The Free Flow Of Uncensored Facts

1997 Editions
Previous articles from Germany Alert's 1997 editions online.

 Bundesrat Votes to Allow Constitutional Snooping
BERLIN (February 7, 1998) -- The Germans' constitutional right to privacy in their homes has been taken away. The Bundesrat, Germany's upper house, voted to change Article 13, allowing the government to eavesdrop on its citizens. They will need a court's approval to do so. The Bundesrat's action follows on last month's vote in the lower house, the Bundestag.

Jobless Stage Massive Protest
BERLIN (February 5, 1998) -- Unemployed Germans took to the streets in forty cities today, protesting against Chancellor Helmut Kohl's failure to reverse the worst jobless crisis in post-war history. Organizers said at least 200,000 persons took part in demonstrations, which were mostly peaceful.

Unemployment Soars Past 4.8 Million in Germany
BONN (February 4, 1998) -- More than four million eight hundred thousand persons are now officially unemployed in Germany, the Federal Labor Office disclosed.

It is the highest number of jobless recorded since the Federal Republic of Germany was founded.

Bundestag Repeals German Constitutional Right of Privacy
BONN (January 17, 1998) -- Not since Adolf Hitler reigned could a German government invade citizens' privacy by spying on them in their homes, in their offices, where they shop or where they meet their friends. Yet on Friday (Jan. 16) two-thirds of the country's parliamentarians changed the constitution, threw out its citizens' right of privacy, repealed their freedom from fear that the German state was spying on them.

Chancellor Helmut Kohl's christian democrats (CDU and CSU) could not have changed the constitution on their own.  They only managed to do so because they were backed by the votes of foreign minister and former spymaster Klaus Kinkel's free democrats (FDP) and those of many "opposition" social democrats (SPD). The vote was 452-184.

The only Germans immune from being spied upon by their government will be defense attorneys durings meetings with their clients, priests hearing confessions and, of course, members of parliament -- the Bundestag.

Confidentiality between doctors and patients will be wiped away because medical practices are not protected against the state's snoops. Freedom of the press is expected to be a big loser since newspapers and their correspondents can now be targeted. Former justice minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger warned that innocent citizens will not be excepted from state spying. Democratic socialist (PDS) leader Gregor Gysi noted that Germany had survived legions of Warsaw Pact spies as well as Red Army terrorists without repealing its citizens' rights. He asked how it could be so necessary to take those rights away now.

Next stop for the constitutional repeal is Germany's upper house, the Bundesrat.

Bundeswehr Gave SS Nazis 'Humanitarian Help'
BERLIN (January 16, 1998) -- It turns out that the German military supplied military vehicles as a gift to a notorious group of veteran Nazi SS volunteers. The latest in a shockingly long list of scandals involving the Bundeswehr came to light in a report on Panorama, a German television newsmagazine program.

Two military trucks were provided without charge to Kameradenwerk Korps Steiner, an organization named for one of Hitler's favorite generals, Felix Steiner, of the murderous Waffen SS.

To top it off, German military officials wrote off the 1996-97 gift of the trucks as "humanitarian help."

Chancellor Helmut Kohl and his ministers have repeatedly sought to downplay the shocklist of Bundeswehr-Nazi scandals as "isolated incidents." But on Friday (Jan. 16) the military announced it will suspend all "humanitarian help" gifts of vehicles.

Kanther Accused of Stirring Up Anti-Refugee 'Hysteria'
BONN (January 14, 1998) -- Opposition parliamentarians warned that Interior Minister Manfred Kanther is scaring Germans with anti-refugee "smears" and "hysteria." The charges came from the SPD and Greens as Kanther took to the airwaves to warn that "floods" of Kurds were trying to enter Germany illegally.

Kanther seeks to cut Europe "totally" from refugees, the Greens asserted. Indeed, the minister ordered a massive beefing up of security on Germany's borders.

A thirty-kilometer-wide "security" zone has been declared along the border to Poland, within which German police and paramilitary troops are under orders to stop and search anyone who could resemble a refugee, even if no evidence of illegality is indicated. The security zone (see map) has been praised by at least three neo-Nazi youth groups, each of which has pledged to "help" German officials in turning the area into a huge "foreigner-free zone."