Lincoln Pigman
The relationship of the two countries predates that of the two leaders. And when Merkel and Putin sit down for talks on Saturday in the German government’s villa outside Berlin, they will be influenced by a long history of alienation and rapprochements, limiting the expectations — and possibly the results — of the meeting.
Pressed on the nature of the talks, Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, indicated the leaders would focus on finding common ground on acute international issues, such as Syria, Ukraine and energy. But he declined to provide details.
“Russia is an international actor without whom it is impossible to imagine finding solutions to various problems” in the world, Seibert told reporters in Berlin.
Many experts expect that the meeting will attempt to put the relationship between Berlin and Moscow on more pragmatic ground, but few expect the session to end with strong resolutions or a new strategic partnership.
Here’s a look at some of the issues that define and influence German-Russian ties.
— Are Germany and Russia friends?
The two countries could be described as the ultimate international “frenemies,” with economic, cultural and intellectual ties reaching back centuries. Since the 18th century, they have cycled through a series of conflicts and reconciliations, most recently World War II and the Cold War.
Throughout the Soviet era, Germany was Moscow’s most important trading partner, and many Germans view the strong, positive ties to Moscow as a key contributor to the end of the Cold War and German unification. When the Berlin Wall fell, Germany reached out to Moscow, partly to help former Soviet bloc countries integrate into the European Union, not only strengthening political and economic ties, but also investing in civil society.
But a break in relations that started with the Russian authorities’ repressive reaction to public protests in 2011 and 2012 worsened in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and supported rebels in eastern Ukraine.
Merkel and Putin have maintained regular contact. In May, she visited Putin at his summer residence in Sochi, Russia.
But Susan Stewart, a senior associate with the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, cautioned that the leaders’ meeting in Germany should not be viewed as a fundamental shift in German-Russian relations. Instead, it is an indication of the hope that the two sides will be able to reach a compromise on key points, while maintaining their differences over Russia’s role in the conflict in Ukraine.
“They will be trying a two-pronged approach,” Stewart said. “They will try to cooperate on those points where there is a common interest, but we will not see a return to business as usual.”
— What does Germany want from Russia?
Both Germany and Russia have problems that are tied to Syria.
For Merkel, the issue is domestic, as her decision to allow more than 1 million people — most of them refugees from the war in Syria — to apply for asylum in Germany has met increasing resistance from the public and from her own government. For Putin, it is not being quite able to find a solution to Syria’s civil war despite having declared “mission accomplished” on several occasions.
Both leaders could benefit from finding a way to ensure sufficient political stability in Syria to allow Germany to begin encouraging refugees to return, while Putin is seeking support from Berlin and the European Union to help rebuild the country, said Stefan Meister of the German Council on Foreign Relations.
“It is in the domestic political interest of the German government that Syrian refugees be able to return to a stable Syria,” Meister said.
— What does Russia want from Germany?
Germany’s willingness to throw its full weight behind the United States’ decision to impose sanctions on Moscow over its annexation of Crimea, its involvement in the pro-Kremlin insurgency in eastern Ukraine and the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, took the Russians by surprise.
The move made clear to Russian leaders that the special relationship they believed they had shared with Berlin was over. Soon afterward, Germany found itself in the crosshairs of Russian cyberattacks and a campaign in the Russian news media that caused Germany to plunge in Russian public opinion.
“If you look at the image of Germany — and Merkel in particular — in Russian political discourse, you will see that it really has deteriorated tremendously,” said Sabine Fischer, head researcher on Eastern Europe at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
A survey cited on Friday by Vedomosti, a Russian business daily, reflected this trend, showing approval of the German chancellor among Russians plummeting to 15 percent in August 2016 from 60 percent in February 2011.
But to break out of its international isolation, Russia needs Germany’s support. It hopes to persuade the chancellor not to support a fresh round of sanctions President Donald Trump has threatened to impose over the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in Britain.
“There is a need for more pragmatic action at the political level,” Fischer said.
— Is Germany a ‘captive of Russia,’ as Trump says?
Germany imports about 40 percent of its natural gas from Russia, according to government statistics. That is more than any other EU country, but less than the 60 percent to 70 percent Trump cited when he accused Germany of being a “captive” of Russia at a NATO summit last month.
“That comment clearly taps into a stereotype in Washington that because of its economic ties, Germany is ‘weaker’ on Russia,” said Derek Chollet, an adviser on security and defense policy with the German Marshall Fund in Washington.
Former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s close relationship to Putin and his decision to join the board of Russia’s state oil company, Rosneft, has only bolstered that notion. But Merkel has shown a willingness to draw a line, with her decisions to support sanctions against Russia in 2015 and to join the coordinated response to the poisoning in Britain this spring.
“My sense is Merkel, who in her own way makes clear that she understands the Russians and Putin as a type as well as anyone, has no illusions about Russia or Putin and their motives,” Chollet said.
Source: The New York Times
Last Mod: 19 Ağustos 2018, 14:45

Four MORE Russian suspects are yet to be named in the Salisbury Novichok probe amid claims the attack was carried out by a six strong assassination squad named ‘The Cleaners’

• Security sources said the hit squad who targeted the Skripals had six members
• The attempted assassins reportedly had a back-up team to help reconnaissance 
• Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov were accused of carrying out the attack 

By Tim Stickings For Mailonline
Published: 22:49 BST, 8 September 2018 | Updated: 09:33 BST, 9 September 2018

Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov are seen on CCTV at Salisbury Station on Mar. 3, 2018 . (Metropolitan Police/Reuters)

According to an interview on Russia’s RT television, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov were two innocent men in the fitness industry, who were traveling Salisbury, England to visit the town’s famous cathedral.
The U.K. government has said the two men were actually there to poison former Russian spy Sergey Skripal, and his daughter Yulia.
And now, an investigative website says it’s been able to track down the real identity of one of the men.
According to Bellingcat’s research, Boshirov is actually a decorated Russian military intelligence officer named Anatoliy Vladimirovich Chepiga. Russia has denied the allegations.
Christo Grozev is a researcher who led Bellingcat’s investigation. As It Happens host Carol Off spoke to Grozev about how they tracked down Chepiga.
Mr. Grozev, when we saw this RT interview, one of the men introduced himself as Ruslan Boshirov. What have you discovered is his real name?
His name is Anatoliy​ Chepiga. He’s off by one year from the personality he presented, in terms of age. And he’s off by many, many other qualities from the personality that we saw on RT.
You sound very confident. How do you know this is Colonel Chepiga?
We’ve identified him via many, many objective and subjective metrics. First of all, objectively, we got a hold of his original passport file. So we’ve seen the actual passport database with his date of birth, original photo, taken when he was 17, and another one when he got his first passport, and another one when he was 21.
After we were ready with the report and the identification, we actually contacted sources at the British police and secret services to just get a nod, or not a nod, as to our findings — and we got the nod. So we know for sure that’s the one.

You also dug into the file of Colonel Chepiga. He’s a much decorated serviceman. He has received Russia’s highest state award. What do you know about him?
He was born in a tiny village, population less than 300 people, in the farthest corner of the Russian Federation. He went to a military school that was only about 30 miles away from his home village that, at that time, in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, was one of the most elite, or let’s say better-staffed schools, for military education. He got his military education in a special operations unit, training unit, at the school.
Immediately thereafter, he was sent to service in Chechnya, where he amassed a number of awards because, apparently, he was great at what he did as a soldier. And then as a very promising soldier, who had accumulated about 15 awards already, he was sent to GRU school. And GRU school in Moscow is one of the …  it’s called the Academy, the Diplomatic Academy. But, in fact, it’s a spy school and it’s the most elite spy school in Russia.

It sounds [like] you have a lot of information, mostly from open sources. You didn’t go on the ground to seek this out. You did this from a distance. And this is working for your website Bellingcat, which has been accused by the Russian government of being a front for Western intelligence agencies, that you’re fabricating evidence. Why should we trust your conclusions here?
All of our findings in the past have either been proven right or Russia has stopped trying to rebut them because they have no way to rebut them. What we do is very transparent. Almost anybody with the analytic skills can go and replicate that data. We don’t point people to where they can get leaked Russian databases but they’re out there. They’re on the Internet and they’re in torrents. Anybody who spends a week will be able to get them and replicate our findings.
But a number of things have left people scratching their heads about your conclusion. I think you’re scratching your head as well. Why a colonel? Why somebody of such a high rank, and such a decorated man, be sent on this mission to poison people in Great Britain? And also to be so exposed, because you know that when you’re in Great Britain there are a lot of cameras observing. So why such a high-ranking man?
That’s a mystery. We’ve received opinions from two senior Russian officers. Both of them said literally the same thing: “We would have expected somebody with a rank of major or even captain to have done this.”
The fact that they chose a colonel means that the order came at a very high level. Probably one layer below Putin, not Putin himself. But it’s something they did in order to show to Putin that actually they took all the measures and all the precautions to have the highest expertise on the ground, which apparently they didn’t.

This is all around the poisoning of Sergey Skripal and Yulia Skripal — and also, the British citizen Dawn Sturgess. We saw this man who calls himself Ruslan Boshirov and his partner on television in this RT interview. They looked like goofs, didn’t they? You’re laughing, everyone was laughing, including people in Russia. So how is it that somebody of such a high calibre, somebody who is so skilled, would be, first of all, be allowed to be on Russian TV, to be so exposed — and then, to be such a goof?
That’s another mystery. There are at least two hypothesis on this that circulate among informed circles. One is that they were given this order at the last moment, after Putin made that blunder himself, by saying, “Well, we know they’re civilians and I expect them to come and save themselves.”
Bear in mind that people like this are never prepared to go public and to be burned in public. This was a very embarrassing moment for them.
Another hypothesis was that this was punishment for their blunder and their busted job. I don’t believe that’s realistic because whatever they were, they were not traitors. And in the Russian army the only people they punish really are traitors. If anything they would be demoted but not put on purpose to be embarrassed.
Does it appear that this was just a botched operation? I mean, they were successful in reaching these people and poisoning them. But was this a failure?
I think now it has become a failure. Even Russians, the average Russian who believes, if nothing else, Russia is good at spying, now realizes they aren’t good at that either. If you look at Internet memes that spread on the Russian Internet, before they were making fun of the West, of America, of the opposition. Now Russians are making fun of their own intelligence services and that’s unprecedented. I think that is a failure for the regime.
Written by John McGill. Produced by Chris Harbord. Q&A has been edited for length and clarity. 

A THIRD person understood to have helped two Russian men carry out the lethal Salisbury nerve agent poisoning has been identified by counter-terrorism police.
The Telegraph is reporting that the GRU agent helped plan the attack on former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in the small English town earlier this year.
It comes after one of the men, who was previously identified as Ruslan Boshirov, was outed earlier this week as decorated Russian intelligence officer Anatoliy Vladimirovich Chepiga.
Chepiga was previously made a Hero of the Russian Federation by President Vladimir Putin.
His accomplice — Alexander Petrov — is understood to have also entered the UK on a fake surname.
The Telegraph is reporting that the third accomplice provided information to the Skripals, whose Novichok nerve agent inadvertently killed local woman Dawn Sturgess and critically injured Colonel Skripal and his daughter Yulia in March.
British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said he believed the Russians tried to kill Colonel Skripal because they thought the attack could be successfully pulled off following the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2005.
“That’s why Theresa May’s reaction this time has been very different,” Mr Hunt told Sky News.
The third person is likely to have told the Skripals about which door their target used at the property and the layout of the cul-de-sac.
Security experts say the intel would have been essential as such an attack would not have been unplanned.
The Telegraph has reported that Sergei Migdal, a security expert and former police and intelligence officer, said, “Someone would have had to carry out a reconnaissance mission beforehand.”
“I understand that it was timed for Yulia’s arrival as they wanted to be sure that their target would be in Salisbury. It would have been too much trouble to watch him all the time and that may have aroused suspicion.”
Colonel Skripal and his daughter survived the attack and are understood to be in hiding.
Former intelligence and security officer Philip Ingram said there was “almost certainly” intelligence on the ground.
“They wouldn’t have turned up at the house and put it on the door handle on a whim.”

Novichok assassin’s former Russian army chief comes forward to admit he was military trained, but not for spy missions

• One of the agents accused over Salisbury attack was outed as a GRU colonel
• Pictures show striking similarities between Anatoly Chepiga and ‘Boshirov’
• But Kremlin has attempted to spread that assassin is decorated Russian agent
• Chepiga’s former commander today insisted the soldier wasn’t trained to spy

By Richard Spillett In London and Will Stewart In Moscow for MailOnline
Published: 16:05 BST, 28 September 2018 | Updated: 23:36 BST, 28 September 2018

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In 1937, the year of the Great Terror, Stalin decided to celebrate Pushkin as a socialist god in order to build popular support for his regime. While the poet was revered as a literary genius before the Russian Revolution, the Soviets took his reputation to a whole new level, almost deifying him in a sort of cult.

The 100th anniversary of Pushkin’s death, Moscow, 1937. Source: Archive Photo

A Soviet god

This year we mark not only the 100th anniversary of the 1917 Revolution, but also the 80th anniversary of the Great Terror in 1937. That year Soviet Russia also commemorated, on an unprecedented scale, the 100th anniversary of Alexander Pushkin’s death. The great poet had hitherto remained in the shadows, but in 1937 he took a central place in the Soviet cultural pantheon.
In place of nationless Marxism that rejected culture, national spirit, traditional statehood, and spirituality, Stalin decided to present the world with an almost classical culture-centric empire that had Pushkin at its heart.

Snatching Pushkin from émigré circles

The decision to celebrate Pushkin as a socialist god belonged to Stalin. To fully appreciate how unconventional his initiative was, it’s worth remembering that in the 19th century Pushkin was a poet known by only the intellectual elite. The reading list for the revolutionary intelligentsia did not include Pushkin because he was considered too distant and removed from the urgent needs of the people.
Stalin, however, was well-versed in classical Russian literature and was fond not only of the revolutionary Chernyshevsky, but also of Dostoevsky and Pushkin.

The decision to celebrate Pushkin was strongly influenced by the fact that starting from the mid-1920s the Russian diaspora abroad, which Soviet Russia was closely watching, developed a strong interest in Pushkin’s works. Stalin himself subscribed to nearly all major publications by Russian émigré circles.
In 1937, the Russian émigré community was planning to hold their own events celebrating Pushkin, which meant that the poet’s legacy could become a dangerous political weapon in their hands. So it was imperative to snatch this tool from the hands of the enemy! Such may have been Stalin’s logic, though historians aren’t sure.

Personality cult

Starting in 1922, annual official memorial services marked the anniversary of Pushkin’s death where he was described as a “Russian spring, Russian morning, Russian Adam,” and also compared to Dante, Petrarch, Shakespeare, Schiller, and Goethe.
Pushkin’s cult was promoted on an unprecedented level. Preparations for the anniversary involved everyone – academics, writers, composers, politicians and public figures, publishing houses, cinema companies, theaters, factories, as well as collective and state farms. Every single person in the country was to know that Pushkin is great! Pushkin is sacred!
New monuments to Pushkin were unveiled in Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Tbilisi, and Yerevan. New streets, squares, schools, parks, subway stations, train stations, collective and state farms were either renamed after Pushkin or built in his honor. Artists painted giant canvases dedicated to Pushkin, composers wrote music singing his praises, and the leading theaters of Moscow and Leningrad competed in a race to make productions of Pushkin’s works.
Stamps from the series “Alexander Pushkin’s Death Centenary.” Designed by artist Vasily Zavyalov. Source: Alexey Bushkin
Pushkin’s name was exclaimed by loudspeakers and gramophones, streets and squares were decorated with his portraits, and posters and postcards were printed. Literally every school, factory, and collective farm throughout the country staged nearly identical exhibitions about Pushkin.

Hordes of fans

The total number of anniversary Pushkin publications exceeded 14 million copies. They were published in practically all languages spoken in the Soviet Union, including Assyrian, Buryat, Greek, Hebrew, Komi-Zyryan and many others.
Factories and collective farms suddenly saw hordes of enthusiastic fans and connoisseurs of the poet’s works, and clubs of Pushkin lovers were formed. Artistic associations and master craftsmen, just like the icon painters of the past who created images of St. Nicholas for the people, flooded the country with hundreds of thousands of Pushkin statues, busts, and other visual reminders of his life.
Soviet poster marking the 100th anniversary of Pushkin’s death, 1937. Source: Archive Photo
On Feb. 10, 1937, the very day of the anniversary, an official gathering was held at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow to mark the centenary of the death of Russia’s greatest poet. The entire Communist Party elite, including Stalin, were present.
The event was broadcast to the nation, and at the opening Andrei Bubnov, the People’s Commissar of Education and Chairman of the Pushkin Committee, exclaimed: “Pushkin is ours! It is only in a country of socialist culture that the name of the immortal genius is surrounded with ardent love; it is only in our country that Pushkin’s works have become a treasure for all the people.”
The glorification of Pushkin was complete, and the poet’s cult established. In the words of the philosopher Antonio Gramsci, the cult of Pushkin “cemented the popular forces,” uniting a multi-ethnic country in a common cultural space and thus becoming a most powerful imperial unifying force.
This is an abridged version of the original article published in Russian at Vzglyad.
If using any of Russia Beyond’s content, partly or in full, always provide an active hyperlink to the original material.

This reality show is performed in the genre of cabaret, with The Demiurge playing the role of the invisible, omnipotent, omniscient, obsessive-compulsive, meticulous, artistic but talantless, pedantic Master of Ceremonies. And he left his signature too, as usually. The latest of them are: “Boshirov” and “Petrov”: Boshi (the Germans) and their Pet, ROV… – 10:30 AM 9/29/2018 – “Life is a cabaret, old chum; Life is a cabaret…” 

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Abwehr The Demiurge | Canaris The Gardener | Open Letter to the World Leaders

“The World is silent and confused. The World needs to understand. The World needs to investigate… 
To prevent the mistakes of the Past, just the memory of them is not enough; the deep, comprehensive, definitive understanding and analysis are needed. The genre of parody and the reality show is not the best mode of this historical understanding, the dispassionate scientific approach should be more productive.” 
Operations “Trump Card”, “Call 9/11”, and “MuckCart-hy” – By Michael Novakhov

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The Operation Trump Card

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The three party leaders of Germany’s coalition government agreed late Tuesday to reassign the country’s chief domestic spy after he made controversial remarks about videos from last month’s riots in Chemnitz.
Hans-Georg Maassen, the head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, known by its German acronym BfV, will now become a high-ranking official inside the German interior ministry. The change in roles comes with a higher pay grade, according to German media.
A replacement for his post at the BfV has not been named. “Details to the relative responsibilities within the Ministry for the Interior, Construction and Homeland will be presented by Interior Minister Horst Seehofer [Wednesday],” the government said.
The BfV monitors extremist organizations that threaten Germany’s democratic institutions and Mr. Maassen put himself in the coalition’s crosshairs by calling into question the authenticity of videos from anti-immigrant riots that arose after the fatal stabbing of a man in Chemnitz. He has also reportedly slipped BfV intelligence to the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Coalition coalescence

Politicians first met last Thursday to discuss Mr. Maassen’s fate but then delayed their decision until Tuesday. German media presented the tussle as another trial for the country’s governing coalition with the left-leaning Social Democrats, or SPD, demanding his resignation and Interior Minister Seehofer saying he had faith in the official. The SPD is part of the governing coalition and Mr. Seehofer is a member of the Christian Socialist Union, or CSU, a conservative Bavarian party allied with Chancellor Merkel’s Christian Democrats, and also part of the coalition government.
Nobody appeared happy with the compromise. Left-leaning politicians wanted Mr. Maassen to wake up unemployed on Wednesday, whereas more conservative lawmakers insisted he did nothing wrong.
“That is unbelievable deception,” Katrin Göring-Eckardt, head of the Green party, was quoted as saying by local daily, Die Welt. Anyone who rewards instead of punishing someone who “cuddles” up to the AfD has lost all decency. “And the SPD plays along with everything,“ she said.
The head of parliament’s interior committee and a member of the CSU, Andrea Lindholz, defended Mr. Maassen, saying it was “regrettable” he had to leave his position because of what she described as a communication error. “Today I still have complete faith in the head of the BfV, after detailed explanations [about what he said], just as I did before them,” she said.
Andrew Bulkeley is an editor in Berlin for Handelsblatt Global. To contact the author: a.bulkeley@handelsblattgroup.com

Horst Seehofer has accomplished a number of feats in his long political career, but he could hardly be thought capable of defying the law of gravity. Until now. Mr. Seehofer could not prevent the dismissal of his confidant Hans-Georg Maassen, but he could prevent Mr. Maassen’s fall. The supposed victim skated away from his previous function as president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution to the top levels of the interior ministry. He was spared a hard landing into temporary retirement.
Mr. Seehofer emphasized that Mr. Maassen has rendered considerable service to the country, especially in the fight against terrorism. But you don’t have to question that to maintain that Mr. Maassen has undermined confidence in himself and his authority over the past two weeks. If the head of the domestic intelligence service is unsettling the public with crass speculation, nobody should be surprised if the next terror alert isn’t taken seriously. Mr. Maassen’s behavior after the neo-Nazi riots in Chemnitz was the reason for his dismissal. The reward: promotion to state secretary and 20 percent more salary.
As right as the criticism of Mr. Maassen is, it would be wrong to reduce the so-called Causa Maassen to the person Maassen. Germany’s highest domestic spy may like to put himself into the middle of things with his interviews, but in the end he is a marginal figure. The chancellor has recently pointed out that the coalition “will not break up over the head of a subsidiary agency.” That’s true. At the same time, however, Angela Merkel has covered up what her cabinet could very well break up over: its internal contradictions and unresolved power issues. The grand coalition is made up of a Social Democratic party that is willing to govern only under certain conditions and a center-right alliance that has limited powers to govern. The result: a scary equilibrium with two existential crises in six months.

It is no coincidence that the controversies are taking place in the interior ministry. Under Mr. Seehofer’s leadership, something like an opposition cabinet is being formed there. In his future role as state secretary for security, Mr. Maassen will meet his old friend Dieter Romann, the head of the federal police, with whom he shares a vehement rejection of the chancellor’s refugee policy. Given this lineup, one thing is certain: There won’t be less conflict in Ms. Merkel’s coalition in crisis.
The chancellor’s main problem, however, is Mr. Seehofer, who never intended to go along with her authority to determine refugee policy. When he talks about a reversal in asylum policy, he isn’t only referring to the usual revisions showing the imprint of a new minister over time. He means the humiliation of his rival. Government policy is characterized by a stalemate between Ms. Merkel and Mr. Seehofer. That is their plight. There is a balance of power which is actually a balance of weakness. Mr. Seehofer is badly hit after his party’s losses in last year’s national elections. He lacks the strength to overthrow the chancellor. But Ms. Merkel, too, is no longer strong enough to get rid of her opponent.
Merkel camp counting on CSU losses in Bavaria
The result is a continuation of the ongoing conflict over refugee policy. Ms. Merkel is playing for time. Her camp is counting on the Seehofer problem resolving itself after the state elections in Bavaria. A historical defeat for the CSU is emerging there, and many will blame party leader Mr. Seehofer for it. But what follows from this is completely open. Even if the CSU were to send a new minister to Berlin, the fundamental ideological dispute remains as to whether the two sister parties – Ms. Merkel’s CDU and Mr. Seehofer’s CSU – should remain anchored in the political center or in the conservative spectrum. That is precisely what refugee policy is ultimately about.
Between the CDU/CSU fronts stands the SPD, which actually wanted to position Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz as an alternative to Merkel and suddenly appears as the chancellor’s protective guard. The Social Democrats are absorbing most of the outrage at the leadership shuffle in Mr. Seehofer’s giant ministry. Instead of celebrating the successes of their government work – the law for better daycare centers that has just been passed, or the reduction in contributions to unemployment insurance, for example – the SPD can be worn down as a buffer party. No miracle that the coalition opponents feel confirmed. The discontent of the base can quickly turn into revolt.
It’s been nearly forgotten in the meantime that the coalition agreement carries the heading “A new departure for Europe.” The hope was that a Franco-German tandem would lead Europe through uncertain times. Six months later, hardly anyone in Berlin has noticed that the reform president, Emmanuel Macron, is in serious trouble. While the German government is self-absorbed, a historic opportunity is passing. Europe’s opponents, both internal and external, are gleefully anticipating the worst.
To contact the author: koch@handelsblatt.com