German army’s special forces partly disbanded due to far-right links

Politics surrounding Germany’s armed forces – the Bundeswehr – is fiercely contested: politically, some (not least the U.S. President) are demanding a reversal of decades of cutbacks, while others view such plans with scepticism and distrust. Operationally, the forces have been much affected by severe staff and materiel shortages, as well as by corruption scandals…

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German army, intelligence agencies, and CDU party embroiled in far-right network

The elite KSK brigade of the German Army is a notoriously secretive military unit: composed of 1,000 hand-picked soldiers, it is tasked with conducting covert operations, hostage rescue abroad, and counter-terrorism interventions. In recent weeks, however, the KSK – the abbreviation stands for Kommando Spezialkräfte – has been dragged into the spotlight: after two soldiers…

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Anti-Semitism row over Muslim rappers dominates German headlines

Internationally, Germany has often been lauded for its reckoning with the Holocaust – its so-called Erinnerungskultur, or culture of remembrance.1 Whether this at times gushing praise of Germany’s historical conscience is fully warranted is another matter.2 (The right-wing populist Alternative for Germany party has, for one, always demanded that the country stop banging on about…

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German NGOs seek to coordinate and enhance their work on religious extremism

25 German non-governmental organisations active in the prevention of religiously-driven radicalisation and violence have come together to create a new coordination body. The Federal Working Committee on Religiously Motivated Extremism, founded on November 30 in Berlin, seeks to pool expertise and best practices from a range of actors engaged on the ground.1 Capacity building among…

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    Turkish-German Asl? Bayram performs Anne Frank

    Asl? Bayram was the first Miss Germany of Turkish background in 2005. In 1994 her father had been murdered by a Neo-Nazi. She took up acting with a renowned play-acting professor in Vienna and performed a play on Anne Frank that took her on a world tour. The German-speaking media paid special attention to the…

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