Thursday, 27 March 2014

Sink The Bismarck

The Free Democrats, the contemporary incarnation of a unified Germany's founding National Liberal tradition, now have no seats in the Bundestag. Not a single one.

And Germany, while not exactly supporting Russia over Crimea or Ukraine, is very definitely playing both sides of the street.

These two facts are not unrelated.

Things are not as they were.
Posted by at

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous28 March 2014 at 15:53

    Both sides of the street?

    Don't be ridiculous. Guido Westerwelle has been in Kiev stoking these protests from the start. Merkel has vowed a financial aid package. This is German eastward expansion, as it always has been.

    "The EU" has only ever been a nice word for Germany, as Greece and Cyprus will happily tell you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. David Lindsay28 March 2014 at 22:53

    Guido Westerwelle's party no longer has any seats.

    You are hopelessly out of your depth.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous28 March 2014 at 23:02

    And the flip side of that coin is that the UKIP style, AfD, sucessors to the 1950s German Party and Weimar DNVP won as many votes in the Federal Election, and the Left Party (DKP and SED heirs)won 60 of 660 seats in the Bundestag.
    However it is also Notable that the FDPs recent fall (from which I've no doubt it will recover within a decade) has not eliminated more Social-Liberalism from the political spectrum. The Green Alliance 90 bloc is still there, and no longer opposes NATO.
    As to the earlier Blogpost on Angela Merkel being able to speak fluent Russian and not English, I'd suggest that is an Abberration which due to the demise of the GDR will not be repeated by any future, FRD raised leader, who will indeed be able to speak English.

    ReplyDelete
  4. David Lindsay29 March 2014 at 19:29

    Oh, I wouldn't bet on that. They'll be able to speak English (as can she, but not as well as she speaks Russian), but they'll have illusions about any Western Alliance. And they might very well speak Russian just as well.

    The AfD may have an ancestral connection to the DNVP. In fact, I can see that. But I doubt that it would thank you for pointing that out.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous29 March 2014 at 21:12

    It does rather seem to me that the Weimar political spectrum has been resurrected.
    DKP=Left
    SPD as itself
    Pirates as Anarchist scallywags
    DDP=Greens/Alliance90
    DVP=FDP
    Zentrum=CDU
    BVP=CSU
    AfD=DNVP/KVP
    NDP=NSDAP

    ReplyDelete
  6. David Lindsay30 March 2014 at 00:47

    Zentrum=CDU is pushing it these days.

    But BVP=CSU is not a reconstruction, merely a change of name.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)