Posted on 01/03/2017 7:54:16 PM PST by Olog-hai
Germany’s federal interior minister has presented “guidelines for a strong state in difficult times.” Some aspects already exist; others are doomed to fail in the face of constitutional reality. […]
[Thomas] De Maizière envisions turning over protection of the constitution entirely to the federal government. That would require the dissolution of the agency’s 16 state offices. His rationale: No one intent upon attacking the constitution is interested in destroying governmental order “in one state alone.” Though this sounds plausible as a concept, it could turn out to be too complicated to be put into practice. Domestic security services are charged with more than simply defending against terror threats, they must also identify right-wing and left-wing extremist threats, and spy activities as well. Altogether, the tasks are as complex as they are regionally diverse, making it potentially impossible for the interior minister’s state counterparts to effectively help him. […]
When police are stretched to capacity, he [de Maizière] says, soldiers should be able to be deployed to fulfill tasks such as “armed property protection.” That would mean changing the constitution, something that requires a two-thirds vote in both the lower and upper houses of parliament. De Maizière also wants more responsibilities for Germany’s federal police force, “which is currently limited to protecting train stations, airports and national borders.” …
(Excerpt) Read more at dw.com ...
If ‘adult-leadership’ out of Berlin had been exercised in 2013 to today, then de Maiziere’s comments wouldn’t be required.
I have my doubts that the sixteen states will agree on this topic. There’s no guarantee that the national and centralized security apparatus would not be run by some incompetent idiot, and make matters worse.
If you bring up this idea of bringing Bundeswehr soldiers onto some kind of street duty...most Germans don’t have a problem with a short-term order and a focused effort. If you said that you were sending out 25,000 of such troops for a 90-day duty, then the public would be asking questions and probably not so accepting of the idea.
One could probably write a book over the thousand-odd mistakes made in Germany since this all started.
I keep hearing that the notion of Bundeswehr soldiers patrolling the streets is still an uncrossable line in Germany. And it is troubling to hear the higher-ups in government favoring it so strongly.
The last Communist government in de Maziere’s East Germany wanted to reform the Stasi into an office for constitutional protection.
After a public outcry, it was quickly scrapped.
Germans are dubious the authorities need more tools to fight extremism. They are just not using the resources they already have well enough.
In Hitler’s early days in power, it was the Prussian police, not the Reichswehr, that laid the basis for the Nazi dictatorship.
Prussia then was Germany’s largest state, compromising two thirds of the territory of the Reich and more than 60% of the country’s population.
It was made easier by the fact von Papen had ousted the SPD state government from office that ran Prussia without interruption from 1920 to 1932.
I would agree, but then you look at Belgium and France, it’s a routine picture there now. You can go to NY City and see National Guardsmen still patrolling some public infrastructure areas (airports, railway stations, etc).
At the rate things are going, I expect another round of 20,000 policemen added by summer of 2018.
Germany’s domestic security couldn’t possibly be simpler and requires no “special” understanding - round up Merkel’s Syrians and ship them home.
End of problem.
Of course, and that could be a one-time thing.
But notice how they want to increase the power of the federal government (including the power and size of the federal police force, in addition to breaking the taboo of Bundeswehr troops on the streets) to solve the very problem they created. That bespeaks a malevolent intent right there.
Government bureaucrats ALWAYS want to increase the power of... government bureaucrats.
It’s like gravity - a fact of everyday life everywhere.
And it always comes to the same sticky end.
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