On February 1, 1980, the Land Court of Stade sentenced Nazi criminal Erich Gustav Scharfetter to 18 life terms for 18 murders committed in a concentration camp in the occupied territory of the USSR. Ten years later, in February 1990, Minister-President of the state of Lower Saxony Ernst Albrecht, (CDU in 1976-1999 headed the state government of Lower Saxony), pardoned him due to his hoary age and deteriorating health.

Scharfetter was set free on March 30, 1990. He died in 1998 at the age of 90.

The court dealt with the events in the camps of Kuremea (500-1000 prisoners), Joehvi (150 prisoners) and Ereda (up to 1000 prisoners). The first charge was the murder of a group of Jews in Kuremea, according to witnesses, in the winter of 1943-1944. {Source: USSR documents)

The Aristocratic Ineptitude of Ursula Von Der Leyen | Foreign Affairs - 30 April 2021 |

How the EU president's family connections explain her rise to power--and failures using it during the pandemic.

Where does the buck stop in the EU? There's been plenty of finger pointing as Europeans try to figure out why their own vaccination efforts lag so far behind much of the rest of the world. In many ways, the EU's failure to produce an adequate supply of its vaccine is the kind of cataclysmic social failure that seems to indict entire regimes, not simply individual actors. No one is powerful enough to produce such a multifaceted failure on their own.

Yet much of the blame and anger has deservedly settled on European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. To oust her, as former European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker recently demanded, would be understandable given her blind trust in free market forces to administer Europe's vaccination efforts and flailing attempts to make up for the resulting shortages.

But it would be a mistake to blame von der Leyen without understanding the broader failures that installed a person with a middling record in such a powerful position in the first place. The ultimate problem with von der Leyen is not that she bungled Europe's vaccine rollout. It's that she obtained her position through a kind of incestuous, image-obsessed politics that made bungling an inevitability.

Germans might have a reputation for being cold and rational, but mothers play a surprisingly large role in the political culture. For the Nazis, motherhood was the most a woman could hope to accomplish. They made Mother's Day a national holiday in Germany and rewarded exemplary mothers with the Mutterkreuz or "Mother's Cross."

Mothers were perhaps even more essential to the post-war era, however, when Germany was largely rebuilt by the so-called Trümmerfrauen, women who took their names from the piles of rubble they helped clear and repurpose while their husbands and fathers awaited release from prisoner-of-war camps. In this context, it can hardly be surprising that powerful women are almost inevitably maternal in Germany.

Strengthening Europe's civil and military preparedness and readiness: Report by Special Adviser Niinistö

Facing a new reality - Since the start of this decade, the EU has experienced the most severe pandemic in a century; the bloodiest war on European soil since the Second World War; and the hottest year in recorded history. The COVID-19 pandemic was a crisis of a nature and magnitude for which all Member States and the EU as a whole were insufficiently prepared.

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine showed that it takes two to maintain peace, but only one to start a war. Russia's invasion also underlined Putin's long-held perception that the West and Western people are weak.

Moreover, the increasing damage caused by extreme weather events is forcing Europeans to ask not only how climate change will affect future generations, but also what we need to prepare for today.

These deeply disruptive events are neither transitory nor isolated. They are driven and connected by underlying fault lines, long-term shifts and root causes that point to a prolonged period of high risk and deep uncertainty for the Union. We need to awaken to a new, unstable reality and there is no reason to expect that the underlying driving forces will dissipate in the foreseeable future

Shifting to comprehensive preparedness - The EU needs to adopt a robust all-hazards, whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach to its civilian and military preparedness and readiness. The report is structured around the overarching objective of building `comprehensive preparedness'

to ensure that the EU and its Member States can continue to function under all circumstances. This requires a collective capacity to effectively anticipate, prevent, withstand or respond to any type of major shock or crisis with cross-sectoral and cross-border implications and the potential to threaten the Union as a whole. To this end, this report identifies the necessary overarching building blocks - set out below - to frame and operationalise comprehensive preparedness, in line with the Treaties and fully respecting the key roles and responsibilities of the EU and its Member States.

Putting citizens at the core of preparedness - Preparedness can only be successful with the active participation of citizens. Raising public awareness of the risk landscape without fostering anxiety and empowering citizens to be able to take more responsibility for their individual preparedness is of paramount importance. Participation of citizens in different roles and capacities to supporting preparedness on societal level through voluntary and mandatory means is crucial also for social cohesion in crises. Similarly, private companies have a crucial role as producers and suppliers of critical goods, as operators of critical infrastructure and services, and developers of new innovations, solutions and capabilities needed to tackle different threats.

Safer together - Despite the distinct nature and origin of different shocks, emergencies, and crises, they also have many things in common and underline the need for a stronger role of the EU as a political, economic and security actor. Threats don't stop at our borders, they cascade between the interconnected sectors of our economy, they undermine the well-being and safety of our citizens. This requires enhanced cooperation in the EU framework when the scale of the threat or crisis is beyond the capacity of individual Member States.

Identifying the boldest common denominator - Member States prioritise different threats and hazards based on their geography, historical experience, resources, and other factors. These differing threat perceptions should not be a hindrance to better preparing together. All Member States need similar core institutional and societal functions, goods and capabilities to protect our citizens, regardless of the nature and origin of a specific threat. Looking at the magnitude of the threats we face, we cannot limit our level of preparedness to what is politically convenient or corresponds to the lowest common denominator between Member States.

Taking more strategic responsibility - Stepping up the EU's civilian and military preparedness and readiness needs to enable the Union to take more strategic responsibility for security in Europe. This is an important signal to the US and other key partners. If we are not doing everything we can for our own security, we cannot expect others to do it for us. This includes that the Member States should strengthen their cooperation on European defence, jointly investing more to close long-standing gaps in our military and defence industrial readiness. This is also necessary to be able to support Ukraine in the long-term in a way that creates the conditions for a lasting peace on Ukraine's terms.

Apparently Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen is not old enough to have experienced the ruins of post WWII Germany, devastated lives and the DEFEAT of Nazi Germany by the allies as illustrated by an occupied West and East Germany by four major powers: UK-France-USA and a strong position of the USSR in Eastern Europe.

Seems to me VDL is heading for a major clash with US President Trump in a matter of weeks.

(née Albrecht; dob 8 Oct. 1958, born and raised in Brussels, Belgium, to German parents. Her father, Ernst Albrecht, was one of the first European civil servants, the family moved to Germany in 1971)

The state government under Ernst Albrecht used every opportunity to court former Nazis. In a 1978 speech, Deputy Premier Wilfried Hasselmann (CDU) greeted the Association of Knight's Cross Recipients, a league of former Wehrmacht (Hitler's army) officers and SS men [ Ordensgemeinschaft der Ritterkreuzträger, certifying that they had "shown courage and given an example to others". Hasselmann declared he was "deeply impressed by the solidarity of your order.

The political roots of Ursula von der Leyen

Von der Leyen emerged from the Lower Saxony branch of the CDU. She is the daughter of Ernst Albrecht, who was premier of that federal state from 1976 to 1990 and exhibited a pronounced tendency towards elitism and the ideology of National Socialism (Nazism).

In 1976, Albrecht's book, The State, Idea and Reality: Outlines of a political philosophy, was published by the national-conservative Seewald Verlag. The work expresses his contempt for democratic legislation and the broad masses of the population, "the mob", as well as his preference for Old Testament forms of rule.

"If we succeed in bringing people of above-average capabilities to governance," he writes, "an autocracy or the rule of the few will be able to create a better order than the rule of the people".

Preußischer Zapfenstreichmarsch

See my recent introduction about more militarization of Europe staring by former German defense minister VDL and fan of the rightwing Hudson Institute ...

The State, Idea and Reality: Fundamentals of State Philosophy

Der Staat, Idee und Wirklichkeit: Grundzüge e. Staatsphilosophie by Ernst Albrecht

Ernst Albrecht is the first leading politician in the Federal Republic of Germany to write a philosophy of the state. In this book, Albrecht attempts to understand the state in its essence, that is, consciously detached from society and history. This is only possible on his own philosophical path, as outlined by the phenomenological movement (Husserl, Scheler) and especially one of the greatest system builders of this century, Nicolai Hartmann. As an independent, ideal structure, the state derives its meaning and value from people as individuals: "The purpose of the state is to enable and promote a life dignified for human beings." From this perspective, the order based on domination can be understood as the actual achievement and justice as the principle of this order.

Albrecht divides justice into four types - an original and ingenious idea that contemporary legal philosophy will not be able to ignore. But the author does not stop at describing a perfect state. In a further step, he answers the question of why real states are necessarily imperfect. Once again, the human being - this time as a physical, needy and finite person - is the decisive factor. The three imperfection factors of irrationality, selfishness and inertia are in its nature. The real state must therefore take institutional precautions to counteract the imperfection factors. The rule of law, human rights and the distribution and control of power thus appear in a new, insightful anthropological light.

With these basic features of a philosophy of the state, Albrecht has written a book that has its effect not in political topicality but in fundamental orientation - a book for politicians from the philosophical perspective that is indispensable for political thinkers and activists and without which the politician degenerates into a mere "doer". It is his starting point, beyond the usual positivism and superficial Marxism, from which the philosopher Albrecht challenges practitioners and doctrinaires alike. The book reveals the intellectual background of the politician Albrecht.

Der hannoversche Skandalminister Wilfried Hasselmann belastet die CDU/FDP-Koalition | Der Spiegel - June 1988 |

The hunter, who even when he was Lower Saxony's Federal Council Minister in Bonn (1976 to 1986) always carried his hunting horn in his car, receives roaring applause when he assures the hunting community: "These Greens are my favorites." And joy arises when Hasselmann, nephew of the former farmer leader Edmund Rehwinkel and formerly also Minister of Agriculture in Hanover (1965 to 1970), rants that he had the red rims of his new tractor painted black - reason: "Nothing red comes from my farm."

The "enthusiastic soldier" - a reserve colonel in the Bundeswehr and former first lieutenant in the artillery - captured the mood of his troops for years with his political statements: for example, when he praised the public "wearing of colors" by fraternity students and at the same time rebuked peace lovers who demonstrated against nuclear missiles at church conferences with "purple scarves": This "peace uniform" would only "create fear."

Hasselmann's enemy image includes an SPD that is "increasingly developing into a club of NATO opponents loyal to Moscow," and a church whose clergy he constantly hears preaching "about Nicaragua or South Africa" and who hold services for opponents of nuclear power - which prompted the party's Christian to announce that he would refuse to receive communion from such pastors.

The chairman of the second strongest CDU association (after North Rhine-Westphalia) was also happy to take on human rights activists and environmentalists. He accused the prisoner aid organization "Amnesty International" of "one-sidedness." And when the Association for the Protection of Birds wanted to find out the CDU's attitude to environmental policy, the minister wrote back harshly that he had "opted for the wastepaper basket when answering the questionnaire you had so diligently prepared."

The Heidjer's worldview has only had a noticeably negative impact on the Union since his lifelong dream, which the "Handelsblatt" once described as follows, came true in June 1986: one day, "in the office of Minister of the Interior, to fight against storms, fires and other disasters in Lower Saxony" - "with a bang and a vengeance."

VDL Rapid Trumpification of the EU

Policy kill list solely on the desk of the top official working with VDL ... G is done - D will be prioritized ... the European Union at a definite turning point from peace to war and ban on Green transition  policy - more free market with less regulations.

All so predictable 3 years ago as the provoked war did indeed start.

Part 2 in first draft ready ... soon to follow 😊

"Trump Focuses On EU for Regime Change"

Tag team with Democrat Joe Biden: Divide and Destroy ... 50 years of participation foreign policy