[Malcolm Armsteen]

Motives unclear.
Glad you are ok.

[Youngian]

This is mental, a crazed aristocrat planning a far right coup in Germany

[davidjay]

Re-entering the thirties, one step at a time.

[Bones McCoy]

Wait for the MAGA / Fox crowd reporting a "Freeze Peach crisis in authoritarian Germany".

[kreuzberger]

We'll see how the press deal with this in the next day or two but remember all those "concerned mothers and fathers"?

Aye, this is the violent, fascist scum which has been indulged since their toxic Pegida tufty-club tipped up and, even within the last year or so, were allowed on the streets and tried to do a 6th January on the Reichstag with the collusion of the AfD.

The new government cannot be said to have had little on its hands since September '21 but the BND (Mi5) and the Constitutional Court have some serious questions to answer.

[The Weeping Angel]

[RedSparrows]

Like something from Robert Ludlum. All you need is an atrocious style and a young, male American patsy.

[kreuzberger]

Fireworks - legally held artillery for three, miserable and mortally dangerous days a year.

They really can get fucked.

[The Weeping Angel]

Just give them the fucking tanks

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64350877

Germany has not yet decided whether to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine, or allow other countries to donate theirs, despite pressure on Berlin to act.

A meeting on Friday to co-ordinate military donations for Kyiv did agree to supply more armoured vehicles and air defence systems.

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier made a specific appeal for modern tanks to repel Russia.

Poland's foreign minister criticised Germany's reluctance to send tanks.

"Arming Ukraine in order to repel the Russian aggression is not some kind of decision-making exercise. Ukrainian blood is shed for real. This is the price of hesitation over Leopard deliveries. We need action, now," Zbigniew Rau wrote on Twitter.

Western countries have committed billions in other weaponry - but without Germany's commitment on tanks, it was not the result Ukraine was hoping for.

Ukraine wants German-made Leopard 2s as they are easy to maintain and designed specifically to compete with the Russian T-90 tanks, which are being used in the invasion.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Some people found it hard to believe Bozo could be unpopular in Ukraine. I don’t know if he was, but you can see he might be if this is the competition.

[kreuzberger]

The SPD have held sway in Berlin's Red Town Hall - the rote Rathaus - since god was a lass. However, after an administrative clowncar, the regional state election is being rerun in three weeks' time.

As of this weekend, the centre-right CDU have a nose ahead and the wind appears to be with them, even though the Greens are within touching distance.

Russia and Leopards are on everyone's lips. The older left are still shy on the tanks; there is a general sympathy with a sense of Russia which doesn't include Putin but does factor in the USA, the pacifist streak is strong, and - especially in the city-west - there is a petit-bourgeois tendency to get mind your own business and not get involved. The under 40s are on the streets and demanding that we give full-throated, tooled-up support to Zelenskiy.

That then begs the question, will Scholz risk Berlin for a decision which he will be railroaded into, sooner or later? Personally, I believe that it is impossible to call until later in this coming week. Nothing is characterising his premiership if not becoming a procrastinating pragmatist when the biggest calls are required.

[kreuzberger]

Well, that was a short week in politics. Annalena Baerbock, the Green foreign minister in the Federal government, has this evening said that DE will not step in the way of client nations letting the Leopards loose.

In theory, she could be out on her arse tomorrow morning but I doubt it.

[kreuzberger]

14 x Leopard II tanks are on their way from the Federal Republic. I suppose that that is a politically acceptable gesture but it's hardly decisive.

Come the Z spring offensive, we'll be clutching our pearls once more.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I think some credit is due there for how far they have come. Let's see from here.

[Oboogie]

14 x Leopard II tanks are on their way from the Federal Republic. I suppose that that is a politically acceptable gesture but it's hardly decisive.

Come the Z spring offensive, we'll be clutching our pearls once more.

Added to the contributions from Poland, Denmark and Spain it's about 100, which, I'm informed by people who know more about modern tanks than I do, could indeed decisive. Plus there's some Challengers and Abrahams and some Swedish armour I've forgotten the name of on it's way too.

There are also a large number of F16s headed Ukraine's way courtesy of the Netherlands, the USA and some other countries.

[Abernathy]

There seems to be some sort of collective attempt at a multi-nation balancing act going on. On any objective assessment, there is a proxy war being conducted against Putin's Russia by various nations/NATO, keeping open supply lines and
providing armaments to Ukraine.
The balancing bit seems to be, as embodied by Germany, about avoiding Putin reaching a tipping point where he perceives, rightly or wrongly, that Russia is to all intents and purposes engaged in an escalation, or full-scale war with Ukraine's allies, and not just Ukraine itself, and is therefore motivated to wreak terrible revenge against Ukraine's allies.
I've been worried ever since last February that the echoes of Hitler's annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938 are unmistakable, and quite chilling. I'm still very worried.

[The Weeping Angel]

I see Germany is learning nothing from what happened when they last got rid of nuclear power stations.

[kreuzberger]

That story about a lioness being on the prowl in Berlin? Silly season or not, the situation here is verging on the hysterical.

I had my next pre-op consultation this morning in Zehlendorf, just on the south-western fringes of the city, and the place was absolutely crawling with cops. There are meat waggons left and right, and the sky was choca with helicopters, both from Herr Plod and every news-crew which could lay their hand on one at short notice.

My surgeon was nowhere to be seen, so I had to make do with her assistant who was far more interested in the - ahem - mane event, rather than in what time I should actually turn up there on Monday.

[Youngian]

Seem to recall Berlin has previously been under siege from bears, wolves and feral hogs.

You gonna need a bigger dog

[kreuzberger]

Bears and wolves, I am not so sure. On the other hand, everyone has had a stand-off with them at some time or another: a laptop theft went viral a couple of years ago.



The lioness had no such problems. She reportedly had a whole one for breakfast.