army high command are preparing for ever worse crimes that will brutalise thousands more young people and serve in an effort to accustom the German public to death and suffering on a scale not seen since the downfall of the Third Reich.

12 Millionen Arbeitssuchende und es werden immer mehr!

Der Druck auf Arbeitslose hat nur die Löhne im Visier, meint auch der DGB. Der verschärfte Druck auf Alg II-Empfänger sorgt auch bei Beschäftigten für große Existenzsorgen im Falle des Arbeitsplatzverlustes. Das begünstigt die Aushebelung von tariflichen Löhnen, was das eigentliche Ziel unserer Bundesregierung ist:

Wer Angst um seinen Job hat, ist bereit, auch für weniger Geld zu arbeiten um den Unternehmen weitere zusätzliche Milliarden Gewinne zu verschaffen. Das betrifft vor allem die niedrigen Lohngruppen, hat aber immer mehr Auswirkung auf das gesamte Lohn- und Gehaltsgefüge das schrittweise zersetzt werden soll.

Mittlerweile kosten Ein-Euro-Jobs und Arbeitsbeschaffungsmaßnahmen mehr Steuergelder als die Arbeitslosen selbst. Überall steigen die Preise obwohl immer mehr nur noch im Ausland produziert wird. Die angeblich notwendige Globalisierung verschafft den Kapitalunternhmen traumhafte Gewinne wie z. B. der Telekom 19 Milliarden Euro und die Bürger aller EU-Länder werden gnadenos ausgebeutet. Die Steuereinnahmen in Deutschland sind so hoch - wie nie zuvor. Unsere Bundesregierung zahlt seinen Wahlhelfern den fast 5 Millionen Politiker u. Beamten und Mitarbeitern des öffentlichen Dienstes weit über 80 Milliarden Euro.

Was knapp 5 Millionen Staatsdiener abgreifen (80 Milliarden Euro) zahlt die Bundesregierung nur an 20 Millionen Rentner und will permanent kürzen! Nur bei den 5 Millionen Politiker und Beamte, den Wahlhelfern der Bundesregierung, wird keine Rentenversicherungspflicht eingeführt.

Ein mittlerer Beamter erhält aus unserer Steuerkasse monatlich z. B. 5.900.- Euro und zahlt davon nicht einen Cent in unsere Rentenkasse. Kassiert aber dann eine lebenslange Pension von ca. 4.000 Euro. Und wer zahlt den Politikern und Beamten die fetten Bezüge, natürlich die Steuerzahler, z. B. eine Frisösin die für weniger als 600 Euro arbeiten geht und selbst davon 60 Euro in die Rentenkasse zahlen muss. Zudem verschlampen unsere Politiker und Beamte Jahr für Jahr zwischen 20 - 30 Milliarden Euro (2005 waren es über 30 Milliarden Euro), ohne das dafür jemand haftet. Die heutigen nicht mal 900.000 Beamten- und Politikerpenionäre kassieren schon jährlich 24,8 Milliarden Euro.

Es leuchtet keinem Renter, keinem Arbeitnehmer, keinem Arbeitslosen ein, dass ein Beamter der monatlich 5.200 Euro auf die Hand bekommt, keinen Beitrag zur Rentenkasse zahlen muss. Ein Arbeitnehmer der 5.200 Euro Bruttogehalt hat, muss davon fast 500 Euro und der Arbeitgeber nochmals fast 520 Euro in die Rentenkasse zahlen. Ist das soziale Gerechtigkeit, oder ein Verbechen an das eigentlich werteschaffende Volk?


Unfähige Regierung
wird Deutschland zersetzen!

Die Chaos-Truppe in Berlin und Millionen Staatsdiener stopfen sich die Taschen voll, zahlen selbst keine Beiträge in Renten- und Arbeitslosenversicherung, nutzen sehr oft auch eine private Krankenkasse wo sie z. Teil 80 % weniger Beitrag bezahlen und die Allgemeinheit muss die fehlenden Beiträge von ca. 10,2 Milliarden Euro jährlich subventionieren.

Die Bundesregierung zahlt auch bis heute Subventionen von unseren Steuergeldern an Firmen die ins Ausland abwandern. Immer mehr Arbeitsplätze werden ins Ausland verlagert, um den schein zu waren wurden zwischenzeitlich Millionen Ein-Euro-Jobs und Arbeitsbeschaffungsmaßnahmen generiert die kaum nutzen bringen und uns viele Milliarden Euro Steuergelder zusätzlich kosten um die Arbeitslosenstatistik zu verfeinern. Mittlerweile hat Deutschland fast 12 Millionen Arbeitssuchende die sich in keiner Statistik wieder finden, um den Zorn des Volkes nicht zu entfachen. Auch die Bundestagsabgeordneten sind meißtens nur noch Majonetten, die abstimmen was ihnen vorgeschrieben wird.

Kapitalunternehmen machen zwischenzeitlich Milliarden Gewinne, dennoch kommt es regelmäßig zu Preissteigerungen die im Grunde überhaupt nicht notwendig wären. Die Raffgier wird immer größer, man kann schon jetzt von Wucher sprechen. Die einzigen die regelmäßig Lohnerhöhungen bekommen, sind unsere Politiker und Beamte. Still und leise gibt es fast jedes Jahr Gehaltserhöhungen. Die Sprüche der Politiker werden immer unglaubwürdiger, immer mehr Bürger erkennen schon jetzt die Widersprüche der Politik! Wenn in Deutschland keine Umkehr der gegenwärtigen Politik eintritt, wird es früher oder später zu massiven Protesten kommen.

Eine Lüge der Politiker?

• Wird die angeblich notwendige Globalisierung nur dazu benutzt um den großen Kapitalunternehmen die Produktion im Ausland zu ermöglichen und die Zollfreie Einfuhr zu sichern? Wo ist denn die Globalisierung für die kleinen Unternehmen und den Bürgern der EU? Können wir z. B. Waren wie Strom, Kraftstoffe, Textilien, Alkohol, Tabakwaren usw. aus anderen EU-Ländern einführen um damit zu handeln oder selbst zu verbrauchen? Wird nicht der EU-Bürger hinter deutschen Grenzübergängen ständig gefilzt? Wo ist denn nun die Globalisierung? Eine Volkslüge?
• Warum können nur große Kapitalunternehmen grenzenlos im Ausland produzieren und einkaufen? Millionen Kleinunternehmen würden auch gern den angeblich "offenen Welthandel" nutzen. Warum können wir z.B. nicht mit Energie (Kraftstoffe, Heizöl und Strom u.v.m.) aus den neuen EU-Ländern handeln, um den Bürgern die Waren erheblich günstiger anbieten zu können? Auch hier ließen sich die Monopolstellungen einiger Konzerne sehr schnell aushebeln, wenn man es denn will?
• Für eine EU-Mitgliedschaft zahlt der deutsche Steuerzahler jährlich ca. 24 Milliarden Euro an Beiträgen. Für die Bürger selbst sind neben tausenden sinnlosen EU-Richtlinien, deren Umsetzung wiederum viele Milliarden Euro verschlingen, nur erhebliche Preissteigerungen für Waren aller Art zu verzeichnen.
• Die Kapitalunternehmen erzielen Milliarden Gewinne im zweistelligen Bereich, produzieren im Ausland zu teilweise unmenschlichen Bedingungen, aber die Preise in Deutschland steigen und steigen. Schlafen unsere Politiker, oder profitieren sie von den gewaltigen Gewinnen der großen Konzerne? Sind deshalb unsere Volksvertreter in allen großen Aufsichtsräten der Konzerne, und verdienen sich zusätzlich eine goldene Nase?
• Merkels Energiegipfel ist gescheitert!
• Wir haben die Lösung!
• Bis Ende 2007 will unsere Kanzlerin nun überlegen, wie die Energiekosten gesenkt werden können! Wir haben schon jetzt eine Lösung: Festschreibung der Durchleitungsgebühren auf max. 2 Cent/KWh! Da der Herstellungspreis je KWh Strom nur bei 2 -3 Cent liegt, ergibt das ein Gesamtpreis von max. 5 Cent je KWh. Hunderte Unternehmen in Deutschland würden sofort mit dem Handel mit Strom beginnen und diesen erheblich günstiger anbieten können, dabei könnten sogar noch tausende Arbeitsplätze neu entstehen.
• So einfach ist das Monopol der 4 Energieriesen zu knacken, wenn man es denn will. Hilfsweise würde auch ein Staatsunternehmen hier sehr schnell Abhilfe schaffen! Nicht vergessen, die Kraftwerke in Deutschland wurden überwiegend von Steuergeldern bezahlt.
• SPD: Will Zuverdienst auf 40 Euro begrenzen!
• Nun will auch die SPD den Zuverdienst bei ALG II Empfängern auf 40 Euro monatlich begrenzen, wie es die CDU bereits vorgeschlagen hatte. Seit Jahren wird der Zuverdienst laufend geändert! Die Konzeptlosigkeit der Bundesregierung ist immer mehr erkennbar. Münte, es fehlen schon jetzt mindestens 10 Millionen Arbeitsplätze!
• 19 % mehr Waren eingeführt!
• Immer mehr wird die Produktion ins Ausland verlagert, das beweisen die auch aktuellen Zahlen des Institutes f. Wirtschaftforschung in Halle. Das IWH stellte fest, dass bereits im ersten Halbjahr 2006, 19 % mehr Waren in Deutschland eingeführt wurden, als im Vorjahr. In Zahlen bedeutet das: Für 354 Milliarden Euro wurden im ersten Halbjahr 2006, Handelsgüter in Deutschland eingeführt. Und genau hier liegt das Problem, denn immer mehr Arbeitsplätze wandern ab. Warum die Bundesregierung hier nicht handelt, ist für viele Bürger völlig unverständlich.
• Ist Deutschland bald ein Land der "Arbeitslosen"?
• Erst gestern stellt sich Merkel hin und verkündet, sie will im nächsten Jahr die EU-Verfassung (die bereits von mehreren Ländern abgelehnt wurde) neu auf den Plan setzen! Natürlich ist eine Volksabstimmg in Deutschland nicht vorgesehen! Nennen wir das Demokratie? Über 80 Millionen Bürger wird hier in Diktatormanier, eine Zustimmung vorgeschrieben! Der EU-Wahnsinn ist mittelfristig der Untergang Deutschlands!
• Hat die CDU-Spitze schon Wahnvorstellungen?
• Statt sich mit den Fragen zu beschäftigen, warum jährlich über 1 Millionen Arbeitsplätze verschwinden, lenkt sich die CDU-Spitze mit den Fragen ab, wie sie ALG II Empfänger drangsallieren kann, ohne ihnen wirkliche Alternativen zu geben. Bei fast 12 Mio. Arbeitslosen, sollte die CDU mal anfangen die Abwanderung von Arbeitsplätzen zu verhindern (z. B. mit der Einführung von Zollgebühren bei Importen auch aus EU-Staaten). Nur der EU-Wahnsinn beschert uns jedes Jahr über eine Millionen weitere Arbeitslose.
• In der Diskussion um Leistungskürzungen für arbeitsunwillige Langzeitarbeitslose hat der Deutsche Landkreistag (DLT) erstmals konkrete Zahlen vorgelegt. Danach wurden im ersten Halbjahr 2006 bei nur einem Prozent der als erwerbsfähig eingestuften Empfänger von Arbeitslosengeld II (ALG II) die Leistungen eingeschränkt. Angesichts einer Wulst von Klagen bei allen Sozialgerichten mag sogar noch die Zahl von 1 % bezweifelt werden. Wo keine Arbeit ist, da kann auch keine Arbeit vermittelt werden - Frau Merkel und Co.