In light of the current American administration’s rapprochement with the Muslim Brotherhood, it is hardly surprising that many observers would regard a recent book by former Wall Street Journal reporter Ian Johnson as, in effect, the book of the hour. Bearing the sensational title A Mosque in Munich: Nazis, the CIA, and the Rise of [...]
In his memoirs, Michael von Wedel, a former agent at Germany’s Federal Bureau for Criminal Investigations (BKA), recalls the frantic activity at the agency following the 9/11 attacks. “…All the investigations, dragnets and other measures that were now gearing up,” he writes, “were accompanied by a certain shame and collective bad conscience concerning the fact [...]
“Hamburg is always being mentioned in connection with September 11, 2001, and for this reason we feel we have a special responsibility to support the U.S.A. in this case.” This is what Kristin Breuer, a spokesperson for the Hamburg municipal government, told Germany’s ARD public television after it was announced that two Guantánamo detainees who [...]
The boisterous run-up to the European parliament vote last month leaves no doubt about the leading role played by German MEPs of all political persuasions in killing the EU-US SWIFT agreement on bank-data sharing for counter-terror purposes. In light of the recent purchase by German tax authorities of stolen Swiss bank data, the German opposition [...]
The German Constitutional Court’s overturning of a law on the retention of telecommunications data will undoubtedly burnish its reputation as protector of the private sphere. But while Germany thus defies an EU directive that requires telecommunications and IT firms to save basic framework data in the interest of facilitating counterterror investigations, it makes a remarkably regular [...]
The Berlin International Film Festival — or “Berlinale” — came to a close last Sunday with the “Golden Bear” for best film going to the Turkish film Bal [Honey] and the “Silver Bear” for best director going to none other than Roman Polanski for his new political thriller The Ghost Writer. Writing in the German [...]
From an American perspective, it might be thought that European “leftists” brought down the SWIFT agreement, which would have permitted American investigators to continue inspecting selected European bank transfer data as part of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP). But a review of events leading up to last week’s European parliament vote shows that it [...]
Last month, the Domestic Affairs Committee of the German Bundestag announced that it will hold inquiries into an alleged CIA plan to kill the Hamburg resident Mamoun Darkazanli. But as the German journalist Stefan Frank points out, the Bundestag might do better to hold hearings into the activities of the supposedly intended “victim” himself. For [...]
The appearance of a purported Al-Qaeda video message threatening Germany has been widely reported. What has been less reported, however, are the profuse words of thanks to Germany with which the video begins. See my new article on Pajamas Media here.
“But all the investigations, dragnets and other measures that were now gearing up were accompanied by a certain shame and collective bad conscience concerning the fact that the biggest terrorist attack in modern history had been planned by Mohammad Atta and his Hamburg Cell precisely on German soil.” This is how Michael von Wedel, a [...]
