Category: GERMAN & European complicity

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by GARY LEUPP

Merkel's policies have not been particularly friendly toward Russia, but Germany's capitalists are beginning to chafe under Washington's reckless and selfish moves and sooner or later she has to heed their displeasure.

People are asking how Iran will respond to Trump’s announcement about U.S.withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed by Iran, the U.S., UK, France, Germany, China and Russia in July 2015. I wonder how Germany, the world’s fourth largest economy, will react. Last month in her summit with Trump, Angela Merkel reiterated German strong support for the agreement. I wonder how France will respond. Emmanuel Macron, who also had a summit with Trump last month, reiterated French ongoing support. I wonder how Britain will respond. Theresa May has called the agreement “vital” and British foreign minister Boris Johnson is in Washington urging continuation of the deal.

Germany and France are among Iran’s top ten trade partners (despite the sanctions). They want to expand trade with and investment in the world’s 27th largest economy. With a huge territory, well-educated population of 80 million, rich natural resources and receptiveness to foreign capital, Iran looks like an attractive investment opportunity.

Germany comprises 60% of EU investment in Iran. It sells machinery, metals, chemicals and vehicles, and agricultural products and has a substantial trade surplus with the country. Its investments have been increasing by about 25% annually in recent years. German capitalists have been looking forward to this day. In January the Iranian Khodro auto manufacturer signed an agreement with Daimler to produce Mercedes-Benz cars in Iran beginning this year. These are the kind of deals the U.S. now wants to thwart by discouraging their international financing and applying sanctions of those who defy its geopolitical objectives. One can expect mounting resentment to the U.S. in Germany if the U.S. is seen as consistently demanding that German capitalists defer to U.S. policy in Iran and elsewhere.

Trump, Bolton and Pompeo: Nothing but a pile of highly toxic manure.

Friction over Iran policy occurs as the German economy remains hurt by the application of sanctions against Russia. These were demanded by Washington following the events of 2014, supposedly in response to Russian aggression in Ukraine. (In fact, a U.S.-backed coup designed to produce regime change, NATO membership, the expulsion of Russia from its historic naval bases in Crimea and their acquisition by NATO provoked a predictable Russian response, whereupon Washington howled in protest, applied sanctions and demanded its western partners do so too.) A study completed last last year states that the sanctions had cost Russia some $ 65 billion, while counter-sanctions had cost the U.S. and Europe over $ 50 billion. 40% of the latter were German losses.

Many prominent Germans oppose the sanctions. Former chancellor Gerhard Schröder (Merkel’s predecessor for seven years) opposes the sanctions (and indeed says he can understand the reasons for the Russian seizure of Crimea). The minister presidents of Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia have both called for an end to the sanctions, which are particularly damaging to their economies. They are widely understood to have been adopted by the EU under U.S. pressure (aided by the UK—so long as it was a member—as Washington’s main agent within the EU) steering the union towards unwanted confrontation with Russia at U.S. behest.

Meanwhile multiple imperialist wars in the Middle East are flooding Europe, especially Germany, with refugees. It’s as though the U.S. has demanded that Europe handle the human cost of its reckless, disastrous interventions in adjoining regions. (Why can’t we just bomb them out, then you folks take them in? Or if not, build yourself some walls, and if the Muslims don’t go away, lock ’em up!)

As the U.S. seriously opposes trade (“free trade”) between Iran and Europe, demanding renewed “secondary sanctions,” U.S.-European frictions already at an unprecedented high (given such idiotic decisions as leaving the Kyoto Accord and recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, to say nothing of the general disgust with Trump as U.S. president), general inter-Atlantic tensions will likely rise. Trump is already abysmally unpopular in Europe, and most Europeans for the first time tell pollsters that their view of the U.S. is more negative than positive.

Italy and Greece buy Iranian crude oil and also support the JCPA. In fact, everybody does, except for Binyamin Netanyahu (who has Trump tied around his finger), Trump, the U.S. Congress, and ferociously anti-Shiite Sunni Arab monarchs, most notably King Salman of Saudi Arabia. It was affirmed by the United Nations by the UNSC resolution 2231 (2015). If the U.S. successfully sabotages it (not that this will be possible, as Condi Rice has recently remarked) Europe will be pissed. So will Russia and China, who are deepening ties with Iran. China is the first or second top trading partner with Iran, rivaling the UAE. It has plans to integrate Iran into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

In withdrawing from the agreement, Trump outrages the European corporations hoping to profit from massive new opportunities. He annoys Russia and China, but their dealings are less susceptible to U.S. obstruction. He annoys India, another top Iranian trade partner, although Trump has cultivated Prime Minister Moti so far. And Japan, which buys Iranian crude (and up until recent years was Iran’s #1 trade partner, before being overtaken by China).

Much of the world thinks: “That air-head of a U.S. president is breaking with the entire world in order to cater to that lying Netanyahu’s bellicose anti-Iran (regime change) agenda. This is not good for free trade or world peace.” Tehran will benefit from global sympathy, viewed (again) as a victim of U.S. bullying. What Trump does on Iran could crack the Atlantic alliance. That would be one positive result. It is time for the “Shock and Awe” unilateralism of the post-Cold War era to give way to a multilateral world in which vicious figures like Trump and John Bolton can no longer call the shots.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan; and Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, (AK Press). He can be reached at: gleupp@tufts.edu

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

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Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found

In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” — acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump — a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report

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DAVID PEAR IN PALESTINE-SLOW MOTION FASCISM AND GENOCIDE IS HUMANITY’S SHAME. CHINA RISING RADIO SINOLAND 180414

Dateline: April 13, 2018

Picture above: Today’s guest is David Pear on the left and China Rising Radio Sinoland host Jeff J. Brown is on the right.

Downloadable SoundCloud podcast (also at the bottom of this page), as well as being syndicated on iTunes and Stitcher Radio (links below).

In the first book of my China Trilogy (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/05/19/the-china-trilogy/), called 44 Days Backpacking in China- The Middle Kingdom in the 21st Century, with the United States, Europe and the Fate of the World in Its Looking Glass (https://ganxy.com/i/88276/), I wrote that even for China, the fate of Jerusalem, the capital of Palestine and so much more, is the axis upon which all world geopolitics turn. After hosting David Pear on the show today, my convictions are considerably reinforced. Not much has changed in the last 5,000 years, with the gates of this ancient city changing “owners” 44 times (a coincidence to my book’s title). One day, the history books will be talking about the 45^th turn of the global mandala.

In today’s show, David and I share our stories about being in Palestine, myself back in the 1980s and David three times in the last few years. You will not believe what you hear. It is shocking and sobering, yet essential listening to truly understanding how humanity works and colossally fails all notions of decency and justice.

In the interview, I strongly recommended that everyone watch Al-Jazeera’s magnificent five-part documentary about the history of Palestine, called Al-Nakba, which means disaster in Arabic. It’s like having been blind all one’s life and then suddenly being given the power to see light. Watching Al-Nakba caused a transformation in me. It is that good, so I hope you will do that same.

Here is my posting about Al-Nakba, with all the links:

http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2018/01/16/the-real-truth-about-palestine-and-israel-china-rising-radio-sinoland-181116/

David and I did an earlier interview focused on Korea. News and surprises are happening so rapidly now on the Peninsula, that it’s enough to make your head swim. David’s global experiences are something we can all benefit from,

http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2018/01/28/david-pear-talks-with-jeff-j-brown-on-the-hair-trigger-tinderbox-in-korea-china-rising-radio-sinoland-180128/

Note: When finished reading, listening to and/or watching this column and podcast, sharing is caring about humanity’s future and getting the non-mainstream truth out to a wider audience. Please tell your family, friends and colleagues about China Rising Radio Sinoland (www.chinarising.puntopress.com – https://twitter.com/44_Days – https://www.facebook.com/44DaysPublishing – http://apps.monk.ee/tyrion), post and follow it on all your social media. Sign up for the email alerts on this blog page, so you don’t miss a beat. China is your key to understanding how the world works and where you are headed into the 21^st century. So, read “The China Trilogy”. You will be so glad you did! (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/05/19/the-china-trilogy/)

ABOUT JEFF BROWN

Punto Press released China Rising - Capitalist Roads, Socialist Destinations (2016); and for Badak Merah, Jeff authored China Is Communist, Dammit! – Dawn of the Red Dynasty (2017).

The Greanville Post, where he keeps a column, Dispatch from Beijing. He also writes a column for The Saker, called the Moscow-Beijing Express. Jeff interviews and podcasts on his own program, China Rising Radio Sinoland, which is also available on SoundCloud, YouTube, Stitcher Radio and iTunes.
In China, he has been a speaker at TEDx, the Bookworm and Capital M Literary Festivals, the Hutong, as well as being featured in an 18-part series of interviews on Radio Beijing AM774, with former BBC journalist, Bruce Connolly. He has guest lectured at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences and various international schools and universities. Jeff grew up in the heartland of the United States, Oklahoma, much of it on a family farm, and graduated from Oklahoma State University. He went to Brazil while in graduate school at Purdue University, to seek his fortune, which whetted his appetite for traveling the globe. This helped inspire him to be a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tunisia in 1980 and he lived and worked in Africa, the Middle East, China and Europe for the next 21 years. All the while, he mastered Portuguese, Arabic, French and Mandarin, while traveling to over 85 countries. He then returned to America for nine years, whereupon he moved back to China in 2010. He lives in China with his wife. Jeff is a dual national French-American, being a member of the Communist Party of France (PCF) and the International Workers of the World (IWW).

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Europe is suffering the tortures of the damned as it struggles with split-personality psychosis.

Here in the center of Western Europe one can tune in Germany’s national public broadcasting networks any day of the week and hear scornful diatribes against Trump, outrage over his withdrawal from the Paris climate accords, shock and anger regarding his threats against our German automobile industry in his incipient trade war, calls for more EU independence and self-sufficiency.

Every Washington Post CIA-funded-Big-Breaking-News-Report about Mueller’s latest move to impeach and bring down the Orange Menace is always the top headline here: “The Washington Post reports that … “ … no mention of Jeff Bezos and his relationship to the CIA. If the Post says Trump is on shaky ground and cruisin’ for a bruisin’, Europe gets excited. They wanted Hillary here, badly.

Europeans knew Hillary. They trusted Hillary. They associated her with that good-looking, smooth-talking young President Barack Obama. Sure, he blew it with the NSA stuff, but nobody cares about that anymore, either here or in the USA. All forgotten. Obama talked a good game on Europe. Polite young man. Went to Harvard.

I want to tell you that there was some serious panicking and freaking out going on here in Europe the morning after election day 2016. Europeans don’t often run around shrieking their fears in public, a cool façade is the preferred mode here, but they did that day, and for many weeks afterward.

They had just spent more than a year sneering and raising their eyebrows and scoffing at the ludicrous orange-cartoon-figure-come-to life, both physically and in print. They had reassured each other and the public in endless columns and debates and editorials that he didn’t have a chance to (first) win the nomination and (then later) to become President. They were already doing a major freak over Brexit. Trump winning was just too much. The sky was falling.

And he has not disappointed them in putting into effect the catalogue of horrors they had anticipated. Pulled out of the Paris Climate Accords. Refused to pay even lip service to gun control (lip service goes a long way here in the EU, actual progress is less important). Continued to flaunt that ridiculous comb-over that looks as though it’s deliberately designed to show his contempt for fashion and good taste. Threatened to pull out of the nuclear treaty with Iran, which is very popular here – and practically the only way in which the EU has ever been willing to go against Israel, otherwise we are World Champion Israel-Ass-Kissers here. Trump ranted against Muslims and foreigners, defended white racists (here we mostly just pretend they don’t exist, although they carried out 1,000 attacks on Muslims last year in Germany alone), created new legal hurdles to immigration. Of course, the EU does all of that last bit with immigrants too, except for the ranting part. One does these things quietly, don’t you see, while simultaneously claiming to care about refugees and wanting to help them.

No-sirree, the new man in the White House is near the bottom on the European Hit Parade of Favorite Americans. What is the dang DEAL with these Americans, how could they elect such a monstrous ambulatory joke. Time to stand up and get independent and show the world that Europe will not sit still for just any old nonsense, most of us highly-progressive and politically conscious Euros agree about that.

Therefore one might think the EU would be ready to go cold turkey from that highly addictive CIA-Neocon Brand Evil Russia Kool-Aid … right?

(extended silence)

Well, uh … on the other hand … I mean … now let’s not get TOO carried away with this independence business.

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s a matter of fact, all of these American military bases here in Europe, specifically all of these NATO nuclear weapons here in our allegedly once-again-sovereign Germany (a sovereignty which is often called into question by smartasses peddling conspiracy theories, who assert Germany is still controlled by the USA), make some of us feel a whole lot safer from the wicked Lord Sauron aka/ Vlad the Impaler just a few hundred kilometers to the east.

While the government has agreed in principle to gradually increase German military expenditures to 2% of the gross domestic product – thereby almost doubling military spending – in the coming years, mostly under pressure from the USA, it doesn’t want to get nailed down too firmly to that unofficial commitment. There are other things it would rather use that money for. And as long as the USA maintains its military outposts and missile installations in Europe, EU countries feel as if there’s no big rush.

There is also the fact to consider that NATO already outspends Russia on military matters by 900 billion dollars per year to 60 billion dollars per year. But that imbalance rarely comes into the “aggressive Russia” debate, any more than does the fact that Russia (and China too for that matter) is encircled by US military bases. A real extremist who did not understand Russia’s evil nature might go so far as to say that NO ONE needs to increase military spending, and that if anyone is a threat, it is NATO, in particular its leading nation which has already laid to waste much of the Middle East and overthrown numerous governments around the world – often installing nasty and brutal authoritarian rulers as puppets to do its bidding.

But we Europeans never mention such nuances in our advocacy of a Weltanschauung (“way of looking at the world”) which has to be kept very black and white, good versus evil, if the empire is to function properly. And if we want to keep the USA in Europe, in charge of the nuclear arsenal and continuing to give EU nations the luxury of not having to put any of this to the test, then there must be some terrifying menace to justify having those troops and atomic weapons here. We are very nervous about Trump’s threats to force Europe to stand up on its own, but we fervently hope that in a few years he will disappear and our good old Democrats or more moderate Republicans – yes of course they still exist, they must -- will return to pamper us.

No, for us here in Europe it’s not the USA that is the problem, it’s Trump. As psychotic and bizarre as America is, with its mass shootings and its primitive death penalty, its shocking refusal to enact a reasonable national healthcare program, its police killings of unarmed blacks, its warmongering and overthrowing of foreign governments, its drone massacres of wedding parties, drone massacres and assassinations which we generously allow to be controlled from here on German soil -- we would have happily continued to overlook all of that if the USA had only elected another head of state who pretended to care about those things, or at least put a noble and urbane mask on them. Someone like Obama, like Hillary. The way we here in the EU pretend to have noble values while deporting helpless refugees into war zones, turning them back over to Libyan torturers and slave traders, etc., intoning solemn avowals of “European Democratic Values” all the while. Presidents like Obama, or like Hillary would have been, make it so very much easier to get away with our pretense of innocence. It’s embarrassing having Trump as an ally. It’s painful and frightening too.

It’s like being possessed by a demon.

About the Author

Gregory Barrett, originally from Tennessee, worked for 40 years as a professional pianist, singer, songwriter, and touring and recording musician in the USA and Europe, both in the spotlight and as an accompanist for major stars and others. His activist career includes stints in the 1980s with Amnesty International USA at the national level and the ACLU of Tennessee. Since 2012 he has worked primarily as a translator. He has lived in Germany for a total of 18 years and has a diverse, multicultural family. His commentary and essays are published in The Greanville Post, Counterpunch, the Anglo-Indian magazine Socialist Factor, and other publications.

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Says the author: "That's what's happening to Germany's Social Democrats, following similar developments in France, Holland, Scandinavia and elsewhere in Europe. They don’t have much energy left to fight since they sold their working-class souls and went along with social cuts and other dictates of the "Finance Markets" in the name of "competition", thus beginning a slow plunge into a major identity crisis..."

Merkel: Anti-Russian and conservative, she has proven (as have other pseudo leaders of European democracies) a reliable shill for the American empire. When will Europe get rid of this disgraceful witting collaborators in the greatest crimes of the modern era?

CJ Hopkins) and Hillary Clinton.

Headline from an article by the fine Middle East correspondent Patrick Cockburn, just last fall: “The Massacre of Mosul: More Than 40,000 Civilians Feared Dead”.

“More than 40,000 civilians were killed in the devastating battle to retake Mosul from Isis, according to intelligence reports revealed exclusively to The Independent”

So the current battle in Syria is a "massacre"? How much did you hear from the same sources last year about THIS, carried out by the US and its allies? Could there by ANY chance be politics involved in this coverage?

22 February 2018, THE PROPAGANDA WAR: In Germany's national public radio network Deutschlandfunk this morning, practically non-stop coverage of the "massacre" (Angela Merkel) of civilians in Ghouta, Syria, with all the blame directed at Assad and Russia -- exactly the same as in Aleppo last year. Never a word blaming the Al-Qaeda-associated islamist fighters holed up there among the civilian population and backed by the US and allies, who were considered almost wiped out, until recently they were apparently supplied once again with money and weapons to keep going. But when the US and Iraq and others killed thousands of civilians bombing ISIS out of Mosul a few months ago, there were no such stories. Also no mention of the latest atrocities by the Turkish army against Kurds nearby as Turkey's (equally) illegal invasion of Syria continues: Turkey released a German journalist from prison last week and we don't want to irritate the highly-sensitive Erdogan again (PS, We have always been at war with Eastasia).

“More than 40,000 civilians were killed in the devastating battle to retake Mosul from Isis, according to intelligence reports revealed exclusively to The Independent” So the current battle in Syria is a "massacre"? How much did you hear from the same sources last year about THIS, carried out by the US and its allies? Could there by ANY chance be politics involved in this coverage?

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has rarely used the word "massacre", perhaps never. Not about Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Not about Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Not about the hundreds of persons killed by her ally the USA in Syria a week or two ago. Not about the millions killed in Southeast Asia by her friend Kissinger. Not about the many thousands of civilians killed in Mosul by the US and its allies in bombing raids last year. Not about the terror bombings in Kabul, Afghanistan, where she is sending planeloads of rejected asylum seekers back into a war zone. But today she referred to the current battle in Syria as a "massacre". And still, Germany calls Syria a "civil war".

But while Merkel accused Syria's Assad of a "massacre”, she has been very hesitant to mention the many thousands of deaths caused by VW, Mercedes and other German auto manufacturers around the world through trick software for diesel motors they invented to deceive emissions-testing machines. After all, they are the backbone of the booming German economy -- and here in Germany those automobile manufacturers are refusing to convert their engines to put a stop to the damage and the exported death.

VW is refusing to modify diesel motors with the trick software which produces false legal emissions results. They say it's too expensive, although VW’s corporate profits actually doubled in 2017. Nor have they been subjected to 11 billion dollars of fines here in Germany, as they were in America (and the government is hoping everyone will forget soon). Meanwhile, Mercedes and BMW have admitted they did the same thing. So much for the environmental record of Germany, the country once considered a world environmental leader.

In the USA, most citizens are hardly bothered at all about the thousands of civilians in the Middle East who have been killed in bombing raids and terrorist attacks since Trump took office: they are more concerned that their own children might be shot death at their schools. Trump’s solution is to fill those schools and communities with even more guns, specifically in the hands of schoolteachers. Many American students have now discovered that gun control might be a good idea after all and not a communist plot. My friend Missy Comley Beattie, writing in Counterpunch, has a message for these young gun control advocates: "I want them to think of the Other. I want them to look at their counterparts in every single area of the globe where US troops are deployed, committing acts of terror. I want them to know that their feelings are the same as those terrorized by state-sanctioned violence. The fear is the same. I want them to imagine the sounds they heard on Valentine’s Day 2018, the gunfire, the screams, the clamor, and the smells -- of blood, of gunpowder, of death, understand the 24-hour-a-day presence of gunfire, the buzz of a drone, the explosions, the smells, the deaths, and know to the bone what it means to live in a war zone."

Not getting much attention in the world media, but plenty here in Germany (where we have a tortured relationship with Turkey based partly on the fact that many Turkish expatriates live here, but continue to support the increasingly fascist behavior of their government, although they would prefer not to live there): the deteriorating situation in Turkey, a NATO member which has now invaded Syria to kill Kurds with German weapons, and which has increasingly tense relations with just about every other nation. HEADLINE in Germany’s foreign-language service Deutsche Welle on its website:

“Dutch parliament recognizes 1915 Armenian 'genocide' | News | DW | 22.02.2018”

“The Dutch parliament has voted to recognize the deaths of Armenians during World War I as genocide. The decision is likely to enrage Turkey…”

The Netherlands joins Germany and other EU nations on Turkey's shit-list: when the German Bundestag (Parliament) did this last year, it precipitated yet another screaming temper tantrum and diplomatic kerfuffle from Turkish President Erdogan, who called Germany "fascist" while he was simultaneously arresting 50,000 teachers, journalists, and public officials on charges of "supporting terrorism" -- most of whom are still behind bars. Of course, such genocide 100 years in the past is a welcome chance to ascend the Moral High Horse for nations supporting ethnic cleansing in Palestine, Yemen, and elsewhere.

Five months after its national parliamentary election at the end of September, German Chancellor Merkel has still not managed to form a governing coalition. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) is her current prospective coalition partner, and the coalition contract is now being voted upon by the entire membership of the SPD (a process not necessary in Merkel’s own CDU). If the SPD membership approves the coalition, Germany will finally have a new government after nearly a half-year of confusion brought about by the growth of the upstart far-right Alternative für Deutschland party (AfD), which got 13% of the vote and in doing so seriously weakened both the CDU and the SPD with its anti-immigrant polemic. In a poll a few days ago, the SPD – Germany’s oldest political party -- had fallen to 15%, with the AfD passing them to reach 16%.

That's what's happening to Germany's Social Democrats, following similar developments in France, Holland, Scandinavia and elsewhere in Europe. They don’t have much energy left to fight since they sold their working-class souls and went along with social cuts and other dictates of the "Finance Markets" in the name of "competition", thus beginning a slow plunge into a major identity crisis.

There must be some good news out there somewhere.

About the Author

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By Peter Schwarz, wsws.org

Dateline: 31 January 2018

After Theresa May in the UK, Angela Merkel deserves the top spot for abject betrayal of the common people and service to the international plutocracy.

As Germany’s ruling elite conspires to form a new government to slash workers’ wages, attack democratic rights and remilitarize the country, the working class is giving its response in the form of the country’s biggest strike movement in 15 years.

On Wednesday, more than 65,000 workers in Germany’s metal and electrical industries will strike for 24 hours. On Thursday and Friday, hundreds of thousands more will follow. The IG Metall union has called 24-hour warning strikes nationwide in 250 companies, including Daimler, BMW and Volkswagen.

The extension of industrial action is taking place despite the efforts of the IG Metall leadership to contain the current contract struggle and reach a rotten compromise that betrays the workers’ demands. It is an expression of the growing anger and militancy of the workers after decades of social attacks by the government and employers.

The significance of this struggle goes far beyond the borders of Germany. Throughout Europe and around the world the ruling elites are engaged in a drive to dismantle labor protections and destroy workers’ wages and benefits in order to fund new and bigger wars and line their own pockets.

The strike wave in Germany is a confirmation of the World Socialist Web Site’s prognosis at the New Year that “The year 2018--the bicentenary of Marx’s birth—will be characterized, above all, by an immense intensification of social tensions and an escalation of class conflict around the world.”

The names of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the country’s former finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, have for years been synonymous with brutal attacks on the European working class. The austerity diktats that upended the lives of millions of working-class families in Greece, Spain and Portugal were above all the work of the last grand coalition government in Berlin. The transformation of Eastern Europe into a vast pool of cheap labour for international corporations, which pay workers in the formerly Stalinist-run countries a fraction of Western European wages, is also the result of German ruling-class policy.

The German government could not have played this role if it had not simultaneously attacked the German working class and kept it under control, with the help of subservient unions. The Hartz Laws introducing labour and welfare “reforms,” passed in 2003 by a Social Democratic-Green Party government, created a huge low-wage sector. At the same time, an army of well-paid works council representatives and union officials ensured that wages stagnated and workers’ conditions steadily deteriorated.

The working class has gained nothing from Germany’s economic “success,” which was achieved on its back. A small layer at the top of society has enriched itself without restraint, leaving Germany one of the most unequal countries in Europe, with 40 percent of all employees earning less than they did two decades ago.

German strikers: Are they fully aware of what is at stake and what the struggle must entail?

The strike wave in the automotive, metal and electrical industries is a rebellion against these conditions. The IG Metall union has been forced to call the 24-hour strikes because it confronts a mood of anger and mistrust that goes far beyond the affected industries.

Militancy is growing in other European countries. In Serbia and Romania there have been spontaneous strikes against starvation wages in the auto industry. In Greece, the working class has struck and protested against the austerity diktats of the European Union and the Syriza government. In France, resistance to the labour market “reforms” of President Macron is growing. The UK has seen a series of rail strikes. The strike movement in Germany will embolden workers across Europe in their struggles.

The challenges facing the striking workers are above all political. While they are fighting for higher wages and shorter working hours, the Social Democratic Party and the conservative union parties (Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union), with full support from the unions, are getting ready to form a third edition of the grand coalition. Such a government will not only intensify the attacks on the working class in Germany and across Europe, it will expand the powers of the state and accelerate the program of military rearmament and war.

Such a government has no democratic legitimacy. The grand coalition was voted out of office four months ago. The votes for the Social Democrats, Christian Democrats and Christian Social Union fell by 14 percent in the general election. The attempt to bring back the same parties in the form of a new grand coalition is a political conspiracy whose real goals are being concealed from the people.

While those favouring the coalition bluster about “the unity of Europe” and “friendship with France,” their real goal, along with French President Macron, is to deepen the social counterrevolution and turn the European Union from an economic to a military alliance that enforces German and French imperialist interests against Russia, China and the United States.

The German ruling elite is plotting to increase military spending not only to the NATO-mandated target of two percent of GDP, which means doubling it to 60 billion euros, but even higher. This is possible only through massive cuts in social spending, which will rapidly wipe out any gains the metal workers might achieve through strike action.

The industrial action in the metal and electrical industries must be linked to the fight for new elections. Workers must not allow a cabal of conspirators to install the most right-wing government since the end of World War II.

New elections must be called to mobilize behind a socialist programme that combines the fight against social cuts, dictatorship and war with the overthrow of capitalism. The Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party) is the only party that puts forward such a programme. It rejects the European Union and advances the struggle for the United Socialist States of Europe.

This week marks 85 years since a clique around President Paul von Hindenburg, who had been elected with the support of the Social Democrats and the Centre Party, appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor, initiating the greatest human catastrophe in world history.

Contrary to the official narrative, Hitler was not brought to power by a wave of public support. The Nazis were in a deep crisis. In the Reichstag (parliamentary) elections of November 1932, they lost nearly two million votes. With 33 percent of the vote, they trailed the two major workers’ parties, the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Communist Party (KPD), which had a combined total of more than 37 percent. But the German ruling elite needed Hitler to crush the workers’ movement and prepare for the next war.

Nobody should imagine that such a catastrophe cannot be repeated. The world is moving rapidly toward a Third World War. This week’s edition of the British Economist magazine is headlined “The Next War.” Its lead editorial declares,“Conflict on a scale and intensity not seen since the Second World War is once again plausible.”

German ruling circles are preparing more and more openly for war and dictatorship. For the first time, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a far-right party, is sitting in the Bundestag (parliament) and will be entrusted with the chairmanship of the Budget Committee. A Humboldt University professor, Jörg Baberowski, announces, “Hitler was not vicious,” and is defended by the university administration and the media against criticism from students. In its latest editorial, the weekly Der Spiegel, which published Baberowski’s apologia for Hitler, boasts that windowpanes “in Manchester and Rome, in Warsaw and Lyon” are shaking as Germany, the “800 pound gorilla,” rearms.

As in the first half of the twentieth century, the working class faces the alternative of socialism or barbarism. To prevent the ruling class from imposing its programme of social counterrevolution and plunging the world into a catastrophic war, the working class must seize the initiative and unite internationally to overthrow capitalism.

The strikes in the metal and electrical industries must be expanded. This requires a break with the IG Metall union, which is doing everything it can to stifle the strike. The union works closely with the employers’ associations, and most of its officials are members of the SPD and supporters of a new edition of the grand coalition.

In order to expand the strike, rank-and-file workers’ committees must be set up to take control of the dispute and establish contact with workers across Europe and around the world. This is inseparably bound up with the fight for fresh elections to prevent the installation of a new grand coalition and advance a socialist alternative.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The author is a political analyst with wsws.org, a Marxian publications.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

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