AfD Party is growing ever more powerful throughout country

*a sigh of relief*


Yes...

Nie grają im surmy, nie huczy im róg
A śmierć im pod stopy się miota
Lecz w pierwszym szeregu podąża na bój
Piechota, ta szara piechota.

... fair play to infantrymen.

It is good for Poland, or better still, It could be good for Poland.
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Wouldn't Germany, in tacit understanding with Poland in this scenario would support Poland on their own accord?
Also, Poland does not need to depend on NATO; if the US is willing to help with its air forces, that would be good enough.
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That is their weak spot. If they would try something, then to overthrow the regime in Minsk and take Królewiec in three days becomes imperative

Not if the AfD has a say. They have made it clear that they don't want any hostilities with Russia.


Who would no longer be able to operate from Germany.

Interesting scenario....but would the AfD ever have the power (or the will) to kick the US out???

I mean....an Ossi asking here....

Not only legally....the troops are an important economical factor, where they are stationed, have been for decades now....and Germany frankly hasn't the means if Washington would just say "no"....that all sounds abit off!

Either WW2 has not ended or the US is occupying Germany.

I have to google this...

.....I guess a "Wessi" learns about it in school, hence my questioning Tac! :)

Legally - Germany has no binding obligation to keep US forces within its territory indefinitely.

You can kick the Americans out unilaterally, and there's nothing they will be able to do about it. In some instances, you may have to provide a notice ahead of time, or instead simply refuse to renew an agreement when it expires.

Lots of countries have kicked out American forces. The Philippines, Thailand, Libya, Uzbekistan, but most famously... France!

Charles de Gaulle withdrew France from NATO's integrated military command and then demanded all foreign troops leave French soil. And they left.

The US and NATO were forced to relocate all their sh*t to Belgium and West Germany. Even after France rejoined NATO command in 2009 - no US troops returned, and there are none to this day.


Look, despite various recent events, we still live in a world of laws.

There is no circumstance under which Washington is able to just say "no". That would trigger a major diplomatic scandal, and likely cause a wave of backlash among other NATO allies. I bet everyone, from Japan to Bahrain would feel a chill, if they realized they cannot kick the Americans out even if they try.

America is free to pull out all the stops in trying to pressure you to reverse your decision, but it cannot outright refuse to comply. Then that would be what we call an "occupation" - and a major impingement on your sovereignty.

America has a big toolset it can use to "punish" you, of course. If you look at France and Turkey, you can see what America does when somebody begins to act too independently:

1) They start restricting arms sales to your country. Want an F-35? Tough luck.

2) They'll suspend intelligence sharing and any inter-military cooperation.

3) They'll pressure you diplomatically, trying to isolate you, by telling others to avoid doing business with you. They'll use the media to paint you as a freeloader, and your leadership as fundamentally irresponsible.

4) They'll support your opposition parties, giving them an international platform by hosting them in the White House and allowing them to address Congress.

5) They'll cut all your aid and grants - if any such exist.

6) They'll introduce tariffs or tear up trade deals.

7) If they are really angry - they'll start targeting your financial system.

8) If they are really, really, really angry - they'll deploy their whole covert toolset against you. Cyber strikes, psychological operations in social media, and false flags.

That's it! If you can resist all that - YOU CAN BE FREE! That's the maximum extent of what they are capable of.

So if you have the balls to stand up and leave, like De Gaulle, it is possible to do so. People have tried, and survived.

Now I am offended...

Do you recall the 2014 "revolution" in Kiev? We could buy one in Berlin, too...

I just wonder if that would be a point for the AfD?

I could imagine that the parts of West-Germany where the US troops are based, had build a close economical and even personal relationship. They aren't seen as occupiers, I believe. Being "anti" would probably don't bring new votes or gain support....

Btw, the Left and the Greens own that position already (mostly) and it isn't really the big election winner!

...because they are lunatics on other issues...

This is why Western "democracies" hate legally binding, single-subject referenda.

Right now there are 45K American personnel in Germany.

Earlier this year, if you recall, Trump was contemplating pulling out as many as 20,000 of them. In fact, at some point, he said he wants to pull US forces out of Europe entirely.

45K is a drop in the ocean for a country as rich as Germany.

This is not some Djibouti or Greenland, where a whole country can depend on a military base.

You have almost 85 million people, and a $5T GDP, and you are crying - "Oh, what will we do when US soldiers leave? How will the casinos and strip clubs continue operating? To whom will we now sell our sausages!? Why God!?"

....yeah....maybe there is still the Ossi speaking....romanticizing the West-"Amis" abit, heh:)

Doubly interesting what a true-born Wessi like Tacitus would say about that....

It is the German burger speaking!

"What about our shops?!"

Yesterday I was reading a memo which was handed out to Soviet diplomatic personnel in East Germany.

It explains some interesting differences between Russians and Germans, and why the Soviet diplomats have to respect the culture of the locals:

1) Capitalistic development has left a mark on the German psyche. A typical German emerges from amongst the petty bourgeoise. He strongly manifests the character traits of a small time shopkeeper.

2) If the clock strikes 12:00 - the German will drop everything and leave for lunch.

3) Germans do not wear "valenki" (Russian wool boots)

4) Almost all Germans have televisions, washing machines, radios, refrigerators, and gas stoves.

5) Two German phrases are provided to illustrate some points: "Befehl ist Befehl" (an order is an order), "Klein aber Mein" (small, but mine).

6) It is not viewed as polite to arrive at a queue, and ask who is last in line.

7) In the presence of a woman, you only smoke with her permission. In someone's home, you smoke only with the permission of the host. Oddly enough - it says that you cannot light a woman's cigarette with a match, if someone else had already used that match to light up.

8) German children move out of the parental home, once they become adults. Germans may go to each houses for celebrations, give each other gifts, and even plan vacations jointly - but each has his own delineated space. Parents do not interfere in the lives of their children, under any circumstances.

In case anyone is interested in reading the tweet:

x.com/egor_avinkin/status/1949592748920590402?s=46

Unfortunately it is all in Russian.

Summary is: guy's grandma and grandpa worked as diplomats in the GDR. He's going through their stuff, and finds this memo.

But we LOVED the Tschapkas! :)

I remember my Opi buying me one very nice and expensive one (I was not even school-age yet)...with dark brown, gleaming outer leather and incredible soft-feeling fur inside...I was so proud showing it off during sledging in Winter ! :)

Hach ja....*gets all DDR-nostalgic*

I'd argue that is the wrong question. Rather than "kicking" the Americans out, any German government will have to make a case to the Americans as to why staying is in the interest of the USA. All the AfD needs to do is shrug when asked what they are willing to offer the USA for a continued American presence and that's it.

I agree with that....as will most Germans, I guess. That's why I don't see the AfD actively pursue that point, she has nothing to win with it!

Maybe we can leave that point during "What If" - discussions about what would happen if the AfD would ever be part of a gov...regional or national. The being part of the West, inclusively membership of NATO and US-troops stationed in Germany etc. surely won't change so fast!

What doesn't mean that they won't try for better relations with Moscow at the same time...which still will probably make Poland very nervous....

Nothing is better than a good Russian hat.

But to get such a hat as a kid... privileged little boy you must have been.

--//-

In a similar vein, I read a formerly classified report of a commander of the Soviet Forces in Germany. In it, he discusses the difference between the Soviet and German troops under his command.

This was a most hilarious read.

Most of the time, he spends sh*tting on the Soviet Army and the Soviet soldier specifically. Point by point, explaining how the German soldier is superior.

Understand - this is written by a Soviet commander, and yet he still cannot contain his disgust with his own men. Haha!

1) Germans do not lie nearly to the same extent as our men. If you receive a statement from a German soldier, you can assume that events likely unfolded just as he described. If you receive a statement from a Soviet soldier, you should assume that the truth is the 180 degree opposite.

2) German soldiers display much more individual initiative. They don't need everything to be explained step by step.

3) Germans do not shield each other from investigation and punishment in the same way Soviet soldiers do. It's not considered a honorable to conceal someone's malfeasance.

4) German units have substantially less "missing" pieces of inventory. They don't lose stuff, don't steal it, and try to maintain it in good working condition.

5) German respect to hierarchy, and military officers specifically is supreme. At the same time, a Soviet soldier could routinely punch his commander in the face, or demonstratively avoid duties - even if this lands him in military prison.

6) Germans are much more educated than Soviet soldiers.

7) Germans are much more physically fit. Paradoxically, this still doesn't make them "tougher" than Soviet soldiers. One of the few points where the Soviet commander had something good to say, was about the seemingly infinite capacity of his soldiers to endure suffering. The Germans are still viewed as gentle, and reliant on enablers.

You forgot to write that Germans need their morning coffee to get back on their feet.

....oh my....that for sure sounds abit "rosy"! :)

But it fits somehow....there was no hate anymore between Russians and Germans, curious after such a war and it was an occupation of an enemy people after all.

Between the officials of course not, but also I don't remember growing up a hateful resistance or something like it....truly wondrous if one things about it...maybe it all ended with the "war-generation" retiring, the soldiers actively living through the war times going back home...maybe....

If one reads accounts from Poland or other Warsaw Pact countries from that time, the experiences there did sound quite abit differently!

Imagine you have spent all your life commanding Soviet Army soldiers...

Suddenly you are promoted and sent to Germany.

You are given the Rolls Royce of soldiers (former Prussians) - under your command. Of course you will notice the differences!

These are not just better soldiers than you ever had access to, but maybe the best soldiers in the world. They benefit from 250 years of non stop drill. They are Germans - that fulfill orders to the T.

Of course you will start to hate your own men, and view them as incompetents.

I can only say in my memory GDRians didn't view the russian troops as enemies (more like poor sufferers like themselves), they hated and despised their own party leaders alot more!

@Bratwurst Boy

I grew up around a guy that was a tank battalion commander in the GDR, and a guy that was a regular infantryman there.

Both had nothing but good things to say about their time in Germany.

After things fell apart, the tank commander guy went to visit his old colleagues in 1999. The infantryman travelled with me, together, to visit an old German friend around 2010 in a small village outside Leipzig.

Russians and Germans make good friends. We get each other.

I agree!

Still...'89 put us on different paths! The same man you blame for the end of the Soviets and the beginning of so much difficulties and adversity, Gorbatschow, is still admired and even revered by the Germans for that what he did (or better didn't do).
Gorbatschow let us go peacefully....I guess someone like Putin instead would had send the troops to help Honecker and Co. to stay in power....no matter the costs in blood!

Where do we go from there?

I said this before - but when we combine German discipline and manufacturing excellence with Russian resources and power - you get a combination that makes everybody lay bricks in their pants.

At 240M people we can already start spreading our shoulders.

If we add the Poles, and Hungarians - we have almost America's population.

Give us Ukraine - and you have Empire.

German discipline, Russian raw horsepower, Polish messianism, Hungarian trauma - can you imagine the toxic mix?

... and Ukrainian cruelty. We would be scary. China would have to stock up on diapers.

For practical reasons we would have to include Czechs and Slovaks too, so add Slovak treachery and Czech sense of humour to that list.

And here we are - Warsaw Pact minus Baltics, Romania, and Bulgaria - ahaha!

Bulgarians are strange. I really don't understand them. On the one hand, they seem like Russians v. 0.9, on the other hand they seem to me like Greeks and Turks.

They gave us the alphabet, the faith, and shaped our history - but now they are curious animals.

Romania - schizophrenic country that no one could give a f*ck about.

Baltics... well - it's no good to have NATO so close to our second largest city.

There will have to be some give and take, if ever such alliances are forged.

No one will get quite what they expect.

... and dying out at record speed; went down from over 9 million to 6.2 million in 30 years.

But brave and their girls are nice. Let's take them.


Poor man's France, but economically quite successful in recent years. Let's take them.


Good point. Let's take them.

Who else... Finns (brave and ingenious), Yugos (or Crow will hate us), Greeks perhaps?

Plus North Koreans, Mongolians, all the Something-stans, Armenia, Azerbadijan, Georgia. Hmm... it indeed sounds like Warsaw Pact on steroids. :)

... and if we managed to include Turkey, we would really start looking seriously scary!

They want from us Karelia and Ingria.

This would allow them to connect by land bridge with their Finno-Ugric brothers in Estonia. You would have a Greater Finland like within short historic episodes.

One problem for Finns and Estonians - the largest city in their country would be St. Petersburg.

85% of their population would be ethnically Russian.


Never lived in their entire history with Russians (though lindependent largely thanks to Russia).

They are more used to Turks, Italians, and Austrians.

I think they "like" the idea of unity with Russia, but don't understand what this would entail.


Surprisingly close to us!

I was surprised after visiting.

60%+ support us against Ukraine (it's why they don't send anything).

Super powerful cultural position of the Church - even as everyone ignores it.

Some historic memory of Russians freeing them from the Turks, and some consequent gratitude.