Free Republic

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has reportedly filed hundreds of criminal complaints against members of the public for insulting him during his tenure as a politician. According to research conducted by the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, Merz is “one of the most sensitive politicians in the history” of the German republic. Die Welt’s Sunday paper reported that during his time as a member of parliament, Merz filed criminal complaints against citizens for calling him names such as “little Nazi”, “asshole,” and “filthy drunk”, among others. The paper said that documents from a law firm commissioned by Merz to file such complaints...

Sir Keir Starmer will host Volodymyr Zelensky at Downing Street on Monday in a hastily arranged summit on the progress of peace talks. The Prime Minister will be joined in London by Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and Friedrich Merz, the German Chancellor. The trio of European leaders are attempting to ensure Ukraine is not “betrayed” during the US-led peace process with Russia, a possibility Mr Macron alluded to in a leaked phone call earlier this week. The meeting comes as top Ukrainian officials have been holding talks in Miami with Mr Trump’s chief envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner....

Sir Keir Starmer has enlisted the help of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron in his battle against Nigel Farage's Reform UK. The Prime Minister revealed the trio of 'centrist' politicians recently discussed how to take on 'populists' such as Mr Farage. The leaders of the UK, Germany and France met for dinner in Berlin last month to discuss European security, Ukraine and the Middle East. But Sir Keir has now said their talks also focused on their shared domestic challenges and battles with both far-Right parties and hard-Left parties. Mr Merz is continuing to face a...

In the ninth annual joint Pew Research Center and Körber-Stiftung surveys of the United States and German publics, we find profound changes in perceptions of the bilateral relationship. These are the first surveys in this series conducted since Donald Trump began his second term as U.S. president and Friedrich Merz became chancellor of Germany.Key findings:

Tens of thousands rallied in Paris on Saturday to show support for Palestinians in Gaza, as protesters accused Israel of violating a fragile US-brokered ceasefire and demanded tougher international action amid soaring death tolls and ongoing restrictions on aid. Gaza’s health ministry, run by Hamas, said Saturday that more than 70,000 people have been killed since the war began. “Gaza, Gaza, Paris is with you.” Marking the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, tens of thousands of people, according to organizers, marched in Paris on Saturday to show support for Palestinians in Gaza, devastated by more than two...

As Europeans scrambled to help Volodymyr Zelensky push back on America’s 28-point peace plan, the Ukrainian president’s first European call was with the leaders of Britain, France and Germany. In Johannesburg for the G20 summit, this trio—Britain’s Sir Keir Starmer, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Friedrich Merz—sat down together the next day to agree on a strategy, dispatching their respective national-security advisers to meet American and Ukrainian delegations in Geneva. Quietly, the trio is emerging as Europe’s new top-tier leadership.

In 2023, a 15- and a 17-year-old plotted to attack a Christmas market in Leverkusen (North Rhine-Westphalia). In online chats, the two supporters of the "Islamic State" (IS), considered a terrorist organization by German domestic intelligence, plotted to kill as many people as possible by driving a truck into the crowd of revellers. Two days before the planned attack, the teenagers were arrested after police had become aware of their online chats. The minors were sentenced to four years in prison in 2024. Cases like this are increasingly worrying German security authorities. The Federal Criminal Police (BKA) has for years...

LONDON, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Workers went on strike at Amazon warehouses in Germany on Black Friday aiming to disrupt operations on a key sales day as they push for a collective bargaining agreement, with separate protests also planned outside Zara stores in Spain. Services union Verdi said around 3,000 workers were expected to participate at Amazon warehouses in Bad Hersfeld, Dortmund, Frankenthal, Graben, Koblenz, Moenchengladbach, Rheinberg, Werne, and Winsen. Amazon said the strike would have no impact on customer orders and said it paid fair wages. A spokesperson said it has around 40,000 workers at logistics centres in Germany,...

The United States government has warned that mass migration represents an “existential threat” to Western civilization and has warned Europe against the continuing open borders policies and the creation of two-tier justice systems that favor foreigners over native populations. In a shot across the bow against the open borders ideology that has taken hold in the halls of power in many Western European capitals, the U.S. State Department urged its allies “to take bold action and defend citizens against the threats posed by mass migration.” The diplomatic arm of the Trump administration also warned that its embassies will be actively...

While Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government is catapulting Germany into a debt spiral, long-struggling Argentina has begun paying down its liabilities. President Javier Milei is holding up a mirror to Berlin’s debt-addicted political class -- and the reflection is one of unmistakable failure. It took Argentina’s President Milei barely six months, right in the middle of the severe economic crisis he inherited from his socialist predecessors, to clean up a completely ruined public budget. That was in June of last year. This week, the Finance Ministry in Buenos Aires reported something that, in Germany today, would probably be dismissed as fiscal...

The new US ambassador to Poland, Thomas Rose, has criticised those who blame Poles for the Holocaust, calling it a “blood libel” against a nation that was a victim of the war. He said that such “historically false and morally scandalous” claims have long “poisoned relations between Jews and Poles”. Rose, who is himself Jewish, also said that Poland is today “the safest country in Europe for a Jew to walk the streets” "For too long, this nation has been burdened with the moral stain that was never its own, the persistent belief that Poland shares guilt for the barbaric...

The US State Department will focus on “natural rights” like freedom of speech in its next human rights report, a senior State Department official said Thursday, as the Trump administration targets traditional European allies for alleged freedom of speech restrictions. The move further institutionalizes changes seen in the latest report released in August, which covered the 2024 calendar year. That report alleged “significant human rights issues” in allied countries including the United Kingdom, France and Germany over “serious restrictions on freedom of expression.” The State Department instructed all embassies and consulates in a diplomatic cable Thursday to begin preparing the...

Germany should take over the historically American role of Nato Europe commander, Donald Trump’s envoy to the Western alliance has suggested. Matthew Whitaker, the US ambassador to Nato, said he hoped Germany would one day volunteer for the prestigious role of Supreme Allied Commander Europe. He told the Berlin Security Conference: “I look forward to the day when Germany comes to the United States and says that we’re ready to take over the Supreme Allied Commander position. I think we’re a long way away from that, but I look forward to those discussions.” Since Nato was founded in 1949, the...

Nov 18 (Reuters) - Hamas rejected the United Nations Security Council passing a U.S.-drafted resolution endorsing U.S. President Donald Trump's Gaza plan, saying it fails to meet Palestinians' rights and demands and seeks to impose an international trusteeship on the enclave that Palestinians and resistance factions oppose. "Assigning the international force with tasks and roles inside the Gaza Strip, including disarming the resistance, strips it of its neutrality, and turns it into a party to the conflict in favor of the occupation," the group added.

Mass migration is leading to the loss of Europe. We cannot ignore this any longer The Islamisation of Germany is on full view in the city of Hanau, birthplace of the Brothers Grimm who gave the world their fairy tales of Rotkäppchen – Little Red Riding Hood – Rapunzel, Hänsel und Gretel and many more. In the central square stands an impressive bronze statue of the two brothers in long dress coats looking over one of the manuscripts in which they put down their enchanting tales drawn from Germanic folklore, culture and history.Dominating the streets leading off from the...

BERLIN (AP) — Poland’s foreign minister said Sunday that an “offensive” auction of Holocaust artifacts has been canceled in Germany, relaying information from his German counterpart, following complaints from Holocaust survivors. Radoslaw Sikorski made the comments on the X platform, saying he and German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul “agreed that such a scandal must be prevented.” The top Polish diplomat thanked Wadephul for the information that the auction was canceled. Earlier, a Holocaust survivors group called on the German auction house Felzmann to cancel Monday’s sale of hundreds of Holocaust artifacts, including letters written by prisoners and other documents that...

It was the moment that marked an extraordinary new partnership between the descendants of a genocidal regime and its victims. At the G7 summit in June, Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, was challenged by a reporter about Israel’s ferocious bombardment of Tehran in the Israel-Iran war, as it raged on 6,000 miles away. “Das ist die Drecksarbeit, die Israel macht, für uns alle,” Mr Merz replied, with a stony glare at his interviewer: “Israel is doing the dirty work for all of us.” To German ears, it was an unusually blunt and bellicose remark for a post-war chancellor. But it...

t is a snapshot of cultural collapse: A young German woman with pink hair in clergyman’s robes, facing four men, bestowing her approval on their bizarre sexual arrangement, the details of which we are blessedly unaware. The pro-LGBT pastor is now under fire for blessing the ‘marriage’ of four men who showed up at a pop-up wedding fair at Berlin’s St. Paul the Apostle Church recently. Lena Müller, the 33-year-old clergyperson in question, posted a photo of the ceremony to Instagram. According to the Times, Müller said that the relationship “consisted of two Latvians, a Thai citizen and a fourth...

Nothing that seems to make any sense on the surface or would appear to be what's commonly known as a 'next logical step' follows when you're talking about the mess that is the German government. Chancellor Friederich Merz's shaky coalition has only gotten wobblier in the past few months as Alice Weidel's Alternativ for Germany (AfD) party constinues to gain in popular support.After just six months in power, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s coalition is facing infighting, policy deadlock and sliding poll ratings, undermining its efforts to take on the rising far right.It marks a difficult start for the conservative politician...

The German people are increasingly concerned about safety in public spaces compared to before the 2015 migrant crisis, which was imposed on the country by the Berlin establishment. Nearly half of German voters say they are personally concerned about their safety in public, according to the Deutschlandtrend survey by the Infratest Dimap opinion research institute, which surveyed 1,300 eligible voters between November 3 and 5. According to the survey, 48 per cent of Germans feel uneasy in parks, public squares, streets, or trains and buses. This represented nearly a 100 per cent increase over the past decade, the pollster noted....