Angela Merkel: The Inconvenience and Annoyance of the Breitscheidplatz Anniversary

The following report by Egri Nök was published yesterday at Vlad Tepes in a slightly different form.

Germany: A Government, Failing The Minimum Requirements Of Humanity

BERLIN — It took chancellor Merkel one year to meet the survivors and the families of the victims of the Berlin Christmas Market terror attack at last.

Parts of the German press have found unusually strong words for her conduct and the statement that she made. Watch her statement on video, and read on for the commentaries.

Below are a full translation from Cicero, and a translation from n-tv in excerpts.

1. An original translation from conservative monthly Cicero:

Remembrance at Breitscheidplatz

A Disruption Of Business Operations

by Alexander Kissler
December 19, 2017

One year ago there was an Islamist attack on Berlin Breitscheidplatz that took twelve lives. At the memorial service it became clear: Angela Merkel can’t speak, because she has nothing to say. She offers empathy under reserve.

Would David Allen be happy with Angela Merkel? The American management consultant is considered the inventor of the Getting-Things-Done method. His books are called “Getting Things Done”, “Making It All Work” or “Ready For Anything!”. Coach Allen writes like the German chancellor purportedly thinks. But the difference is palpable: the things that Merkel wants to get done slip out of her hands, because people aren’t things.

It has been noted on several occasions, and justly so, that the chancellor is hostile towards the German language. Talking is not her thing, because, in the end, she has nothing to say — nothing that would be beyond the scope of her operational self-reference, which announces: Here I stand, you are looking at me, so I may as well talk. Merkel’s sentences are sentences that you forgot, even before she has completed them, and you’d await their completion in vain. Politics means — in Merkel’s own words — “make things better”, “make things better that didn’t go well.” The last big thing was the Islamist attack on the Breitscheidplatz Berlin, where one year ago today twelve people were murdered.

“She had met an Imam at whose mosque an explosive device had been thrown, one week after the explosion”

Don’t Push

An act of terror, too, is one of the many things that a chancellor has got to deal with. She does so visibly grudgingly, evidenced not least by the year she let pass, before she embarked upon a meeting “that is very important to me”. This is what the chancellor announced upon request, and without visibly blushing, last Monday after the CDU executive committee meeting. And she continued: “I know that some would have preferred for such a meeting to have taken place earlier. But it is important to me that I again make it clear today how much we feel with the families and with the injured.” And she added, formally correct, that by the way the Federal President was the “Head of State”, and he had met the victims already “at the beginning of the year”. Don’t push us, is what this means, we are Germany, we are following a protocol. Exceptions confirm the rule. She had met an imam at whose mosque an explosive device had been thrown one week after the explosion, in which, by the way, no one was harmed.


Government Spokesman Steffen Seibert on Twitter: “Chancellor #Merkel spoke with family of the imam whose mosque in Dresden was attacked last week with a bomb.”

The divergent reaction times are characteristic of the political style of a chancellor who sets crude priorities where humanity is called for. Wherever you look, whether logic or faculty of language, there is an abyss opening up, concealing a vacuous center. The “but” alone, between the expectations of “some” — in fact, nearly everyone, except herself — and her own delay in action, is apocalyptic. Misery nests in this “but”: as if her own, weak-sounding “sympathies” were in contrast to the compassion expected by her critics. No, the true contrast is between empathy and the refusal of empathy, between responsiveness and Merkel. It is a bold-faced joke “that we feel and suffer with the people” (Merkel), if these people have been treated, for a year, or rather, are still being treated, as a disruption of business operations.

“It is a bold-faced joke that [she] feels and suffers with the people”

Onlookers of a Process Machine

Merkel prefers things to people, and what she appreciates about people is their thingness, because people stand in the way of political processes. Where smoothness is the highest aim, people, convictions, principles, are a nuisance. These three, all of them, are just onlookers in Merkel’s process machine. Her pale acknowledgement “how much we want to make things better” culminated in Merkel’s referring the insight of victim commissioner Kurt Beck that “a whole list of things” were “inadequate”, and “here, we will also support this with all our strength.” Is this the same strength with which the federal government will support the deportation of Islamic risks, and send rejected asylum seekers out of the country? The dead of Breitscheidplatz would still be alive if the German authorities had worked professionally. The fact that “with all their strength” no one is taking responsibility for this gives Merkel’s will “to make that better which didn’t go well” a taste as bitter as gall.

“The terror will remain, don’t look at me like that.”

What is going to be streamlined is the dealing with the victims after the crime — not their protection. Merkel lets it be known: The terror will remain, don’t look at me like that. New offices, departments and printed forms will register the victims of the next Islamist attack more quickly, will supervise them better. Surely, someone is working on a new printed form T — T as in “terror victim” — right now: which body parts did you lose completely, which in part (please specify degree)? How close were you to the victim? Would you like to be assisted religiously, or neutrally? Do you have life insurance? Do you own real estate? Is your tax-free savings allowance exhausted?

Empathy under Reserve

Merkel said today, after the short memorial service at the Breitscheidplatz, that she would “work on making things better that didn’t go well, that we will do everything humanly possible, not just to guarantee safety, but to give people whose lives were destroyed […] the possibility to get back into life as good as possible.” So, according to this, these people were trapped in an intermediate realm between life and death, and the chancellor didn’t care until now, when she intends to pull the bark from the Acheron. Does she really think she will still find people there? Is she still hoping for things she can regulate, so that she won’t have to speak about them?

“A government, failing the minimum requirements of humanity”

After the CDU executive committee meeting yesterday, Merkel concluded: “This suffering, this total change of one’s own life, cannot be amended. But we nevertheless show empathy, and will also, where things need to be bettered, better them.” While the wrong “But” in the beginning was an abyss, the wrong “Nevertheless” in the end is a capitulation. A government, in the person of the head of state, failing the minimum requirements of humanity. The “nevertheless” makes the human measure an act of mercy. It implies that the government is lowering itself to an action that is objectively pointless; it makes the reversibility of what has happened a condition of empathy. This may rightfully be called shabby. True empathy is when you know that you can’t change the bitter things that have happened. In Merkel’s statement, empathy is under reserve.

Are the dead of Merkel’s Breitscheidplatz dead? There are divergent opinions on that. We know now, however, that the bereaved of the Breitscheidplatz are her bereaved.

2. An original translation (excerpt) from the news broadcaster n-tv:

December 19, 2017

Merkel’s Lack Of Empathy

A commentary by Thomas Schmoll

The chancellor met the victims of the Berlin terror attack too late. Her behaviour suits the catastrophic performance of several authorities. It is disgraceful. She should look at Helmut Schmidt as an example.

Angela Merkel stays true to herself, also in mourning. On the day when she finally was to meet the victims and the bereaved of the terror attack of Berlin Breitscheidplatz, she declared in a typical wooden manner: “It is important to me that I make it clear once again today how much we feel with the families and with the injured, how much we also want to make things better.”

These “things” that she wants to tweak are the demands that the government’s victim commissioner, Kurt Beck, lists in his final report. He says: “I have repeatedly brought the hints that I received to the attention of the chancellery.” Merkel could have long ago tackled improving “things”. But exactly that is not her thing, especially not in an election year. And yet the CDU chief had said about the dead, shortly after the terror attack on December 19, 2016: “It is they to whom we owe our best work.”

“Merkel did not offer an explanation for her long reluctance to invite these people to the chancellery, or to send them condolences at least.”

Despite this promise, the head of government waited until few days before the anniversary of the attack to have Beck explain to her what Germany lacks. And yet it is her very own duty to set the direction and guidelines. “I know that some would have wished for such a meeting earlier,” Merkel admitted at a press conference few hours before meeting the victims. But she did not offer an explanation for her long reluctance to invite these people, for whom she professed empathy, to the chancellery, or to send them condolences at least. The head of government also refrained from a public apology, for which the survivors and the families of the murdered had been hoping.

“I want to tell Mrs. Merkel that she has got the blood of my son on her hands.”

Beck might be right when he supposes that it surely “was no ill intent” on Merkel’s part that the meeting took place as late as now. But what was it then? There must be a reason which is neither “evil” nor “good”? A busy schedule? The federal election campaign? Shame? Fear of the anger of the victims? Or of accusations like that of the mother of the Polish truck driver [Lukasz Urban], whom the Islamist Anis Amri killed to seize his truck? The grieving mother declared: “ I want to tell Mrs. Merkel that she has got the blood of my son on her hands.”

19 thoughts on “Angela Merkel: The Inconvenience and Annoyance of the Breitscheidplatz Anniversary

  1. It’s no hope if she stays in government, she doesn’t care about German people, I guarantee that , too much damage to the country and way too late .. for next 4 years , Germany will be finished..

  2. I am sorry, I just can’t listen to this monster, without getting really angry and disgusted.

  3. One picture says more than a thousand words ; each and every of her wrinkles screams out loud about her displeasure of being confronted with the consequences of her politics…

  4. Former STASI asset “Erika” currently NSA asset leading the nation of hollow cost cattle to their doom. Germans and their beloved burden of fake hollow cost guilt are an endangered species that seems to revel in the prospect. Weird, weird!

  5. I can’t help contrast the picture of this gravedigger of Europe with the preceding posts of the remarkably talented child and the beautiful lady with the great voice.

  6. There is something utterly non-human in the manner of speech of the “Gravedigger of Germany”. A year (a scheduling problem perhaps?); to get this tepid, pathetic, condolence. Yet it took her only a week to visit the imam of the Dresden mosque at which a bomb had been thrown (by whom – the imam’s brother, cousin, the mosque’s treasurer?) with nobody injured.

    I am tempted to opine that the underlying reason for Merkel’s lack of human concern for the 12 dead and the scores of injured (some very seriously – note that nobody offers the number) is that she is not a parent. But I know non-parents who evince what seems to me to be genuine compassion for the misfortunes of others. So, no, it is just Merkel’s idiosyncratic lack of empathy/sympathy.

    • Examining Merkel’s actions, it is hard to believe that she has not already converted to Islam.

      It is the same for Obama, who clearly retained his indoctrination from his days in the Indonesian madrassas he attended.

      • What else has Merkel been doing that suggests actual conversion to Islam? I’m unaware, but if there’s evidence, I’ll consider it. As for the other person you mentioned and his relationship to that particular belief system, I have less need of being convinced.

  7. The best think she can do just resign , but she doesn’t want to , she want keep going with this unstoppable madness with Her “refugees “ wich they are not refugees, I think she have backlash from the childhood, where in Her pastor father Was take care along with Her of disable people, and was lots of them , and in Her sixties , wich is I think she gave a midlife crisis, she bring millions of Muslim thinking she can help them all of tax people money, I think this is the backlash.:

    • That’s an interesting theory. Its validity depends on the personality and actual activities of her father. Perhaps he was a man given to charitable works. However, his ability to travel freely to and from West Germany strongly suggests he was trusted by the Stasi and thus an agent of some kind. Communist regimes, as virulent as the E. German one especially, are not known for their friendly relations with Christians. His interests may have been less pastoral than political.

      His daughter showed an interest in agitprop not pastoral care though many a child of a preacher has rebelled against the church.

      It really is odd that a member of the E. German apparatus ended up as the Chancellor of all of Germany but that’s just me, I guess. The electorate did not seem to mind at all, even ignoring her demonstrated disdain for the national flag. You’d swear that man next to her on the stage handed her a dead skunk instead of the German flag.

  8. Angela Merkel is a stolid, stubborn, tunnel visioned woman? The type woman that was a hausfrau that ended up running the concentration camps. The ones that complained that the Jews were verminous and apathetic. Why didn’t they smile?. Totally oblivious to the fact that conditions in these camps were appalling..
    She will never admit that what she has launched onto Germans and other Europeans is a ghastly nightmare.. That would mean saying she made a mistake. Stolid, stubborn people never admit they make mistakes. They go by plans, and rules, which must never be broken, regardless of how wrong or damaging these rules may be.. She made a ruling about open borders and welcoming in millions of 3rd world people.. I actually believe she is so narrow in her vision and totally lacks any empathy with German people at all.. She should not be allowed to be chancellor again.

  9. The article’s description of Merkel reminds me of UK PM Theresa May – another female leader who finds speaking difficult and can’t connect with people. How was it possible that such empty vessels came to power I wonder. Our first female PM, Margaret Thatcher, was a great communicator who held a strong philosophy and never fudged her comments, so it’s nothing to do with femininity as such. But I can’t help but notice the similarity between the two women, Merkel and May – both managerial leaders without a shred of common sense or vision.

  10. There is one thing above all that shouts out to me about this. Merkel is not one little tiny bit different from the leaders of Ireland, France, Britain or over a hundred of Prime Ministers and millions of bureaucrats. It is a very deep problem. It is clear that they need an economy that forges ahead and that creates comfort for their people. I do not in general doubt their sincerity in this. But reality intervenes. The first reality is that the capitalist system about which polite people do not talk too much or at all has created above all a world market now underpinning their world system. That has a potential but unfortunately it is a world system of madness. I cannot think of one single area where madness is not bursting forth. No matter how beautiful the sounds of Silent Night or Adeste Fidelis underneath is the lunatic asylum.

    • A superb comment.

      One wag on ZeroHedge (I regret I can’t find the link to give him or her credit), I believe, suggested that the Russians ought to send artillery to Detroit and offer to support “moderate” forces there. If you follow the Syrian “situation” you’ll appreciate the genius of that. Maybe this would work in Germany, which also supports the NATO/Sainted Coalition/neo-Crusader campaign to install acceptable leadership in Syria. U.S. artillery deployed, say, in Lower Saxony to support the AfD. This idea could take off. I quite like the Syrian leadership. Perhaps it would be so kind as to send a sort of youth volunteer corps to instruct us on sanitation, basic education, and democratic fundamentals (e.g., no crucifixion for speaking one’s mind, adult management of security services, no media centralization).

      Short of that, I don’t know how the “petrified armor around people’s minds” can be pierced. For now, then, it’s a gleaming, efficient, manicured lunatic asylum as you point out. All is well in Laputa.

  11. Where were the angry Germans berating her for her madness? Thats right there were none, we get the leaders we deserve…auf wiedersehn Germany Mecca is calling

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