Not surprising. With the Gestapo, and then the Stasi, the Germans have an extensive cultural memory of the effects of comprehensive government surveillance of their lives. They are still surprisingly tolerant of the long term military occupation of their country by the US. It would have been interesting if Snowden had holed up in Germany instead of HK. I wonder if the inevitable US military extradition would have tested the tolerance of the Germans.
There's nothing surprising about the German tolerance of the US military bases, considering that they do nothing whatsoever to interfere with our lives or inconvenience us in any way, but do provide quite a lot of jobs. These are mostly medical or training facilities, many of them operated jointly by American and German forces, not some occupying force that's intent on overrunning our government or controlling the citizenry.
As far as public opinion goes, this is a complete non-issue, and I strongly suspect that if public opinion turned so far as to make it an issue, the US would withdraw their troops before entering into a war with a powerful western nation that would almost inevitably turn into another world war. This is really not what I'd call an occupation.
It is also worth pointing out that the occupation of Germany ended in 1955.
The US military has a policy of being forward deployed around the globe, so it negotiates agreements with may countries around the world to station troops in strategic locations.
The military bases are there as a result of legal agreements and treaties, not because they would forcibly resist any attempts to expel them, and there is no sentiment in the US whatsoever to change that policy and begin fighting to establish bases in friendly countries.
For a parallel, look to Uzbekistan where the US operated an airbase after 9/11. In 2005, there was a massacre by Uzbek government forces, and the US said there ought to be an international investigation. Uzbekistan replied by rescinding the agreement for use of the airbase, and the US left. No shots were fired.
Well … to be honest I consider 1990 the year in which occupation ended and Germany got its full sovereignty back (with the 2+4 talks and reunification).
Technically that doesn’t matter at all because all through the cold war West-German and US interests were very tightly aligned (and when interests diverged a bit the US did give West-Germany enough freedom, though they hardly ever diverged much).
I mean, West-Berlin was most certainly occupied until 1990. It’s just that that was an occupation hardly anyone had a problem with.
The US has bases in countries all over the world as part of military agreements. From 1955, W. Germany has them as a NATO member vs. the Warsaw Pact countries. They're not occupations unless the armies establish control over the countries.
Ahh, so it's forward deployment, not some modern version of colonialism. It should be noted that US bases aren't always loved or even well tolerated. See Japan, Iraq, Afghanistan et al.
The Japanese could certainly ask us to leave, and we would. But they don't, because except for a vocal minority they do want us there.
And Afghanistan is a war zone. I wouldn't consider that anything but an occupation. Which, I might add, they brought on themselves, so I don't have much sympathy.
In this case it was. Absolutely. One of the duties of a government is to control what goes on in its territory. Legally we had an iron-clad casus belli.
Legally, the UN charter and thus US law makes it clear invading another country can be done in self-defense or by approval of the security council. Neither of those conditions were met. Legally, you're talking nonsense. The U.S. government knew this. They labelled Taliban troops terrorist-supporters rather than soldiers so that they could ignore the law. Invading a country and bombing big lumps of it into oblivion and then occupying it for a decade because you fear a handful of non-state actors who might or might not be inside it; both illegal and fucking ridiculous, and far more damaging to the US than a grown-up response would have been.
>Legally, the UN charter and thus US law makes it clear invading another country can be done in self-defense or by approval of the security council. Neither of those conditions were met.
Nonsense. That's as clear a case of self defense as you're going to find.
The Taliban, assuming they weren't in league with al-Qaeda, violated Niven's Law 1b, "Never stand next to someone who is throwing shit at an armed man."
I've lived in Heidelberg for a while (with Germans) and I don't think the Americans there were really well seen. The MP cars in the streets (or the US imported cars in general), flying italian bottled water to US then back to Germany to avoid paying taxes, the fact that many American people born on German territory (children of military families) don't even bother to learn german, the gated communities etc. Plus the fact that the Iraq and Afganistan operation where headquartered there, the resentment seemed quite high.
(I just googled it and I see it's deactivated on april 1st 2013 actually)
The US hasn't declared war since the Second World War. Neither Vietnam nor Korea was declared as it is described in the US Constitution (that Congress shall declare war).
Weren't both Vietnam and Korea wars the US was simply involved in, instead of them declaring war against someone / a nation / a government? Similarly, Iraq and Afghanistan, iirc the US merely cooperated with the UN to er. Do something with those countries.
Isn't the US already (slowly) withdrawing/reducing the stationed troops?
Besides, germany wouldn't really have a chance. The few nuclear rockets we control would probably not be ready in time. The USA could just bomb germany down, like it was planned in case of a war with the UDSSR.
Except for the tiny fact that you attack Germany, you attack EU. And that's pretty much a world war right there. Nobody wants another world war, don't be silly.
M.A.D. still exists by the way. It's still why all major nations are at peace and why the EU gave so much flak to the US a few years ago when Bush wanted to install a nuclear shield. He later had to back down or serious stuff would've happened. (afaik)
Also, according to wikipedia, Europe has 150 to 240 nuclear warheads. Plenty enough to destroy all US major cities.
Oh no! The EU! A political body which requires unanimity to make any decision! We tremble in fear...
In all seriousness though, the EU does not currently extend to defense; it is currently only a political and economic union. France and Germany have proposed extending the EU to include common defense, but as of today it had not yet been ratified by either the European Council or the member states. See, e.g., the Treaty of Lisbon. (Note that the Treaty of Lisbon technically removes the unanimity requirement in place of a "double majority" threshold (meaning >55% of vote from >65% of countries) beginning in 2014.)
good news, because there has been military help treaties between neighboring countries a long time before EU was really standing up.
Fun factoid: France lets Switzerland use part of its territory to defend Geneva. And also let it fly its plane over FR territory because CH is so small that it's not practical for pilots training.
Germany itself isn't the only reason I doubt the US would attack Germany. If the US attacked Germany, I'm sure most of Europe would side with Germany at this point. So it would be akin to attacking all of Europe. Not something that's worth a single NSA leak, I'm sure.
Sounds crazy but the US has plans to IN-f*cking-VADE Germany's neighbour, the Netherlands if they were ever to do a crazy thing, like arrest US soldiers for war crimes and bring them to the International Tribunal.
..."The Hague Invasion Act,[3][4] since such freeing of US citizens by force might only be possible through an invasion of The Hague, Netherlands, the seat of several international criminal courts and the seat of the Dutch government."
Correct. But the International Tribunal isn't exactly 'a crazy thing*. Would it be 'crazy' to uphold (Coalition) troops to the same standard as 'the bad guys'?
If the US attacked Germany, the rest of Europe would instantly go to war with the US. Russia would likely attack the US as well (as good a time as any) and who knows what China might do. The US spends the most on military but considering they haven't won a fight since WWII (which would have ended the same with or without them) I don't see that they're that good.
But there wouldn't be any reason for the US to attack Germany. If they want us out we'll leave. Were I president we'd leave whether or not they wanted us to.
I think it would be rather good fun to write Tom Clancy style sprawling techno-thriller where it was the USA who were the bad guys.
[NB This is not because I have anything against the USA, just that I've got rather bored over the years with Russia/China being the enemy of choice for authors].
The US and UK military are usually stationed in somewhat small cities and are a very important part of the economy in these areas. Most people don't care about the fact that they are still here in Germany and those that do care are happy about the income they provide.
Everytime they leave somewhere it's usually a source of great concern and not at all something to celebrate.
While nobody celebrates, i think you are overstating the relevance. The troops live in their own quarters, hire their own contractors and shop in their own tax-free shops. Maybe they are using caps, but the impact on the local economy seems minimal.
No, in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter at all, the wider German economy would not be affected, not to any kind of noticeable degree, but for the local community it would be devastating. Akin to the bankruptcy of some huge employer.
My parents are living a few dozen kilometers from one of the bases (so actually pretty far away, all things considered) that has actually been growing (as others were closed down more and more was moved there and centralized). It’s in the middle of nowhere, there is nothing else there.
My dad, a civil engineer, planned and executed quite a few infrastructure projects for the base. The base is also notoriously short on living space, so people working there have been spreading all over the region, renting apartments and houses. Heck, new houses have been built not half a kilometer from my parents’ home to house people from the base. (My parents own several houses and very nearly rented them or apartments in them to Americans several times. For some reason or other it always didn’t work out in the end but the demand is very obvious.)
This tiny version of suburbia was also recently built (by a German company) to provide more living space (cost: €200m).
Shopping and going to restaurants is also huge. No, those people in the base do not want to stay there all the time. They will go to the next bigger city or two and buy and eat stuff there. Or get drunk in some club. Frequently. More and more city marketing in the region is specifically targeting Americans.
Where my parents live the impact of this base closing down would already be negligible. We probably know one or two people who would lose their job because of it or would make noticeably less money – but the close you get the more devastating the impact would be.
Those most directly affected by the base – those who see it every day – are the least likely to want to close it, mostly for economic reasons.
(18,000 employees and a giant market in the surrounding areas are affected at the biggest US base in
Grafenwöhr - after all, 15,000 family members of the troops live in the communities around the base.)
- Mannheim expects loss of 6 million Euro after pull-out of troops
According to Wikipedia, as of 2010 the US military has 52,440 people in Germany, and as of 2013 the German military had 188,921 active personnel and as of 2010 144,000 in their reserves.
That falls a bit short of "occupation" in my book. There has in fact been at least one technothriller based on the US military fighting its way out of Germany, based of course on the Anabasis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabasis_(Xenophon) Xenophon and 10,000 Greeks fighting their way out of the Persian Empire).
One year, 2010, is not long term. Germany had been heavily occupied (by several nations) from end of WWII until recently. Recently being last 20years or so.
No. I am just seeing a difference between occupation and having troops from foreign allies stationed on one's soil. If all non-local troops are "occupation" in your book, then I guess the US are occupying South Korea also? And Italy? And Israel?
No, the US Army is "occupying" a chunk of prime real estate in Seoul, in kind of the same way that the United Nations HQ "occupies" a chunk of prime real estate in NYC. Both cause complaints from the locals, but unlike a real occupation, South Korea could tell the US (and the US could tell the UN) to GTFO any time they wanted to.
Now I see what you mean - I mistook the bit you wanted a citation for. Now I get it, even if your point was 100% correct, there must have been a point when the foreign troops in Germany went from occupation to (?) stationed..?
"The London and Paris Conferences were two related conferences in London and Paris in September–October 1954, that decided about full sovereignty of West Germany, ending of its occupation, and its admittance to NATO."
Right there you start going astray, a lot of them are doing logistics of one type or another, including our largest overseas military hospital, the top level hospital for serious GWoT theater injuries.
More directly, it would all depend on why they were there.
It doesn't take an attack for there to be problems. Accidents, leaks, contamination, poor behaviour and violence by troops etc is somewhat more likely. That and the external appearance of supporting what ever the stationed troops are up to (often related to regional/nearby wars etc).
I think you mean half a hundred thousand. It really depends, are they going to movies and buying local beer or are they shooting at people? What is currently happening in Germany is the first not the second.
As it turns out I'm reading Washington's Crossing (http://www.amazon.com/Washingtons-Crossing-Pivotal-Moments-A...) and at the point where I'm at the Hessians are not enjoying the attacks they're receiving from the locals of occupied New Jersey (plus some raids from across the Delaware). Seems their thorough plundering wasn't well received....
> They are still surprisingly tolerant of the long term military occupation of their country by the US.
It's not exactly occupation anymore. Plus the US brought in the big money through the Marshall plan, starting a big economic boom. Even nowadays companies can get cheap loans from KfW bank that is essentially Marshall plan money.
I live and grew up near on of the military bases. If I would not have met some people stationed there and had the chance to visit them I would only have known there is a big area which is well guarded.
There is and was no incident I am aware of involving someone from the US military which could have put them in a bad light.
Even people I know, who are strictly against military forces and war, do not really care.
From my point of view, and I think I am not alone with this one, it is pretty simple. They live there, do their jobs, do not cause trouble and provide jobs. Without considering taxes and other things it is like a branch of an American company.
Everything you do, buy, places you visit, people you socialize, your interests, opinions, everything you say, etc. is under surveillance. Funny how East Germans would risk their lives just to escape their Stasi-controlled world.
The headline sounds like an official government statement but then this guy is no one I ever heard of and the only quote I could find does not even mention the word Stasi.
American surveillance (literally: compulsive checking) goes definitely to far if
it interferes that much with the privacy of internet users. Something like this is
unthinkable here. I thought we had overcome this era with the downfall of the DDR.
It is just ridiculous what they made out of this (unless I just failed to find the complete statement).
Well, he is a member of the European Parliament, so there's that. Most MEPs aren't very widely know, though, even compared to members of the national assemblies. They also have the luxury of being in a sort of permanent opposition against national governments and the more powerful parts of the EU government.
I agree that the story is overblown, although the concern about the whole thing in Germany and all of Europe is obviously very real and hopefully will turn into a greater concern over what our own governments are doing. I hope a lot of conservatives are caught finger pointing in the next few days, if nothing else just to see them squirm when they're supposed to wave through the next set of laws curtailing internet freedom.
That movie is usually regarded as being one of the more accurate ones. E.g. Joachim Gauck (Germany's current president and former head of the Stasi Archives) said that save some inaccuracies many things are presented very well. [1]
the inaccurate/ridiculous part is that he couldn't do what he did because every one of them had another agent(s) on them precisely to prevent such occurences. they spied on and controlled each other just like they did on citizens. other than that - great movie, and depiction of the strong influence such agencies had on personal lives (to make someone or destroy someone) is accurate.
My understanding was the only reason what he did worked was because the whole thing was winding down. 2 years prior and things wouldn't have worked out so well at all.
There were thaw periods around the countries of the block and agencies sometimes tended to chill out a bit with their activites, but on the other hand on Berlin's memorials you can find people whose deaths are dated even just a few months before the falling of the wall, so I don't know, to be honest.
Slavoj Žižek, reviewing the film for In These Times, criticized the film's perceived softpedaling of the oppressiveness of the German Democratic Republic, as well as structure of the playwright's character, which he thought was not very likely under a hard communist regime.[23] Anna Funder, the author of the book Stasiland, in a review for The Guardian called The Lives of Others a "superb film" despite not being true to reality. She claims that it was not possible for a Stasi operative to have hidden information from superiors because Stasi employees themselves were watched and almost always operated in teams
Probably not very accurate (just because most movies aren't, anyway). But I think most of the cast actually lived through the GDR years (in the GDR), and I figure that's how they acted so damn well.
To anyone considering watching this, if not for the history, watch it for the movie's sake. You will not be disappointed at all.
> "The more a society monitors, controls and observes its citizens, the less free it is," she said.
Okay, it's not Merkel herself who said that. But she sits still while people do, right?
I remember seeing some random youtube video of Merkel giving a speech during an election campaign, talking (nay, bragging) about video surveillance of inner cities (something she basically gives the CDU credit for, which "fought" for that), saying roughly: "some people say that's only useful to catch parking violations, but if you don't deal with parking violations, you don't have to be surprised if it gets worse."
To have Merkel be indignated on my behalf is a DISGUSTING idea. She's opportunistic and spineless, she stands for exactly nothing (other than "Security and Prosperity" of course; just like Kohl she wouldn't recognize what makes life great for decent people even after she squashed it). She, Obama, and all the other people who had their chances, in some cases decades of them, should consider just kindly shutting the fuck up, and sticking to their own, hopefully doomed, bandwagons.
The last time Obama held a public speech in Berlin he was cheered like he was Michael Jackson and the Pope in one person. This was before he was elected for his first term.
Back then there was no need to preselect his audience. Tens of thousands just came to celebrate him. It will be interesting to see how he is greeted by the German public this time. In Berlin. At the Branderburger Tor. Will he talk about freedom?
Thumbs up for this coming from the conservative party as well. As others have said, this really is a bi-partisan issue and we should build as broad a coalition of the unwilling as possible.
I do not expect to much. Our governments are extremly careful not to interfere with US interests. Stasi documents about the CIA? Unlawfully given to the CIA and not published. The man responsible is now the president. Merkel, started her career in the pro-dictatorship eastern CDU. Worked for the FDJ (somewhat GDR equivalent to the Hilter youth) as PR manager.
Not doing anything against the abduction of Kurznatz by the CIA. "Opposing" the Iraq war, but allow the US air fields to operate. It goes on and on and on. This is just a little rethorics. See also: Isle "facebook" Eigner.
We have elections in September, and this is an issue where they can't do anything, don't suffer in any way, but have a chance for free friendly press.
Meanwhile, the same conservative party added biometric photos and fingerprints to official documents (mandantory on some, optional on others); happily sends over flight and banking data to the US (they were in favor of the SWIFT agreement); established their own flavor of communication data ("metadata") retention policies ignoring both arguments and protects; collect traffic data "for street charge purposes only"; now want to use both for tracking down increasingly minor offenses (despite originally arguing that this wouldn't ever happen, and opponents to those laws are paranoid when assuming so much).
So yes, it's great that they oppose PRISM (if only to keep the topic in the media). But it's probably just out of jealousy because their own implementation is so much weaker.
Stasi.? Germans are simply shying away from comparing it to the Nazis' unimaginable wet dream because of a very self-conscious sensitivity about the matter. But don't fool yourselves, ignoring other unrelated, horrible outcomes that were a consequence of the times, this level of surveillance is by far worse than anything that has ever existed in all of human history. It is tantamount to mind reading, and without a doubt on the exact trail to that outcome.
You're confusing WWII germany and post WWII germany. Stasi was the ministry for homeland security of East-Germany in the post-WWII era untill the fall of the wall (1950- 1989). It has nothing to do with the Nazis (1930ish to 1945) The Stasi was a way to take hold of the country and get it stable again after the nazi regime fell. Though they did that by turning _EAST_ (not west) germany into a police state.
If anyone's interested in learning a bit more about the Stasi, The Lives of Others is a great film about a man who works for the Stasi, tasked with spying on some influential people.
Procedures differed somewhat and a Stasi officer wouldn't have had the operational freedom depicted in the movie (that is, his colleagues very likely would have caught him).
The story is one of those unrealistic "protagonist acts against all odds and succeeds" that make up a good movie, but the backdrop (Stasi's - sometimes not very - subtle omnipresence and the fear this evokes in society) is painfully realistic.
Ah yeah, it's definitely not a documentary, sorry I was unclear. Pgeorgi has it right - I meant that it was interesting more from the standpoint of what having something like the Stasi around does to people.
While I principally agree with you, I must add that _the_ data protection related historical event that impressed me most is how the Nazis used the excellent Dutch census data that fell into their hands to round up the Jews of the Netherlands. I don't know how widespread knowledge of this is (I was taught it in school), but I've heard it brought up a few times in discussions about personal data.
One reason why though, is that the Gestapo could rely on ordinary Germans to inform on each other. It didn't need a vast network of agents and microphones, it just needed an office to take complaints and detectives to follow up.
Unlike the Nazis, who were homegrown, the DDR was a locally administered occupation government backed by a foreign power. It was terrified of its own people and it collapsed the moment the threat of Red Army tanks rolling down the streets quit being credible.
Indeed it was, the resistance movement tried bombed the office keeping the census data in Amsterdam in 1943 since it was so effective for the Nazis. It kept the data of over 70.000 Jews in the Amsterdam. The resistance was active in forging identity cards and having the population registry destroyed meant that there would be nothing to compare the identity cards to. Unfortunately, the bombing only resulted in the destruction of 15% of the data. Many of the resistance fighters involved were executed shortly after.
Through sheer manpower however. Because of this, it wasn't a secret that everyone has been watched. That doesn't make it better, but gives it an own taste compared to PRISM.
If what is happening today is worse than anything ever, including the Holocaust you are referring to, then where are the facilities where the US is slaughtering women and children of ethnic minorities in order to eliminate them from the earth?
I'm almost positive that the comment you're replying to meant "this is the worst level of surveillance ever", not "this surveillance is worse than anything ever".
Honestly, I'm starting to feel like the lack of comments from European leaders about the infringement of non-American's data might be because they know they might be the next to get caught with their hands in the honey pot. I can't tell if I'm just starting to be part of the tin-foil hat crowd though.
We Germans shouldn't forget that in 2009 our government tried to implement a similar kind of surveillance. This lead to Tauss leaving the social democrats and join the Pirate Party.
While we are pointing fingers... why are the Germans so set on laying the economic foundation for WWIII? We get it, you feel like you shouldn't have to rescue "lazy bums", but get over it already and suck it up. The US massively spent too reconstruct Germany after WWII, partially because of the realization that post-WWI financial destitution was part of the groundwork for WWII.
It's not like your entirely blameless here either Germany, your banks made the questionable decision to lend money to those lazy bums so they could buy back German goods.
