Posted on 09/20/2002 2:51:02 PM PDT by John Jorsett
BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder apologized to President Bush ( news - web sites) on Friday for the offence caused by a report that his justice minister had compared Bush's methods to Hitler's
The election-eve report in a regional daily angered a U.S. administration already upset about the center-left chancellor's voluble -- and highly popular -- opposition to a prospective U.S.-led war in Iraq.
Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin tried to calm the transatlantic row on Friday by denying the report.
But reporters pressed her for over an hour on what appeared to be not only a breach of a German political taboo but a sharp affront to democratic Germany's long-time ally and guarantor.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer ( news - web sites) called the remarks "outrageous and inexplicable" and Secretary of State Colin Powell ( news - web sites) rang German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer to complain.
The report said Daeubler-Gmelin had told a pre-election gathering that, by threatening to attack Iraq, "Bush wants to distract attention from his domestic political problems. That's a favorite method. Hitler did that too."
Schroeder wrote to Bush, saying: "I want to let you know how much I regret the fact that alleged comments by the German justice minister have given an impression that has offended you."
SHADOW ON RELATIONS
He said he had accepted Daeubler-Gmelin's denial and added, according to a German text provided by his office:
"Let me assure you that there is no place at my cabinet table for anyone who makes a connection between the American president and such a criminal."
Daeubler-Gmelin told reporters: "It is absurd and slanderous to connect me to a comparison between a democratically elected politician and Nazi leaders...I deeply regret that this has thrown shadows on German-American relations."
She said she had "great respect" for Bush and called U.S. ambassador Daniel Coats to say she had been misrepresented.
But it is not the first time in recent months that Coats has had to address fears of a deterioration in relations between two countries whose alliance rests on decades of Cold War cooperation against Soviet communism.
Schroeder angered Washington -- and earned opposition accusations of cheap electioneering -- by saying he would not lead Germany into a military "adventure" against Iraq and questioning whether the United States had a plan for Iraq after it had toppled President Saddam Hussein ( news - web sites).
For his part Schroeder -- who put his government on the line last year to win parliament's approval for German troops to join the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan ( news - web sites) -- has told Washington he is fed up of learning about its "changes of strategy" in the press.
U.S. officials say privately that Bush and his national security adviser Condoleezza Rice ( news - web sites) are angry and offended.
Klaus Naumann, former chairman of the military committee of the transatlantic NATO ( news - web sites) alliance, told the Tagesspiegel daily:
"I've just come from Washington, and I can tell you that relations are very badly damaged."
PRE-ELECTION MOOD
Opposition leaders demanded Schroeder sack his minister, but it remains to be seen whether the row will in any way hurt his re-election chances in Sunday's cliffhanger election.
His opposition to a military strike has touched a nerve in a nation scarred by two world wars. Many Germans are also critical of what they see as Bush's isolationism, for instance by rejecting international treaties on justice or the environment.
The daily Schwaebisches Tagblatt, which is based in Daeubler-Gmelin's constituency, admitted to being sympathetic to the minister and to some criticism of Bush.
But it said on its Web site that it had confirmed her comments with several trade unionists who attended the debate.
Editor-in-chief Christoph Mueller said the reporter had even given her the opportunity to dictate her own version of the comment, which she had approved when it was read back to her.
But he told Reuters she had later gone to see the paper to try to withdraw her comments entirely.
Daeubler-Gmelin denied having authorized any quote.
She told reporters that, in a discussion with union members, she had mentioned public debate in the United States about how foreign policy could divert attention from domestic problems: "I then said that we have known this debate since 'Adolf Nazi'."
She said she had seen that people in the group appeared to have misunderstood this, and then insisted that no comparison or connection could or should be made between Hitler and Bush.
Amazing.
I'd call that a non-denial denial.
That's one heck of an apology. Everything is just peachy now. Thanks, Gerhard.
So he's apologizin' for something he still insists did not happen.
"Sorry you feel that way, Georg"?
We were also closer to the Russians in the '30's and '40's... Germany is a little bitch nation.
Yeah, we won't ever learn, nor, evidently, will those rascally Germans. Unless you are blonde-haired & blue-eyed, don't even ask for the german people to give a damn (they seem to get some kind of perverse thrill when Kurds are gassed - guess it has to do with that distastefully unaryan brown skin.) And let's not even talk about hooked noses, tsk-tsk.
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