Scandals for the Baron and a Vote for More War

Victor Grossman, Berlin Bulletin No. 18

Submitted to portside by the author

The German man of the hour is Baron Karl-Theodor von
und zu Guttenberg. Actually he has eight other given
names, which modestly prohibits him from using, but the
title shows that his family traces back to 1158. He is
currently less often in his ancient castle (built 1482)
than in Berlin where he is Minister of Defense. This
handsome politician, only 40 years old, seemed to be
gradually squeezing far less colorful Angela Merkel, in
no way noble, out of her chance to remain Germanys
first woman chancellor, one with a humble East German
background at that. In popularity polls, the casual but
always well-dressed, well-groomed, suave politician
from Bavaria was already leading the race. He is
probably even further to the right than she is.

But suddenly the fan got hit, and not just once! A
series of scandals scratched the shining image of this
scion of conservative Bavarian circles. First of all,
in mid-December, he paid an unscheduled visit to the
fighting German troops in Afghanistan. What was
intended as good spinning suddenly looked far less
heroic when it turned out that Guttenberg not only took
his attractive but irrelevant wife along (also from an
ancient noble family) but also a special TV team. That
was just a bit too obvious.

Soon afterwards it was discovered that mail from those
same German troops in Afghanistan, in full defiance of
German legal rules, had been opened en route, delayed
and in some cases never reached the soldiers families.
This had been going on for three months. The culprits
have not yet been found - but are not difficult to
guess at.

Just as Guttenberg - to abbreviate his long name -
promised to look into this, it was learned that one
more German soldier in Afghanistan had been killed, but
not by a road bomb or Afghan snipers,  what most media
call counter-insurgents or terrorists, but in a
relatively safe base camp. And while it was first
announced that this had occurred while the man was
cleaning his weapon it was later reluctantly admitted
that he had been shot by a fellow soldier. Was it an
accident or the result of some stupid game, like
Russian roulette? Or worse? Guttenberg promised to look
into this as well, but only after it had become
impossible to hush up any further.

The next scandal soon followed. On the Gorch Fock,
the handsome three-masted sailing vessel used to train
navy officers, which had rounded Cape Horn and was in
Brazilian waters, the  25-year-old woman trainee Sarah
Lena Seele, was ordered to climb high up into the
rigging although she was both too short to meet the
requirements for this job and allegedly exhausted after
a very long flight to reach the ship. She fell and
died. To make matters worse, rumors circulated that the
captain had dismissed her death as just another
accident, like a car crash, and even permitted a
carnival celebration in South American waters two days
later. Other reports called him a little dictator and
it was said that some of the officers candidates were
involved in a protest mutiny.  Another woman had died
in a similar incident a few years earlier and rumors of
sex abuse were also rife.

This brought no bounty! When the scandal broke, despite
hush-hush attempts, the biggest and dirtiest newspaper
in Germany demanded that the captain be removed, and
Guttenberg, far more flustered than usual, quickly
obliged. This brought him attacks both from old marine
officers, who said he should have waited for a proper
hearing, and from opposition parties in the Bundestag,
which rejoiced at any chance to slam government parties
and their flashiest up-and-coming leader. It remains to
be seen whether such unexpected storms will prove
tougher politically for the baron than rounding Cape
Horn in the old sailing days.

These stories provided exciting headlines. But some saw
them as a distraction from a related, far more
important matter. On Friday, January 28th, the
Bundestag once again defied German majority opinion and
voted to continue the use of troops in that troublesome
war in Afghanistan. Although both political and
military leaders admit that it is a hopeless mess and a
NATO victory a very bloody illusion, and although even
the former German president admitted that economic
objectives were the main concern (a confession which
cost him his job), the ruling coalition put one more
annual extension to the vote, which meant about 5000
troops and four fighter planes killing more Afghans and
occasionally getting killed themselves. Since nearly
two thirds of the population opposed sending troops and
wanted them out, it was politically necessary to get
the opposition parties on board if at all possible. To
tempt them, or give them an alibi, the government
spokespeople proclaimed that they would start
withdrawing troops by the end of 2011, though only if
the situation warranted, it was hastily added, while a
possible final deadline of 2014 was hazily hinted at.

Although this was basically a blank check, the Social
Democratic Party, which had been involved in sending
troops there in the first place, decided to support a
government which it is now otherwise opposing
vigorously, at least in words. 105 Social Democrats
voted Ja, 8 courageous ones voted Nein, while 8
abstained.

The Greens are also an opposition party, at least
officially. Their grass roots, once adamantly anti-war,
have not been completely tamed and so, like last year,
their deputies split; 9 were in favor, 22 opposed,
while 34 took the wishy-washy path of abstention. There
were a few brave No-votes from the Christian corner, 4
to be exact, while the 86 right-wing Free Democrats all
voted to keep the troops on their risky positions along
the Hindu Kusch mountains.

As always, it was the Left Party, all 70 of those
present (6 were unable to attend), who unanimously
demanded an end to German participation. Again they
were attacked by all the others, including some Green
leaders. The final count was 419 for keeping the
soldiers in the war, 116 opposed, 43 abstaining and 44
absent. This was ten votes less for the war than in
2010 and five more No votes, no great change.

And now its time for business as usual, with the
government parties arguing how best to cut social
services without really seeming to, the Social
Democrats and Greens trying to look as if they are
really opposing cuts which they helped put in place
while they were in power, but not really putting up a
fight, and the Left, taking proper decisions in
Parliament but still trying hard to break away from
inner-party problems and conduct tough, rough 2011
election campaigns in seven of Germanys 16 states,
with the other four parties attacking it from all
directions in the eastern states where it is strong or
trying to ignore its presence in the western states
where it is young and not very strong.  The first test
will be in the city state of Hamburg on February 20,
when the Social Democrats hope to recapture leadership
and the Greens hope to join them , after sharing power
until now with the Christian Democrats. The last vote
of the busy state election will be in the city-state of
Berlin in late September. All are of great importance,
especially for the Left. Under sharp attack in general:
will it 2011 demand a dangerous political rounding of
Cape Horn in 2011 or, just perhaps, a Cape of Good
Hope?

February 1, 2011

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