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51 percent of all Germans with a migrant background are highly or extremely afraid of plans for mass deportations. This was the result of a representative survey commissioned by the ARD magazine Panorama.
 
A curious fact: according to recent polls, the right-wing extremist AfD is Germany's strongest party. In eastern Germany, it dominates in all of the federal states there.

However, if you google AfD in German, you will find dozens of press articles and public statements that view the AfD negatively. Why do the press/public opinion, and the popular views seem to contradict each other?

Perhaps media and observers still adhere to the old democratic ways of thinking, while the German population has largely moved away from them and prefers new right-wing extremist views.
This would not be surprising, as similar trends can be seen in France, Austria, and Italy. A shift to the right in Europe? Not necessarily, if you think of Spain and the UK.
There is no question that Germany is heading toward a right-wing extremist government. At the federal level, the "dams" against AfD  built by the democratic parties are still holding. But how long will they last?

 

Germans are funny I

The number of people in Germany with right-wing extremist views has more than tripled over four years, according to a 2023 study by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. (Tagesspiegel)

6% support a dictatorship with a single strong party and leader.
6% agree with the statement “There are valuable and worthless lives.”
11% believe women should focus more on their roles as wives and mothers.
15% place themselves to the right of center.
16% claim that Germany is a superior nation.
23% believe that the AfD is a party like any other.
26% believe that “we should come to an agreement with Russia and purchase more gas and oil from them again.”
30% believe that “the ruling parties are deceiving the people.”
32% believe that the media and politicians are in cahoots.
34% believe that refugees in Germany are exploiting the social welfare system.
38% hold conspiracy theories.
53% advocate a return to nationalism in times of crisis.
65% believe that more citizen participation is needed in the energy transition.
68% advocate solidarity with the weakest in times of crisis.

Here we are: 

Only one in twelve Germans professes right-wing extremist views (says he or she), but a full 53% of Germans advocate a return to nationalism in times of crisis. 

When it comes to right-wing views, German opinion polls must be interpreted with caution. Right-wing extremism still seems to suffer from the legacy of the Third Reich. Because of Germany's terrible past, people tend to hide their true extremist beliefs, which only come to light in the voting booth.

Italy and France are in a better position, because their right-wing extremists are trying to smooth over their rough edges and give themselves an appearance of normality, perhaps even a touch of democracy.
Not so the AfD. It seems to be comfortably cultivating its radicalism, because in this way it continues gaining the approval of its voters.
As long as its approval ratings continue to rise, there is no sign of the AfD moderating its program.

Therefore the problem is not the party, but rather the stance of
its voters/sympathizers: the Germans, who are agreeing with AfD's views it in ever-increasing numbers.
However, in its hubris, the AfD is its own worst enemy. Its radicalism is blocking the path to possible coalitions and normal parliamentary proceedings. Its all-or-nothing strategy will perhaps save German democracy. At least for the time being.

Ihsan al-Tawil
 

A Russian submersible? 

 

 

The deputy leader of the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Markus Frohnmaier, is planning a trip to Moscow. Politicians from the CDU/CSU and SPD are warning against the leakage of confidential information and Russian influence.
“The AfD has always been a threat to national security because a large proportion of its members have acted submissively towards enemies of our democracy – especially Vladimir Putin,” said Marc Henrichmann (CDU), chairman of the Bundestag's intelligence oversight committee.
The AfD regularly acts as a “mouthpiece and extended arm of the Kremlin.” “Russia deliberately uses pro-Russian parties such as the AfD for disinformation, influence, and division in Europe,” warned CDU foreign policy expert Roderich Kiesewetter.
SPD domestic politician Sebastian Fiedler said he had “no doubt” that AfD deputy leader Frohnmaier “maintains continuous contacts with Russia and is part of Russia's broad influence operation.”

Germans are funny II
 
Eastern Germany, Poland and the Baltic states were for long decades directly or indirectly ruled by Russia viz. the Soviet Union. As a result, Poland and the Baltics became thoroughly russophobe whereas the Eastern Germans enthusiastically adopted the russophile and ukrainophobe AfD party.  Why this divergence of attitudes? What made the Eastern Germans love Russians and despise Ukrainians?  They are, however, not alone in this. Slovaks and Bulgarians also tend to take a positive view of Russia.
A Pew Research Poll showed that 73% of Bulgarians and 60% of Slovaks had a favourable view of Russia (quora).

 
East Germans and Bulgarians share a feeling that they were shortchanged when Western liberalism replaced the Soviet style system. While new governments hurried to westernize East Germany and Bulgaria, the population remained poor, lacking the level of individual accumulated wealth customary in western countries. East Germans may have caught up with western standards in terms of wages and salaries but remained poor as regards private ownership and wealth. Bulgaria remained the poorest EU country, with its people migrating westward in droves where they could watch western standards of wealth without being able to attain them.
--ed. 
 
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The person who had the most to lose in this coming confrontation, Zhang Youxia (one of the two vice chairmen of the CMC that actually controls China’s military), decided to strike first this past Friday when he essentially decapitated Xi’s control over the military by purging 9 generals that were Xi’s closest collaborators..

On October 17, 2025, just two days ahead of the Fourth Plenary Session, the Ministry of National Defence of the Communist Party of China made a surprising announcement that sent shockwaves through both domestic and international circles, delivering a powerful political message.

In the afternoon of the 17th, spokesperson Zhang Xiaogang officially reported that the Central Military Commission's Discipline Inspection Commission had initiated an investigation into nine senior generals.

This news hit like a bombshell, instantly capturing the attention of the public both at home and abroad.

All nine generals are, without exception, core loyalists or trusted confidants of Xi Jinping within the military. 

This indicates that Zhang Youxia has broken free from the usual party constraints and is directly targeting Xi Jinping's inner circle. All of these officials who have fallen from grace were trusted aides promoted by Xi Jinping from the 31st Army, and their downfall signifies a complete disintegration of Xi Jinping's control over military power. It somehow seems particular fitting that Zhang is using Xi’s old tactic of accusing those he wished to purge of corruption. 

Irontortoise -- Daily Kos

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Westliche Führungskräfte nach China-Besuch erschüttert !
„Es gibt keine Menschen – alles ist robotergesteuert.“

 

Führungskräfte westlicher Automobil- und Ökostromkonzerne, die China besuchen, kehren gedemütigt – und sogar erschrocken – zurück.
Wie The Telegraph berichtet, warnen die Führungskräfte, dass die stark automatisierte Fertigungsindustrie des Landes die westlichen Nationen schnell hinter sich lassen könnte, insbesondere im Bereich der Elektrofahrzeuge.
„Wir stehen in einem globalen Wettbewerb mit China, und das betrifft nicht nur Elektrofahrzeuge“, sagte Ford-CEO Jim Farley letzten Monat gegenüber The Verge. „Und wenn wir diesen Wettbewerb verlieren, haben wir bei Ford keine Zukunft mehr.“
Einige Unternehmen geben neue Initiativen ganz auf. Der Gründer des Bergbauunternehmens Fortescue, Andrew Forrest, erklärte, dass er nach seiner jüngsten Reise nach China seine Pläne zur Eigenproduktion von Antrieben für Elektrofahrzeuge aufgegeben habe.
„Es gibt keine Menschen – alles wird von Robotern erledigt“, sagte er gegenüber The Telegraph.

Im Dunkeln schuften
Andere Führungskräfte erinnerten sich an Besichtigungen von „dunklen Fabriken“, in denen nicht einmal das Licht eingeschaltet werden muss, da die meisten Arbeiten rund um die Uhr von Robotern ausgeführt werden.
„Man spürt diese Veränderung, bei der Chinas Wettbewerbsfähigkeit sich von staatlichen Subventionen und niedrigen Löhnen zu einer enormen Anzahl hochqualifizierter, gut ausgebildeter Ingenieure verschoben hat, die wie verrückt innovativ sind“, sagte Greg Jackson, CEO des britischen Energieversorgers Octopus, gegenüber der Zeitung.

Das Paradies der Roboter

Nach aktuellen Zahlen der International Federation of Robotics hat China um ein Vielfaches mehr Industrieroboter im Einsatz als Deutschland, die USA und Großbritannien.
Und es geht nicht nur darum, durch die Automatisierung menschlicher Arbeit die Margen niedrig zu halten.
„China hat ein recht bemerkenswertes demografisches Problem, aber seine Fertigung ist im allgemeinen recht arbeitsintensiv“, erklärte Rian Whitton, Analyst bei Bismarck Analysis, gegenüber The Telegraph. „Daher wollen sie präventiv so viel wie möglich automatisieren, nicht weil sie erwarten, dass sie dadurch höhere Margen erzielen können – das ist normalerweise die Idee im Westen –, sondern um diesen Bevölkerungsrückgang auszugleichen und sich einen Wettbewerbsvorteil zu verschaffen.“
Über Elektrofahrzeuge hinaus hat China im Rahmen eines Zehnjahresplans auch große Anstrengungen unternommen, um künstliche Intelligenz einzuführen, mit dem Ziel, sie zu einem „wichtigen Wachstumsmotor für die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung des Landes“ zu machen.

Der Mann im Mond -- ein Chinese?
Auch das Raumfahrtprogramm des Landes hat enorme Fortschritte gemacht, was Befürchtungen schürt, dass China die USA im Wettlauf zum Mond überholen könnte.
Die ersten Anzeichen für eine von der chinesischen Industrie dominierte Zukunft sind bereits erkennbar, insbesondere im Bereich der Elektrofahrzeuge. Während die Vereinigten Staaten protektionistische Maßnahmen ergriffen haben, um einheimische Hersteller zu schützen und den harten Wettbewerb abzuwehren, haben in China hergestellte Elektrofahrzeuge in Europa großen Eindruck hinterlassen.
„Robotik kann, wenn sie richtig eingesetzt wird, die Produktivität Ihrer Wirtschaft erheblich steigern“, sagte Sander Tordoir, Chefökonom des Center for European Reform, gegenüber The Telegraph. „Und wenn China darin extrem gut ist, dann sollten wir versuchen, aufzuholen, denn wie in China altert auch ein Großteil Europas.“

Vorerst hält der Damm in den USA stand, da die Verbote für chinesische Elektroautos weiterhin bestehen.
„Die Wettbewerbsrealität ist, dass die Chinesen der 700-Pfund-Gorilla in der Elektroautoindustrie sind“, sagte Farley letzten Monat gegenüber The Verge.
Der Ford-CEO gab zu, dass er bereits persönliche Erfahrungen mit dem gemacht hat, was es auf dem Markt gibt.
„Ich spreche nicht gerne über die Konkurrenz, aber ich fahre einen Xiaomi“, fügte Farley hinzu. „Wir haben einen von Shanghai nach Chicago geflogen, und ich fahre ihn jetzt seit sechs Monaten und möchte ihn nicht mehr hergeben.“

Victor Tangermann -- Futurism
 

Jeden Tag gibt es neue Schlagzeilen über chinesische Technologie. Mal geht es um Elektroautos mit Batterien mit größerer Reichweite, mal um ein aktualisiertes Modell künstlicher Intelligenz oder um einen humanoiden Roboter – aber die Botschaft ist immer dieselbe: China ist ein technologischer Gigant. Einige schreiben dies dem chinesischen Wirtschaftsmodell zu. Andere glauben, dass es die ingenieurwissenschaftlich ausgebildeten Führungskräfte und hartgesottenen Unternehmer sind, die wissen, wie man das System nutzt, oder der nachhaltige Transfer von implizitem Wissen aus den Vereinigten Staaten und anderen Ländern. Aber was auch immer der Grund sein mag, Chinas anhaltender technologischer Aufstieg scheint unaufhaltsam.

Mittelklasse: niedriges Einkommen?
Ebenso überzeugend sind jedoch die Anzeichen für strukturelle Schwächen: steigende Verschuldung, eine alternde Bevölkerung, ein zusammengebrochener Immobilienmarkt und steigende Jugendarbeitslosigkeit. Chinas Wirtschaft, so sagen einige, habe ihren Höhepunkt erreicht. „Involution” oder verschwendete Produktion ist nicht nur das Wort des Jahres in China, sondern für manche auch ein weiteres Anzeichen für eine unausweichliche Abwärtsspirale des Wachstums. Wenn sich dieser Trend fortsetzt, wird es China unmöglich sein, der Mittelklassefalle zu entkommen. Wenn Chinas Wirtschaft sich verlangsamt oder stagniert, könnten fast eine Milliarde Menschen in einem Leben mit niedrigem Einkommen gefangen sein.

Foreign Policy.

 

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They were mowing people down, as if ... they were ... cutting the grass'

1/ A Russian soldier fighting near Pokrovsk says that the area is a scene of carnage, with dead Russians lying everywhere. Soldiers' families are being sent death notices even before the men go into assaults. Only four out of his group of 120 men survived one assault.

7/ A few days later he was sent into the battle of Krasnohorivka, in which he was one of the few survivors of a failed assault involving 46 Russian vehicles that were mostly disabled or destroyed by the Ukrainians.

8/ "[O]n 12 September 2024, they took us out, put us in an infantry fighting vehicle, woke us up at one in the morning, put us in bulletproof vests, took our documents, took our phones, put us in the IFV, and sent us off.

9/ "We were driving toward Krasnohorivka, past Krasnohorivka about a kilometer [further]. Between the 10 vehicles, two got away. The rest of us, 120 people, they killed us all. [Our two vehicles] returned."

10/ "The four of us got out. We walked for six days through minefields. Behind Ukrainian lines, they hit us with cluster munitions, they shot at us from dugouts, from every crevice they could. But we got away. Before reaching Krasnohorivka, we ran into our own outpost…

11/ "We gave them our call signs and told them everything that had happened. To which they replied, "We're bringing you ammunition, you understand, extra ammo, grenades, we're sending you four cans of stew, a loaf of bread."

12/ "And they send us back. They say we're sending you back because you didn't complete the task, since we never got there, we were destroyed by drones. It was pure hell there. They mowed us down, I don't know, they didn't even let us raise our heads."

13/ Two of the survivors had crippling injuries and had to be left behind by the two remaining able-bodied survivors, one of whom was the soldier in the video.The man was subsequently sent to fight in the Pokrovsk area, which he says is even worse.

14/ "People shouldn't see this, shouldn't hear this. It was just brutal. They were mowing people down, as if, I don't know, they were walking across a field and just cutting the grass. There are still corpses lying on the roads there, with tanks running over them.

15/ "There are torn bodies, charred bodies. No one is taking them away. Don't believe those who say they are missing in action. That's not true, that's all. They are lying there in the fields because no one is bothering to remove them.

Quaoar--Daily Kos.

 

 

Fighting for Russia

He says that the new recruits usually die during their first combat mission. Ruslan describes himself as "a saboteur by trade" (likely a member of a DRG, a sabotage and reconnaissance group). "There are six of us left: there were seventy, now there are six."

5/ He describes how the battlefield is littered with Russian corpses that have not been recovered and are falling apart from decay, or are trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings:

6/ “You drive over corpses—there's no other way. It's like that, you just can't tell who you're driving over... We've got three brigades buried under slabs.

7/ "Those in the basement—they simply can't be pulled out, and those who lived on the first floor—they were all blown to pieces…

8/ "The road of life—it's strewn with corpses, the fields are just littered with them. Why don't they pull them out? They could be pulled out, but even if you wanted to pull them out now, they're all falling apart. You pull on his leg, and the leg comes off."

9/ According to Ruslan, his commanders have banned the men from collecting documents from fallen soldiers, because so many have been killed that it's too expensive to pay their relatives compensation for their deaths:

10/ "We used to go out and collect documents. Not corpses, but documents. Then we would bring them to the battalion commander and hand them over. Later, we were forbidden from doing this because it wasn't profitable for the Ministry of Defence…

11/ "Personally, when I had time, I would collect 70–80 military ID cards a day. Imagine that, in a single day. Just imagine — that's millions [of rubles in compensation], and there were about fifteen of us...

quaoar -- Daily Kos

 

 

Russian troops handcuffed to trees and left for dead after defying orders

Footage from key battle zone in Donetsk is latest evidence of Moscow’s brutal treatment of its fighte

videoframe_5203.png
 

Russian soldiers were handcuffed to trees and left to die after defying orders to advance into Ukrainian territory, video footage recorded near the front line claims.The four soldiers, abandoned without food or water, were found by Ukrainian troops in the strategically vital zone near Lyman, which separates the opposing sides in Donetsk.It is understood the group had been abandoned by their commanders because they refused to advance again after the remainder of their unit was killed attempting to gain ground.

The Telegraph.
 

Russian army chiefs torturing and executing soldiers

Verstka, an award-winning independent Russian news outlet now operating in exile and founded by some of the country’s most respected investigative journalists, also documented cases of soldiers being tortured to death.

Troops who disobeyed orders were reportedly thrown into pits covered with metal grates, doused with water and beaten for hours or even days. The investigation found that in some instances, they were forced to fight each other in what witnesses described as gladiator-style battles to the death.

One such case appeared in a video circulated in May 2025 by Ukrainian groups monitoring Russian forces. The footage shows two shirtless men in a pit as a voice off-camera says: “Commander Kama basically said whoever beats the other one to death gets out of the pit.”

The Guardian

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The incident took place at the Montagnese bakery in Hirschlanden district. At the beginning of February, two women appeared in the shop, one of them wearing a niqab
The baker took a look at the situation himself and asked the customer to remove her veil. He did so politely, he said.
The customer became aggressive. She recorded parts of the
argument on her cell phone, which obviously made the situation
worse.   "You can't walk around like that, we're not
in the Middle Ages," the baker told her. 

The baker ends the argument by asking the veiled woman to leave the store, apparently in no uncertain terms.

The state security criminal department is investigating. It is looking into whether racist insults can be heard in the video of the veiled woman.

 87 percent of the people who voted on Schwäbische.de are
on the master baker's side. As of February 20, 2025, at
9 a.m., nearly 17,400 people had cast their votes. Around five percent cannot understand the baker's reaction.

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