German and Austrian Culture and Words ( to run away but also having fun with it before )

[Silent_Water]

About one hour ago, the German Foreign Minister or Secretary of State, Heiko Maas (1st of the following 2 pictures) mentioned in a press conference for the first time, how many Afghan helpers were / are already transferred to Germany - 1.600 - and Germany will try to transfer many more of our Afghan helpers and also all their family members to Germany: at least 10.000 persons, a number which was also mentioned before by Chancellor Merkel.
According to his words - and I heard this for the first time - Germany is also working closely together with partners in Turkey (!) and in the US-Military to get all these people as secret as possible to Germany.



And again, I am curious, how they will do that, because there are only three German military planes with German soldiers on their way to Kabul and none of them has landed there up to now. Maybe, this rescue operation will one day be the story for a Hollywood movie ...

 

[Silent_Water]

Isn't it strange how history sometimes repeats itself?
I am old enough to remember "Ahmad Shah Massoud", also called "The Lion from the Panjshir Valley" or "The Leader of the Northern Alliance".
Massoud always warned of the Taliban and also of Osama bin Laden. Massoud was one of the most successful resistance leaders against the Russians and later against the Taliban. The Panjshir Valley is inhabited by ethnic Tajshiks and this valley with its very steep mountains was never conquered by Russians nor later by the Taliban who are mostly ethnic Pashtuns.

Ahmad Shah Massoud was murdered two days before "NineEleven" by suicide attackers most probably ordered by Osama bin Laden himself who wanted to show the Taliban, that he and his fanatic suicide murderers can solve every problem of the Taliban like the killing of their most famous enemy inside Afghanistan.

Ahmad Shah Massoud - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Panjishir: As Afghan 'Caretaker Prez' Visits Region, A Look at What Makes it the Hotbed of Taliban Resistance

Paris honours assassinated Afghan rebel leader

Paris has honoured Ahmad Shah Massoud with a plaque that recognises him as a hero of Afghanistan.

www.euronews.com

And now, his son, Ahmad Massoud, is building up a new resistance army against the Taliban - together with the former defense minister of Afghanistan. The army of Ahmad Shah Massoud might be back again in a few weeks because the former defense minister is said to have taken all his ethnic supporters from the Afghan army with tanks and in a long military convoy into the Panjshir Valley.

Both say: "The Taliban are murderous vandals who killed too many of our people. Now, they are playing to be sheep in order to get money from supporters from abroad, but they are and they will always be wolves with their religious fanatics. Listen better to them! They say, they want peace and Islam is a peaceful religion but in the same sentence they often say, their 'Jihad' will only end when all the world is as 'religious' as they are! They will support jihadists and terrorists around the world when they are really in power and the war against them will never end!"

 

[Jon Smithie]

I was going to ask about a German TV series I binge watched lately called "Der Tatortreiniger," a series I thoroughly enjoyed, but I must admit after what's happened in Afghanistan and reading the above messages, I'm just not in the mood.

Isn't it strange how history sometimes repeats itself?

I'm an American. I don't understand how we could have let this happen again. The collapse of Vietnam, Iraq, the abandonment of our Kurdish allies, twice, now this. It's as though we in the U.S. simply refuse to learn from history. We are the biggest, dumbest kid in the school yard, talking shit and flailing around. I'm just appalled.

 

[Silent_Water]

But again something completely different, because my mother just wanted me today to search for the following comedy sketch of Peter Frankenfeld who probably was the greatest German postwar TV entertainer and comedian:

Peter Frankenfeld - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In this classical and famous sketch, he speaks without problems and without pausing all the most famous German dialects which still existed in that time and all Germans said: "This is really funny and almost incredible because these dialects sound perfect even for us German dialect speakers"!

Today, this would no more be possible because two of the dialects most probably do not exist any more and even the map behind him from 1973 would today probably lead to diplomatic problems with some politicians, especially the East-Prussian dialect with Russian politicians.
But as entertaining element, this "weather forecast" in different dialects was unique in Germany almost "in eternity" and this is an excerpt from a entertaining show in the late 1990's showing comedian classics from the early 1970's:

 

[Silent_Water]

According to German news, this German General is now coordinating the rescue mission for Germany at the airport of Kabul but he also says it is an almost impossble mission, because German soldiers are now partly beyond the NATO partner's position at the airport in the arriving crowds next to Taliban fighters, trying to identify persons outside the airport who worked for Germany or the NATO partners, asking them for identifying papers which could also endanger their lifes when the Taliban see these papers.



It is really an absurd situation no German soldier ever could have imagined:

This NATO is said to be the most powerful military alliance of the world and now they are hoping that their Taliban enemies are letting the NATO helpers through their lines into the airport.

In other words: NATO soldiers are relying on the help of their worst enemies, begging them to let some people go which could also be killed by them right in this place.
I cannot remember any historical example for something like this.

(Mhm, OK, maybe more than 200 years ago, when Napoleon's war in Egypt failed, British warships were bringing home French soldiers and scientists back to France for their honorable promise not to fight again together with Napoleon against Great Britain. But these were times very long ago when we Europeans were still correctly declaring wars and killing ourselves in a more "civilized honorable manner" than today. - Mhm, sorry, I start to be cynical when I see such pictures in the news of today.)

The next "funny thing" now is, that I tend to believe most of the words which the Pakistani president is saying here in the next video but I also think that he does by far not know everything what his military or the secret services of his country are doing because they themselves are working against each other because of the different ethnic tribes and backgrounds which formed them.
There are living more Pashtuns in Pakistan than in Afghanistan and certainly, most of them would support the mostly Pashtuni Taliban but inside Pakistan, the Pashtuns are again a minority which is suspiciously observed by Pakistani secret services for their partly support of extremist terrorists - made responsible for many suicide attacks also inside Pakistan.
This is one of the reasons why Pakistan is officially always condemning US-American drone attacks on terrorists inside Pakistan as "aggressive and unfriendly acts" while their secret services often deliver the coordinates for these attacks to the US Air Force. So they get rid of their own terrorist enemies inside Pakistan on the one hand and can on the other hand blame the US and claim they have nothing to do with foreign attacks on Pakistani ground:

And according to Indian news, India seems to be very supportive again for the new rebels in the Panjshir Valley - maybe also just for annoying Pakistan, which is seen by India as traditional enemy. I am afraid, the wars in Afghanistan are far from over:

 

[Silent_Water]

The German military seemed to have this attitude throughout all centuries that "when we go away or when we go down, we will try to do it with 'fliegenden Fahnen' (= flying flags) in order to be remembered."

The above mentioned General Arlt ordered two helicopters from Germany to support his mission in Afghanistan and they are already inside two transport planes on the way to Afghanistan.

Probably these or similar ones:

Bundeswehr will Hubschrauber für Evakuierung nach Kabul schicken – Augen geradeaus!

augengeradeaus.net

It will be interesting to see how, when and where they fly in order to save our helpers and what the Taliban will say to the German helicopters over their heads ...

 

[Loxuru]

The German military seemed to have this attitude throughout all centuries that "when we go away or when we go down, we will try to do it with 'fliegenden Fahnen' (= flying flags) in order to be remembered."

German military NEVER goes away or down!

They straighten the frontline for good efficiency!

 

[Silent_Water]

Yeah, you are correct as always because I remember a story from some old-fashioned history books when "our" German military straightened the frontline so short that only one bunker with a so-called "GröFaZ" (= cynical-satirical abbreviation of those times for "Größter Feldherr aller Zeiten" = "Greatest military Commander of all Times") inside in Berlin was left over ... It was made so perfect as only we Germans could have made it ...

 

[Silent_Water]

... and in a conversation with a German "Bundeswehr" veteran who works today as the "Commander-in-Chief-of-all-the-Cooks" ...
(You do not want to see the looong German word for this job description, believe me!)
... in "my" hotel, I have just learned that the history of the German military has often been told wrongly in our German history books:

Since the foundation of the modern German-Prussian Empire in 1871 (by the way: this happened after our very last won war in Versailles, France!),
there has never been one single German retreat!
Sometimes it might have looked like a retreat, but in reality, it was always a militarily necessary shortening of the supply lines in order to secure the military's clout and the work of our military cooks!

So, I can absolutely confirm your historical expertise, knowledge and wisdom, dear Loxuru!

 

[Silent_Water]

Mhm, when I see German or any worldwide broadcast TV news these days, I ask myself if I have already become an old man with the typical "idealizing" of one's youth when human beings are old and looking back on their lives, because I start thinking of the "good old days" in the "Cold War" when many Germans in our separated two states feared to be the nuclear battlefield of the superpowers.

But today, I think the world as a whole was in fact more peaceful in this old "bipolar" world and I obviously must have had the luck to have lived in one of the most peaceful times and regions in human history - without knowing in those times how lucky I was by chance and "coincidental birth" to be at the right time at the right place.
I really remember stories from my childhood of adventurous German and Western "Hippies" travelling in VW-"Bulli"-cars around the world, ...



...between 1965 and 1975 in such little "camping buses" visiting countries like Egypt, Ethiopia, driving down the Eastern coast of Africa from Somalia via Kenia down to Tansania or driving via Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan into India, everywhere cordial receptions by poor but friendly people there who were curious to talk to these strange foreigners and some even wrote each other letters for the following decades. The rich West-Europeans could visit famous and exotic hotels in Agadir in Morocco or in Acapulco & Cancun in Mexico. The beaches to the oceans there were famous in our European "boulevard"-newspapers and European and American stars and millionnaires like Brigitte Bardot, Gunter Sachs or Alain Delon met there with Barbra Streisand, Steve McQueen or Paul Newman.

Today, it is almost suicide to have the idea to drive via Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan to India and in most of the just mentioned countries even in Africa, you must be careful not to be killed by simple criminals or by fanatic islamists, Agadir was already in the 1960's partly destroyed by an earthquake and on the beaches of Acapulco you can today get caught in a machine pistol gunfire between rivaling drug cartels.

Something in this world has gone severely wrong in the last decades and I sometimes think, this great Israeli satirist was absolutely right when he said: "In life, you sometimes come to a point in which you can only become crazy or laugh in a hysterical way about this world. I had reached this point in WW II and I had only two options left: Madness or becoming a satirist. I decided to laugh and to become a satirist!" :

Ephraim Kishon - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And this is also the reason, why I like to see something like this following video although I know that it is rather to cry in tears than to laugh but Kishon is probably an example and a master to show us how to survive the madness in this world.

 

[Silent_Water]

In these German news I heard for the first time that the German helicopters to be stationed now at the airport of Kabul will be used by special German Forces and for helping the US Air Force because these two German helicopters are so small and silent - designed and to be used in German special operations for German hostage rescue operations - that the US Air Force would have nothing similar right now there to be used in similar situations.
The US helicopters are said to be much bigger and heavier. These German helicopters can land and start in the center of most cities in this world in normal streets, in narrow backyards or on usual flat roofs of houses - usually without breaking through the roofs.

OK, then good luck to the pilots and soldiers who will hopefully save lives with these machines!

Afghanistan: Bundeswehr setzt in Kabul auch Hubschrauber ein

In der Nacht hat die Bundeswehr weitere Menschen aus Afghanistan ausgeflogen. Mit Hubschraubern weitet sie den Rettungseinsatz nun weiter aus.

www.zdf.de

 

[Silent_Water]

"À propos" (=> Germans in my region use this French introduction like "by the way") "very small" military equipment:

You may not believe it, but this following video is an official advertising video from the German "Bundeswehr" about the probably smallest military tank in the world and certainly, it is the German "Wiesel" (= exactly spoken the same as "Weasel", Stoat), which already was very useful for German peacekeeping troops in the small Middle-Ages-sized lanes, alleyways and streets on the Balkans at the end of the Yugoslavian wars.

The video starts like a funny documentary about animals and the description of the similarities between the real Wiesel and the Wiesel-Tank can really make one laugh, e.g. one of the soldiers says: "We only drive into a ditch and we disappear!"
But you can also imagine that this tank was one of the most feared tanks in the very small city streets on the Balkans. It could hide in any garage and "appear out of the nothing". Possibly one of the most surprising and also deadly tanks, the German military ever developed for "close combat" in European cities and forests:

If you ever have a serious quarrel with you neighbour about the garages in the backyard and you tell him, you have a dangerous "Wiesel" in your garage, he might laugh, but ...

 

[Loxuru]

If you ever have a serious quarrel with you neighbour about the garages in the backyard and you tell him, you have a dangerous "Wiesel" in your garage, he might laugh, but ...

Wasn't there recently a story about an elderly Herr in Germany, who had a WWII Panther tank (in good working order) in his garage? He occasionally used it to shovel snow from the streets in wintertime.

.. and in a conversation with a German "Bundeswehr" veteran who works today as the "Commander-in-Chief-of-all-the-Cooks" ...
(You do not want to see the looong German word for this job description, believe me!)

Please! Please! What is that looong German word?

 

[Silent_Water]

Wasn't there recently a story about an elderly Herr in Germany, who had a WWII Panther tank (in good working order) in his garage? He occasionally used it to shovel snow from the streets in wintertime.


Please! Please! What is that looong German word?

Yes, this elderly "Herr" was a retired millionnaire and he exaggerated with the size of his garage and his tank - and this "Panther tank" was not his only war game toy! If he had been more modest, humble and a simple "Wiesel" had been enough for him, he would not have had so much problems with the state authorities. But because he was old and the legal process lasted already six years and he never harmed anyone, he was never in prison, free on probation and in the end had to pay 250.000 € fine to mostly charitable German and Austrian organisations, e.g. clinics, SOS children homes etc.

Weltkriegspanzer im Keller – 84-jähriger Waffenfan bekommt mildes Urteil

Ein Panzer, eine Flak, Gewehre, Pistolen und Munition – dies hortete ein Mann alles in seinem Haus in einem Kieler Nobelvorort. Er bekam jetzt ein recht mildes Urteil.

www.stern.de

I do not know if he ever used the "Panther" to shovel snow, because in this report, it is said that this tank could not really drive any more because there were no steel chains on the wheels. The old millionnaire seemed to use this tank and some other military weapons (an anti-aircraft gun, a submarine torpedo and a mortar launcher, rifles, guns, ammunition etc.: all you need for a funny barbecue with you neighbours etc.) to play with them on several levels of his "garage". All his neighbours seemed to have known of this tank, thought of him like of "a big old boy with his big toys" but it is not allowed to own weapons in this size in Germany, even if you only want to use them for your "private civil war games fun" down in your cellar.

Mhm, unfortunately, there are more than one looong German word in the job description for our "Commander-in-Chief-of-all-the-Cooks", but it is still impressive enough, I think:

"Hoteloberkoch mit Einkaufsberechtigung und Weisungsbefugnis gegenüber allen untergeordneten Köchen und allen Küchenhilfskräften" !

(=> "Hotel head chef with purchasing authorization and authority to issue instructions to all subordinate cooks and all kitchen assistants") !!!

 

[Silent_Water]

According to German and many international news agencies, up to this hour, there have now arrived 2.500 evacuated people from Afghanistan at the US Air Base Ramstein in Germany, of which I am living in a distance of only 100 km.



"Ramstein Air Base" is really a complete US-American city with own airport inside Germany. There is a very good cooperation between Germans and US-Americans for decades and because this airbase is also one of the biggest employers in this region, there are lots of private contacts and friendships between Germans and Americans.
The next bigger German city of Kaiserslautern (right up above in the snapshot) and the German Red Cross there have already offered additional help to the airbase if it might be needed, e.g. nurses for the many Afghan children who are sometimes separated from their parents and additional beds if needed.

I think, 95 % of all Germans are shocked by the TV pictures from Afghanistan and I have heard no politician from any party who would dare right now to say anything against the admission of possibly more than 10.000 refugees from Afghanistan also in Germany and the international rescue mission there. Even the German radical right wing parties like the AfD are relatively "silent" at the moment, only criticizing our and other governments for their "not-existent preparations".

But all this is really hard to view and most Germans are saying in opinion polls, to see the TV news now is like being on a psychological battlefield, sitting in silence at the evening meals and remembering sometimes the war stories of parents and grandparents, thinking how easily the world can turn into madness:

First Afghan evacuees arrive in Germany in one of the largest airlift operations in history

A little girl in a gold sequined dress and sneakers can't hide the huge smile on her face, as her temperature is checked upon arrival at the Ramstein US Air Base in southwestern Germany on Saturday.

edition.cnn.com

2300 Menschen aus Afghanistan in US-Basis Ramstein angekommen

Auf dem US-Luftwaffenstützpunkt Ramstein sind inzwischen rund 2300 Menschen mit Rettungsflügen aus Afghanistan angekommen. Sie sollen dort auf ihren Weiterflug in die USA vorbereitet werden.

www.tagesschau.de

Ursula von der Leyen says it is a 'moral duty' to help Afghans

“This resettlement of vulnerable people is of utmost importance,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. “It is our moral duty.”

www.euronews.com

Verweiflung pur: Afghanische Eltern geben ihre Babys ab

Vor dem Hamid-Karzai-Flughafen in Kabul reichen Eltern in ihrer Verzweiflung Babys über die Mauer rund um den Flughafen, um sie in Sicherheit zu bringen.

de.euronews.com

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1428759936045969412

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1428899739597221891

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1428616486025764872

'They shot my wife': Afghan man recounts how his family tried to flee

Euronews spoke with several Afghan citizens in Kabul this week as well as Taliban fighters.

www.euronews.com

 

[Loxuru]

"Ramstein Air Base" is really a complete US-American city with own airport inside Germany. There is a very good cooperation between Germans and US-Americans for decades and because this airbase is also one of the biggest employers in this region, there are lots of private contacts and friendships between Germans and Americans.

Kaiserslautern, but the Americans based in Germany call it K-Town. Easier to pronounce for a foreigner, apparently.

 

[Silent_Water]

There are in most of the biggest German TV stations and newspapers several reports that 9 members of the German special forces from the so-called KSK (= "Kommando Spezialkräfte") were last night operating in the dark in some distance behind the lines of the Taliban in order to save this 3 persons who are German citizens who were visiting their grandparents in Afghanistan when they were surprised by the Taliban takeover of Kabul.



The family fled Afghanistan already in the years 2000 / 2001 and the children gained German citizenship - the parents partly the permission to stay for undefined duration in Germany.
The 19 year old daughter from this family is obviously very fit in internet and smartphone transmissions because she was able to contact several journalists and even members of the German parliament complaining about being 7 times in vain at the airport of Kabul without being able to get through the masses of people there and once even rejected by soldiers of other nations because Germans were not permitted at one airport gate etc., etc.
Obviously, this complaining was successful.

Geheimoperation in Kabul: KSK holt Schutzbedürftige aus der Stadt an den Flughafen

Spezialkräfte der Bundeswehr haben offenbar mehrere schutzbedürftige Personen aus der Innenstadt von Kabul abgeholt und an den Flughafen gebracht. Die Berichte wurden bisher noch nicht bestätigt.

www.faz.net

We Germans will probably also have an everlasting problem with our military special forces because there are political complaints about them in every decade. They are often said to be politically too "right-winged" and sometimes, they indeed have "conspicuous" members with strange hobbies similar to the old man above with his garage and a "Panther"-tank or a submarine torpedo in it. Some KSK-members attracted the attention of military controls because they collected old German military flags with swastikas in it or even old small Hitler-statues.

One German politician - I think he even was from the social-democrats - once said about them: "Our problem in Germany with such forces is, that in times of terrorism or military insecurity, you are in need of persons who are obeying the orders of our democratic government without many questions and who are willing to risk their lives for German citizens, German interests and who are able to kill dangerous persons. You usually simply do not find such persons in left-wing parties or organisations because they would ask too much almost philosophical questions. And when we need such special forces and when they are successful in dangerous deadly missions in order to help our nation or in saving the lives of our citizens, no one asks them - who risked their lives and sometimes even died for us - about their political background because then, they are regarded justifiably by the public opinion as "our heroes". This was the case in 1977, when they freed in Mogadishu in Somalia all the passengers of the highjacked airplane "Landshut" by killing the terrorists and it will always be like this in the future in similar situations."

Kommando Spezialkräfte - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Madiosi]

@Silent_Water I try it again to remind you. CF is not a News-Magazine! Hold out present political topics from here. It exist enough other places in the internet for that.

 

[Silent_Water]

OK, after my last vaccination, I am really having more side effects than I ever thought. One week later, I am still always so tired that I feel like I could sleep for months and I am so tired of so many things in this world.
I think, I will go to sleep now and I do not know when I will wake up and feel better again.
All the best for you and good-bye till then.

 

[Migoz2]

OK, after my last vaccination, I am really having more side effects than I ever thought. One week later, I am still always so tired that I feel like I could sleep for months and I am so tired of so many things in this world.
I think, I will go to sleep now and I do not know when I will wake up and feel better again.
All the best for you and good-bye till then.

I hope you feel better soon @Silent_Water