Can we get a board for the upcoming elections in Germany? Schroeder vs. the Stoiber, the duel of the fates.

Yeah, Electron, that would be a good idea!

Let's start with a link: "Shooting for the Chancellorship: Round 1"

And for all of you who believe the German nerds don't have the slightest sense of humor, try to translate this article on legendary conspiracies, glorious legends and holy traditions in the German usenet: "Die Merkbefreiung - MNEMO isolation"

The election in Germany is in less than 2 weeks, and everything is possible (according to the polls): red-green will continue, with schröder for another four years as the chancellor, black-yellow (conservatives and liberals) with stoiber as the new chancellor, maybe red-yellow, or even red-green-red with the PDS? So, with everything in the balance, and now that we have american-type TV duels between the candidates, will there be a new topic here?

Some kind of an overview: There are two big parties (around 35-40% each) and three smaller ones in the German Bundestag (parliament). With less than 5% or three direct seats you'll have to stay outside. This means one party alone can't make it...

The coalition:
SPD (red): The Social Democrats, Chancellor Schroeder's party, left-middle. They won the election in 1998, thus finally ending 16 years of Kohl.
Green Party (green): Vegetarians, toad-carriers, leftover 68ers and anti-nukies. Two basic groups: Fundamentalists and realists. Foreign Secretary Joschka Fischer luckily belongs to the latter.

The opposition:
CDU/CSU (black): The conservative right, with the Stoiber's Bavarian CSU being much darker (even shades of brown) than the non-bav CDU. Corrupt!
FDP (yellow): The business liberals. This time they didn't decide yet with whom they want go together after 9/22. Red/yellow or black/yellow are possible, but they don't like green. Or maybe they'll suddenly change the partner mid-term like in 1982...
PDS (deep red): Party of Democratic Socialism, the reformed East German communists. A pretty interesting mix of stalinists, democrats, anarchists, pacifists and whatever.

Not Over Til It's Over

"With a mere two-point lead and a busy week to go, a victory for Chancellor Schröder on Sunday is no sure thing yet"

Oh h*ll. I just watched a TV discussion where the really small parties in Germany were introduced. Actually I'm very happy that they dont't have a chance to get in the Bundestag on Sunday.

There were fundamentalistic Christians (burn Harry Potter, convert all Muslims), Neonazis of different shades, parties spun off from esoteric sects, stone age democrats and so on...

Please no!

Neonazis of different shades

I thought that was illegal in Germany?

Electron,

I watched the show, too, and I thought it was hilarious, these people taking their crazy positions so seriously. Best of all was the guy from PBC (Party of true-to-the-bible Christians), who seriously said the flood and the economic recession and the many jobless people were Gods punishment for the sins of the people, and if people didn't sin anymore, god will bless us and return wealth. What a program! The others were quite good, too, showing their total inability to make a program beyond one certain group or issue or belief.

I still miss the yoga fliers from the 1998 election (remember the spot were they all hopped around the room? They always reminded me of frogs ), but the violet party is a good replacment.

ScottN,

to protect democracy, it takes some time to outlaw a politcal party. Evidence has to be brought in front of a court, who then judges if the party as a whole is too extreme. The party usually says that some members disbehave, not the party as a whole. In the last year, the government itself went to the court to get the NPD (National Party of Germany, very right-wing extreme) outlawed, and many voices argued against it (If the party is outlawed, the neonazis will only go to the other partys or into the underground, and if the court decides in favor of the NPD, it will give them an unbelievable uplift). The government embarrassed itself in front of the court, because many of the witnesses were found to be informers of the security agency, so the NPD claimed that the informers were agents provocateur. A bad way to do it.

I always wondered about the wisdom of outlawing a party. If the fruit is bitter I think I can tell, but if it is forbidden fruit...

The yoga fliers party/sect is actually quite dangerous here. A few years ago they tried to take over my former small hometown and establish a very large "meditation" center inclusive residences for many members there. They were very manipulative but failed miserably in the end.

And the Violets - we'll see what happens in 2012. I think they are somehow going with the Mayan calendar.

The neonazis: Yes, for very obvious reasons they are illegal in Germany and many extremist organisations and parties have been banned already. But (as Constanze said) as long as they obey the democratic rules and not openly propagate nazi ideas they can take part of the political life, be voted for, demonstrate (yuck) and so on.

The yoga fliers party/sect is actually quite dangerous here. A few years ago they tried to take over my former small hometown and establish a very large "meditation" center inclusive residences for many members there. They were very manipulative but failed miserably in the end.

Happened in the '80s in Oregon. One of the Marks could probably tell you more about it.

Blue berry,

thats what some people said when debating whether it would be wise to try to outlaw the NPD: that if the government succeeded, it would only drive the neonazis and extremists underground. On the other hand, life in the underground may be attractive to a certain group, but its hard to appeal to the "common people" which you can do easily when you are an offical political party, because political partys have special privileges.

constanze and Electron,

You seem intelligent. If the NPD tells the truth about what they believe (Hey, nut jobs are everywhere) will you be irresitably drawn to their message? (If they lie, that is another issue.)

Frankly, I wonder what can be so dangerous it can't be talked about? I would answer that nothing is to dangerous to talk about, but Europeans (I'm thinking of the Spanish and ETTA too) answer that differently. Do you have a different rationel I haven't heard?

Blue berry,

I paste my answer from the censorship board:

In germany, the most noticeable law restricting free speech is the nazi law (I don't know the offical title) which says that you are not allowed to:
deny the holocaust happened
say sth. in favor of the Nazis, which minimizes their crimes and so on

This applies to spoken, printed, theater, film, computer games, internet sites and links, and so on.

(that is why Star Trek TOS "Patterns of Force" has never been shown on german TV, only once in a special setting on austrian TV - somebody in the hierarchy of the TV network thought it would fall under the protraying-nazis-as-good -rule, and didn't want to get into trouble. I do not think the ep. has ever been officially labeled to be illegal under this law.)

The other, more general one is about peace between peoples:
you are not allowed to incite race hate, hate against certain groups, or to breed dissent against certain peoples.
this also applies to certain computer games.

These laws come from the Nazi dictatorship. The people who made the german constitituion after WWII had just seen the effect propaganda has on people, and that radio, books and movies can indeed influence people to do terrible things.
(One example is the infamous "Jud Süss" movie by Veit Harlan. Its a propaganda movie against the jews, and the Gestapo usually showed it in the cinemas before a raid against the jews was planned. They noted that after the movie was shown, nobody protested the raid. In villages where the movie was not shown, many people protested along the line of "this jew is okay, he is my friend, I know he is good guy" or even help the jews to hide. After the gestapo noted the effect, the movie was shown often free of charge, in many cities and villages.)

Organisations of any kind - political partys, religous groups, sport clubs - are forbidden if they profess in their offical written or spoken programme that they want to replace the democracy with sth else, that they want to start a war, discriminate against some people or the like. Anything which is related to this group - brochures, for example, is then forbidden, too. (Every group has to be tried in court, so this takes some time, and often the groups form again under a new name).

Again, it was the experience of the Weimarer Republic, which fell because the extremist groups who wanted to destroy it weren't stopped in time, that caused these laws.

I agree with all of the above and think they are sensible and desperatley needed to keep the democracry working.


And the problem is not that electron and I sound intelligent (Thanks much for the compliment ), but that many of these young neonazis aren't. Some politican says "the boat is full, no more aliens taking our money" and someone else takes him literally and throws a fire bomb into a home for asylants (?). This happened repeatedly in the last 10 years, because politicans not only of the extreme right, but of the right and middle spectrum found it cheaper and easier to get polemic about minorities to get support than adress the real issues with complicated, but workable explanations and solutions. "aliens* are taking away your jobs" appeals to many more people than the real, but complicated explanation behind it.
* that is, foreigners, not the outer-space aliens. (not yet

Woohoo. It's 80 minutes after the votes have ended and it looks like an extremely close race (greetings from Florida) in Germany. The forecasts from the three main TV networks are yet indecisive about which coalition will finally get the majority and due to the election system it will take hours until the final result.

SPD 37.3 38.1 38.1
BGR 8.7 8.8 8.8

CDU 39.4 38.9 38.8
FDP 7.4 7.4 7.2

PDS 4.2 3.8 3.8

New forecasts:

SPD 37.5 CDU 39.1 BGR 8.7 FDP 7.3 PDS 4.2
SPD 38.2 CDU 38.4 BGR 8.8 FDP 7.2 PDS 4.1

ARD:
19:30 SPD 37.3 CDU 39.4 BGR 8.7 FDP 7.4 PDS 4.2
20:00 SPD 37.9 CDU 39.0 BGR 8.6 FDP 7.4 PDS 4.0

ZDF:
19:30 SPD 38.1 CDU 38.9 BGR 8.8 FDP 7.4 PDS 3.8
20:00 SPD 38.1 CDU 38.9 BGR 8.8 FDP 7.4 PDS 3.8

NTV:
19:30 SPD 38.1 CDU 38.8 BGR 8.8 FDP 7.2 PDS 3.8
20:00 SPD 38.3 CDU 38.3 BGR 8.8 FDP 7.2 PDS 4.1

ARD:
20:15 SPD 38.1 CDU 38.8 BGR 8.6 FDP 7.3 PDS 4.0

ZDF:
20:20 SPD 38.1 CDU 38.8 BGR 8.8 FDP 7.5 PDS 3.8

ARD:
21:30 SPD 38.1 CDU 38.8 BGR 8.6 FDP 7.4 PDS 4.0

ZDF:
21:45 SPD 38.1 CDU 39.1 BGR 8.8 FDP 7.5 PDS 3.8

NTV:
21:15 SPD 38.3 CDU 38.3 BGR 8.8 FDP 7.2 PDS 4.1


Currently it looks good for continuing the SPD/BGR (red/green) coalition. But as I said due to a few specialities in the election system we'll have to wait until tomorrow for the final result.

The latest political forecasts from Germany:

ARD:
23:45 SPD 38.4 CDU 38.6 BGR 8.6 FDP 7.3 PDS 4.0

ZDF:
23:58 SPD 38.4 CDU 38.6 BGR 8.5 FDP 7.4 PDS 4.0

NTV:
23:51 SPD 38.6 CDU 38.3 BGR 8.6 FDP 7.3 PDS 4.2

Wow, it really seems that Stoiber's "We have won the election!" was a bit premature. The Greens have saved Schroeder.

>Woohoo. It's 80 minutes after the votes have ended and it looks like an extremely close race (greetings from Florida) in Germany. The forecasts from the three main TV networks are yet indecisive about which coalition will finally get the majority and due to the election system it will take hours until the final result.>

Don't feel too bad about how long it takes. In the US it takes at least 4 hours (even in the best situation) to predict a US president and the final results aren't in for at least 3 weeks thanks to Oregon.

PS In the above situation, I count from the poles closing in Indiana and Eastern Kentucky and count until the poles closing in California, the most important state in most elections.

According to the preliminary official result the SPD won the elections and got a few seats more than the CDU. The current coalition with the Greens can continue.

That's all, folks!

And here is the provisional official result. It took longer than expected because in one town most of the counting people in the main polling station decided that it was too late in the night for them and went home.

SPD_38.5 CDU_38.5 BGR_8.6 FDP_7.4 PDS_4.0 %
SPD__251 CDU__248 BGR__55 FDP__47 PDS___2 seats

Note the 47!

This means the Social Democrats are still the strongest party in the parliament and can continue their coalition with the Greens. GWB obviously isn't happy about it.

According to the news today, the people who counted the votes went home around 3 in the morning, and returned next morning to finish, because only half of the necessary helpers had turned up in the first place (300 were expected, 160 came) so of course it took much longer than normal. Interestingly, the mayor of the town, also responsible to make sure of having enough helpers, was away on holiday the days before!

Oh, and it was the greens and the special seats (Überhandmandate) the SPD got plus the seats divided among the parties which the PDS failed to get because of staying below the 5% barrier, which altogether saved the coalition.

Electron, who do you mean with GWB? Bush? Ah well, although I'm strongly opposed to any comparisions with hitler or the nazis and think that däubler-gmelin made a mistake there, I am astonished that the right of free speech, which the americans seem to value as one of the highest and most important rights (judging by the discussions about censorship, e.g.), doesn't seem to apply to non-americans - or what else is the reason, that Bush and rumsfeld are now sulking around? (BTW, IIRC Bush senior compared Hussein to Hitler before the Gulf War, arguing with the dead-beat argument that like Hitler, Saddam had to be stopped. Regardless of whether that was right or wrong, I always strongly dislike these dead-beat arguments.)

Oh, interesting that the american-german relationship is endangered after a few badly choosen words of one minister and criticsm by the head of state. Seems either that the relationship wasn't that good to start with, or that americans think relationship/allies implies blindly followship without being allowed to use the own head. (the americans seem to be allowed to criticze away fine.)

For Constanze and the Babelfish (mostly in German):
http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/co/13286/1.html
http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/co/13282/1.html
http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/special/wtc/13291/1.html

For the others (in English):
http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/co/13294/1.html
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1020498535691&p=1020498501456

And if we ever get an Iraq topic:
http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/co/13300/1.html
http://www.sundayherald.com/27572
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BLU208A.html
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/09/19/1032054915705.html

Hey, Electron, good links and good articles! Thanks! (I've only started on the first ones, as I have not much time right now).

Oh, what do you think about the FDP now? Where will it go and what will happen now that the grande dame has stepped back and left the FDP as playing-ground for möllemann and the likes, to show that no respectable person can vote for them again?

Well, the FDP is again in trouble - like many times before and they always survived it. The great era of Genschman and Prothese (superheroes, disguised as politicians, Genschman always wears an earmask) is over, superadept Moelleman causes lots of trouble and Goo-Eeee-D'oh Westerwelle is a nothing without profile.

A fresh interview with Lambsdorff is here. (RealAudio in German)

Another weekly review: Laughing Off the Brouhaha - The rift in US-German relations sparks a bit of worry but a lot more humor.

Hey, Electron et al, there is still no German politics board, but Möllemann has finally resigned. (one of his posts, after he's had so much scandals in the last 15 years that you could topple 3 normal politicians). I think its interesting that it was considered important enough to be shown as text-insert line during the soap opera lindenstrasse on sunday. I mean, there are more important news than him resigning again, at last, aren't there?

The BBC has put up a little quiz: What do you know about Germany?

Re:Constanze's last comment
I heard on the news, that the Social & Christian Democrat(s)Parties have finally & peacefully managed to sort their differences & produce a workable German government....
Could you imagine the Republican & Democratic parties doing the same in the U.S, without rancour...? (I think not, somehow...)

Re:Constanze's & my last comments
There is a Germany board, Constanze, but the last post on it was made in September 2002...
(Incedentaly, I only got 7 on said linked quiz, as I failed on German cities, Who did not get the Nobel Prize,& who exactly did call Helmut Kohl "a Sumo Wrestler"...?)
Maybe you should post on said board for example, about the German Constitutional process, or on the interactions between the Federal Government & the various Lander (states) that make up the Federal Republic, as I expect our fellow posters might find it a interesting comparison to American Federal/State politics...

(Moderator Note: This is a portion of constanze's Nov. 14th, 3:24 am post on the France board, which she asked me to move here. --Luigi Novi)

Mark V,

Yes, the coalition agreement has finally been reached, and, as expected, each party is now being attacked as selling their core values and betraying what they stand for.
Though with Christian Union, the attack from Merz is coming from a rival for Angie for power of the party, and at the right-wing of the party.
As for the Social Democrats: betraying their interests and selling out to their programme isn't anyhting new for them, they started selling out over 10 years ago.

As for Republican and Democrats in the US: The Christian Union is (Thankfully) not 100% compatible to your Republicans. Our "Republikaner" Republican party is a right-wing extremist group. Although the CDU/CSU is conservative, family values, ignore-the-enviroment, care-about-the-rich, they would never propose these extreme measures as the US republicans.
And while the SPD may have sold its soul so often and become a cheap carbon-copy of the conservatives, they still demand way more for the normal (non-rich) people and consumer rights than your Democrats.

Oh, and it means we'll get a female Chancellor. I wonder: will any of the fundie preachers tell us that God will punish us for this, too, or is he still punishing us for allowing gay marriage?

For the note: though as feminist I would like to see more women getting power, I did not want Angie, and voted against her. As conservative, she, her party and agenda are bad for Germany, for the women, the normal people, ... I wasn't glad for the UK when they had Thatcher, either. (Although of course, Angie is probably too soft to compare to Iron Maggie.)

Although that whole election fiasco belongs on the Germany board. (If there is one?)

Mark V,

taking up your suggestion (too late for regrets now! ), this is the start of some posts about German politics.

First, a statement: All explanations, comments etc. are made from my subjective perspective, not from a neutral POV. I will try to provide links - either English or German - when I find them, so you can get a more neutral/additional POV and information.

Now, before I explain the current mess, I thought I start by explaining the "colours" and abbreviations, since Parties are often referred to in shorthand.

Black - CDU / CSU - The conservatives (the names translate literally as "Christian Democratic Union" and "Christian Social Union"). Not similar to the US Republicans, though. They are associated with black because they come from the "Center Party", which was heavily allied with the Catholic Church in the last century, and thus, because of the black robes and conservative attitude, that's their colour.

The CSU is only active in Bavaria (where it has a stranglehold on the country since 1945, reigning exclusively); in the rest of Germany, the CDU is active. But both parties work together in the Bundestag (Parliament), and are thus referedd to as Die Union ("The Union" - the german word refers only to the meaning of being united, not Trade Union - that's "Gewerkschaft").

Despite the names, the CDU is right-of-center, and the CSU is far right-of-center, but not overly Christian. No prayers before the Bundestag opens, or such things.

Although I should note that each of the parties has some factions/wings that lean to one side or the other, and some individuals/groups that are quite vocal to gather populist acclaim, but can be disavowed as not being main-party line if the regular voters are appalled at this.

For the most part, they're not actively trying to change things back to the 50s - I guess they know even their conservative voters wouldn't accept that - but by blocking and trying to reverse the reforms from red/green, e.g. on gay-marriage, nuclear power etc. They don't outright demand each woman stays at home to look after children, but they don't actively encourage enough kindergarten places for each child. And so on.

They don't have an official mascot, though the CSU shows the Bavarian lion in their logo (from the Bavarian Coat of Arms.)

Famous politicans: Helmut Kohl (who showed how law-abiding the conservatives are by being an arrogant, unreptent criminal, and getting applause from the Union still and despite of it),
Angela Merkel (who was chosen originally under Kohl because she was a "triple-quota person" - she was young, female, and from the East, all of which were minorities in the Union party. Being young meant that she was still too impressive in regards to Kohl, and too meek to do something for the other women in Germany.)
Ludwig Erhard (who was the Minister of Economy under Adenauer before becoming Chancellor himself. During this time, he coined phrases of "moderate growth" instead of excessive one, and of "social captilasim"Soziale Marktwirtschaft - where the state tempers and checks Capitalism unrestrained greed, to protect damages, and make sure nobody gets left behind, because if a large portion of the population is poor, dissatiesfied and without chance, there will be civil unrest and it could split the country.


Red - SPD - Literally, "Social-democratic Party of Germany". The socialists (not similar to the US Democrats.) The oldest democratic / political party in Germany, founded as workers party in the last century. That's why their colour is red.

They used to be slightly left-of-center, but in the last decades, when they got tired of loosing the elections, thought learning from the consies meant learning how to win, and thus moved so far to the center they're now slightly right-of-center, trying to be a copy of the Union.

They don't have an official mascot, though sometimes, they distribute red carnation (?) flowers, an old symbol of the workers movement, during the election battle.

Famous politicans: Gerhard Schröder


Yellow - FDP - Literally, "Free Democratic Party".

They used to consist of two wings, the social liberals, which were for civil rights, and the economic liberals, which were for manchester liberalism /liberatarianism. In the past, the party was once allied with the SPD, but changed in the middle of term (turning traitor, many people think), and allied themselves with the Union. Many members of the social liberal wing felt they couldn't stand for this in good conscience and changed parties to the SPD.

Today, therefore (or rather, for the last 25 years), the liberals have been considered the party of the rich. (One of their nicknames was "The Dentist's party" - Zahnarztpartei, because they are considered to be well-off.) They call for civil rights which don't cost money, like gay marriage, but don't have much leverage against the conservative opinion of the Union in the coalition. They call for elitist things like Opera and Theater, which cost too much money and get voted down. And they go along with the union on slashing the social state.

In the last couple of election battles, under Guido Westerwelle, the party has declared itself "Spasspartei" (Fun-party) - Westerwelle is younger then most other politicans at his position. I've heard that he's gay, but haven't paid much attention to whether it's true or not; I just know his fun-lving dumb attitude gets on my nerves.

They don't have an official mascot, and I don't know where their color comes from, either.

Famous politicans: Guido Westerwelle, Hildegard Hamm-Brücher (the Grande Dame, which sadly resigned several years ago in protest)


Green - Die Grünen/Bündnis 90 - Literally, "The Greens/Alliance 90". They were founded in the late 70s, coming from the civil movements for the enviroment, for peace (the Easter marches), for protection of civil rights (the measures the state had taken against the left terrorists were too extreme). Typically for the future of the Greens, there were long discussions at the beginning whether they should enter the corrupt political system as a minor player at all, or not better remain a civil movement, free of corruption, power tactics, political doubletalk, and other sins.

They started out wanting to make everything different, better and free from sin, so they wrote several radical concepts in their program. Some of them were discarded because unpractical in real life, others are still adhered to. For example, they proposed to rotate everybody each 2 years, so no single person would become too popular or gain too much power. Nice concept, but in real life, 2 years are the minium for newcomers to get their footing in political theater and how things work. To rotate them out is counter-produticve. Likewise, the Greens (like the SPD) has a big problem if one individual becomes too popular and famous and rises above them; they have a talent for demolishing their own people, and are almost unable to accept that most voters need some faces to connect with a program.

They also wanted to promote gender equality, and are still the only major (well, minor, but major important party which gets above 5%) party that has its state liste split 50-50 between men and women, starting with a woman at place 1, and striclty alternating all the way down.

The party is split in two wings - Realos and Fundies. The Realos accept that to get things moving in politics at all, compromises need to be made, for the voters, with the industry, with the other parties. The Fundies want to keep their soul clean, rather then swallowing toads. They suspect that once you start down the slippery road of compromise, you end up betraying everything you stood for without getting something substantial in return. The battles between Fundies and Realos were in the beginning more damaging to the Greens than their enemies, and sometimes, it looked as if they would split into two parties. Thankfully, they got their act a little together.

Although their name seems to suggest it, and many voters had misconceptions about this at the beginning, the Greens aren't fixed on the enviroment only (they wouldn't be able to collect between 7 to 11 % with only one aim). They are also for civil rights - they pushed for the gay marriage when the SPD was cautios. Socially, they have leftists elements as well as a strong Yuppi clientele, which makes them send mixed messages.

When they started out, the Greens were wild and radical; the media, of course, loved a bit of colour to liven up political business as usual, and so stereotypes of the Greens got established: bearded guys (ex-Hippies) living on organic farms; feminist women wearing purple dungarees; people knitting during party assemblies; people wearing ethnic/third-world clothing and carrying jute bags. And everybody eating lots of Müsli (whole grain cereal) and grains.

Today, that image - and their position - has changed, since they had to grow up and act responsibly, once they were part of the coalition, and thus, carried responsibility for gov. and making reforms work.

The "Alliance 90" part came about after reunification: Most of the other West German ("Wessies") Parties realized that none of the East German ("Ossies") voters knew their politicans, or liked them, or trusted them, so they merged with the old bloc-parties of the DDR (German Democratic Republic). But the Greens contacted the civil rights movement that had brought about the peaceful change, and fused with them. (The Union got some flak at that time for taking in so many "Blockföten" = flutes, that is, politicans that held positions of power under the SED in the GDR, without considering how much they'd collaborated to keep the state going, but going by the appearance: Member of SED = Bad person; Member of CDU East = good person. Which was far from true.)

Their symbol is the sunflower (because of the enviroment. You'd never have guessed )

Very famous politican (and well-liked): Foreign minister Joschka Fischer (who is leaving now, sadly.) A good article about Fischer, the Greens, and the changes of the last three decades in Germany, is here
(And Fischer himself is a symbol of how far the Greens have come - he got national attention and instant fame when he turned up for his swearing in as minister in the state parliament of Hessen wearing sneakers!, when all politicans wore suits and dress shoes. But as foreign minister, he wore three-piece suits.
Cem Özdemir, who became famous as the first member of Parliament who was born of non-german parents (they came from Turkey, but are partly Kurdish and sth. else). He got german citizenship to be eligible (and avoid the Turkish army), but stepped down later over a question of a stupid loan (and lack of common sense on his part. He was a bit too naive and good-natured for a politican.)

The other Reds - PDS/Linke - Literally, "Left party", and "Party of the Democratic Socialism".

They formed after the fall of the DDR (GDR) from the remnants of the SED (the East german state party Socialist Unity Party). If you're raising your eyebrows that people who opposed the regime and wanted to tear the wall down (and the commies lost, anybody knows that) would vote for the successor - that's the reaction of most Wessies. They have trouble getting past the 5% hurdle in federal elections, but are represented in some East German state parliaments.
For the Ossies and those of the leftist Wessies who vote for them, the PDS has distanced themselves far enough from the SED (they underwent several reforms in short time), they won't reestablish the DDR anyway, and since the SPD moved so far to center, and the Greens have become mainstream, we need a party somewhere on the left side to represent the ordinary people on the street (the little people), and protect the workers from global, unchecked captilasim (like massive layoffs).

Despite their name, they aren't communists, or anachirsts, or extreme socialists, but tempered one - within the democratic system. Though some of their slogans may sound wild and unpractiable, they provide a very welcome voice against big lobbies and a fresh wind.

Their nickname is "Rote Socken" = Red socks, coming from the time when the wall fell.

Prominent politicans: Gregor Gysi, who is considered by most to be an upright character, and who was part of making the PDS a respectable, normal left party instead of a club of disappointed, old -time SED politicans.
Oskar Lafontaine, who left the SPD as minister in the middle of term (which many people considered the act of a coward), tried to establish his own left party as counterweight to the SPD, going back to its original values, but couldn't meet the deadlines in the shortened election campaign of 60 days, and so joined up with the Left instead.

++++++++

For those Parties that didn't make it into the Bundestag, see here For fun, I recommend the article about the Anarchistic Pogo Party. To feel at home, look at the Party of Bible-Believing Christians.

++++++

BTW, can you imagine a man who has been divorced three times and is married again to be elected chancellor (Schröder), or a politican marrying his intern after three divorces (Fischer), and nobody cared about it?

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Note: Many of the english-language Wiki articles still refer to the last normal election of 2002, and the results thereoff, and have not yet been updated with the news of the last weeks and the changes in the coalition talks.

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Next post: Coalitions - past, present, possible ones. And why "Schwampel" was considered so ugly they replaced it with "Jamaica"

Re:Constanze's last post
Thanks, Constanze...
The information you've given is quite intresting...

Mark V,

since you read my post, I'll try my best to write the next one this weekend... (I wasn't sure if anyone was still following, since my posts tend to get a bit long, and I have a slight tendency to rant when talking about politics ... hardly noticeable, right? )

I read your post too constanze. I'm just waiting for the tylenol to kick in from it. And I thought our parties where complex.

Here, have a virtual Tylenol *Tinkle, Tinkle, Fizz*

The parties aren't complex compared to the coalitions... or wait till I explain the voting system!

(And wasn't it the American parties who switched constituencies?? That's hard over here to imagine! Or even remember who switched to whom, or why...)

Coalitions:

Grosse Koalition = Big coalition = Union + SPD. This is what we're getting now, although we've had it before, from 1966 till 69. (More on the circumstances that started that coalition on the sidebar about Turncoat-Partys).

The only advantage is that it unites the majority of voters - if looking at the numbers. (Most voters didn't want or intend a Big coalition, though, so it doesn't really represent the voters' wishes.)

The disadvantages are: as Mark already noticed, the idealougical differences between consies and social dems. are big (even with the new SPD), and even when they agree on certain issues - like curbing the budget deficit - they disagree on the steps necessary to take them.

To overcome these differences, hard bargains are necessary, and the coalition treaty (which outlines the compromises reached) is legalese instead of an informal paper as between friendly parties. Also, the bases of each party and a large part of the respective voters will consider the compromise to be foul, because the Union/SPD betrayed their core values of... (fill in blank) to reach it.

Because the coalition is therefore shaky, no big reforms can be achieved. Conversly, once it actually does move, it has too much power - the opposition is only minor parties with small percentages - and can therefore do a lot of damage. (The first coalition had close to 90%, which would have enabled changing the constituion.)

Because of that, voters and public can easily loose faith in the system - they no longer feel adequately represented, since each party has "betrayed" their supporters; and there's no legal means of stopping or urging the coalition. This might lead either to an upsurge of extreme parties (Neonazis like DVU, NPD and smiliar), or even radicalisation on the streets (in the 60s, when the students felt the system was rotten, they formed the APO Ausserparlamentarische Oppositon = Opposition Extra/Outside the Parliament )

Schwarz-Gelb (Union + FDP) We've had this for 16 years under Kohl, and before that, in the 50s and early 60s. It means economic favours for the industry and the rich, and the normal people getting screwed. (For 16 years, Kohl and his minister Norbert Blüm promised the people that "die Renten sind sicher" =the pensions are safe, instead of taking steps to avoid the disaster waiting to happen. Now, one worker has to pay the pension for two people, so drastic reforms are necessary. 20 years ago, small steps could've saved the system or delayed the problems at least.)

Rot-Grün (SPD + Greens) We've had this for the last 7 years under Schröder. It means that things got moving in some areas at least - gay marriage, enviroment, and similar. But because Kohl hadn't done much problem-solving during his time, the SPD had to tackle a lot of tough, complicated issues, and sadly, they were stupid enough to take drastic measures against the small people, leaving the rich untouched, following a course of action many consies would've done. (Schröder was called Genosse der Bosse = comrade of the managers, showing how well the industry liked him. It's difficult to get farther away from one's roots, though Schily has managed that... Though Schröder and SPD were elected for certain values and ideals, Schröder is simply a politican hungry for power - like Kohl - and follows the path of least resistance, which means taking from the poor.)

sozial-liberale Koalition = social-liberal (SPD + FDP) We've had this from 1969 till 1982 (when the FDP changed partners in mid-term, more see in the sidebar). But, as I've already mentioned, it was a different FDP then, and maybe it was also related to the personalities of the people who were chancellor then - Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt, both exceptional politicans.

Ampel = Traffic lights (SPD + Green + FDP) This is one of the hypothetical coalitions, bandied about after the 2005 election. Theoretically possible, it's unlikely with the current FDP, which is way too liberatarian/manchester-liberal/economy-orientied to go together with the reds and greens.

Schwampel = black traffic light, later replaced by Jamaica (Union + Green + FDP) Another hypothetical coalition. The Greens would loose more then half of their supporters if they allied themselves with the consies, who are against most of their program, and with the FDP, which favours the industry. (Schwampel is pronounced SCH as in "shoe", A as in "last". Most people thought that sounded ugly, so some journalists looked at flags of the world and discovered that Jamaica has the three colours. That's the only thing in common; the popular notion of fun-loving, weed-smoking, laid-back attitude, reggae-making Jamaicans is pretty much the opposite of what Black-Yellow stands for.)


For completeness, a list of all past coalitions of FRG: (you can also see a diagram of the results)

1949-1953: Union + FDP + DP (Deutsche Partei = German Party, now defunct)

1953-57: Union + FDP + DP (plus some smaller, now forgotten/defunct ones)

1957-61:Union + DP

1961-65: Union +FDP

1965-1966: Union + FDP

1966-69: Change of coalition during the term! to Union + SPD

1969-1972: SPD + FDP (sozial-liberale Koalition = social-liberal coalition); the Union tries to use the trouble over the Ostverträge = Treaties with the Eastern bloc countries (more here), and calls for a Misstrauensvotum = vote of mistrust ( more here) to replace Chancellor Willy Brandt with Barzel (CDU), but fails. Still, new elections were called advanced from schedule.

1972-76: SPD + FDP ; 1974, during Mid-Term, Brandt steps down (Guillaume-affair), and Helmut Schmidt (SPD) becomes Chancellor.

1976- 80: SPD + FDP

1980-82: SPD +FDP ; 1982, during mid-term, a vote of mistrust topples Helmut Schmidt, and Helmut Kohl (CDU) becomes new chancellor.

1982-98: Union + FDP under Helmut Kohl

1988-2005: SPD + Greens (rot-grün)

2005: Schröder calls himself for a vote of mistrust, so he can dissolve the Bundestag and hold new elections.


Next: A sidebar on Parties that are turncoats and traitors, and why.

Sidebar: on Turncoats

The FDP is known not only as Zahnarztpartei = Dentists' party, but also as Umfallerpartei = literally: fall-over; fig. Turncoat, turnaround party. This is because, in the less than 60 years of existing in the FRG, they have managed to turn around three times. Even for double-dealing politicans, that's unusual.

They first earned their name with the 1961 election. During the election battle, they campainged to get rid of "the Old man" Adenauer, who was too conservative for their liking. In the 50s, most people had hunkered down, busied themselves with rebuilding the country and the economy, getting rich during the Wirtschaftswunder = economic marvel, and all problems had been swept under the rug, where they festered and boiled and erupted during the students revolutions in the 60s and 70s. Also, Adenauer had decided on strong alliance with the West, instead of a neutral stance.

But when the results of the elections were in, the FDP did a 180 turn, and agreed to a coalition with the Union. Their only concession was that Adenauer would resign after 2 years, instead of staying on for the full term of 4. This was hardly a victory, though, since he was 85 years old at that time, and would have had to leave soon anyway. (Though there's an anecdote about how he himself saw things: Adenauer is taking a walk with his grandson, and asks the boy: "What do you want to be when you grow up?" "Chancellor, like you" "I'm sorry, but that's not possible. You see, the law allows only one man to be Chancellor, and I'm already it.")

Then, they left the running coalition in 1967. (Though that was more idiocy and cockiness than betrayal). The issue was the budget for the year 1967, which had a deficit, and the Union wanted to raise some minor tax to cover it. (My fiance, who experienced these things, couldn't recall which tax, and my compact history book doesn't mention it, either.). The liberals said "We can't allow tax raises in good conscience", because they thought that sooner would Hell freeze over than the consies form a coalition with the reds. (With the East-West conflict hot, idealogical differences ran deeper at that time, and the consies still painted the reds as communists during the election battles.) So the FDP expected the Union to plead on their knees. What they hadn't noticed or counted on was that Ludwig Erhard, the current chancellor, lacked support in his own party - he was an expert on economy, but had no leadership or people qualities, and was bad at foreign relations. So behind the scenes, some of the top politicans of Union and SPD had secretly negiotated, and the Union said to the FDP "Bye-Bye, don't let the door hit you on the way out", which surprised them a bit.

In May of 1969, the FDP signaled their willingess for a change when voting for SPD candidate Gustav Heinemann for Bundespräsident = President.

Thus, when the elections of 1969 were past, the FDP formed a coalition with the SPD, as the big coalition had exhausted their common points. (And the Union was surprised to find themselves as opposition for the first times - they thought they'd been "born to govern").

The third time the FDP turned around was in 1982, when leaving the running coalition with the SPD, and siding instead with the Union against Helmut Schmidt. Many people called this a betrayal. One of the main persons behind this move was Hans-Dietrich Genscher, who, although he looks quite harmless with his Dumbo's ears and infamous yellow knit-sweater, nevertheless is a master-weasel, double-dealing, traitor.

Though not an outright betrayal, the FDP showed that it's a party without spine, ideals or character, but only hunger for power, in the 2002 election battle. Jürgen Möllemann, a populist demagogue (and already with several scandals to his name) printed a flyer with severe anti-semitic accusations. (The problem was the tone, time and method of the flyer, not the content itself. If presented by a respectable historian in cool manner during a neutral opportunity, people would've considered the points about the State of Israel seriously, but this was only an obvious attempt to skim votes from the right-wingers.). Instead of distancing itself from this and declare themselves liberals who hold democracy dear, the Party just watched to see if the plot would bring votes from the Neonazis. Afterwards, Grand Dame Hamm-Brücher, a liberal in the positive meaning of the word, coming from a democratic tradition, and not from a liberatarian power-vampire, resigned in protest. That the FDP kept the rabble-rouser and let the uncomfortable voice of conscience go show what type of people they are.


Another party that's sometimes called traiterous is the SPD, because they've moved so far right of the center in imitating the consies that they've forgotten where their roots are, or what their voters believe in and want of them. (Besides, it's stupid to emulate the consies. Dyed-in-the-wool consie voters will always vote the real thing and still believe Red = bad; and their own core voters will get fed up with being sold out. They already lost a large percentage to the Greens.)

The most appalling turn-around they did that I remember was in 1993, when they voted together with the Union to change the constitution and remove the right to political asylum by making it impossible to be granted. The situation after reunifation was heated: many ex-communists had changed over to the Neonazis without stopping for democracy in between. After all, it's easier to believe what one strong man tells you; that your problems are somebody else's fault; that what you do isn't violence, but necessary for the good of the country; instead of thinking yourself and working to change things. The right-wingers then used the slogans "The boat is full; It's all the fault of the asylants and the foreigners", and instead of setting the facts straight, the politicans of the major parties looked worried and said "Integration has failed, we have too many foreigners, the people can't live with that". Then, the mob started burning houses where asylants and foreigners (Turks and others) lived (several died), and foreign-looking people were beaten up in the streets. It was ugly and shameful, but instead of telling people to stop it, and explain the truth, the major parties, esp. the consies, caved in to the mob and parroted the right-wings with "The boat is full, if the German people don't like foreigners and are burning them, let's keep the foreigners out.". The SPD said "Never with us", but didn't point out that the right to asylum was a result of the refugees from the Nazi regime. When the Parliament voted on the law, the SPD caved in and said "Yes".


An individual who's betrayed his own convictions and everything he once stood for is Otto Schily. In the 70s, he became famous when he defended as lawyer the RAF Rote Armee Fraktion = Red Army Faction. He joined first the Greens, but when he no longer liked their radical positions, changed to the SPD.
Today, he's Minister of the Interior, and preaches a right-of-center law-and-order course, taking away civil rights under the pretext of fighting terrorists, that he would fit better with the CSU.

Next up: The election system - or why it's not "One man, one vote", but "One woman, two votes".

Thanks give me tylenol with a hammer chaser.....And people say that our government is confusing.

This is oging to take some time to digest.

But it is intersting.

http://www.tatsachen-ueber-deutschland.de/

R,

And people say that our government is confusing.

Is that why you only have 2 parties - the majority of people wouldn't be able to cope with anything more complex? This way, one side is good, the other evil, and the two shall never get together, so less confusion for the voters...

That is distinctly possible, Constanze. Makes for a more epic and clear cut media battle before election day.

But don't mention the war!

What war?

here's a more exhaustive test on German culture

For comparison, here is the American version of the test

The test is defined as ...The following is a first crack at an ostensive definition of 'American culture'-- things shared by the vast majority (let's say 90%) of native-born Americans. Many of these won't sound 'cultural' at all to Americans; they'll sound like just descriptions of the way things are. But each one of them would be contested in one or more non-American cultures.

In that aim - that 90% of the population shares the majority of these notions - the test is correct. While I would contest some points, it's a good overview, esp. when comparing to other countries.

Sorry it took me so long to write this part... but you'll get a very long post for waiting!

Coalitions: A last comment: all the mentioned coalitions apply to federal level. On state, and esp. on local - towns and communities - level, all coalitions are possible, even Black-Green, because idealogical, long-term differences - about e.g nuclear power, NATO and war, how to reform the social system - can't be decided on local level; while real decisions - e.g. how much money the public swimming pool or library shall get - are approached more from a factual POV. As long as the local politicans respect each other and are willing to work, that is.

Elections: First, who can vote? Every German citizen above 18 years of age. It's not necessary to register first, because everybody is already registered in the Einwohnermeldeamt = citizens register. 3 to 4 weeks before the election, notices are sent automatically to every voter who's lived in the constituency for the last 6 weeks.

Everybody who's 18 = Adult can also be elected to most offices. Only Bundeskanzler and -Präsident have a higher age limit.

Occasionally, a debate srpings up again over lowering the voting age to 16 years. Most people who know consider this a bad idea. Most teenagers have no interest or knowledge of politics, so they either wouldn't vote at all, or become easy prey for radicals.

(Voters in the register aren't called for Jury duty, because we hardly use Jurys. Most cases are decided by Judges, only in special cases a few jurors advise the Judge. For this, they want people with special knowledge as Jurors. Some time ago, I received a request for information from my city office, in case they wanted me as Juror, but I wasn't selected, and neither was my Father or older sister).
(And as civilized country, we have abolished the death penalty, so we don't need jurys for that, either).

When to vote: All elections - federal, state, local, other - are always on a Sunday, for several reasons:
1) The majority of people doesn't work on Sundays and so has time to go to the election.
2) Those who are Christian can go to church and still vote, too, since the voting offices are open 8 am to 6 pm.
3) We're a secular country, so we don't care about some fundies who don't want to travel on Sundays.
4) The schools, where many of the voting offices are, are empty on Sundays.

The usual voter turnout (link in german) is around 80% for federal elections (+ - 10%).

The federal election is usually in September, every four years. (Unless the term has been shortened for some reason.) State parliament elections are every four or five years. Town elections - city council and Mayor - every 7 years.

What to vote for: The German system consists of the Bundestag = Parliament (literally: Federal Day, because they meet almost daily), and additionally the Bundesrat = Senate (literally, Federal advice, because they are to advise the Parliament).*

The Bundestag votes on the laws, while the Bundesrat advises on them. Simple laws are passed in the Bundestag, and the Bundesrat is only informed about them. With some laws (as determined in Art. 70 ff of the Grundgesetz), the agreement of the Bundesrat is also needed for the law to finally pass. ( more here - very technical, complete and dry or a German-labelled graph of the process.)

The Bundestag is elected by the voters. (see below)

The Bundesrat is filled by members of the Länderparlamente or Landtage = state parliaments. Depending on the population in the state, each state gets at least 3 up to maximum of 6 votes in the Senate. If a coalition (in most cases) instead of a single party rules in the Landtag, the votes are split proportionally.**

The Parliament has 598 seats officially, which is double the number of constituencies. Therefore, each voter has two votes, one for each half. The ballot is split in two sides, with two lists.

The votes are called Erststimme = First vote, also direct vote and Zweitstimme = Second vote, also indirect vote. (Pretty easy so far, right?)

The first vote elects the direct representative for that constituency. It works on the majority principle - the candidate with the most votes wins, the rest of the votes is lost. This favours the major parties.

The second vote elects a party. It works on the proportional system. Many of the smaller parties don't have enough candidates for every constituency, so their space on the left side of the ballot is blank, but they are represented in the right half. All the second votes are counted, converted into percentages, and the percentages converted into seats. Then the list each party prepared beforehand is taken, and counted down from top to bottom, until the number of seats is reached. That's why a lot of haggling, dealing, intrigue and the like happens at the local and state level when the parties decide about the order on the list. And why it's so special of the Green party to strictly alternate between men and women on their lists - most of the other parties have very few women in the top 100s.

I think I mentioned the 5 % hurdle before. It's one of the improvements of pragmatism over idealism from the experiences of what failed in the Weimar Republic: because every vote counted, but the smallest possible seat was 1, many small parties had a vote in parliament, making it ungovernable in the end. (over 10 parties make coalitions and compromises extremly difficult, esp. if a lot of the smaller parties are radical, extreme and single-issue-fixated to start with). As a safeguard, therefore, a party needs at least 5% of all votes federally (not in one state). A party can get around this if they manage to capture three direct seats with the first votes. This is how the PDS got in during their first election. (The next time around, one of their candidates, a popular and respected poet and intellectual, had died, so they managed only 2 direct mandates, and weren't counted as party represented in Parliament. The two candiadtes got their seats, of course. But being a party - more correctly, a Fraktion see also here - both only in german or being a single politican means a very big difference in status and what you're allowed to do during the sessions.)

Small parties like the FDP live mostly on the Zweitstimmenkampagne = second votes campaign (link in german) by the Union, which always puts up posters to give the direct vote to the Union, but the second vote to the FDP (since they win so many direct seats, the second vote isn't that important to them.)
A similar reasoning happens - though not activly campaigned for by the SPD - with red-green: in the direct vote, the Green candidate is unlikely to win, so many voters vote SPD to prevent the Union, and give the second vote to the Greens/Left/...
The FDP often fails at state level to clear the 5% hurdle and is represented only in a few of the state parliaments.

Not to forget: the Überhangmandate = Overhang seats . They happen when a party gets more direct mandates (with their first votes) then the percentage for their second votes indicates. Since the direct mandates can't be taken away, seats are added to the parliament. Which is why there's more then the number I gave above.

I didn't mention (because only specialists can explain it) the complicated mathematical formulas used to divide the votes among the remaining parties when a party doesn't pass the 5%.... It's only a minor point, anyway. Unless you're interested in math? I once tried to follow a demonstration whether the current method used in Bavaria was more fair then the other method, and which favoured the big parties, but got a headache. I'm not a math fan...)

Oh, not to forget: the chancellor. Once the parliament is settled, all the seats have been calculated, the coalition has formed - then parliament elects the chancellor. Theoretically, they can choose anybody; practically, it's from the majority party. The vice-chancellor usually comes from the smaller coalition party as consolation price.
This ensures that the chancellor as head of government also has a majority in parliament - how else would things get done? (As I said before, he doesn't have as much power as the US or French president.)
There's also no limit on how many terms he can serve (not even after 16 years of Kohl - if he hadn't lost to Schröder in 1998, we might still have him! )

The Bundespräsident = President is more of representative position - the current one, Horst Köhler isn't even a politican, but comes from the economy. (Bad choice, though). He's elected every 5 years, by the Bundesversammlung (german) = federal assembly. This simply means that the Parliament and Senate (Bundestag + Bundesrat) get together, and each party can proposes a candidate, and the one from the majority party is elected.

The offical hierachy is: (According to the Ministry of Interior)
1. Bundespräsident = Federal President (President of Germany)
2. Bundestagspräsident = President of the Parliament (Article in German)
3. Bundeskanzler = Federal Chancellor
4. Bundesratspräsident = President of the Senate
However, Article 57 of the Constitution provides that: If the Federal President is unable to perform his duties, or if his office falls prematurely vacant, the President of the Bundesrat shall exercise his powers.

In reality, the Chancellor is the real head of state, and most powerful position.

Note: I've used all the male names for the positions, because up to now, only men held the offices. However, Frau Angela Merkel is now Frau Bundeskanzlerin, and if Frau Ute Ranke-Heinemann had won, she would've been Frau Bundespräsidentin.

here is a graphic overview of the political system itself and the checks and balances between the three branches. (Explanation: Kabinett = Cabinet; Bundesverfassungsgericht = Constitutional Court, similar to the Supreme Court, decides if a law or court is in agreement with the constitution; Ministerpräsident = prime minister of a single state. The blue arrows represent election, red arrows= member of /sent to, green arrows= calls into office or fires. Yellow boxes = Legislative, Blue boxes = Executive, Grey boxes = Judicary)

Grundgesetz = the Constitution

Grundgesetz offical in english

*(Sorry if these words all sound very similar for non-speakers... I can only console you that learning these things as a teenager in school was boring and confusing for me, too. )

** Currently, politicans are trying for some necessary, but difficult, federal reforms. Three areas have become problematic:

- The number of laws that need the agreement of the Bundesrat have increased from a small percentage to a large number. This give the Bundesrat a lot of power, which is a problem related to nr. 2:

- Because the state parliaments are elected in different years and for different lengths than the Bundestag, and because federal politics overshadow much more the state elections, the Bundestag can't push through reforms effectively, because there's always an election battle in one of the states. Furthermore, if either the population is unhappy with the current federal politics, or if local circumstances change, the majority in the Bundesrat can change in the middle of the 4-year period of the Bundestag, leaving both chambers headlocked. This is what happend, in fact, this spring after the elections in North-Rhine-Westfalia NRW, which led to the current problems. The solution would be to coordinate all state parliament terms with the federal parliament, to stop the ongoing election battles.

- The hardest, most long-term reform would be to do dissolve the smaller states like Hamburg (a city of 1 million people) and Bremen (less than half a million), and fuse Berlin with Brandenburg. Because each state gets at least 3 votes in the Bundesrat, the vote of a person in Bremen carries much more weight than a person in NRW with 17 to 20 million people. Maybe also fuse Schleswig-Holstein with Hamburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, since they all adjoin the sea and thus have similar problems and interests. But since that means getting rid of established positions, making sure that one part of the population doesn't get shafted, and goes against tradition, it will take a long time and hard battle.

Next: the 2005 election disaster. Or why Schröder told his own party to vote against him in the vote of no confidence.

Drat. I just noticed that escaping the comma in the newurl code scrambles the address. So here's the unescaped link for the legislative process (copy+paste) "http://www.bundesregierung.de/dokumente/-,413.564893/PureHtml/dokument.htm"

The graph is also available as PDF

(Translation: Gesetzesvorlage = The bill to be introduced; Stellungnahme = taking opinion on it; Lesung = reading (and discussing) it in Parliament; Zustimmung = agreement; Änderung = changes; Einspruch = veto; Vorlage gescheitert = the proposed bill failed; Ausfertigung = signing it into law, putting in on paper; Verkündigung = public proclamation)

Here's the correct link for the Kabinett (copy+paste) "http://www.bundesregierung.de/en/Federal-Government/-,10148/Cabinet.htm"

If there are any more "Page not found" messages, please replace "%2C" in the adress bar with "," (comma), and it should work. Thanks.

Put a backslash \ in front of the comma, i.e.
\newurl{http://www.example.com/url,http://www.example.com/url\,with\,commas}

Scott,

that's what I did... but when I clicked on the adress, the adress bar in the new window had replaced the escaped comma with %2C, which produced a "Page not found" error.

Oh geez. After the BBC test linked to earlier where you can test your knowledge of Germany, here is test whether you would be accepted as citizen in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. That's the one in the south-west corner, left to Bavaria. Where Bavaria is mostly Catholic black, Baden-Württemberg also has strong protestant pious movement, which results to the same fundie ideas, and strong presence of the conservative CDU party.

here is the article explaining the background on this test. Of course, it's under heavy attack, and I hope it will be struck down soon.

When Hitler came to power in 1938, many Germans were bullied into joining the Nazi Party by Nazi soldiers. One of these people was Alois Lang...hotel owner. Because of this, he was barred by the Catholic Church from portraying Jesus in the Oberammergau, Germany "Passion Play". In 1947, Alois was cleared of his Nazi affiliation after appearing in "De-nazification Court" and explained the situation. Many people felt Alois was "let off easy". My great-uncle Will Lang Jr. met Alois in the same year and got an interview with him.

John,

when you talk about 1938... do you mean the Annexio n of Austria? Because in Germany, Hitler came to power in 1933 already. But Oberammergau is in Bavaria... so where did Alois Lang live?

As for being bullied into joining by Nazi soldiers ... while I'm not a historian, I haven't heard of that. Though it may have varied regionally, I've usually heard that some people were kind of pressured by other party members, and some people joined because of the advantages of being party members, but those who didn't want to, didn't have to join.

For those of you still interested in "complicated" German politics, here's the next part of the story: The 2005 debacle.

Though in order to understand that, I'll go back to 1998, when the Red- Green coalition with Schröder as frontman finally kicked Black-Yellow coalition under Helmut Kohl out - after 16 long years! I think I've already mentioned that we have no term limit for the chancellor - either because Adenauer didn't want to ever step down, or because the German Chancellor has less power in our system than the US president, or because our system concentrates on the partys, not solely the person.

Anyway, Kohl should've lost the office in 1990, but because he claimed sole responsibility for reunification (which was a lie*, but people swallowed it) and promised "Blühende Landschaften" (flowering landscapes, i.e. wealthy regions) in the East in a short time (which every person with basic understanding of real-life economy knew was another lie, but the people wanted to believe), he was elected again.

In 1994, the people had woken up after the euphory of reunification, and seen the not-wealthy regions in the East, and the plunge the finances had taken, Kohl should've been voted out, but the SPD showed the remarkable talent of many left partys/organisations to shoot themselves in the foot and demolish strong leader persons, and put up a "Troika" of three guys as running team, front man being "Rudolf Schaaaaaarping" (nicknamed thusly because he spoke ...veeeeryyyyy slooooowwwwwllyyyyyy, so everybody thought he was an idiot), and thus not enough voted for him and the SPD.

But in 1998, Schröder was frontman for SPD, and although he was simply another power-hungry politican, turning his way into the wind whichever was most opporuntistic, he had a way with the crowds and convinced enough people to vote for SPD. Many others were disappointed in the SPD and Schröder, but wanted to get Kohl out of office, anyway.

So finally, a red-green coalition ruled the country. But although many people had voted SPD because they were fed up with mass unemployment, cuts in social institutions, general mismanagement and rising debt under the consies, as soon as Schröder had the reins, he went on the same course. He introduced the "Agenda 2010", which offical purpose was to make Germany fit for the next millenium**, but which really meant that social measures were cut further. Unemployment policy was cut, health insurance was reduced, all on the shoulders of normal people without touching the rich or the real bureaucracy in the Health insurance or elsewhere. This chancellor, who came from the SPD, cut the tax for rich people (Vermögenssteuer). When he was nicknamed "Genosse der Bosse" (Comrade of the Managers), because the industry was glad for his leniency, which was even better than with the consies, instead of being ashamed and changing his course, he continued laughing. To combat unemployment and no job education for young people, he made pacts with the industry, although the industry of course didn't keep any pacts, but thus they avoided laws they would have to obey. To reward the rich people who had smuggled their gains out of the country into tax havens, an amnesty was declared if they brought the money back, which of course they didn't. He hampered the Green's efforts on enviroment several times.

So when election time in 2002 came around, the margin from 1998 had shrunk considerably. Fortunatly (for Schröder), we had a big flood (one of several in the last decade), and he appeared everywhere on the dykes, so he was seen as saviour***, and red-green was re-elected. But this time, the majority in the Bundestag was slim. Because Schröder and Red-Green continued the drastic cuts mentioned above, unemployment still rose, and the consie and liberatarian ad campaign had effects, people in the county elections voted for the Union again and again between 2002 and 2005. So one county after the other turned black, shifting the balance in the Bundesrat. Finally, in March, Nordrhein-Westfalen, one of the most populated countys, lost red, too. So Schröder knew that in the remaining time till election of 2006, he would face a stiff opposition not only in the Bundestag (due to the narrow margin), but also in the Bundesrat (which has a big veto power). And he said he had seen the signals from the population. So he asked the Bundestag for a vote of confidence, but told them to vote "No" - the only way of dissolving the Bundestag. (And even this is not really legal - some members of Parliament called the Bundesverfassungsgericht, the Supreme Court, on this, because after the experiences of the Weimar Republic, where events got so chaotic that Parliament was dissolved without having a working alternative, safeguards were built into the constitution to prevent this).

The Parliament complied and narrowly voted against Schröder, Schröder dissolved the government and called for new elections. Because the country can't stay without government and parliament for long, the constitution says that new elections have to be held in 60 days, falling squarely into August, the holiday month. Schröder had the advantage that the other parties, esp. the new Left (WASG, one of the stupidest names for serious parties - more here in english), were surprised and had to do things in a hurry to make all the deadlines.

Still, the call for a new election for the Bundestag didn't really solve the problem with the Bundestag majority (which is why smart people started asking if the federal and county elections shouldn't be synchronized, to prevent this from happening again. Not that this has been fixed now - everybody ignores the basic problems.)

There were two major possibilities: red-green would be re-elected, because the voters wanted a social party, only not the current course the SPD had done, they wanted the old SPD protecting their rights. Which would leave the same problem as before. Or black-yellow would be elected again, then we would have all the trouble from the Kohl area again, and the current cost-cutting intensified.

Instead, what we got was half-way: neither party got enough seats for working normal coalitions (and the exotic ones I mentioned earlier, Traffic lights, Black traffic lights, or Jamaica, were unlikely to represent voters wishes and would hardly work). So the end result was the big coalition, which means that the bad course of cutting things continues, unemployment is still high, but a pure capitalist government of black-yellow would have been even worse. (At least, that's what people want to believe to bear the current state of affairs).

How long the grand coalition will actually last, and when the next election will therefore be, is totally up in the air - historically, Grand coalitions didn't last the entire four years, because the fundamental differences got too great. On the other hand, many experts are already wondering if the SPD has lost its status as major people's party by trying to copy the Union - the normal people don't want to vote SPD if the party no longer helps them, and with the Left, and WASG on the scene (plus the Greens, though they have been tainted by the many compromises they had to make during the past years in power), the left voters might split their votes so no party gets a good majority. And a red-red-green coalition is unlikely, because the PDS/Left has announced they don't want to cooperate with something like the SPD.

*About the re-unification: It wasn't Kohl who brought the wall down. No, it most certainly wasn't Ronald Reagan, either. What caused the wall to fall was the peaceful demonstrations of the ordinary people (no revolution with guns!), the Glasnost-atmosphere in the USSR and the GDR which made them too squeamish to use the solution of the 17th June 1953 (soviet tanks rolling down the street to crush the rebellion), and one forgotten, unnamed gate guard at Berlin who didn't shoot into the crowd of demonstraters, but went ahead without clear orders from above and opened the border on Nov. 9th.

The real cause of the re-unification was laid in the 70s by Willy Brandt, who first iniatied contact with the GDR, overturning the Hallstein doctrine from Adenauer and the consies (which said to never acknowledge the GDR), by accepting reality to find a common ground on which to talk further. Although the consies called Brandt "Vaterlandverräter" (traitor to the home country) for that, the East treaties paved the way for further realists on the other side, which lead to Glasnost, and thus made possible that once the wall fell, it stayed down, and the 4+2=1 talks were successful.

It was Kohl who pushed for the re-unification as only solution against other possible scenarios - not because it was the best solution (it most certainly wasn't, and everybody smart knew that), but because he wanted to go down into history books as "Chancellor of re-unification", consequences be damned. So he pushed ahead, and told people everything was his doing, when he had really only picked the fruits others had planted, and had been lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time.

**Of course, reforms in many sectors were necessary after 16 years of Kohl, because Kohl's problem-solving strategy had consisted only of sitting on his fat a$$ and do nothing. Which meant that things like pensions fund, which could have been reformed with small cuts and small increases 20 years before, had driven steadily into the red figures, and now needed big cuts and big increases. And of course, Kohl stealing money from the protected pensions fund to finance reunification hadn't helped, either. Most people understand and accept that a lot of things have to be reformed. But the reforms shouldn't be one-sided, demanding higher payments from the normal people without touching the industry, the lobbys, or the corrupt, overcomplicated bureaucratic structure.

***It also helped that he had been outspoken against the US attack on Iraq, though most voters hadn't noticed the secret help the German government gave. If Schröder had really followed the wishes of the population, he should have done many things differently to hinder the attack. But many people also voted for Schröder because they wanted to be sure that Germany and German soldiers wouldn't ever be part of the war on Iraq, and since Angela Merkel had already fallen at the feet of Dubya, voters knew that she would follow his tune.

Next up (if anybody is still following this and interested?): What's different in daily life, or: why nobody says "The check is in the mail".

RE: Constanze....

My apologies on my lack of knowledge in the realm of maps & locations & dates. I consider myself an "Intermediate historian". You are correct of course. Oberammergau is in Bavaria...where Alois Lang lived. My research of Alois Lang came from TIME Magazine dated Nov.21, 1949...the article is called "A New Cristus". You can find it "on-line"

Sorry...The article is called: "A New Christus"

You can read here more about the famous Passion Play in Oberammergau.

I found the article, but I can read only the first few lines - do I have to sign up to read the full article?

It would be interesting what Alois Lang said in the interview with your great-uncle, and what impression your great-uncle had of him. After all, during the de-nazification, most people said they had been pressured to join, had no choice, didn't really believe in the Nazi ideology, had only joined to get a job/provide their families, etc. etc. In other words, after the war, most Nazis had vanished, and everybody was only a "Mitläufer" (follower), not a real dyed-in-the-wool Nazi. Most people said that not only during the trials to get off lightly, but because they didn't want to face up to their part in the crimes, they wanted to bury the past and anything associated with it, and rebuild their lifes. The offical attitude under Adenauer and the need for an ally against the Russians during the hot cold war helped to sweep things under the rug and concentrate on rebuilding the economy. (more on denazification)

I have a PICTURE of Alois Lang with my great-uncle...Will Lang Jr.

BTW....Yes...there is a small fee to read the entire article....unless you can find it on microfilm at a library....then it's free.

Hmmm... I will have to look, but I doubt a bit that even my state library will have that old issues of the english-language TIME magazine.