Of Rapprochement?

Despite all differences, there are echoes and parallels between Germany and the USA

- Victor Grossman

The American nightmare, tight-lipped and pouting, was finally forced to gallop off to its luxurious stable in Florida. Almost every European joined in “Hurrah!” cheers as it watched him go! In Germany, national elections in September 2021 will also be featuring the departure, in this case after sixteen years, of a very different kind of leader, Angela Merkel. The results are still nine months away, but we all know how much can develop in just nine months!

And despite all the differences, there are echoes and parallels between Germany and the USA. But this year will be marked not only by a national election on September 26; there will be six state elections as well — and also in Berlin on that same date. All the parties are jockeying for voters and the SPD, whose present leader, the city-state’s mayor, wants to move upward into national politics, is worried about the party’s low poll ratings. The current interior minister (here called “senator”) is SPD man Andreas Geisel and is thus in charge of the police.

With hopes to win votes from some folks, those lovers of “law and order”, a show of violence is always seen as appropriate, and not only in the USA! Last October Geisel sent in over 2,000 cops, also with visors, shin guards, and even an armoured military vehicle, to forcefully remove a few dozen women from a building they’d lived in for years in an “anarcha-queerfeminist” commune. The victorious police were called in at the behest of shady foreign owner-speculators who prefer wealthier customers. And to win votes.