Free Republic

ISTANBUL -- April marked the 65th birthday of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, formed at the height of the Cold War to stop the huge postwar Red Army from overrunning Western Europe. NATO in 1949 had only 12 members, comprising Western Europe, Canada and the United States. Its original mission was simple. According to the alliance's first secretary general, Lord Hastings Ismay, NATO was formed "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down." Western Europeans were terrified of the Soviet Union, which had just gobbled up all of Eastern Europe. They feared that the American army...

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman has called for EU “inspectors” to monitor Gaza’s borders amid efforts to extend a ceasefire, in a German newspaper interview published Thursday. “Not police or soldiers. But Germany and the EU must dispatch inspectors to Gaza to monitor the Palestinians’ trade with the neighboring countries,” Liberman told the mass-circulation Bild daily in comments published in German. “The EU already did that once at a crossing in Rafah in the south of Gaza,” he said. …

The daily Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reported on Monday that the German government had canceled a deal to provide Russian forces with a fully-equipped combat training camp. The newspaper said the Economy ministry revoked permission for the camp to be built, granted by Germany’s previous coalition government to Düsseldorf-based defense company Rheinmetall. It claimed to have seen a “written document” that includes the decision to scrap the project, worth some €100 million ($134 million). […] Russia … accused Germany of acting under pressure from the United States and called March’s decision “unconstructive.” …

London could lose more than a million jobs if Britain quits the EU and fails to adopt more outward-looking trade policies, according to a report commissioned by Boris Johnson, the London mayor. In those circumstances, the capital could shed 1.2m jobs and lose out on tens of billions of pounds of gross domestic product, the report says.

Germany's high-tech isolation wards remained on alert on Friday, ready to receive Ebola patients should they be required to. German airports seemed less prepared for the potential dangers of the viral epidemic, however. Hamburg's University clinic Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) said on Friday it remains prepared and ready to take Ebola patients from the outbreak in west Africa, despite not expecting any in the immediate future. It received two requests this week to treat Ebola patients but those requests have now been cancelled. "Of course our treatment centre is as always ready for use for patients with highly infectious diseases," spokeswoman Christine...

Guards at the Auschwitz Birkenau concentration camp memorial site shouted at Jews who sang “Ani Maamin” – a song based on lines from Rambam (Maimonides) which was known as the Hymn of the Camps – during a visit to the camp and fined their guide 1,000 zloty, or about $350. So says the guide, Rabbi Rafi Ostroff, who is also the head of the Etzion Bloc Religious Council. Ani Ma'amin has several tunes, one of which was composed by a Hassidic rabbi in the cattle cars en route to the Nazi concentration camps. The song was then adopted by other...

BERLIN—A German will for the first time become chief of staff of the U.S. Army in Europe, a sign of further cooperation between the two nations despite a chill caused by allegations of U.S. spying here. Brig. Gen. Markus Laubenthal from Germany's Bundeswehr will report to Lt. Gen. Donald Campbell, the U.S. commander for U.S. Army Europe, known as USAREUR, with headquarters in Wiesbaden, Germany. "This is a bold and major step forward in USAREUR's commitment to operating in a multinational environment with our German allies," Gen. Campbell said. The appointment of a German to the position has been several...

Thanks to the Independent, we may know the answer, and it is a doozy, because according to some it is nothing shy of a sequel to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact: allegedly Germany and Russia have been working on a secret plan to broker a peaceful solution to end international tensions over the Ukraine, one which would negotiate to trade Crimea's sovereignty for guarantees on energy security and trade.

A German Army General has been appointed to Chief of Staff of U.S. Army Europe. This is the first time a non-U.S. officer has held this position.

Police arrested a second suspect on Wednesday in connection with an attempted arson attack in which Molotov cocktails were thrown at a synagogue in western Germany. Another man who said he was Palestinian has denied involvement. Prosecutors in Wuppertal said they had arrested a 19-year-old from Syria on Wednesday in connection with the Molotov cocktail attack on the city's Bergische synagogue in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Police believe three young men threw a number of burning bottles into the synagogue entrance-way in an apparent attempt to burn it down. Officers found broken bottles on the ground at the...

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be "glad" to return an award given to him in 2004 by a prominent American Jewish group, Turkey's embassy in the US said Tuesday, amid a growing controversy over the premier's anti-Israel remarks.According to Israel National News, the American Jewish Congress had given Erdogan the Profile of Courage award in recognition of his efforts at that time to seek peace in the Middle East. But the AJC now wants the award to be returned following Erdogan’s repeated verbal assaults against Israel, most recently over the Gaza conflict.Erdogan has slammed Israel's attacks on Gaza as "genocide" of...

The body of a male adolescent was found Sunday night in the wheel-well of a U.S. Air Force C-130 at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany after the plane had arrived from a flight that originated in Mali... The aircraft had made one other stop in Africa and another in Sigonella, Italy, before arriving at Ramstein, Kirby said. It's unclear whether this child was a stowaway or where the child had boarded the plane.

A wave of anti-Semitism in Germany, unleashed by the Gaza crisis, shows no sign of abating. A synagogue was attacked on Tuesday morning, a rabbi received death threats and anti-Jewish comments online have increased. Attacks on mosques have also risen. Attackers threw Molotov cocktails at a synagogue in the western city of Wuppertal in the early hours of Tuesday in an apparent attempt to burn it down. A neighbour alarmed police after spotting flames near the Bergische Synagogue in Gemarker Straße in the eastern district of Barmen at around 2.15 am. Police said they believed three young arsonists had thrown...

Germany's biggest newspaper, Bild, was forced to climb down over the weekend after a highly critical and controversial comment piece which attacked Islam as a barrier to integration appeared in its Sunday sister paper. "I don't believe in God, but at the same time Christianity, Judaism or Buddhism don't bother me. Only Islam bothers me more and more," wrote Nicolaus Fest, vice editor-in-chief of the Bild am Sonntag newspaper in the editorial published on Sunday. Fest then laid out why Islam's "criminality," "murderous contempt" and "honour killings" did not belong in Germany, in comments which prompted a raft of hostility...

Does Islam in fact have a “murderous contempt for women and homosexuals? Certainly there are many Muslim clerics and rank-and-file believers who believe that it does, approving of death sentences for gays, the honor killing of women, and the like. But for non-Muslims to point out that such views have a basis within Islamic texts and teachings is “Islamophobic.” Apologies must be issued.“Politicians demand apology from Germany’s biggest-selling newspaper for editorial comment piece criticising Islam and accusing it of ‘murderous contempt for women and homosexuals,’” Daily Mail, July 28, 2014 (thanks to Blazing Cat Fur): Germany’s biggest-selling newspaper has faced...

One hundred years ago this week, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany exchanged a series of telegrams to try to stop the rush to a war that neither of them wanted. They signed their notes “Nicky” and “Willy.” Cousins who vacationed together, hunted together and enjoyed dressing up in the uniforms of each other’s military officers when sailing on their yachts, these two great-great-grandsons of Paul I of Russia wrote to each other in English, affirming their mutual interests and outlining an agreement that would have resolved the crisis on terms acceptable to both rulers. Yet...

Germany on Sunday advised all citizens currently in Libya to immediately leave the strife-torn country, following measures taken by countries including Britain and the United States to protect citizens from increasing violence. “The situation is extremely unpredictable and uncertain,” the German foreign ministry said. “German nationals are at increased risk of kidnapping and attacks.” …

The head of the Bundesbank appealed to Britain on Wednesday to stay in the European Union, saying membership of the bloc had given the country an economic lift and posed little threat to London. In a speech to business people and bankers in central London, Jens Weidmann broke the central bank’s traditional silence on political questions, saying the European Union would benefit if Britain “continues to make its voice heard”. “The EU is stronger today because of Britain’s contribution to it,” Weidmann said, adding that the country’s trade with EU neighbors had been boosted by more than half because of...

The planned Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the EU and the US threatens the concept of sustainable food security, the development NGO Brot für die Welt announced at a presentation of its annual report, in Berlin. Development politicians agree: The key to fighting world hunger is strengthening smallholders in developing and newly industrialized countries. “With the planned TTIP agreement, the EU and US are not only defining rules on trade between each other, but indirectly also respective trade with third states,” said Cornelia Füllkrug-Weitzel, President of Brot für die Welt. The two large trade powers “could intensify pressure...

More than half of the jobs currently being done in Germany could be taken over by robots in the next 20 years, according to a think-tank. The study from Brussels think-tank Bruegel found 51 percent of jobs in Germany at the moment could be computerized and left to robots in the next two decades. European countries most at risk from this computerization were Romania (62 percent) and Italy, Poland, Bulgaria and Greece - all 56 percent. The exact affect this could have on unemployment rates is unclear because as technology takes over, new jobs are created, meaning those who lose...