Tag: Germany

Europe

German police clash with anti-mine protestors

LuetzerathGerman police clashed with protestors as thousands rallied for the protection of the village of Lützerath, which is set to be destroyed to make way for a coal mine. Earlier in the week, a German regional court upheld a ruling to clear the village, which is in the brown-coal district of the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Utility company RWE says they reached a deal with the regional government last year that allows the village to be destroyed in return for ending coal use by 2030, rather than 2038. Lützerath is the last of 14 villages sacrificed for the Garzweiler mine, with thousands of residents resettled, and churches and schools bulldozed to make way for the energy expansion plans. Thousands of protestors were moved from empty buildings in the village last week. (Image: @XRebellionUK)

Europe

Podcast: Russia, Ukraine & the Reichsbürger cult

Reichsbürger In Episode 155 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes stock of the accusations that the coup conspiracy by the ultra-right Reichsbürger cult in Germany was Russian "hybrid warfare." The plausibility of this claim reveals the degree to which far-right forces around the world today look to Moscow for tutelage and sponsorship. Volodymyr Zelensky's historic Congressional speech was dissed in the most vulgar terms by Tucker Carlson—whose comments were avidly promoted by RT, the official Russian state propaganda outlet, as per explicit instructions from the Kremlin. This same RT similarly promotes Putin-shilling voices of the "tankie" pseudo-left. Our rightist enemies are enthused by the genocidal regimes of both Syria's Bashar Assad (backed by Russia) and the Argentine generals of the 1970s (backed by the US). They've rallied around Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic, as well as the neo-Ustashe in Croatia. It is only confused "leftists," indoctrinated by campism and accustomed to seeing everything in terms of geopolitics, who fail to recognize the fascism on both sides—and get taken in by fascist pseudo-anti-fascism. Despite the left's obsessive fixation on the Azov Battalion, reactionary forces around the world are looking to Putin as their great leader—not Zelensky. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo via EU Political Report)

Europe

Reichsbürger plot: Russian ‘hybrid aggression’?

ReichsbürgerThe Brussels-based pro-EU think-tank International Foundation for Better Governance (IFBG) is calling the apparent thwarted ultra-right plot to overthrow the German government by the so-called "Reichsbürger" movement "a classic example of the hybrid aggression of the Russian Federation." The statement notes that chancellor Olaf Scholz, reportedly one of those marked for "physical elimination" in the Reichsbürger plot, is a key supporter of Ukraine among Western leaders, and was chiefly responsible for the recent German donation of Gepard mobile anti-aircraft systems to the Kyiv government. IFBG concludes: "The circumstances demand that Russia must be completely isolated, receive the maximum possible sanctions and be recognised as a terrorist state by the parliaments of Western countries." (Photo of 2013 Reichsbürger rally in Berlin via WikimediaCommons. Banner reads: "The German people, freed from Napoleon in 1813, freed from EU-fascism in 2013") 

Europe

Germany recognizes Holodomor as genocide

HolodomorThe German Bundestag voted to formally recognize the Holodomor, a politically induced famine that decimated Ukraine in 1932-3, as a genocide. The declaration found that Soviet authorities demanded inflated quantities of grain from Ukrainian farmers and punished those who fell short with additional demands. Affected regions were cut off from the rest of the Soviet Union so that Ukrainians could not receive aid. As a result, approximately 3.5 million Ukrainians starved to death. The Bundestag characterized the Holodomor as a project of Joseph Stalin to suppress the Ukrainian "way of life, language and culture," and one of the most "unimaginable crimes against humanity" in Europe's history. The motion also recognized Germany's own history of genocide and the Bundestag's "special responsibility" to acknowledge and condemn crimes against humanity. Ukraine declared the Holodomor a genocide in 2006. (Photo: 2019 Holodomor remembrance in Kyiv. Credit: EuroMaidan Press)

Europe
Munich

Podcast: Donbas = Sudetenland

In Episode 143 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes the all too telling irony that Putin’s annexation of Ukraine’s Donbas region came on exactly the same day as the 1938 Munich Agreement, which approved Hitler’s annexation of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland region. Russian… Read morePodcast: Donbas = Sudetenland

Europe
Georgia

Mass exodus of Russian youth

Tens of thousands of conscription-age Russian men have fled to neighboring countries since President Vladimir Putin announced a mobilization of military reserve troops to fight in Ukraine. The tide has grown in recent days amid fears that the Kremlin will impose an… Read moreMass exodus of Russian youth