Category: Germany

With an estimated number of at least 2.1 million Turks in Germany, they form the largest ethnic minority. The vast majority are found in what used to be West Germany. Berlin, Frankfurt,Hamburg, Rhine-Ruhr (Cologne, Duisburg and Dortmund) have large Turkish communities. The state with the largest Turkish population is North Rhine-Westphalia.

  • Germany’s Political Trap

    Germany’s Political Trap

    Aygül Özkan
    by Mike Giglio, Germany
    Cabinet appointments in lower saxony normally don’t receive much attention. But political success is rare for minorities in Germany, and in April, Aygül Özkan—a little-known politician of Turkish descent—was heralded as a trailblazer for becoming the state’s social-affairs minister. Her quick fall from grace shows how calcified Germany’s system remains against candidates of immigrant descent. The tide began turning against Özkan when she told a German magazine that crucifixes (and other religious symbols, such as headscarves) don’t belong in state-run schools, an opinion shared by Germany’s highest court. The statement led to a media firestorm; members of Özkan’s party—Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union—rushed to denounce the remarks. Then, in July, she caused another PR fiasco by asking journalists to sign a contract promising supportive coverage of her department’s affairs. Her appointment has since been roundly declared a flop.

    The young politician has found herself ensnared in a trap that plagues many minority candidates, says Turkish-German author Mely Kiyak. In addition to letting race and religion (Özkan is Muslim) define her term, Özkan has come across as a neophyte unworthy of her promotion. “There is a cliché, and she made the cliché,” Kiyak says. But Kiyak also criticizes the CDU for hanging Özkan out to dry. Özkan’s appointment was expected to help the party reach out to Germany’s growing segment of ethnic minorities, now 18 percent of the population. Now it has cautiously pulled away its support. “No one is protecting her,” Kiyak says.

    Like minority politicians elsewhere in the EU, such as France’s Rachida Dati—who weathered her own PR storms after receiving a key cabinet post—ethnic Turkish politicians in Germany are often isolated from the pack. During elections, for example, they tend to land in so-called alibi spots—on the party lists somewhere, but out of reach of a seat. Only 21 of the 612 members of the Bundestag have an immigrant background. Two years ago, when veteran pol Cem Özdemir rose to become co-chair of the German Green Party, its leadership denied him an expected Bundestag seat. Özdemir has since kept a low profile. He also keeps his Turkish heritage in the background, addressing hot-button immigration issues such as education in terms of class instead of race—a path ethnic Turkish politicians are too often forced to take.

    https://www.newsweek.com/isolation-germanys-immigrant-pols-71263, August 30, 2010

  • German central banker Thilo Sarrazin echoes Nazis with blatant racism

    German central banker Thilo Sarrazin echoes Nazis with blatant racism

    Thilo Sarrazin sits on the board of Germany’s conservative Central Bank and has worked for the IMF, and so when he makes racist remarks about Jews and Muslims, you can be pretty sure he is making them with the blessing of the entire German power elite.

    nazi gun

    The big guns of the country’s corporate media, Bild and Spiegel newspapers, have devoted acres of print to Sarrazin’s racist views, and his book on „immigration“ and „integratin“ has just been published by Bertelsmann in a fanfare of publicity.

    Caught red-handed trying to inject their own population with toxic swine flu vaccines as well as  wrecking the economy with an engineered financial crisis and now facing an awakening among the German people thanks to the alternative media, the German branch of Bilderberg elite, including their corporate media arm, are desperate to play the race card to divide and conquer and, above all, divert attention away from themselves.

    Sarrazin’s remarks that all “Jews share a certain gene…which make them different from other people” were made in an interview with Germany’s “Welt am Sonntag” this Sunday.

    In the politically correct atmosphere of Germany, the blatant racism of Sarrazin is theclearest sign yet that the German elite are modelling themselves on the Nazis.

    The Nazis also considered Jews to be genetically different – and crucially racially inferior. This alleged racial inferiority was supposed to be the justification for butchering millions of Jews in concentration camps in world war two.

    By positing the existence of a Jewish gene, Sarrazin is only one step away from criminalising it and then punishing it just as the Nazi did.

    Sarrazin regularly launches racist tirades against Muslims and scathing attacks on the millions of Germans impoverished by the bankers scams who are forced to draw the meagre Hartz IV benefits while the bankers get billions if not trillions of tax payer money thrown at them under the pretext of one bailout or another by their friends in government.

    Sarrazins’s views are a chilling echo of the statements of NSDAP Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick, who complained in 1933 about the low birth rate among Germans and the growing proportion of „inferior people“.

    Predictably, Sarrazin’s remarks have met with only luke warm condemnation for the public from Germany’s Bilderberg political elite.

    Helmut Schmidt, the former Social Demcorat Chancellor, said that he would have agreed with much of what Sarrazin said if he had expressed himself more carefully. CDU Chancellor and Bilderberg member Angela Merkel made a half-hearted attempt to appear outraged on television on Sunday.

    But there can be no doubt that Sarrazin is just a puppet of the elite and from his remarks, it is clear the Jews and the Muslims look set to be made the scapegoats again for Germany’s very real decline, which has been caused by the Bilderberg elite and the bankers like Sarrazin.

    It is this global elite that has introduced policies that have led to the decimation of the middle class in Germany, the erosion of the education system and the collapse of social security, the impoverishment of large sections of the population through the euro and financial crisis scam as well as the introducion of a police surveillance state just as has happened in the USA.

    The global “elite’s” agenda for a one world government and police state has been documented by websites such as Infowars.

    To achieve their goal of igniting world war three with Iran in 2011, the German power eilite clearly believe they have to whip up hatred against the Muslims and Jews living inside the country as a first step.

    Cue Sarrazin: the central banker, former finance senator of deeply-indebted Berlin and a top manager of German state railways is wheeled onto the corporate media stage to portray the Muslims and Jews as the „enemy within“. He implies they are racially despoiling the German people with their low „IQs“ and foreign „genes“.

    A false flag (bio?) terrorism incident is all that is needed to provide the pretext for a big internal crackdown as well as for world war three. We can all read the script.

    In the meantime, hardly a day goes by without Bild newspaper showing the Defence Minister Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg – the George Bush of Germany from the pampered Bilderberg elite circle – parading around as a psdeuo patriot, visiting German troops in Afghanistan while placing yet more orders for weapons, which will generate yet more profits for his banker and industrialist friends.

    Aside from engaging in photo opportunities for mass media war mongering, Guttenberg is also pushing plans to scrap military conscription, the last block to Germany engaging in another disastrous offensive war. Conscripts, at least, can only serve on German territory.

    At a time when the German people are increasingly waking up to the fact that it is their own corrupted government and corporations that are their biggest problem, the country’s elite cannot, it seems, divert attention away from their activities fast enough.

    An example of the growing grass roots anger among Germans were the demonstractions against the Stuttgart 21 project: more than four billion euro is to be devoted to plans to build a supermodern, underground station which will benefit only a tiny corporate elite will use the expensive trains.

    Germans from all age groups marched together in Stuttgart to demand an end to the waste of their tax money money on the pet projects of the elite when budgets for schools, hospitals are being slashed and not even the climate conditioners of the trains work.

    State railways manager elite have — with typical disdain for the ordinary people who have to fund their many lavish projects — vowed to press on with their pet hi-tech railway project in Stuttgart and called in the police to guard the station while slashing social budgets to the bone.

    It is not just in Germany but also in Austria that political parties are whipping up racism: the far right Freedom Party is also scape goating Muslims while the OVP Interior Minister Maria Fekter has made insulting remarks about the Roma.

    In France, President Nioclas Sarkozy has ordered police to raid Roma camps and deport Gypsies, sparking protests The Roma were another target of Nazi racism during the second world war.

    The Germans and Austrians have seen this all before, and awakened by the independent media, they will reject the barbaric brew racism and wars being concocted by the Bilderberg elite this time round, and bring this group to court to account for their many financial and other crimes.

    Source:

  • EU not doing its part to fight PKK, Turkish PM says

    EU not doing its part to fight PKK, Turkish PM says

    ANKARA – The Anatolia News Agency

    The Turkish prime minister on Saturday criticized European countries for not extending sufficient assistance and support to Turkey in countering terrorism.

    Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said European countries that appear to be Turkey’s friends have not fulfilled the requirements of that friendship.

    “Their [the terrorist organization’s] financial resources are mainly coming from Europe, as well as is their income from illicit drug trafficking and human trafficking,” Erdoğan told a televised interview.

    Erdoğan said Germany had never behaved sincerely, nor had France, Belgium or the Netherlands. “I have told ambassadors from these European countries that they would get Turkey’s help if they faced a similar problem, because a joint fight against terrorism is obligatory. Unfortunately Turkey has not seen that support,” he said.

    Erdoğan said Turkey would continue to implement the trilateral mechanism with Iraq and the United States to combat terrorism and attached great importance to the initiatives of the Supreme Board of Counter Terrorism.

    Turkey was closely monitoring Iraq’s reconstruction and efforts to form a new government, he said. Erdoğan underlined the importance of relations with Iraq because the region needed peace, stability and order.

    The prime minister also highlighted the importance of relations with northern Iraq and said the presence of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, there was threatening stability in the region. “Therefore, there are some decisions and steps we have to take with the United States and the Iraqi administration,” he said.

    Erdoğan said there was also a PKK problem in Syria and Iran, and therefore Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq should create a regional solidarity agreement. The prime minister also said almost 2.5 million people would be employed when the Southeastern Anatolia Project, or GAP, and Eastern Anatolia Project, or DAP, were completed.

    www.hurriyetdailynews.com, August 29, 2010

  • Bundesbank official: all Jews have the same genes

    Bundesbank official: all Jews have the same genes

    A senior German central bank official has triggered a storm of protest after an extract of his new book was released in which he said Jews all have the same genes and Muslim immigrants cannot integrate.

    Thilo Sarrazin1
    Thilo Sarrazin, a member of the six-man board at the influential Bundesbank

    Thilo Sarrazin, a member of the six-man board at the influential Bundesbank, has been condemned by German government officials and immigrant leaders after excerpts from his new book, ‘Germany does away with itself’ said “all Jews share the same gene”.

    In the extracts, published by the Welt am Sonntag, Mr Sarrazin writes: “Jews share a particular gene, Basques share particular genes, that differentiate them from others.

    “The cultural peculiarities of the people is no myth, but determines the reality of Europe.”

    Regarding Muslim immigrants, he continues: “I don’t want the country of my grandchildren and forefathers to be in broad swathes Muslim, where Turkish and Arabic is widely spoken, where women wear headscarves and where the daily rhythm of life is set by the call of the muezzins.

    “If I want to experience that, I can just take a vacation in the Orient.”

    He theorises that if the fertility rate of German “autochthons” remains at the same level it has been for the past 40 years, then population figures will drop to 20 million, while the Muslim population “could grow by 2100 to 35 million”.

    Mr Sarrazin, 65, who says his comments are not racist, argues that immigrants from countries such as Turkey depend on the state and bring down the country’s education level.

    Senior German politicians have demanded that Mr Sarrazin step down from his Bundesbank post and resign his party membership of the left-leaning Social Democrats.

    Guido Westerwelle, Germany’s foreign minister, said that “remarks that feed racism or even anti-Semitism have no place in our political discourse,” while Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the defence minister, said Mr Sarrazin had “overstepped the borders of provocation.”

    Leaders of Germany’s Jewish and Muslim communities also condemned the banker’s remarks.

    Stephan Kramer of the Central Council of Jews in Germany said: “Whoever tries to identify Jews by their genetic makeup succumbs to racism”, while Kenan Kolat, a leading member of Germany’s Turkish community, called on the Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, to expel Mr Sarrazin from his Bundesbank post.

    Mr Sarrazin sparked controversy in October when he said Turks were “conquering Germany in exactly the same way the Kosovars conquered Kosovo: with a higher birth rate.”

    He added: “A large number of Arabs and Turks in this city (Berlin) have no productive function other than selling fruit and vegetable.” He later apologised for the remarks

    A government survey in 2009 found that the Muslim population in Germany likely is between 3.8 million and 4.3 million – meaning Muslims make up between 4.6 and 5.2 per cent of the population. The overall number of Germans with immigrant roots, including Muslim and non-Muslim immigrants, stands at more than 16 million, nearly one in five of the country’s 82 million inhabitants.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/7970518/Bundesbank-official-all-Jews-have-the-same-genes.html, 29 Aug 2010

  • German central banker criticised for remarks on Jews

    German central banker criticised for remarks on Jews

    German government leaders condemned a central bank executive on Sunday for making anti-Semitic remarks before the publication of his book on Monday that takes a critical look at Turk and Arab immigrants.

    Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg said Thilo Sarrazin was out of line for comments about Jews, remarks that were also criticised by Jewish leaders in the country responsible for the Holocaust.

    “All Jews share a particular gene, Basques share a certain gene that sets them apart,” Sarrazin told Welt am Sonntag newspaper ahead of the release of his book “Deutschland schafft sich ab” (Germany does away with itself).

    Sarrazin, a Bundesbank board member, denied he was stirring racism. He has faced heavy criticism for making disparaging comments about Muslim immigrants. Sarrazin has repeatedly created uproar for criticising Turks and Arabs in Germany.

    “There’s no room in the political debate for remarks that whip up racism or anti-Semitism,” Westerwelle said.

    “There are limits to every provocation and Bundesbank board member Sarrazin has clearly gone out of bounds with this mistaken and inappropriate comment,” Guttenberg added.

    Stephan Kramer and Michel Friedman, leaders in Germany’s Jewish community, also criticised Sarrazin, 65, a member of the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) and former finance minister in the city-state of Berlin.

    “Someone who tries to define Jews by a genetic make-up is consumed by a racist mania,” Kramer said.

    “Enough already!” Friedman wrote in Bild am Sonntag newspaper. “No more tolerance for this intolerance. It’s okay to provoke thought but enough of this baiting and defamation. We don’t need any hate preachers, especially in the Bundesbank.”

    EMBARRASSMENT FOR BUNDESBANK

    Almost 3 million people of Turkish origin and an estimated 280,000 of Arab extraction live in Germany.

    Leaders in Sarrazin’s SPD have called for him to quit the party and resign from the Bundesbank.

    Sarrazin’s comments have also embarrassed Bundesbank President Axel Weber, who some German leaders have backed to succeed Jean-Claude Trichet as president of the European Central Bank next year.

    The Bundesbank has tried to distance itself from his remarks, saying they are his personal opinions and not linked to his role at the bank. The central bank requires evidence of “serious misconduct” to bring about Sarrazin’s dismissal.

    The central bank last year stripped Sarrazin of some of his duties. If the central bank’s board voted to remove Sarrazin, the move would then need the approval of the president.

    In the book, Sarrazin argues that Muslims undermine German society, marry “imported brides” and have a bad attitude. He said young Muslim men were aggressive due to sexual frustration.

    “Sadly, the huge potential for aggression in this group is obvious. The Arab boys can’t get at their Arab girls,” he said.

    “In the end, they use the German girls from the underclass who are easier to get, and then they hold them in contempt because they’re so readily available.”

    (Editing by Charles Dick)

    , 29 August 2010

  • Turkish leader calls on Berlin to sack central bank official over racism

    Turkish leader calls on Berlin to sack central bank official over racism

    KOLAT
    Kolat called on the government to act to remove Sarrazin

    A leader of Germany’s Turkish community has urged Chancellor Angela Merkel to fire the Bundesbank’s controversial board member Thilo Sarrazin over comments that Muslims are undermining German society.

    Chairman of Germany’s Turkish Federation, Kenan Kolat, called for central bank board member Thilo Sarrazin to be removed from his post after fresh comments criticizing Muslims in Germany.

    “I am calling upon the government to begin a procedure to remove Thilo Sarrazin from the board of the central bank,” Kolat told the German daily newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau on Saturday, August 28.

    In his book “Deutschland schafft sich ab” (“Germany does away with itself”), Sarrazin claims that members of Germany’s Muslim community pose a danger to German society.

    Sarrazin, a member of the Social Democrats (SPD) and Berlin’s former finance chief, was reported in June as saying that members of the Turkish and Arab community were making Germany “more stupid.” With his book, Kolat said, Sarrazin had overstepped a boundary.

    “It is the climax of a new intellectual racism and it damages Germany’s reputation abroad,” Kolat said.

    High birth-rates

    Sarrazins Book
    Sarrazin says that his book is addressing cultural division

    In a serialization of the forthcoming book in the German popular daily newspaper Bild, Sarrazin said that Germany’s Muslim community had profited from social welfare payments far more than they contributed, and that higher birth-rates among immigrants could lead to the Muslim population overtaking the “indigenous” one in terms of numbers.

    Merkel’s chief spokesman Steffen Seibert said on Wednesday that many people would find the remarks “offensive” and “defamatory,” adding that the chancellor was concerned.

    Members of the SPD have distanced themselves from Sarrazin’s comments, while Germany’s Green and Left parties have called for his removal from the central bank’s board.

    A Bundesbank spokesman said that Sarrazin’s latest remarks were personal opinions, unconnected with his role on the board.

    Blanket generalizations

    Germany's first female Muslim minister said the comments lacked respect

    Lower Saxony’s minister of social affairs, Ayguel Oezkan, Germany’s first-ever female Muslim minister, accused Sarrazin of doing damage to the Muslim community with blanket generalizations.

    “There are a vast number of hard-working immigrants,” she told the weekly German newspaper Bild am Sonntag ahead of its publication on Sunday. “They deserve respect, not malice.”

    “All of those who are involved in society, those who encourage their children, who learn German, who work and pay taxes and those who, as entrepreneurs, provide jobs – all of them deserve respect.”

    In June, 65-year-old Sarrazin was reported as saying that Germany was “becoming on average more stupid” because immigrants were poorly educated.

    ‘Distorted image, half-truths’

    Maria Boehmer, the government’s commissioner for integration, accused Sarrazin of giving “a distorted image of integration in Germany” that did not bear up to academic scrutiny.

    “In his comments, he states only half truths,” she told Bild am Sonntag. “It is indisputable that, in education, there are currently a lot of immigrants with a lot of catching up to do. It does not take Sarrazin’s comments to establish that.”

    In a lengthy interview with weekly newspaper Die Zeit, Sarrazin defended himself against the charge he was encouraging racism.

    “I am not a racist,” he told the newspaper. “The book addresses cultural divisions, not ethnic ones.”

    Last year, Sarrazin caused a storm by claiming that most of Berlin’s Arab and Turkish immigrants had no useful function “apart from fruit and vegetable trading.” As a result, the central bank stripped Sarrazin of some of his duties.

    Author: Richard Connor (Reuters/dpa/AFP)
    Editor: Toma Tasovac

    https://www.dw.com/en/turkish-leader-calls-on-berlin-to-sack-central-bank-official-over-racism/a-5951829, 28.08.2010