Free Republic

Those barriers are designed to prevent a repeat of the massacre that occurred this week at a Christmas market in Berlin. Thankfully, the perpetrator behind that particular atrocity has been put down by a brave Italian police officer. Unfortunately, thanks to Chancellor Merkel, there are now thousands of lovely creatures from the Maghreb who would like to repeat this event throughout Europe. As Tommy Robinson has pointed out, short of a nuclear or radiological device, open borders are the most powerful weapon we can hand to our jihadist foes. In that sense, Angela Merkel and the rulers of Europe are...

When thousands of revellers stream into the area around Copenhagen Town Hall Square (Rådhuspladsen) to count down the final minutes of 2016, they will do so under increased security. Copenhagen Police told broadcaster DR on Thursday that the Christmas market attack in Berlin and the general terror threat level in Denmark will mean a number of new safety initiatives on one of the absolute biggest party nights of the year. […] The move is a direct response to the December 19th terror attack in Berlin, where Tunisian national Anis Amri allegedly hijacked a truck and drove it into a Berlin...

An organisation run by a former Stasi agent has been recruited by the German government to patrol Facebook in a bid to stamp out “xenophobic” comments. Those caught posting material that the government disagrees with are likely to face criminal prosecution. Germany is set to welcome one million new immigrants this year, a move that has not been without controversy. Determined to see his fellow Germans embrace their new multicultural homeland, Justice Minister Heiko Maas has decided to crack down on those citizens who criticise the influx, especially those who take to their own private Facebook accounts to do so....

Of the 1.2 million migrants who arrived in Germany in 2014 and 2015, only 34,000 found work. All the rest are on the dole, needing free handouts to survive. Why did the migrants go to Germany? Because Germany offered the most free handouts.

Former Bundesbank president Hans Tietmeyer, a key architect of the euro who oversaw its introduction in Germany, has died at the age of 85, the central bank announced Wednesday. Tietmeyer ran the mighty Bundesbank from 1993 to 1999, a period that straddled the aftermath of German reunification as well as the launch of the single European currency and the creation of the European Central Bank. […] A fierce defender of the independence of central banks, Tietmeyer was credited with ensuring that the same principle was enshrined in the statutes of the ECB, which was modeled in large part on the...

I bet none of you saw this coming, did you? German police have arrested a 40-year-old Tunisian man on suspicion of being an accomplice in the Berlin Christmas Market attack. Twelve people were killed in the attack claimed by the "Islamic State" (IS). Wow! A fellow Islamic migrant who probably helped Anis Amri carry out his horrific terror attack in Berlin earlier this month! Who would've thought? This must come as a great surprise, nay, a shock (!) to everybody. Oh wait, it doesn't. Unlike politically correct Chancellor Angela Merkel, literally everyone with even a half-functioning brain understood that Amri...

Berlin police released security camera pictures as part of their hunt for a gang of young migrants who they believe attempted to murder a homeless man in Christmas day by setting him alight. Officers have now arrested seven men between the ages of 15 and 21-years-old including six Syrians and one Libyan after their faces were identified from security camera footage at Berlin’s Schonleinstrasse subway station. The attack took place in the early hours of Christmas day, reports Germany’s best-selling broadsheet Welt, when the gang came across a homeless man sleeping on a station platform bench. Setting fire to the...

The best way to fight terror is with “openness”, European Union (EU) head Jean-Claude Juncker has said, stressing that Europe must continue to receive migrants in the wake of the deadly truck attack in Berlin. Speaking to Funke Mediengruppe on Saturday, the president of the European Commission warned that the “rhetoric of exclusion” strengthens terrorists, and called for more EU involvement in nations’ internal security. Standing firm on the idea that liberalism is the best response to repeated attacks on Europeans, the EU chief said: “Our values, our way of living together in freedom, coexistence, and openness are the best...

The suspects accused of setting a homeless person on fire in the Berlin underground have been identified as refugees from Syria and Libya, police confirmed. Six of them surrendered to police, while the seventh was arrested in a police operation. “Six suspects turned themselves in at various police stations [Monday] evening, [and] another suspect was arrested last night by undercover investigators,” an official police release said. The seven young men allegedly set a homeless person on fire as he slept at the Berlin Schonleinstrasse station overnight into Christmas Day on Sunday, police say.

A Moroccan security official says that his country's intelligence service warned Germany twice about the risk posed by Anis Amri, the radical Muslim who slaughtered 12 people at a Christmas market in Berlin earlier this month. The official, who spoke to Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah, says that the Germans received two written warnings, one on September 19 and the other on October 1, about Amri's radical Islamic beliefs. He explains: Correspondence from the Moroccan security agencies had a clear warning about the Tunisian man's desire to carry out a terrorist act. Earlier this month, Dutch populist Geert Wilders was criticized...

Since the million-strong influx of migrants into Germany last year, authorities there have struggled to deport failed asylum seekers from Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria when their home countries refuse to take them back. The issue has been put into sharp focus by the massive manhunt for Anis Amri, the 24-year-old Tunisian who Chancellor Angela Merkel confirmed on Thursday is the alleged perpetrator of the truck attack on a Christmas market in Berlin that claimed 12 lives. Months earlier, Amri's asylum application was rejected but he could not be expelled from Germany because Tunisian authorities blocked the procedure. German authorities put...

In his annual Christmas address to the nation, German President Joachim Gauck has said that anger and rage at terrorism must not turn into hatred and violence. He called instead for good judgment and attention. […] Gauck warned that these emotions should not be allowed to dominate, adding that anger must not turn into hate and violence. Instead, it is about being united and defending compassion. Anyone who is “sensitive, responsive and helpful” can “transform anger and rage into forces that resist the hatred, violence and contempt of others,” Gauck said in his last Christmas speech as the German President....

Sixty percent of Germans want more video surveillance in public spaces, according to a new YouGov poll published on Sunday. The public call comes in the wake of the Berlin Christmas market attack. Appearing to support government plans to change the law to allow increased video surveillance, 73 percent of Germans polled supported the idea of having larger police forces. The YouGov survey for the German news agency dpa was carried out days after Tunisian national Anis Amri plowed a truck into a Christmas market, killing 12 people and wounding nearly 50 others. Amri, who was the prime suspect, was...

“In 2016, we brought back again substantially more gold to Germany than initially planned; by now, nearly half of the gold reserves are in Germany,” Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann told the German tabloid Bild in what has become an annual Christmas interview about gold – to soothe the nerves of his compatriots. Because they’d been frazzled, apparently, by this whole saga. The German Bundesbank, which is in charge of managing Germany’s gold hoard of 3,381 tons, the second largest in the world behind the US, got into hot water in 2012 when rumors were circulating that some or much of...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's celebrated open-door policy encouraged the migration of more than 1 million refugees in 2015, and hundreds of thousands more in 2016. It was lauded as a courageous triumph of humanitarianism. Even in 2016's year-end accolades, Merkel has been given hosannas for "keeping the doors ajar." But after last week's Berlin attack, in which a man — suspected to be a Tunisian migrant — intentionally plowed an 18-wheeler into a crowded Christmas market, killing 12 and injuring dozens more, it's fair to say that Merkel's celebrated policy has actually been a disaster. After all, "keeping the doors...

Let’s take our $3 billion and go. The United States pays 22% of the total UN budget. What we get for our $3 billion a year is a corrupt organization whose dysfunctional and hostile agencies are united in opposing us around the world. The United Nations does only two things consistently and effectively: waste money and bash Israel. Sometimes it manages to do both at the same time. ... The Jewish State is the UN’s scapegoat for anything and everything. The Palestinian Authority blamed Israel at the UN for Global Warming. ... Here’s what we get for our $3 billion....

The recent terror attack in Berlin has heightened concern within Germany and beyond over that country’s liberal immigration policies and soft policing of potential terrorists. It is not uncommon to hear Western and especially American pundits declare that German actions will be suicidal if not reversed. While such hyperbole is understandable, it also misrepresents the German national psyche and skews analysis accordingly. The Germans are not suicidal, but they are a fatalistic culture that is still trying to settle on a national ethos. How they resolve the current crisis with Islamic immigrants will probably be grand and defining, regardless of...

A German police officer is facing criminal proceedings after he allegedly branded Chancellor Angela Merkel “insane”. The officer, from the western city of Solingen, could be fined three months’ wages if found guilty of slander. He is said to have made the comments at an event held by the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party earlier this month. …

The German Interior Ministry has announced its intention to combat so-called “fake news” on social media by setting up a “defence centre against disinformation,” ahead of next year’s federal election. . . . The enforcement of so-called hate speech laws online has also had a direct impact on the lives of many ordinary Germans. Raids have been carried out by police across the country on homes of those suspected to have written negative comments online about asylum seekers which have led to fines and even prison sentences.

"Presenting the new Sainsbury’s Christmas advert. Made in partnership with The Royal British Legion. Inspired by real events from 100 years ago." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdobquf1zms