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Questions Raised Over Merkel's Communist Past
breitbart.com ^ | July 2014 | M.E. Synon

Posted on 07/03/2014 12:42:37 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe

Americans frustrated by German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s reluctance to meet demands for stronger sanctions against Russia have now begun to ask if there is a good reason the German leader has been targeted by US spies.

Questions are being raised about Merkel’s early life in totalitarian East Germany, the extent of her ties to its communist regime and her history as "an ardent Russophile" in Soviet-dominated East Germany.

Last year, in information leaked to the German news magazine Der Spiegel by former US National Security Authority contractor Edward Snowden, Merkel learned that the US intelligence service had been tapping her personal mobile phone since 2002.

The tap was part of a mass surveillance of European leaders by joint US and British intelligence.

In a furious confrontation with President Barack Obama Merkel compared the snooping practices of the U.S. with those of the Stasi, the secret police of the communist dictatorship in East Germany.

Subsequently the Obama administration refused to give Berlin a "no spying pact," but agreed to stop spying on Merkel personally.

Some Americans are now asking: was there a good reason the US needed to keep an eye on Merkel's private conversations? As Reuters blogger Jack Shafer wrote when the story broke last year: "Just as Germany has yet to expunge its Nazi past, its eastern, totalitarian provinces have not come close to expunging their Communist past."

"The longitudinal interest by the US in all things Merkel may be informed by her past. She was a citizen of East Germany before reunification, and her personal history has long been controversial."

(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...


TOPICS: Germany
KEYWORDS: eussr
The NSA, Glenn Greenwald, and Angela Merkel - April 18, 2014

Germany’s so-called “unique relationship with Russia” means that the country gets 36 percent of its natural gas imports and 39 percent of its oil imports from Russia.

The increasing dependence on Russia is related to Merkel’s decision, after the accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, to phase out Germany’s nuclear energy program. Pressure to cancel Germany’s nuclear program had come from the German Green Party.

A prominent member of the German Green Party, Hans-Christian Ströebele, met with Edward Snowden in Moscow and gave him a “whistleblower” award. He previously served as a lawyer for the Soviet- and East German-backed terrorist group, the Baader Meinhof Gang (also known as the Red Army Faction), and was sentenced to 10 months imprisonment in 1982 for setting up a communications network between the terrorist prisoners and activists outside the jails.

Merkel, who grew up in the formerly communist East Germany and spent 35 years of her life under the dictatorship, is the subject of a book by Günther Lachmann and Ralf Georg Reuth titled, The First Life of Angela M., which suggests that she had deeper ties to the communist regime than previously known or acknowledged. She has admitted joining the Free German Youth, the communist youth organization, and a photo has surfaced showing her in a communist uniform. But the book argues that she hid her role in the youth group as secretary for agitation and propaganda, instead depicting herself as someone engaged in “cultural” affairs.

One of Merkel’s defenders said she “couldn’t remember whether she was involved in agitation and propaganda.”

Russian ruler Vladimir Putin, of course, was a KGB spy in East Germany, and speaks German.


1 posted on 07/03/2014 12:42:37 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
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To: Tailgunner Joe
"Just as Germany has yet to expunge its Nazi past, its eastern, totalitarian provinces have not come close to expunging their Communist past."

Neither has our very own Democratic Party.

2 posted on 07/03/2014 12:49:38 PM PDT by SeeSharp
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To: Tailgunner Joe

Question: why would Merkel trust Obama at all? Would you?


3 posted on 07/03/2014 12:50:43 PM PDT by PGR88
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To: SeeSharp
Russia counts on EU ‘friends’ to avert further sanctions - June 26, 2014 - Europe-wide, many far-right parties are speaking in favour of Putin's policy in the Ukraine. In Germany, this is the case of the far-right and fascist National Democratic Party (NPD). The party's newly elected MEP, Udo Voigt, criticises the EU and the US: "Both stir up resentment in Ukraine against Russia. After the Cold War, NATO has gradually expanded to the east. The US tried to move closer and closer to the Russian border, presenting a threatening stranglehold." "Russia's patience" in the face of NATO “provocations” is “astonishing“, Voigt said.

4 posted on 07/03/2014 12:52:01 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
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To: Tailgunner Joe

I read a book years ago by a Hungarian former Soviet Bloc spy.

If I remember correctly he considered the East Germans as the worst of the lot.


5 posted on 07/03/2014 12:55:10 PM PDT by yarddog (Romans 8: verses 38 and 39. "For I am persuaded".)
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To: Tailgunner Joe

Why aren’t there more questions raised over Obama’s present?


6 posted on 07/03/2014 12:56:51 PM PDT by lonestar (It takes a village of idiots to elect a village idiot.)
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To: lonestar

So it’s OK for our president to be a Marxist but not there’s?


7 posted on 07/03/2014 12:58:55 PM PDT by thorvaldr
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To: Tailgunner Joe

If she drives a Trabant, it is a dead giveaway.


8 posted on 07/03/2014 1:03:04 PM PDT by yarddog (Romans 8: verses 38 and 39. "For I am persuaded".)
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To: thorvaldr

No of course only American Marxists are bad. Foreign anti-American Marxists are good guys.


9 posted on 07/03/2014 1:05:15 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
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To: yarddog

In the West, we “de-nazified” the Germans. In the East, the Russians just slapped new badges on their uniforms.


10 posted on 07/03/2014 1:08:58 PM PDT by Boogieman
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To: thorvaldr
Seems so.

Do you get the impression that most leaders of the free world totally ignore Barry?

Putin enjoys insulting the POTUS. We probably can't comprehend what a joke Barry is to Putin!...who respects strength.

11 posted on 07/03/2014 1:11:25 PM PDT by lonestar (It takes a village of idiots to elect a village idiot.)
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To: Tailgunner Joe
Not that I'm an expert on the matter (far from it) but this,IMO,is a very complicated subject.The east German government had a level of control over its citizens that the Nazis wouldn't have dared dream of.I won't go into detail but anyone who's truly interested should read a book called “Stasi”.I can't recall the author's name.Reading it will cause Freepers (and other real Americans) to understand that in comparison to the Stasi...and the East German state apparatus...Osama Obama and his IRS spies are amateurs.
12 posted on 07/03/2014 1:44:18 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Rat Party Policy:Lie,Deny,Refuse To Comply)
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To: Tailgunner Joe

Lol...maybe we should kick Germany out of NATO.


13 posted on 07/03/2014 1:44:54 PM PDT by mac_truck ( Aide toi et dieu t aidera)
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