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Germany Now Has More Than 1,000 Documented Child Marriages

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Germany is struggling to prevent and keep track of the over 1,000 child marriages taking place in the country.

Child marriages have not been an issue in Germany until recent years. The practice is illegal in Germany, but since the country doesn’t recognize “religious marriages,” authorities can’t do anything to stop it in most cases.

German television channel N24 claims the number of child marriages in the country now exceeds 1,000, and that the actual number is believed to be significantly higher.

An anonymous teacher told newspaper Welt am Sonntag that young girls often suddenly stop showing up to school after getting married . . .

“Many observers are afraid this will be a ‘lost generation,’” Alia Al Dalli, SOS Children’s Villages’ international director for the Middle East and North Africa Region, said in June. “Another concern is psychological trauma, as children in war situations often face a very unstable environment of displacement, abuse, trafficking, exploitation and other risks.” (Read more from “Germany Now Has More Than 1,000 Documented Child Marriages” HERE)

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Facebook Helping Germany Crack Down on Anti-Islam Speech

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German police conducted a pre-dawn raid on about 60 homes this week rounding up residents accused of posting xenophobic, racist or other “right-wing extremist” content to a private Facebook group in violation of German laws against “hate speech.”

And the crackdown, while being touted by much of the media as targeting “anti-Semitism,” appears largely focused on those who are critical of Islam and the hundreds of thousands of Muslim migrants who have flooded into Germany.

The country’s federal police agency – the Bundeskriminalamt or BKA – said in a press release it was the first nationwide use of police force to combat hate speech on the Internet.

Facebook, along with Twitter and Google/YouTube, have come under fire in some quarters for letting hate speech fester on their platforms in Germany, reported technology journalist Lisa Vaas.

In December the social media giants agreed to help the German government crack down on hateful speech. They pledged to delete certain comments from their services within 24 hours to help fight a rising tide of “online racism” directed at the country’s influx of refugees, Vaas reported. (Read more from “Facebook Helping Germany Crack Down on Anti-Islam Speech” HERE)

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Germany Said to Spy on Israeli Prime Minister’s Office

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Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) has been spying on Israel in recent years, specifically the Prime Minister’s Office, German newspaper Der Spiegel reported Saturday.

The report noted that other targets of the BND included the US State Department, the British Defense Ministry, NASA, the US Air Force, and the interior ministries of Austria and Belgium.

There were no further details on the alleged information collected from Israel, or when the reported espionage took place.

In October the German government was put on the defensive after reports surfaced that the BND spied on the United States and other allies.

Der Spiegel, public broadcaster rbb-Inforadio and the Sueddeutsche daily reported then that until the fall of 2013 the BND’s selectors included targets belonging to the United States and other European countries. (Read more from “Germany Said to Spy on Israeli Prime Minister’s Office” HERE)

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Re-Print of Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ Unleashes Row in Germany

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For the first time since Hitler’s death, Germany is publishing the Nazi leader’s political treatise “Mein Kampf”, unleashing a highly charged row over whether the text is an inflammatory racist diatribe or a useful educational tool.

The 70-year copyright on the text, written by Hitler between 1924-1926 and banned by the Allies at the end of World War Two, expires at the end of the year, opening the way for a critical edition with explanatory sections and some 3,500 annotations.

In January the 2,000 page, two-volume work will go on sale after about three years of labor by scholars at Munich’s Institute for Contemporary History.

Hitler wrote most of the first, highly autobiographical, volume while incarcerated in Landsberg prison after his failed Munich coup attempt in 1923. After his release, he wrote much of the second volume at his mountain retreat near Berchtesgaden.

In the book, a mix of personal experience and political ideology, he outlined his strategy. A bestseller after he became chancellor in 1933, it had by 1945 sold 12 million copies and been translated into 18 languages. (Read more from “Re-Print of Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ Unleashes Row in Germany” HERE)

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Woman Randomly Bursts Into Flames on Park Bench in Germany

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A woman was left fighting for her life after apparently bursting into flames on a park bench in Germany.

According to the Flensburger Tagesblatt and The Local, fire and smoke emerged from the woman, who is believed to be in her 40s and originally from Mauritius, as she sat on a bench in Flensburg, northern Germany.

She has reportedly been left severely burned, despite the best efforts of a passer-by who tried to beating out the blaze with his jacket.

Witnesses at the scene told local media the woman “did not say anything” as the flames engulfed her.

She was taken to hospital and has since been transferred to a specialist burns unit in Lübeck, where she is said to be in a critical condition. (Read more from “Woman Randomly Bursts Into Flames on Park Bench in Germany” HERE)

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German Woman, 91, Charged in 260,000 Auschwitz Deaths

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RTR4XLJX-1German prosecutors have charged a 91-year-old woman with playing a role in the deaths of 260,000 Jews at the infamous Auschwitz death camp.

The unidentified woman, who authorities say served as member of the Nazi SS is accused of serving as a radio operator for the camp commandant from April to July 1944, The Times of Israel reports. During that time, huge numbers of Hungarian Jews were murdered in gas chambers.

Prosecutors argue that she can be charged as an accessory because she aided in the operation of the death camp. Heinz Doellel, a spokesman for the prosecutor, said there are no indications the woman is unfit for trial, though a court likely won’t decide on whether to proceed with the case until next year.

The case is the latest in a series of attempts by Germany to bring surviving Holocaust perpetrators to justice. Only 50 of the 6,500 former SS members who served at Auschwitz have been convicted in Germany, as the courts long claimed only senior Nazi leadership could be held responsible for Holocaust crimes, The Telegraph reports.

Earlier this year, a 94-year-old man known as the “bookkeeper of Auschwitz” was incarcerated under similar circumstances. Prosecutors argued Oskar Groenig’s presence when Jews entered the camp created a threatening impression, the BBC says. (Read more from “German Woman, 91, Charged in 260,000 Auschwitz Deaths” HERE)

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EU Faces Migrant Crisis of ‘Biblical Proportions’ as Germany Registers 3,500 New Refugees in Just One Day [+video]

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Migrants-police-of_3425550nBy Harriet Alexander and James Rothwell. A record 3,500 migrant arrivals have been registered in a southern border region with Austria since Monday morning, German federal police have said.

The arrivals have spiked as passenger trains, each packed with hundreds of refugees, headed from Hungary through Austria into Germany’s southern Bavaria state, a spokesman said Tuesday.

(skip forward to 11:30 in the below video to listen to an in-depth discussion of Europe’s immigration crisis)

It was the highest number recorded by any of Germany’s 10 federal police districts since the start of the migrant crisis that is expected to bring 800,000 newcomers to Europe’s top economy this year.

The numbers were registered by the Munich police district, which stretches from the Bavarian state capital down to the Austrian border, between 0600 GMT Monday and 1230 GMT Tuesday, the spokesman told AFP. (Read more from “EU Faces Migrant Crisis of ‘Biblical Proportions’ as Germany Registers 3,500 New Refugees in Just One Day” HERE)

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Canada Officially Enters Recession

By Michel Comte. Reeling from low oil prices, Canada fell into a recession in the first half of the year, government data confirmed Tuesday, putting Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper on the defensive in the run-up to October elections.

According to Statistics Canada, the economy contracted 0.5 percent in the second quarter after retreating 0.8 percent in the previous three months.

It is Canada’s second recession in seven years and it is the only Group of Seven nation in economic retreat. The figures are the weakest since the 2008 global financial crisis.

The data reflects fears about the health of the global economy as more gloomy evidence emerged of a slowdown in China, a main engine of growth worldwide.

Harper, whose Tories are trailing their rivals in opinion polls ahead of the October 19 election, blamed the overseas turmoil for Canada’s woes, and emphasized an expansion in the economy in June. (Read more from this story HERE)

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World’s Oldest Message in a Bottle Washes up in Germany After 108 Years at Sea

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message-in-a-bottl_3413992bA message in a bottle thrown into the sea 108 years ago by British scientists has been discovered washed up on a beach in Germany.

It is believed to be the oldest message-in-a-bottle ever found.

Marianne Winkler, a retired post office worker, found the message from the past while on holiday with her husband on the North Sea island of Amrum.

Mrs Winkler found the bottle in April, but was shy of publicity and the full story has only now emerged.

“It’s always a joy when some one finds a message-in-a-bottle on the beach,” she told the Amrum News, a local website. (Read more from “World’s Oldest Message in a Bottle Washes up in Germany After 108 Years at Sea” HERE)

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Police Warn of Criminally-Controlled No-Go Zones in Germany

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Spiraling levels of violent crime perpetrated by immigrants from the Middle East and the Balkans are turning parts of Duisburg, a key German industrial city, into “areas of lawlessness” — areas that are becoming de facto “no-go” zones for police, according to a confidential police report that was leaked to the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel.

The report, produced by the police headquarters of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany (and also the state with the largest Muslim population in Germany), warns that the government is losing control over problem neighborhoods and that the ability of police to maintain public order “cannot be guaranteed over the long term.”

Duisburg, which has a total population of around 500,000, is home to an estimated 60,000 mostly Turkish Muslims, making it one of the most Islamized cities in Germany. In recent years, however, thousands of Bulgarians and Romanians (including Sinti and Roma “gypsies”) have flocked to Duisburg, creating a volatile ethno-religious cauldron . . .

The leak of the document comes amid a spike in attacks on police by mobs of immigrants, not only in Duisburg, but across the country . . .

Germany is now home to the largest number of immigrants (8.2 million) of any member state of the European Union. Germany also has the second-largest Muslim population (5 million) in the EU. (Read more from “Police Warn of No-Go Zones in Germany” HERE)

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Obama Administration Spied on German Media as Well as Its Government

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An investigation by the German parliament is raising questions on whether the Obama administration not only spied on journalists in that country, but interfered in the exercise of the free press under the guise of U.S. national security.

On Thursday, Germany’s intelligence coordinator, Günter Heiss, testified before a parliamentary investigative committee of the German parliament, the Bundestag, focused on the activities of the U.S. National Security Agency’s spying on Germany and the knowledge and/or role of German intelligence, the Bundesnachrichtendienst or BND.

That the NSA was spying on German officials is not new, though it continues to upset free press advocates and those with memories of repressive governments both Communist and Nazi. That the NSA was spying on German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone was first reported by German magazine Der Spiegel in 2013 with information gleaned from the stolen then leaked files of Edward Snowden.

On Thursday, WikiLeaks released more information, presumably from that surveillance, with Merkel said “professed to be at a loss” over the Greek financial crisis, and information suggesting that the NSA was spying on German ministers in addition to Merkel. U.S. ambassador to Germany, John Emerson, was summoned to meet with the Chancellery chief of staff Peter Altmaier to discuss the news . . .

CNN has learned that in early Summer 2011, the CIA station chief in Berlin (also representing the NSA at the U.S. Embassy) met with Heiss, and his assistant, Guido Müller. The CIA station chief urged the two men to take action against Heiss’ deputy, Hans-Josef Vorbeck, whom he said was leaking classified information to journalists. (Read more from “Obama Administration Spied on German Media as Well as Its Government” HERE)

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