12 July 2026: Germany: 5 Stories

 1.  WELT piece this AM....wave of German hospital bankruptcies going on.

At present pace, I might suggest that a full-blown Bundestag 'emergency' will occur by early 2027.

2.   Between Dusseldorf and Koln....Bahn railway sabotage noted....left-wing group claims credit.

Group noted....."Kommando Angry Birds."

The group says....."mass death caused by progress" as their motive.  BS chatter if you ask me....probably a group of two nutcases.

3.  100 folks in Germany for June...drowned....mostly all males....highest rate in almost 30 years.

4.  Noted on N-TV new....near one-third of German retirees....get only 900 Euro or less on monthly pension.

5.  AfD....regionally (SSaxony-Anhalt)....published their 10 key points to 'push' upon winning in the state election (within 90 days):

- Cancel public broadcasting, at least for their state....which might mean no TV tax (would be court-challenged).

- More deportations (not explained HOW).

- Work requirement for asylum seekers....this gets brought up as a common theme....how they would force the issue, unknown.

- Cut funding for foundations & democracy projects.

- Driver's license subsidy for apprentices (where funding would come from, unknown)

- Special classes (not explained). 

- Security guards at schools (where funding would come from....unknown).

- Only use of the German National flag....instead of rainbow flag

-  Some topic called German-thinking.....replacing Modern-thinking (not explained). 

- Reduce ministries (easily done, if you combined several into one).

If you ask me....several of these probably would have 60-plus percent of folks in support of.  Lot revolving around extra funding.

Two Heat-Wave Stories

 First, France launched a national authority 'emergency'.

Basically....if you are senior citizen or homeless guy/gal....the local city authority is ordered to 'provide' you cooling comfort...meaning public buildings (that are cooled) must drag out chairs and keep you cooled throughout the afternoons.

I thought over this....here in my village....there's no public building with cooling.  In Wiesbaden....there might be twenty-odd public structures with some kind of cooling.  In France?  Unknown.

Second story....spokesperson for the German Green Party came up and said there needs to be a national 'moment' for the Germans dead from the June heat-wave. 

They aren't saying a monument or statue....just some 30-second remembrance.

What the media says for a number?  5,000 is thrown around....saying the heat killed them.  I won't vouch for the number or against it....just that it's a nice round number, and that usually means bogus facts.

If I were the SPD....I'd  jump on this and have a statue of some type....symbolic of the sun radiating.  

Juvenile Story

 This past week in Germany...changes occurred.

In the future.....the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (their version of the FBI)....will be able to recruit juveniles/minors (starting at age 16)....as informants. 

I paused over reading this....it's a short piece and not really worth much discussion.

What is funny.....you go and trust/rely upon the 16/17 year old....but then you say they are lacking maturity for social media....but you trust them to be secret agents/spies.

This new spy-crew needed to spy upon right-wing elements?  I would imagine so.

You can imagine the sales-pitch....be a spy for the German nation. 

Q-and-A

 1. Hostage situation in Berlin?

Somewhere around 10 PM.....as the REWE grocery was to close....some nutcase took a clerk hostage.  As of 7 AM....situation continues.

Odd factor?  Well....this is in the Marienfelde area (near Tempelhof).....away from urbanized Berlin.

2.  Mayor Wegner of Berlin (CDU guy) down-and-out?

For the upcoming election, Wegner is replaced by a new candidate for the party (Evers).

Back in January....there was the terror-attack on the city electrical grid....affecting about 10-percent of the Berlin area. For several days....power was off (in cold weather).

Wegner was 'gone' for about12 hours....with a comment that he was on a 'tennis' lesson.  It was a odd explanation, and news folks suggested he was on some other 'business'.  

A History Story

I live about 25 minutes away from Idstein, Germany.  There are three things which the town is known for.  The first....I'll skip for another day.  The second, the witch trials between February 1676 and March 1677 (where 43 folks were executed for demon stuff), and finally....the traffic circles (roughly 35 of them).  Two of the topics...I'll blog another day.

The witch business?  By the end, they had executed 35 women and 8 guys.

What triggered the witch business?  

Most folks agree that religious zeal with fear of heresy started it.  There were ongoing tension between the Catholics and Protestants....each needing angle to get public support,  and paranoia/demonic influences help to get things going. 

I should add...witchcraft was seen as as a direct threat to Christian order. Folks had started to engineer sermons and religious texts....talking up the agents of Satan (the witches).

Crop failures, famines, and the aftermath of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648)?  Over the years....they added up.  The area?  I won't say it was poverty-stricken....but poor harvests came up occasionally. 

Legal and Judicial woes?  The Carolina Code of 1532 (a legal code) was a instrument used by the Holy Roman Empire, an it permitted legal cases for witchcraft.  You could make the case that it was 'due-process' at the time.

Mass Hysteria?  Well....after you got torture to lead onto confessions...it was a  self-perpetuating cycle. 

Why it just stopped?  Mostly judicial exhaustion, locals getting anti-demonic, and oddly enough....the local count’s satisfaction that the “demon-threat” had been eradicated.

Why a ratio of 4 women for each guy....executed?  I've always speculated that the guys accused...probably had a better alibi to tell, thus lessening the potential to be found guilty.  Course, it could be that more women are demonic in nature....than guys.

The odd thing that it's the only community around....that has a history like that?  Yeah, it's a odd note.  

German Court Story

 I'll try to make this brief...coming out of the Stuttgarter Zeitung (rather long story):  

Older (mid-50s) German gal.....she is a gynecologist by trade...goes to  massage studio.  Asks for a massage....somewhere in this process....younger guy (20 years old....nationality not German)....penetrates her with two fingers (nothing else).

Yeah....that part she didn't ask for, and it's a basic rape....she goes to the police same day.

So it comes out...in reality....he has no training....no certificate.  How he got hired....unknown, and left for you to imagine.

This was back at the end of 2024.

Case recently came up....months later...guilty....2.5 years in prison.

His lawyer challenges this.

What occurs....the new court hears evidence (recently) that he lacks maturity to grasp what he did was wrong....so they throw out the bulk of the 2.5 years.

How?  Well....they applied juvenile code....not adult code....saying he wasn't really able to grasp the wrong committed.

I paused over this....three or four times.  

Cops and prosecutor did what they felt was the right-job...right charges....right ending.

Judge effort?  Well....it makes you now wonder....everyone you meet on the street....even if they look 18, 20, 25, 30 or even 45.....if they haven't reached maturity yet.....can you assume anything?

Then I pondered....after this guy exits jail.....will he even have maturity in Germany at this point....to work and survive in this atmosphere.

Yeah...pretty confusing.

The Round-About Rule

 Back in 1978, when I first came to Germany....there was this slight mention of round-abouts (traffic circles) in the German driver's training episode.  The instructor spent about five minutes going through the thrill of traffic circles, and there were probably one single question on the 100-item test relating to the circle.

For two years....around the Frankfurt region....on the rare times that I did drive beyond the base....I never encountered a single round-about.

1984 to 1986?  On my second tour?  I probably encountered about twenty round-abouts.  

From 1993 on?  It was a hit-and-miss thing....you might go a whole year and never see or experience a single one.  Sometimes you'd wander into some town and go through eight in a single day.  

I live about six miles from a small German town (12,000 residents) that has around forty-five round-abouts.  In my local city of Wiesbaden?  There might be ten in the entire city.

Lately, the cops are onto enforcing the round-about rule.....you MUST signal as you enter, and exit the round-about.  Failure to signal?  Ten Euro fine.  If you enter and go LEFT (instead of right)?  That's a 35 Euro fine.  If you park inside of the round-about (there's never room for this anyway)....it's a fifty Euro fine.

Where did round-abouts start?  Well....most folks argue in the UK....in the mid-1950s.  Some argue that the French started this in 1778.....in central Paris.  Some Germans will argue it was in Gorlitz....right around 1900.  

At some point after 2000, Ramstein (the base) went to the circles......building around twenty of them.  With the gate renovations in the past five years....there's probably another dozen thats been added.  

I'm not anti-round-about....but I'm not pro-round-about either.  

My negativity intensifies mostly when you have a two-lane (particularly if you go to a 3-lane round-about).  Your intensity of concentration bumps up a notch or two....with two lanes, and how you exit (or if you make a second or third circle....trying to get to the right lane for exit purposes).  

Around five or six years ago....there was a German story from my region....older couple (guy/gal were in their 80s) who'd planned a grocery trip....to a town that they didn't typically visit.  It's safe to say that guy driving probably didn't have full concentration of where they were going, or knew that four traffic circles were in the route.  At some point about six hours into a 45-minute trip....he pulled into a gas station and admitted he was 'stone-cold-lost' and needed some help to find his way back home.  He'd taken an exit too early, and hit another circle later that just further complicated matters (bringing him at least sixty kilometers away from his intended target).  

The intensity of building more traffic circles?  That's the rather odd thing.  If I got back to my old village around Kaiserslautern/Ramstein.....there's probably over two-hundred round-abouts which now exist.....where in the 1993 period....there were just two.  At the pace of things?  I would suggest in another decade, that a minimum of four-hundred round-abouts will exist in that one single region.  

Heat Realities

 Today, my German valley will peak at 30 C (86 F).  For me....without the AC running (just 3  fans)....I don't consider it a big deal.

32 C (90 F)?  It starts to reach a  point.....where I say it's warm.

34 C (93 F)?  That's where the windows are shut....the AC runs in one room....all six fans are running.

But is 93 F really HOT, or just mildly warm?

I spent 3 years in Panama, and followed that with four in Arizona....with one day reaching 47 C (117 F).

I'm just not sitting much within the German reality of a HEAT-WAVE.