How a far-right ‘terror plot’ is rocking a German army

May 06, 2017

It is a dangerous domestic dispute for Ursula von der Leyen, a initial lady in assign of a armed forces, who is mostly mentioned as a intensity inheritor to Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The mother-of-seven has sternly criticised troops “attitude and care problems”, highlighted by a box of a infantryman and by new sexual abuse and hazing scandals.

This in spin has done her a target of chastened rank-and-file soldiers who assign she is tarring them all while dodging personal shortcoming after some-more than 3 years on a job.

The sharpening dispute started with a detain a week ago of 28-year-old army major Franco Albrecht, who was stationed during a Franco-German bottom nearby Strasbourg.

He came to a notice of a authorities after Austrian troops held him with a installed handgun during a Vienna airfield in February.

The successive review found that, amid Germany’s 2015 mass liquid of refugees, he had combined a feign temperament as a Damascus fruit seller called “David Benjamin”.

Incredibly, a German who speaks no Arabic managed to benefit domestic asylum, a mark in a interloper preserve and monthly state advantages for his fictitious change ego.

‘Dark places’

Prosecutors assign that Albrecht harboured far-right views and, with during slightest one co-conspirator, plotted an conflict with a apparent aim of discrediting foreigners.

Media reports contend he kept “death lists” with a names of tip politicians, including former boss Joachim Gauck, some cupboard ministers and left-leaning, anti-fascist MPs.

It has given emerged that a major had voiced rightwing nonconformist views in a master’s topic he submitted in 2014, in that he theorised about a finish of Western civilisation by immigration.

In a paper seen by AFP, he argued that immigration was causing a “genocide” in western Europe, adding that “this is a mathematical certainty”.

However, a paper was buried, but disciplinary movement — something a apportion attributed to a “misunderstood esprit de corps” and higher officers who “looked a other way”.

On Wednesday, von der Leyen — who cancelled a scheduled US outing to understanding with a widening liaison — visited Albrecht’s bottom in France.

She angrily denounced a fact that Wehrmacht memorabilia was displayed in a common room there, emphasising that a World War II-era German army “has zero in common” with today’s Bundeswehr.

The apportion has also forked to other new scandals — over degrading and sadistic arising rituals, and womanlike soldiers being forced to pole-dance.

On Thursday she was set to reason a predicament assembly with 100 generals and admirals, after vowing to “shine a light in a dim places” and presaging that “it’ll be difficult, it’ll be painful, it won’t be pretty”.

There could indeed be some-more upsetting surprises — a troops comprehension use is questioning 280 cases of suspected far-right sympathisers in a forces.

‘Danger zone’

Von der Leyen has weathered several scandals in what is deliberate a wily cupboard post, many centred on troops apparatus problems like ageing ride planes and attack rifles that do not glow straight.

Spiegel Online pronounced that, while progressing problems started before she took a post, she is now “facing critique like she frequency has before”.

Her comments annoyed many soldiers who already feel scantily appreciated for missions from Afghanistan to Mali in a nation which, with a shame over a Nazi era, still shows small adore for a military.

Having drawn complicated fire, a apportion stressed that a immeasurable infancy of soldiers perform “impeccable, superb service”.

Business daily Handelsblatt remarkable a earnest of a event by indicating out that “ministers customarily usually cancel unfamiliar trips if they face a hazard of a putsch during home”.

It pronounced von der Leyen had entered “the risk zone”, adding: “This doesn’t move her any closer to her large idea of one day next Merkel.”