We should note right at the start:  Germany is still one of the leading industrial nations of the world—and it remains the European heavyweight,  its output forms some 20% of EU industrial production.

But the story now told is:  it’s all lies and make-believe!  In reality Germany has come to the end of the road:  the cupboard is bare;  we’re poor, with not a farthing to feed the people.  

You don’t believe a word of this?!  Then observe Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s summing up the situation when addressing the German Parliament:

“We are not longer able to finance the welfare state in its present form:  it is no longer affordable in the light of our present economic performance.”  

The Federal Chancellor is lying—his remarks form the beginning of a Government campaign of lies directed against the welfare state.  While it is true that there has been a big increase in state expenditure on the welfare state, there has also been growth in the Gross Domestic Product from 2.13 billion Euro in 2000 to 4.33 billion Euro in 2024!

In this context it must be noted that, under Articles 20 and 28 of the Federal Constitution, Germany is defined as a welfare state, which must advance social justice and provide for the social security of its citizens.  The welfare state cannot simply be abolished, as our law-abiding Chancellor seems to imagine!

The welfare state encompasses, amongst other things:  legal provision of insurance for Pensioners, for Unemployed, as well as for long-term Health care.  And there is also social provision for Child-care, Parent-care, Housing, Social Security, and Social Assistance.

It is not such expenditures which threaten to drain the Federal Budget, but the boundless re-armament  policy of current German Governments.

Here is an example:  scarcely had the Chancellor announced the social provision cut-backs than Armin Papperger, the boss of Rheinmetall—the biggest of the German arms manufacturers—offered the Government an arms-package of munitions, helicopters, and armoured vehicles (chained and wheeled) costing in the region of 42 billion Euros.  

And, citing national security, the German Government raised the prospect of an imminent contract with Rheinmetall.  

Please note:  this Defence Contract for 42 billion Euros has been counter-posed to the Social Security outgoings of 30 billion Euros for our citizens.  These sums are intended to secure a decent standard of living for those unable to afford it on their current incomes.  In fact 5.4 million citizens currently receive this allowance.

The Dispute Over Welfare

We are raising this issue of Social Security payments because the Government and the media are currently focussing public discussion entirely on abuse of the welfare payments system—that is their aim:  this populist move is aimed at diverting attention from re-armament delusions:  and it is effective.

There is no official mention of the effect of cutbacks on the five billion people in receipt of the Citizen’s Allowance:  these include the unemployed, the aged, and some 1.2 billion children of poor families—as well as over a million refugees from Ukraine, who were promised the asylum allowance with no red tape and no time limit.

These people are now bad-mouthed as lazy parasites, living off the rest of society.

Now the story is that these Social Security payments—and the copious other payments associated with the welfare state—can no longer be carried by the German economy—which is to say by the third richest nation!!

The one and only thing which can secure the future viability of the German economy are “severe cut-backs and reductions”!

This outrageous propaganda by the Government and by the media, which targets social security payments and the welfare state, has virtually silenced public debate about, and any protest against, increased German armament spending and war preparations.

While it would be nice to take a break from reporting about war and re-armament, about the dismantling of social welfare provision, and about the promotion of Russia-Phobia, and to say something about Germany in its diversity and beauty—about the wonderful German Baltic, about the Alps, or the Black Forest, about the Rhine and the Moselle, about Thuringia, about the Ore Mountains [Erzgebirge], or my dear Mecklenburg region and much else—that is hard to do as things are.

New Start-ups In Germany

In mid-September a quick glance at the media revealed something novel—which used English words—“Resilience Factories Startups”—raising my curiosity:  this was something different.

But I was badly misled—it was Re-Armament again!  Two new re-armament undertakings in 2022 were now forming a strategic partnership in respect of their German operations with the aim of:  “Expansion of AI-based warfare”.  These were the Helsing Company (which develops AI for tanks, fighter jets, submarines—and is currently building a factory in England to make underwater drones—and the Arx Robotnics company, which makes unmanned military vehicles, including the mini-tank, Gereon, as well as creating software for networking weapon systems.  (Both companies also operate in England.  But more so in the Ukraine where they are able to test their prototypes under battle conditions.)

It goes without saying that these ‘armaments capitalists’ have their eye on the seductive Federal German “Special Fund” of some 100 billion Euros.  Helsing and Arx Robotnics are role-models for the new German Armaments Startups, which have established “European-centred or German supply chains”, with no US participation.  We will come back to this matter in future reports.

Militarisation Of The Civil Society

For quite a while, and sotto voce, there have been reports about the drawing in of civilian logistical companies into the war planning of the Federal Armed Forces.  The military has cast its eye on the aircraft company, Lufthansa, whose pilots—in the event of war with Russia—are to undertake the transport of NATO soldiers to the Eastern Front.

In this context it emerges that Lufthansa has taken part in the training of military cargo-pilots since the 1960s.  Furthermore the corporate division, Lufthansa Technik Defense will in future service and repair military helicopters and naval gliders—thereby incidentally revealing that the civilian airline Lufthansa has become a defence contractor!

However the military does not wish to restrict cooperation to the field of aviation:  it has set its sights on rail travel as well.  German Federal Railways have already pledged themselves to hold flatbed railway carriages for the transport of tanks in readiness.  In addition, the company pledges itself to facilitate the conversion of carriages for transport of the wounded.

Federal Forces:  Excursion To Greenland

Around the third week in September, Denmark finished a staged ten-day war exercise in Greenland, called Arctic Light 2025, in which 550 soldiers from several European NATO-States participated.  Naturally the German Bundeswehr took part.  The object was to test this Danish island against threats of any kind.

And the German politician, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, Chairperson of the EU Defence Committee, and one of the leading war-mongers in Germany, regarded a Federal Forces intervention in Greenland as desirable—NATO must not yield the island to President Trump, for Germany too has interests there:  according to Ms S-Z.

Quadriga 2025

And, as we are considering the proximity of war, we must mention the most recent NATO Baltic Sea manoeuvre:  Quadriga 2025:  80,000 soldiers from 14 states with Baltic coastlines, along with 40 military vessels, 17 aircraft and 1,800 vehicles were summoned to show what’s what (wo der Hammer hängt, an old German proverb).

Rostock-Warnemünde was the logistical hub of the manoeuvre.  To describe just one part of the manoeuvre:  Tank-Brigade 37, stationed in the Federal State of Saxony, was moved to Warnemünde on the Baltic, then being shipped on private seacraft (!!) to Klaipeda in Lithuania, to which they had been invited to be part of the military manoevres—this was the exercise. 

The Baltic is regarded by NATO as the hub of a possible Eastern Front against Russia at some point.  In NATO’s view the Baltic is the—

“…indestructible maritime Autobahn for NATO, running across from the east coast of the USA to Finland and the Baltic area”.

The Massacre Of Nemencine

Now that we are concerned with Lithuania, a word has to be said about the German/Israel relationship.

A lot has been written about the future Lithuanian Brigade of the German Army:  but less has been said about the siting of the Brigade in Rukla and Runinka.

The two locations are two to three kilometers from the town of Nemencine where, in the Autumn of 1941, German forces and Lithuanian nationalists massacred Jewish inhabitants of the town.  Only a handful of Jews were able to escape the massacre.  In the upshot, some 200,000 Lithuanian Jews fell victim to German anti-Semitism.  

Neither the Berlin Government nor the Federal Armed Forces have shown any sign of bringing this Nazi-German massacre in neighbouring Nemencine to the attention of some 5,000 soldiers of the Lithuanian Brigade, or to memorialise the Victims of the Holocaust on the site.

Herbert Remmel