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HOME ADDRESSES OF GERMAN GOVERNMENT OFFICERS
The editorials, opinions, and discussion in this Web site do not necessarily apply to anyone whose name or other information is provided in this Web site.
According to the U.S. state department, the Berlin senate persistently refused to provide PLC (public law corporation) status to JWs. More or less, this meant that JWs couldn't get a nonprofit, religious corporation in Berlin. The refusal was illegal, as far as we know. Eventually, with the help fo a lawyer, the JWs got PLC status.
As far as we know, BVDP were district authorities of the DVP in district cities (not mere towns) in East Germany, the DDR. DVP was the East German police (D=German, V=People, P=Police; police of the German people). There is a 79-page, 8.4 megabyte, Zipped (compressed), PDF file containing a list of some, supposed, former BDVP officers. The file has last name, first name, ID number, alternate ID number, job title, initial rank, office assignment, and rank now (at time list was made). Officers are listed by city. Within each city, officers are listed by their names. Click here to download..
By the way, in social conversation, some Germans who visited America in the last several yeas say that authorities in American airports act like VP (the DDR's DVP, police of the former East Germany). This is a criticism.
There is an article about Ex-Stasi, "Exklusiv: Tausende Ex-Stasi-Spitzel arbeiten im öffentlichen Dienst", by Stefan Tillmann and Monika Dunkel, 9 July 2009, Financial Times Deutschland. The Local summarized that article in English in "Municipal posts rife with 17,000 former Stasi workers", 9 July 2009.
The TOOOL website has an interesting video made in Berlin in 2005 which teaches about physical security of buildings; for example, some locks to avoid buying.
In an 18 January 2008 article entitled "Germany's Homegrown Intolerance", Spiegel Online's editor David Crossland briefly describes Germany's treatment of immigrants.
Wikileaks website links to a PDF file and DANIEL SCHMITT's discussion of that file. The file, also released by the German political party Pirate Party, contains two, scanned documents about supposed activities of the Bavarian police, Ministry of Justice and the Prosecution office in intercepting encrypted data sent via SSL or Skype via the Internet. The first document supposedly deals with splitting cost between Bavarian police and the prosecutors offices. The second document supposedly has the related, 4 September 2007 offer for software by a German company, Digitask. If we understand correctly, the technology works via a local installation of malware on a victim's computer. Digitask's offer gives a high-level explanation of this.
Please boycott Germany to the extent (if any) if it is legal and convenient for you to do so.
German professor Gerhard Schaefer was a federal High Court judge in Germany. His 2006, 170-page report to Germany's PKC (Parliamentary Control Committee) is described by "German secret service spies on journalists, employs Stasi methods", by Martin Kreickenbaum, 19 May 2006, in World Socialist Web Site. The report originally was available to the public with 11 pages missing. Those pages supposedly are at wikileaks.org/wiki/S7. That wikileaks.org/wiki/S7 link may not work in Germany. Those pages supposedly mention journalist Josef Hufelschulte (a seeming victim of the spying, whose code name supposedly was Jerez), the BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst, Germany's secret intelligence agency), BND superintendent Volker Foertsch, and Focus. We are under the impression that Focus is a magazine published by the British Broadcasting Corporation. The report describes illegal, covert action by the BND including much spying on journalists working for the news magazine Der Spiegel after the magazine had reported in 1995 on a plutonium deal set up by the BND.
As far as we know, the BND acted illegally, then illegally spied on the legal response, which was investigation by journalists.
The BND's covert action, including spying, seems to have had a few purposes; for example, to find out about Germany, especially German journalism (including legal, German, journalists' response to illegal BND activity); and to create desired publicity (which publicity was desired in part to try to influence German elections).
We are not expert about post-war Germany. The Schaefer report documents a period in which, despite normal BND policy to treat journalists better than other people, the BND treated journalists no better than ordinary Germans whom the BND was curious about. Therefore, we think that, to learn how the BND (and some other parts of the German government?) treat ordinary Germans whom it is curious about, read the Schaefer report. Schaefer reported a kind of infringement of privacy by the BND (spying on German journalists in violation of both the law and the BND's usual policy of treating journalists better than ordinary Germans). His report does not cover spying by other government agencies, businesses, and individuals.
By the way, a 16 November 2008 article, "German intelligence scrubs European records after Wikileaks exposure", describes massive deletion at RIPE to scrub references to a BND cover, an unregistered company at a Munich-based P.O. box.
Passau police chief Alois Mannichl reported that, on 13 December 2008, he was stabbed at his home by a stranger who seemed politically motivated. Mannichl owned the weapon. After the stabbing, the stranger threw the weapon away. It was recovered and inspected. The weapon seems to have lacked, as far as we know, evidence such as DNA, clothing fibers, and fingerprints. There was no witness other than the victim and the stabber. Although the victim was stabbed at his home, police waited days before questioning members of the victim's household. We don't know why there was such a big delay.
After the stabbing, there was uproar: international publicity, a parade, and talk of outlawing a small, political party which some people thought was related to the politically motivated, stabbing stranger. We guess that that party was unrelated to the stabber or any other aspect of the stabbing.
In Germany and most other countries which are not predominantly English-speaking, police have files on most adults even in the absence of criminal activity or suspiciousness. As an example of how many people are covered by those files: in Germany and many other countries, citizens do not contact election agencies to register to vote. Election agencies automatically register citizens based on information provided by police. In Germany and many other countries with those comprehensive files, the files include a facial photograph. Mannichl described the stabber well. Police investigated in Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic, all of which have the police file system described above. Police failed to find the stabber.
Some of prosecutor Helmut Walch's remarks about Mannichl's case are in the 9 January 2009 article, "Fall Mannichl: Staatsanwalt spricht von 'Merkwürdigkeiten'" ["Mannichl case: public prosecutor speaks of 'strangenesses'"], by Max Hägler at the sueddeutsche.de Web site. Partly as an result of Mannichl's crime report about a stranger who seemed to be politically motivated, a court ordered that two people be arrested. They were arrested. We guess that they're innocent and that their arrest records won't be expunged. We should carefully evaluate reports that a government officer was criminally, violently attacked at his home by a stranger. This Alois Mannichl discussion is based on our understanding of what we read on the Web.
Some of prosecutor Helmut Walch's remarks about Mannichl's case are in the 15 December 2009 articles "Ein Jahr nach dem Angriff: Staatsanwalt kritisiert Mannichl" (by Rudolf Lambrecht und Klaus Wiendl, stern.de Web site) and "Fresh doubts on Mannichl stabbing case"" (thelocal.de Web site). Stabbing victim Mannichl is no longer Passau's police chief.
Incidentally, some, possible implications of the Mannichl case above remind us of events in Oldenburg, Niedersachsen, involving someone (seemingly an Oldenburg police officer) who tried to scare a Jew by trying to trick him (with a distinctive, specific statement: Statement1) into thinking that a harmless, cooperating skinhead near a school building was really a threatening, Nazi skinhead. (Incidentally, there is reason to suspect that a second, harmless, cooperating skinhead at an intersection soon after also was intended to be part of the attempted trick.) The Jew (partly because he had experience with real, Nazi skinheads in Germany) was not fooled. In summary, an Oldenburger who seems to have been a police officer pretended that there would be a Nazi threat; and we were reminded of that by some, possible implications of the Mannichl case. We think that there is a German, federal agency which collects information about contemporary, Nazi crimes and incidents in Germany. We don't know if that agency knows about these Oldenburg events. (Incidentally, there was retaliation for the preceding paragraph's report of the maker of the pseudothreat. The attempted Jew-scarer has at least several, non-police supporters in Oldenburg. There were other, harassing incidents in Oldenburg, one of which had a Nazi theme.)
Once, just before someone entered a supermarket, a man, who was standing just outside the front door, made a statement to the entrant. The statement was idnetical or almost idnetical to Statement1. The entrant was then treated intentionally rudely in the supermarket that time and and every subseqiuent time he entered.
Entrant wrote a letter about, among other things, the supermarket. The letter was on two levels. It was supposed to be read between the lines, a possibly too subtle level. It also had a superficial level. Once, entrant, while walking on a sidewalk, spotted a man and woman walking together. The woman recognized entrant and described the letter's superficial level to the man with her.
The patient felt cold to the physician. We guess that the physician examined the patient in the patient's home.
The patient died soon after the incident. Would the patient have lived longer had she been correctly diagnosed? Did the physician do a crime (recklessly endanger his patient by the way he diagnosed her), causing the patient to die earlier than she would otherwise have died?
Each human will die. If Aaron killed Bob, this does not mean that Bob would have lived eternally but for Aaron's act. If Aaron killed Bob, this means that, because of Aaron's act, Bob died earlier than he otherwise have died. That's why we are curious if, had the old woman been correctly diagnosed (for example, discovered to be alive), she would have gotten appropriate medical treatment much earlier and therefore lived longer. We are curious if the doctor killed the old woman (by causing her to die earlier than she otherwise would have died) by incorrectly concluding that she was dead. If the doctor did kill, the killing would have been reckless, not intentional, we think. We do not know if anyone discussed with the old woman's family whether the doctor killed her (in other words: shortened her life by delaying appropriate medical treatment, by wrongly concluding that she was dead). There are two separate questions: could a doctor have cured the patient, did a doctor kill the patient. It is possible to kill a patient one is unable to cure. If one discusses with the family whether one could have cured the patient, this is not the same as discussing whether one killed (in other words, shortened the life of) the patient.
"Hospital pays damages for removing woman's healthy breast", 23 November 2009, The Local
2009nov25
What percent of German, medical laboratories' diagnoses are wrong? Is it negligent to make major medical decisions (for example, a decision to remove an entire breast) based solely on one laboratory's diagnosis? We ask if the practice (if relying solely on one laboratory's dignosis) is negligent, not if it is common.
2010jul6
We indirectly heard about the following, supposed events. An intelligent, educated man went to a physician who worked in the Evangelical (Lutheran) hospital in the Zentrum neighborhood in Oldenburg, Niedersachsen. The physician has sort of an unusual name and is described by some patients as chief physician, which indicates that he supervises a unit of the hospital (not the entire hospital or even most of it). The physician diagnosed incurable cancer but (criminally?) concealed the condition from his patient. The physician told the patient's wife but asked her to conceal the condition from her husband. The wife cooperated with the physician. Because of the cancer, the patient deteriorated. Eventually, when concealment was no longer possible, the physician told the patient about the incurable cancer. The patient literally stopped talking to his wife. Although the spouses lived under the same roof, he literally did not talk to her. For example, she cooked and served his meals but he did not talk to her.
He moved into what seems to be a hospice, and died there. The physician's supposed conduct may be how he was taught to treat patients dying of cancer, and it may be customary for German physicians to treat such patients that way. In some countries (not necessarily Germany), the physician's supposed conduct violates criminal law, civil law, and professional ethics. We guess that the doctor still practices medicine in the Oldenburg area, not disclosing to his patients his concealment of important information.
In some countries (not necessarily Germany), a physician has a duty to tell a prospective patient everything a reasonable, prospective patient would want to know before deciding to consent to treatment. The required disclosure sometimes may include, for example, information about the physician, not merely about the medication or other treatment narrowly defined. For example, the physician has a duty to disclose a practice of secretly conspiring with a patient's spouse to conceal vital information from the physician's intelligent, educated patient. By the way, the patient may have been more intelligent and educated than the concealing, conspiring physician. In any event, even if what happened to the man was merely one incident (so far): reasonable, prospective patients would want to know about that incident before deciding whether to consent to treatment by that physician. Every patient of that physician should be told, according to the law in some places (not necessarily Germany).
One reason for licensing physicians and hospitals is to protect the public from physicians like the one described above. We don't know if insurance companies pay his bills although he tricked at least one of their insureds.
As far as we know, many physicians in the Oldenburg area improperly disclose information to patients' spouses.
"Schwarzfahrer in Uniform" (approximate translation: Black Rider in Uniform), 26 June 2009, stern.de Web site. Black riding is illegally riding without paying. As well as we understand the article, local police officers in uniform illegally ride first class on trains without paying, defying conductors, so a train company complained to a state government. A description in English of Stern's article is "Police under fire for taking first class train seats", 28 Jun 2009, thelocal.de Web site.
Germany has a small enclave in Switzerland: a part of Germany entirely surrounded by Switzerland. On school days, a school bus comes from Germany through Switzerland, picks up secondary school students in the enclave, delivers them to school in Germany, then later takes them through Switzerland back to their German enclave. German enclave phone numbers can be reached through both a German area code and a Swiss area code. We don't know if there are phone numbers elsewhere in the world which can be reached through more than one country's area code. We hope so because it seems convenient to the caller not to have to dial a country's country code. The call is slightly easier to dial if there is no country code.
Switzerland has a tiny enclave in Germany.
According to "Berliner ersteigert Straße in Brandenburg" (26. August 2009, by Axel Lier, Berliner Morgenpost Web site), Wassim Saab was the high bidder at an auction of a Brandenburg street (Brest district of Haversee) which he bought for only one thousand Euros. Before the auction, the city government refused to buy the street for one Euro. He now owns the street including, for example, street lamps and water conduits. We don't know his business plan for his street. He should be able to sell his street, which occupies 5200 square meters, for hundreds of thousands of Euros. Ordinarily (but not necessarily throughout Germany) when those conducting a public auction have a lawful intent, someone tries to attract as many bidders as he can to get as high an auction sale price as possible. We are impressed that there seem to have been only two bidders and that he high bid was only one thousand Euros. No one bidding for himself had been born in Germany, as far as we know. The sale seems to have been conducted indoors. Sometimes (not necessarily in Germany), government-conducted auctions are held outside in a highly public place; for example, on the steps in front of the main entrance of a courthouse, or on a sidewalk near an entrance to a government building. We guess that the buyer could have bought the street for less than one thousand Euros. We guess that he could have bought for 1.01 Euros (one Euro and one cent) or two Euros.
Residents of the street are concerned.
This street might be a tourist attraction while the new owner owns it. We don't know if it would be trespassing for tourists to walk or drive on his street. Perhaps someone would pay to name his street Coca Cola Street or Exxon Street. If his street were named South Exa Court, it would appear on street maps as "S EXA CT". On the north side of Hollywood Boulevard in the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles City, there is a sidewalk near a movie theater. The sidewalk is made of poured concrete (not like German sidewalks, which typically are paved with brick or similar objects). The footprints and shoe prints of famous entertainers are in the concrete. Tourists come to look at or stand in the prints of stars.
According to an 11 Oct 2009 article at thelocal.de Web site entitled, "German army guns sold on Afghan black market":
"Hundreds of pistols from German army stocks have turned up for sale on the black market in Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to a Sunday report by North German Broadcasting (NDR)."In our opinion: this report, which we guess is true, illustrates one of the reasons why Afghanistan's quisling government cannot win despite extensive support from NATO and the UN.
Supposedly, the German government had sent the pistols to the Afghan military, which then had sent the guns to military and police units.
ANP (Afghanistan National Police) officers are extensively described on the Web (for example, in "Meet Afghanistan's model police force: inexperience, drugs and double agents", by Jon Boone and Peter Beaumont, 4 November 2009). According to those, extensive, Web descriptions, many ANP officers are corrupt, extort, use illegal drugs (for example, hashish), help the Taliban, have received little training, cannot read, and are inept at police work. Experts have called ANP a cesspool. One should be wary of training Afghan police. As an example of corruption, it supposedly is easy to obtain the release of prisoners of the ANP. One merely pays a bribe. It has been guessed that thirty percent of ANP officers illegally use drugs. The percentage varies by locality. It has been guessed that, in Helmand province, sixty percent of the police illegally use drugs. It is wrong to police to illegally use drugs. How do Afghani police get illegal drugs to use? Do they buy drugs from dealers? Do Afghani drug dealers give free drugs to police?
Money is extorted from civilians (for example, at ANP checkpoints).
In light of what we have read about Afghan police, it is unacceptably dangerous to the Afghan people to give pistols to Afghan police. In the Mexican city of Tijuana in January 2007, the national government took guns away from the local police because the police were unacceptably corrupt, especially in drug crimes. The police officers' union got the officers slingshots and ball bearings so that the officers could defend themselves, we read. The Afghan police should be disarmed, too. It is irresponsible to give them guns.
According to "Disagreements reign over how to end Afghan mission by 2011" (Sunday, 17 January 2010, thelocal.de), the German police union said that it was no longer certain the German police training mission in Afghanistan was helping. "We are training fighters for the Taliban," said Rainer Wendt, head of the union. "We are worried that many of the Afghan police candidates do not take up police duty after their training, but go direct to the Taliban. They pay twice as much."
Germany sent the pistols to the Afghan military. ANA (Afghan National Army) has widespread inefficiency, corruption, illiteracy, theft, lack of discipline, ghost soldiers (nonexistent soldiers whose pay is stolen by military insiders), desertion, and lack of aggression in combat (for example, failure to fire weapons at the enemy when fired at by the enemy).
The proportion of police officers who use pistols is much higher than the proportion of soldiers who use pistols. Because of extensive theft, sending pistols to the Afghan military or police is largely wasteful. For reasons briefly stated above, Afghan people need to be protected from the ANP.
We guess that helping the ANP (especially when the help inlcudes providing weapons) may be illegal, perhaps even criminal if the helper knows about the extensive crime done by the ANP.
As far as we know, Islam prohibits Muslims from using intoxicants (for example, heroin and alcohol). Heroin is made from poppies. Most of the world's heroin comes from Afghan poppies. As far as we know, the heroin-poppy industry is Afghanistan's biggest industry. This industry violates Afghanistan's governmental law (the law of the U.N.-backed government) as well as Islam. The industry survives because of extensive corruption in the police, the military, and elsewhere in the government.
Our remarks above are narrowly about Afghanistan, and are chiefly based on many, credible reports on the Web.
In our opinion, there is more than one, independent reason why the U.N. and NATO lost and will not win in Afghanistan. One of those reasons is that U.S. ground forces (Army and Marine Corps) are much too small. When the Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968, the invasion force was at least 175,000 soldiers, perhaps as high as 500,000. Czechoslovakia had less area and fewer people than Afghanistan. America is unwilling to send enough soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan.
Another reason is that the Taliban has been paid, perhaps sometimes indirectly by America, not to attack, according to "Rule of the Gun: Convoy Guards in Afghanistan Face an Investigation", by Dexter Filkins, 6 June 2010, New York Times. For example, "Western officials believe that Afghan officials have paid bribes to the Taliban before -- for instance, so that they will refrain from attacking the transmission towers that make up the country's cellphone network.". In Afghanistan, private security businesses guard American military bases and convoys of privately owned trucks which carry military supplies. The American government, pursuant to the Host Nation Trucking program, pays Afghani trucking businesses to deliver military supplies. Those businesses pay Afghani security buysinesses for armed escorts to protect against Taliban attacks en route. "Afghan and NATO officials say that anecdotal evidence suggests that in order to keep their trucks moving - and to keep up their business - some companies may sometimes pay Taliban fighters not to attack, to sometimes mount attacks on competitors, or, as is suspected in the case in Maidan Shahr, to attack NATO forces." "'We're funding both sides of the war,' a NATO official in Kabul said." According to Dexter Filkins's 21 June 2010 article cited below, "Several trucking company supervisors told investigators that they believed the gunmen they hired to escort their convoys bribed the Taliban not to attack."
Privte, Afghani, Truck Convoy Security |
As the result of an order by KSK Task Force 47 colonel Georg Klein, there was a NATO massacre of Afghan people at two, fuel tanker trucks at the Kunduz River about seven kilometers southwest of Kunduz City at about 2:00 a.m. Afghani time on 4 September 2009. By GMT (an internationally used time system) and CET (German time), the massacre was on 3 September 2009.
According to the ICRS's "15-10-2009 Operational update":
An air strike on fuel tankers in Kunduz on 4 September caused a large number of civilian casualties. The ICRC immediately sent a medical team to support Kunduz provincial hospital. Other delegates spoke to families who were mourning their dead in nearby villages.The ICRC donated medical supplies to Istiqlal Hospital for the treatment of burn injuries caused by the Kunduz air strike of 4 September.
What events occurred and what is the best interpretation of those events? Regarding what events occurred, the only, detailed account we read is "Coverup of the German army's role in the Kunduz massacre continues", by Ulrich Rippert, 7 December 2009. According to "KSK special forces involved in Kunduz strike" (10 December 2909, thelocal.de Web site) and "Luftangriff von Kundus: Rot-Kreuz-Bericht belastet Guttenberg" (9 December 2009, stern.de Web site), the International Red Cross (ICRC) supposedly deems the Kunduz bombardment contrary to international law. In a report not available to the public, the NATO Inspector-General's staff supposedly wrote, more or less, that, in light of Klein's beliefs at the time he gave the order, the attack was appropriate. (According to the "Coverup" article cited above: Klein's pertinent beliefs were wrong and are not the correct criterion.) We think that KTG (German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg) initially said that the air attack was militarily appropriate but he later backtracked on that statement. There are other reports; for example, by Klein and by military police. Wikileaks.org provides an approximately 4Mb PDF file of German-language, military documents which can be downloaded from a Web page entitled, "Close Air Support Kunduz: Untersuchungsbericht, Meldungen, Auswertungsgespraeche, September 2009".
This is not a subject we expertly know. There may be mistakes in our discussion. We think that Klein's order was to immediately drop six bombs on a pair of stolen, fuel tanker trucks (with no permission to pilot Dude to buzz civilians nearby so that they would flee before the bombing). One of the trucks was trapped in sand, unable to move. The Taliban was giving away fuel in the trucks, which is a reason why many civilians were near the trucks. Supposedly, NATO knew what was going on. NATO on the ground supposedly was watching the stolen trucks on TV as the result of airborne TV observation. Also, a confidential informant called his control about seven times that night to report what was happening with the triucks (for example, the location of the trucks and that fuel in them was being given to villagers). Pilot Dude obeyed Klein's order except that he dropped only two bombs, not six. Dude obediently did not buzz the civilians near the trucks before dropping the bombs, with the result that many civilians died or were injured.
We think, possibly wrongly, that Klein's order required, to be legal under the governing rules of engagement:
There must have been been a related, military engagement with the enemy prior to the bombing. According to the "Coverup" article cited above, there hadn't been a prior engagement.
There must have been a belief that the fuel trucks imminently would be used in an attack on Klein's unit or on other German forces. The direction in which the trucks had been driven before they stopped, that one of the trucks was stuck (far from German forces) in sand and the other truck stayed with the stuck one, and that the fuel in the trucks was being given away, combine to suggest that use of the trucks for imminet attack was unlikely (although we do not know if Klein knew all this). Klein's order was illegal if his purpose merely was to deprive the robbers of the two trucks they had stolen, or to prevent use of the trucks in an eventual attack.
Under German law, Germany is not at war in Afghanistan.
Much later, KTG fired Chief of Staff because (according to KTG) they concealed reports about the Kunduz massacre, an accusation the two men suppposedly deny, according to "Doubts emerge about army chief's sackings", 12 Dec 2009, thelocal.de Web site. Why would KTG's subordinates conceal massacre reports from him? Why would he lie that they did?
The UN authorized the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) to conduct military action in Afghanistan. Pursuant to the Bonn Agreement, NATO manages the ISAF.
According to "Report says Bundeswehr lied during Kunduz strike"(23 December 2009, the local.de), the Frankfurter Rundschau reported that the German military deliberately misled the American fighter pilots at Kunduz. Citing a confidential investigation report by the ISAF, the paper reported that Bundeswehr Colonel Georg Klein's communications officer falsely claimed the German troops had "enemy contact" to justify the September 4 strike. According to the report, the officer, codenamed "Red Baron 21," was acting on instructions from Col. Georg Klein, who ordered the deadly air strike. Red Baron 21 knowingly misled the flight control center that was instructing the two F-15 fighters that carried out the attack, saying troops were in "immediate danger" in order "to make it possible for the mission to go ahead," the ISAF report said, according to the Frankfurter Rundschau (according to thelocal.de). No such enemy contact had taken place. Under ISAF rules, such an air strike can only go ahead if troops are under fire or immediately threatened. But at the time of the attack, the nearest German troops were nearly eight kilometers away in the Kunduz Bundeswehr field camp. If the report is correct, then the Germans breached the regulations, according to thelocal.de.
We don't know if the supposed lying was illegal or criminal. If a crime causes a death , is the actor guilty of a homicide crime? Should Red Baron (or Klein, who supervised him) be criminally prosecuted for a homicide crime in a court martial or a civilian court? Recall that Red Baron refused the pilot's request to buzz the trucks. (Der Spiegel says that (Der Spiegel says that it was Klein who refused.) Klein (or Red Baron, whom Klein supervised) may, we think, have breached ISAF protocol on air strikes for two reasons: he knew that no attack was imminent, and the request for buzzing the trucks was refused. The ISAF report, or the Rundschau's article about that report, is far more accurate than our account.
According to our understanding of news about that ISAF report: a German army officer illegally (perhaps criminally) lied to a pilot that an attack was imminent, and illegally refused to give the pilot permission to buzz the target before bombing. The result, which was forseeable, was that many, innocent civilians were burned alive and others were injured. How did that differ from murdr? Later, accoding to the German defense minister, two, high-ranking defense ministry officers (one uniformed, one civilian) lied to conceal the matter from him. If news reports we read are correct, this may be a war crime or crime against humanity.
According to "Kunduz governor calls Bundeswehr 'ineffective'" (15 January 2010, the local.de), the governor of the northern Afghan province of Kunduz has called the German military's service there "ineffective" and said he would welcome more help from US troops. Mohammad Omar said that additional US forces would help ease the worsening security situation in the region. The German parliament doesn't want German soldiers to be killed when fighting insurgents" he said, adding that the improvements to the region were due only to US and Afghan operations, and the Bundeswehr should leave the job to more effective countries. If we correctly understand Omar, two of his points are:
We don't know why the Bundeswehhr has a field camp in Northern Afghanistan, which happens to be a relatively safe part of the country.
Governor Omar defended the Bundeswehr's role in the controversial, 4 September 2009 air strike at the Kunduz River.
We are not expert in the massacre or in the military rules of engagement governing Klein's order to bomb the trucks. Our discussion, which relies largely on what we read on the Web, may have mistakes.
We guess that such speculation is profitable because, if it were not, there would be little need to outlaw it. The speaker didn't say if gamblers should be allowed to speculate for states. Gamblers are allowed to speculate for states (for example, by buying bonds issued by states). The speaker didn't say if investors should be allowed to invest against states.
States are created to serve their countries. With rare exceptions, people are not created to serve states. Some countries have states which operate ineptly or unpatriotically, operate for the personal benefit of their controlling office-holders, conceal their debts (from the European Community's administration in Brussels, investors, and the state's own people), aggravate European financial crisiis, suppress civil liberties, or even murder. It is not wrong to profit from a state's bankruptcy or from expectation of that bankruptcy.
Consider two states at war against each other. The loser will default on all debts. It is not obvious which state will win. A loan to either state is speculation against the other. It is not wrong to lend to one of the states.
At present (March 2010), some countries are trying to impose sanctions to prevent Iran's state from getting atomic bombs. Suppose speculation in negotiable securities (for example, speculative use of naked short selling and credit default swaps) could be used to financially weaken Iran's state, to thwart Iran atomic bomb project. That speculation wouldn't necessarily be wrong.
It is not necessarily wrong to speculate against a state. It can be wrong to help a state.
There is much publicity which seems to have these and related themes:
Example of the extensive publicity are:
If we correctly understand the article, he denies the accusations and does not remember the accusers. These anti-Mixa accusations resemble somewhat a Berlin senate accusation that JWs punish their children too harshly, which was a cause of the senate's illegal denial of PLC status to the JW church, according to a U.S. state department report on religious freedom in Germany. "Bischof Walter Mixa lässt Vorwuerfe dementieren"; retrieved 4 Apr 2010, Welt Online.
We write this paragraph from memory. This paragraph may have mistakes. The article concerns father Stephen Kiesle. He tied up two boys, then had sexual intercourse with them. Later, he and his bishop thought that he shouldn't remain a priest. Only the pope can authorize defrocking. A request was sent. Four years later, there was a response (from Ratzinger of the Vatican's Congregation of the Faith, we think) to the request. The response was that the matter needed study. Two years later, defrocking was authorized. After he was defrocked, he had sex with a girl.
According to the article, embattled Bishop Walter Mixa offered his resignation Wednesday (April 21st) in a letter to Pope Benedict, bowing to pressure over accusations related to brutality and money.
If the Catholic church got essentially the same treatment imposed on small religions in Germany, we don't know why consumer watchdog organizations and government agencies wouldn't warn pupils and parents about Catholic priests.
Secret church documents, which Mixa has not been allowed to see, contain serious allegations against former Augsburg bishop Walter Mixa, media reports said on Monday. The Catholic Church file (which describes him as heavily drinking, sexually assaulting young priests, and beating children at a Catholic orphanage) was seen by Pope Benedict XVI before he accepted Mixa's resignation in early May 2010, daily newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported. The new, public allegations follow Mixa's demands last week that the Vatican review his case. He has also returned to the bishop's quarters in Augsburg in defiance and accused Bavarian Archbishop Reinhard Marx, as well as the country's top Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, of not behaving a "brotherly" manner and pressuring him to resign.
According to this long article, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger led the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which had been given authority over sexual abuse cases in 1922. Under his leadership, the Congregation failed in its response to to sexual abuse by priests and brothers. The article discusses the failure. For example, one of the reasons for the failure is that Ratzinger tried to reduce the large number of priests who then were resigining.
The Berlin senate persistently refused to provide PLC (public law corporation) status to JWs. More or less, this meant that JWs couldn't get a nonprofit, religious corporation in Berlin. The refusal was illegal, as far as we know. Eventually, with the help of a lawyer, the JWs got PLC status. One, supposed reason for JW's senate problem was that too many JW parents physically punish their children too harshly. As far as we know, the Berlin senate has never had any objection to the Catholic church getting PLC status. This suggests that, to the Berlin senate, a loving parent excessively harshly, physically punishing his child is worse than a lustful priest having sexual intercourse with a boy entrusted to him.
Other German jurisdictions (not just Berlin) have created PLC problems for the JW church (by refusing to grant PLC status) but not for the Catholic church. German jurisdictions have picked on ordinary Scientologists (sometimes illegally, as far as we know), not just leaders of the church or the church itself; but not the Catholic church. Perhaps Germany has a too-big-to-fail principle for religion. Perhaps the Catholic church is too big to be denied PLC status or to receive the various, other disadvantages which German jurisdictions impose on some, tiny churches.
For brevity, we will oversimplify. Aaron does a felony. Bob finds out but does not tell the police. That's misprision of felony. Aaron tells a felony. Bob finds out. Aaron asks Bob not to tell anyone. That's obstruction of justice. Aaron does a felony. Bob tells someone (Aaron or Carl, for example) that Aaron did right. That's ratification. Misprision of felony, and obstruction of justice, are crimes. If someone ratifies, he is as guilty of the crime he ratified as if he had done it himself. He is vicariously liable for the underlying crime. In the Catholic church, there sometimes was de facto ratification (of priests' sex crimes against boys) to protect the reputation and careers of the criminal priests. Joseph Ratzinger, before he was pope, ordered priests' sex crimes kept secret (which order supposedly is required by canon law in this kind of canon investigation and trial). There is a question of whether high officers of the Catholic church, and the religious corporations of which they were high-ranking officer (the archdiocese of Munich?), are guilty of crimes. If Bob ratifies a crime, the statute of limitations (against him) starts running when he ratified, not when the underlying crime was done. German law incorporates by reference the substantive criminal law of other countries to the extent that the law forbids sex crimes against children. Thus, a German prosecutor can prosecute, in a German court, a German for a sex crime against a child even if the crime was entirely done outside of Germany. This would be useful against a Catholic church corporation or priest when the underlying crime was done in America, for example. Our remarks on this subject (which rely on limited knowledge by us, incidentally) are academic. No German jurisdiction will do to the Catholic church what has been done often to the JW and Scientology churches and to Scientologists.
PLC status is necessary to have a nonprofit corporation, which is valuable if a religious group wants to own a church building or other real estate, have paid employees, operate a nonprofit business related to the church (for example, a children's summer camp or a publishing house), or have bank accounts.
We did not personally observe the incidents and phenomena we mention below in this paragraph.
In theory, there are at least two ways to interpret these, supposed incidents and phenomena. The two interpreations are compatible with each other. One interpreatation is that, to the German government, what the Catholic church has done (have clergy, including the highest ladership of the church, persistently conceal and deny sexual intersourse done by priests to boys) is not as bad as what the Hare Krisna, JW, and Scientology churches do. Therefore, the three, small religions (but not the Catholic church) should be discriminated against. The other interpreatation is that the German government picks on some small religions.
We are not the least bit hostile to the Catholic church or its priests. We merely are struck by (as we disucss above) seemingly different policies toward big and small religions.
"MP's staffer spied for intelligence agency", 23 Mar 10, thelocal.de.
We don't know if the spying violated German law.
While driving under the influence of alcohol after a party in Georgia (Causacian Georgia), German BND spy Andreas D. accidentally killed a female street-cleaner, then drove away in hit-and-run manner but was nevertheless caught. We congratulate Georgia for catching a hit-and-run killer and discovering a spy.
The BND spy in Georgia had a German-sounding name. By the way, he should not be confused with Andreas J., a BND spy formerly in Kosovo.
It's interesting that the BND had a spy in Georgia. We guess that, if the BND had only three spies outside Germany, none would be in Georgia. What is the minimum number of BND spies required by the BND to work outside Germany before the BND would have a spy in Georgia?
It is common for governments to retaliate. If there were retaliation, Georgia would have a spy kill an innocent German in a German street.
It is common to sentence spies to death. A rationale is that the spy may know too much. He must be killed to prevent him from endangering the victim country by telling his employer what he discovered. Sometimes, a spy is kept alive to be traded for a spy from the victim country. We guess that Georgia does not have spies in Germany and therefore had no need to keep Andreas alive to trade him for a Georgian spy captured by Germany. We hope that Georgian security is not impaired by failure to put Andreas to death.
Apart from the spying, Andreas is an HRK (hit-and-run killer). We guess that you, our reader, have not read the scholarly literature on sentencing of people convicted of crimes. Therefore, solely as a matter of fairness, ignoring such issues as the amount of deterrence of third parties, what punishment seems fair for Georgia to impose on an HRK when the underlying accident occurred in the course of a crime (driving under the influence, being in Ceorgia to spy on it)? Based on our study of the literature of sentencing as well as our sense of fairness, we don't think that Georgia punished him enough. We don't know if a motive for his fleeing the scence was to conceal huis spying. That might affect the punishment. The sentence might be affected by whether Andreas fled partly to conceal his being a spy.
If Andreas has or applies for a driver licnese, the licensing agency should know about his HRK.
Germany, seemingly not Georgia, will punish Andreas. Germany suffers from a conflict of interest in deciding how much to punish itself and its agent.
Spying is interesting, Georgia's current problems are interesting, some kinds of killing are interesting. We didn't observe Andreas's story on German radio or television. We don't kno why.
Deutsche Bank reportedly received advanced warning of a raid on its offices during an investigation into tax evasion. A number of the bank's employees are currently being scrutinized. According to a report in Saturday's (3 July 2010) edition of the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, the employees, all of whom face major tax evasion charges, were recorded talking about a raid that took place on 28 April 2010, a day before it happened. The justice ministry of the state of Hesse confirmed that it had opened an investigation into a possible "breach of official secrets protocol".
The article did not say whether the bank, as distinguished from its employees, faces tax evasion charges.
German's rail road DB (Deutsche Bahn, which we think is owned by one or more German governments) has begun firing "... leading employees in middle management ..." at the subsidiary DB International after an international corruption scandal, DB said on Thursday, 8 July 2010. The DB International workers are suspected of bribing foreign decision makers in Algeria, Rwanda, Greece, and elsewhere to get contracts. The bribery is believed to date back to 2005, and DB informed the Frankfurt prosecutor's office last year about its suspicions, which arose during internal review. Deutsche Bahn also hired KPMG to investigate the subsidiary.
The article does not say that DB is returning profits from the contracts obtained by bribery. As far as we can tell, DB will keep the profits but fire the employees whose bribes got the contracts.
In 2009, there was a scandal because DB supposedly spied on 173,000 of its own employees in 2002 and 2003. CEO Hartmut Mehdorn resigned because of that scandal (and now is a consultant to the Slovenian government, incidentally). Also, all DB employees may have been spied on in 2005, according to documents Reuters said that it has.
According to a Deutsche Welle article, " "Transportation, 26.06.2010, EU confronts Deutsche Bahn on competition", the European Commission, the EU's executive body, is taking the German government to court, the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, over supposed non-compliance with the bloc's competition rules in the rail market. The commission says the rail network operator DB Netz is not independent enough of state-owned Deutsche Bahn's passenger and freight services. The EC started the case over contractual violations two years ago. A report in the Financial Times Deutschland quoted the spokesman for Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas as saying on Thursday that "since then, Germany has made no progress whatsoever". competition.
Hamburgs Hamn, Painted by Anders Zorn in 1891 |
Dr. Gunter Pleuger, born in Wismar on 25 March 1941, spouse Mrs. Gabriella Mebus-Pleuger, children. When he lived in what seems to be the official residence of the German head of mission to the U.N., he may have been:
GUNTWER PLEUGER (The "w" Guntwer may be a clerical error), 5 East 74TH Street (near 5th Avenue), NEW YORK City, New York County, NY 10021, (212) 628-82nn. Block 1389, lot 7.
On about 14 June 1991, by deed DOCUMENT FT_1730000373773, the property (NEW YORK county block 1389, lot 7; 5 EAST 74 STREET) was acquired by BUNDERSREPUBLIK ETC at address EBERHARD ROHM, 345 PARK AVE, NY, NY 10154. On about 21 June 1991, "ROHM, EBERHARD" became the attorney of "BUNDESREPUBLIK DEUTSCHLA" by power of attorney DOCUMENT FT_1740000373774, according to New York city's acris.com website. That document applies to block 1389, lot 7 (5 EAST 74 STREET). People named "Eberhard Rohm" seem to have been a Manhattan lawyer (with Donahue & Partners corporate law firm and Jaworski law firm), a corporate lawyer in Germany, and an author of books such as Juden, Christen, Deutsche, 1933-1945, January 2004, ISBN 3766831763. Rohm may have a duaghter who's an American, television actress.
Name 5 East 74th Street Main address 5 East 74th Street Neighborhood Lenox Hill District Manhattan City New York City State New York Country U.S.A. Floors (above ground) 5 Construction type house Current status existing [completed] Main usages residentialRecent neighbors may include:
Democrat Vikram Gandhi Managing Director Credit Suisse Updated Q4/2006 Christopher Dodd $2,000 C O CREDIT SUISSE New York NY Vikram S Gandhi Donation of $2,000 to Team Sununu Vikram S Gandhi Managing Director Credit Suisse Updated Q3/2007 $2,000 New York NY Donation to Team Sununu Vikram S. Gandhi Donation of $2,000 to Rangel For Congress Vikram S. Gandhi Executive Credit Suisse Updated Q1/2008 $2,000 New York NY Donation to Rangel For Congress Political Action Committee Vikram Gandhi Credit Suisse Securities (usa) L Updated Q1/2007 $208 New York NY Donation to Credit Suisse Securities (usa) Political Action Committee Political Action Committee Vikram Gandhi Credit Suisse Securities (usa) L Updated Q1/2007 $208 New York NY Donation to Credit Suisse Securities (usa) Political Action Committee Political Action Committee Vikram Gandhi Credit Suisse Securities (usa) L Updated Q1/2007 $208 New York NY Donation to Credit Suisse Securities (usa) Political Action Committee Political Action Committee Vikram Gandhi Credit Suisse Securities (usa) L Updated Q1/2007 $208 New York NY Donation to Credit Suisse Securities (usa) Political Action Committee VIKRAM GANDHI INVESTMENT BANKER MORGAN STANLEY Updated Q1/2004 George W. Bush $2,000 55 E 74TH ST NEW YORK NY
TAREK ABDEL - MEGIRD INVESTMENT BANKER MORGAN STANLEY Updated Q1/2004 George W. Bush $2,000 117 E 72ND ST NEW YORK NY
HARRIET GOODMAN Born 1946 140 72ND ST NEW YORK, NY 10021 (212) 879-1363 HARRIET GOODMAN Born 1946 140 72ND ST NEW YORK, NY 10021 (212) 879-5770 HARRIET G GOODMAN Born Dec 1942 140 72ND ST NEW YORK, NY 10021 (212) 879-1363 HARRIET G GOODMAN Born Dec 1942 140 72ND ST NEW YORK, NY 10021 (212) 879-5770
DOMNA STANTON Born 1946 1903 SCUTTLE HOLE RD BRIDGEHAMPTON, NY 11932 (631) 537-6775
The German governmetn may own real estate in Maryland, too. See the entry below for CHRISTOPH EICHHORN, 6609 RADNOR RD, BETHESDA, Montgomery county, MD 20817-6324.
NEVADA LAS VEGAS (HC). 4815 W. RUSSELL RD., SUITE 10J, 89118. MR. ANDREAS ROLF ADRIAN, HONORARY CONSUL Apr. 17, 2007
ANDREAS R ADRIAN Born Apr 1964, 1350 FLAMINGO RD 03/01/2006 LAS VEGAS, NV 89119
ANDREAS R ADRIAN 7755 COLEY AVE 09/01/2005 LAS VEGAS, NV 89117
PENNSYLVANIA PHILADELPHIA (HC). 1600 JOHN F. KENNEDY BL., SUITE 200, 19103 (215) 568-5573. MS. BARBARA AFANASSIEV, HONORARY CONSUL Feb. 21, 2002
BARBARA L AFANASSIEV 924 WAYLAND CIR 01/25/2002 BENSALEM, PA 19020 (215) 245-0200
BARBARA L AFANASSIEV 9964 LACKLAND DR 10/07/2004 PHILADELPHIA, PA 19114
VOLKER R ANDING Born Aug 1942 5291 DEEP WOOD RD BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MI 48302
MS. UTE AVERESCH, VICE CONSUL Jul. 18, 2002
UTE AVERESCH 2600 BUCHANAN ST SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115 (415) 931-0537
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Home Addresses of People Most of Whom Are Current or Former Government Officers
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