“Dreesch, darr rait on fair mekunam!”

Sichten und Vernichten – sort of the equivalent to search and destroy – was a slogan in our training at the antitank squad, more than twenty years ago. It has since been replaced by some nicer wording.

Wolfgang Schneiderhan, the German Bundeswehr (i. e. military forces) top-ranking soldier, is quoted by German paper Die Tageszeitung (taz) that he can’t relieve the soldiers from the grey area where they have to do their own calculations. In either case, the loss of civil casualties had to be strictly avoided.

The Tageszeitung sharpens the statement:

A group of turban-headed people with Kalashnikovs may constitute an attack – or some typical Afghans on their way to herd some goats.

The debate is about what many see as a ban for German soldiers to aggressively protect themselves or their fellow soldiers. Every German soldier wears a pocket card of six pages stating this. Now, this line has been scrapped: “Use of lethal force is forbidden as long as no attack has happened or is immanent.” Some more edits are planned to simplify the soldiers’ lives. The federal parliament’s defence committee wasn’t informed about these changes.

If I was more than twenty years younger and faced the choice between military and the popular alternative civilian service once again, I’d obviously choose to walk a parson’s dog or to deliver meals on wheels for elderly ladies. Frankly, I wouldn’t want to test over a combat distance of 500 metres if the lads on the motorbikes are goatherds with big dildos strapped on their backs, or some friendly Taliban who want to blast me and my fellow soldiers to hell. And no, I wouldn’t care either if there’s a tank on its way, or a shooter on a motorcycle.

All in all, our trainers’ instructions twenty years back looks more realistic to me – and more decent. It is the command which is responsible for the soldiers – and it doesn’t matter that the political leadership still wants to sell the war in Afghanistan as an Oxfam campaign.

By the way: before you fire on an Afghan, no matter if he’s next to you or a mortar-shelling distance away, don’t forget to give the following notice: “Dreesch, darr rait on fair mekunam!” This – probably – means that you will soon open fire.

Very soon, but not necessarily in time.

Conciseness

“One shouldn’t try to say everything. That would quiesce the reader’s imagination, which in turn creates boredom.“

In German:

“Man muss nicht alles sagen wollen. Dadurch wird die Phantasie des Lesers in den Ruhestand gesetzt, und dadurch wieder wird die Langeweile geboren.“

Theodor Fontane, German Poet, in a letter to his publisher Wilhelm Hertz, June 17, 1866

Obama’s best Revenge: go to Berlin

Barack Obama visits Germany, but skips Berlin. A roundmail about the president’s itinerary, sent around by the White House, didn’t even mention Germany: it was from Cairo right away to France.

Former concentration camp Buchenwald and U.S. Landstuhl Military Hospital are Obama’s destinations here – not Berlin, although he might have got the Brandenburg Gate this time.

Sarkozy, on the other hand, has engendered the desired attention. Obama will stay one extra night. Well… when you have the choice between nightlife in Berlin, or Paris…

Washington considers chancellor Merkel unwieldy, hesitant, impolite, and therefore unwise. Unwieldy because her refusal to let Obama have the Brandenburg Gate as a background for his speech in Berlin last summer. Impolite and unwise, because she declined an audience at the White House in April, because she didn’t need the plane trip and would see Obama in London at the G20 summit anyway.

On economic matters, she is considered rather uninformed, especially since her conduct at the beginning of the global financial crisis, when she underestimated its magnitude and thought of it as a mostly American problem. The European stimulus action was pushed mostly with French support. Ever since, Germany has been sidelined when important economic decisions are taken, in places such as the IMF. Merkel keeps silent about it.

When Opel’s future was negotiated, the U.S. administration sent a representative with a White House intern’s  decision-making power. In the end, Merkel had to give Obama a phonecall to get decisions.

Stephen Szabo, the Transatlantic Academy’s director: “Currently, France is hip. The impression here is that the Germans are rather useless.”

Meantime, the IMF’s head is French, France is back in Nato’s military structures, it has a military base at the Persian Gulf, and isn’t only active in Africa, and while Merkel demanded the closure of Guantanamo, her interior minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, declines to admit any of the camp’s detainees into Germany.

The new U.S. administration feels that Germany tries to dodge its military duties within NATO. Merkel had made it clear long before Obama’s inauguration that noone should expect more military contributions from Germany. The country’s 4,100 soldiers stationed in Afghanistan seem to guard their military camps in the first place, while soldiers from other allies have to do most of the fighting – and of the dieing.

The new administration apparently wants to show that it doesn’t need Germany, and Merkel wants to avoid an open confrontation.

Obama’s war without words may feel good for him. It may even help to get Germany to work.

But he could have done better. He could have delivered another big speech in Berlin. And he could have hammered an important news home to the German public: that their country, just as America itself, is at war. He had made some hints last July, in Berlin. But he needs to become more explicit. Once he will have made the German public understand that Germany is at war, too, he will really have hurt Merkel. Because so far, this big war is the grand coalition’s dirty little secret.

And while the American president tours the federal state of Saxony, Germans will happily stay in their state of denial.

Verdener Aller Zeitung reports Three Recoveries

The Verdener Aller Zeitung, a local paper, reports plans which are currently discussed at the city council. One goal is to make new use of an area close to the Aller River. So far, there is a flat building encased with washed-out concrete which houses a supermarket and which mayor Lutz Brockmann says is ugly, according the papers Tuesday edition. There are no detailed plans yet, but a hotel may be included, too.

This used to be the site of Verden's synagogue (burnt down during Germany's "Kristallnacht" in 1938). It became the site of a car dealership after the war.

At the same time, a site at the Johanniswall which once lodged a car dealership shall be refurbished as a combination of retailing, services, and residence. An urban planning office in Hanover did the design, the Verdener Aller Zeitung wrote on Friday. Specialised retailers should take up some 3,000 square metres of the new place. It’s meant to be complementary to the pedestrian’s zone (Große Straße). The former synagogue which was located within the area (East of the Johanniswall and South of Lindhooper Straße) until 1938 is scheduled to be factored in with a remembrance site.

The newly-designed place will reportedly be accessible for cars from the Johanniswall and the Zollstraße.

The urban planning office from Hanover cites expert’s reports which state that no adverse effects on existing supply structures (this probably refers to existing retailers and services in the old town) are to be expected, provided that limits on the lines of business and range of products are abided by.

The smallest sales floors should be 300 to 400 square metres. The first floor will be for retailers, the second floor for flats, and the courtyard should become a car park.

The building plans are reported on the top of a page for local news. Right underneath, the Verdener Aller Zeitung reports that no real mood of [an economic] crisis seems to emerge on Verden’s job market, as the jobless rate had dropped from 6.5 to 6.2 per cent in May. “In Verden, actually a Recovery”, says the headline. This would spell 7,943 people looking for a job. Available apprenticeship positions had dropped only by 4.8 per cent, the paper quotes the employment agency and an agency which is apparently operated by the rural district.