Germany on the Brink

On New Year's Eve, in the shadow of Cologne's cathedral, crowds of North African and Middle Eastern men accosted women out for the night's festivities. They surrounded them, groped them, robbed them. Two women were reportedly raped.

Though there were similar incidents from Hamburg to Helsinki, the authorities at first played down the assaults, lest they prove inconvenient for Angela Merkel's policy of mass asylum for refugees.

That delay has now cost Cologne's police chief his job. But the German government still seems more concerned about policing restless natives -- most recently through a deal with Facebook and Google to restrict anti-immigrant postings -- than with policing migration. Just last week Merkel rejected a proposal to cap refugee admissions (which topped one million last year) at 200,000 in 2016.

The underlying controversy here is not a new one. For decades conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic have warned that Europe's generous immigration policies, often pursued in defiance of ordinary Europeans' wishes, threaten to destabilize the continent.

The conservatives have made important points about the difficulty of assimilation, the threat of radicalization, and the likelihood of Paris-style and Cologne-style violence in European cities.

But they have also trafficked in more apocalyptic predictions -- fears of a "Eurasia," of mass Islamification -- that were somewhat harder to credit. Until recently, Europe's assimilation challenge looked unpleasant but not insurmountable, and the likelihood of Yugoslavian-style balkanization relatively remote.

With the current migration, though, we're in uncharted territory. The issue isn't just that immigrants are arriving in the hundreds of thousands rather than the tens of thousands. It's that a huge proportion of them are teenage and twentysomething men.

" If the Germans rise up against their extermination, she hangs from a lamp post. "

Gotta say I'll be cheering for them this time around, if

That's the point, if. We're on the other side of the ocean and most of us have no insight into what people are saying and talking about in private. Most of us don't have relatives in Koln or Stuttgart.

Also, speaking for myself, we have no way of knowing if the rumors, etc, of "You wouldn't believe the number of weapons and small arms that are still stashed away here and there in Germany" are true or just BS.

For example is there a German UKIP party or any other kind of leadership about to assert itself?

Or... no action... you know... I hate to say it... "following orders"?

Or as Pepsi suggests, is there still a possibility of peacefully (So far as the Germans are concerned, they're the ones being invaded. Screw the invaders IMO) turning it around like right now?

Note that as date the number of complaints has risen by a factor of four or five. Trying to locate yesterday’s article reporting this.

So yet again the NYT is soft peddling actual facts.

from:

http://m.spiegel.de/international/germany/a-1070894.html
DPA

January 7 2016

An internal police protocol has revealed the full extent of the violence in Cologne on New Year’s Eve. According to the report, which SPIEGEL has seen, officials were overwhelmed and powerless to help some people calling for help.

Law enforcement officials lost control of the situation in Cologne on New Year’s Eve, according to an internal report by Germany’s national police, the Bundespolizei, obtained by DER SPIEGEL. The author of the report, dated Jan. 4, is a senior official. He writes: “Women, accompanied or not, literally ran a ‘gauntlet’ through masses of heavily intoxicated men that words cannot describe.” The horde in front of and inside the train station was unmoved by the presence of police.

According to the report, officers encountered many distraught, crying, frightened pedestrians, particularly women and girls. They reported “fights, thefts, sexual assaults against women, etc.” Groups of male migrants were repeatedly named as perpetrators.

Identifying those responsible — especially the perpetrators of sexual assaults — “was unfortunately no longer possible.” The reason: “Security forces were unable to get all of the incidents, assaults, crimes, etc. under control. There were simply too many happening at the same time.” Police were frustrated at their inability to help each victim. At times, it wasn’t even possible to record all of the complaints that were being lodged.

The report lists several examples of police officers’ experiences:

Officers were hindered from pushing their way through to people calling for help by tight clusters of men.

A man is quoted as saying: “I’m a Syrian! You have to treat me kindly! Ms. Merkel invited me.”

Witnesses were threatened when they provided the names of perpetrators.

People reportedly demonstratively tore up residence permits in front of the police, grinned and said: “You can’t touch me. I’ll just go back tomorrow and get a new one.”

The report did not, however, confirm the authenticity of the documents.

Orders for people to leave the premises were ignored; taking repeat offenders into custody was not possible due to lack of resources.

After track closures due to overcrowding, people simply forced their way over adjacent platforms and train tracks back to the closed platform.

Physical fights broke out as trains were being boarded; it was “every man for himself.”

The situation, which was described in the report as “chaos,” was so out of control that there were concerns about serious injuries or even deaths, according to the author. That is why the operation leader decided to clear the square. The report notes that police officers were “bombarded with fireworks and pelted with glass bottles.” Even after the square was cleared, there were “repeatedly multiple physical confrontations between people as well as groups of people, thefts and robberies in several places at the same time.”

The author of the report draws a grim conclusion:

The actions of the police officers was met with a level of disrespect “like I have never experienced in my 29 years of public service.”

Because too few officers were on the scene, the ones that were present “reached the limits of their abilities pretty quickly” — their deployment lasted from 9:45 p.m. until 7:30 a.m.

As central problems facing law enforcement, the report cites overwhelmed police officers, insufficient personnel and weaknesses in equipment, which were “not to be expected.”

The author describes the entire situation on New Years’ Eve as “chaotic and shameful.”

In the days since the New Year’s Eve attacks, Cologne police have received more than 100 complaints.

In an initial statement on the morning of Jan. 1, the police press department noted that the situation on the prior evening had been “relaxed.”

Cologne Police President Wolfgang Albers later admitted that “this initial statement was incorrect.”

Germany has six significant political parties....of which only one is anti-immigrant (AfD Party).

This party started out six years ago as the anti-EU/anti-EURO party. Last year, they fired their creator, reinvented the party to be anti-immigrant instead. The problem with the AfD party is that it’s a one platform group...tied to some Nazi elements, but they are the only party that says no on Merkel’s policy. Nationally, they hold ten-percent of public support.

With March state elections coming up (three of them), there’s a suggestion that the public may walk through the five parties and give the AfD guys some frustration votes and really unhinge the Berlin leadership. Even if they took 15-to-18 percent of each state’s election....it’d really refocus the whole episode.

From a business and procedure point, the whole thing has turned into a ‘merkeling-episode’. That’s the new German word for 2015 which means you have a problem, but mostly talk about it and do little to nothing over it....watching it change and modify itself....but never acting. That’s pretty much the whole immigrant episode now.

The only solution that might change this....is Assad leaves Syria and ISIS craps out because of Russian actions. Stranger things have happened and maybe it’s asking for a lot....but that’s the only sure-fire fix right now.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.