THE FREE FLOW OF UNCENSORED FACTS
THE FREE FLOW OF UNCENSORED FACTS
BERLIN / NEW YORK (January 26). Accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh has been directly linked to the son of a close friend and adviser to German chancellor Helmut Kohl, Germany Alert has learned. Andy Strassmeir, whose father was formerly Kohl's chief of staff, was living in Oklahoma, handling security duties for a white supremacist colony, Elohim City.
U.S. officials have confirmed that McVeigh telephoned Elohim City, a Christian Identity racialist compound in rural Oklahoma two weeks before the bombing. McVeigh asked to speak with Strassmeir, according to Robert Millar, head of the Elohim City compound. In an interview with Germany Alert, Strassmeir said he could not remember the phone call. But he did acknowledge first meeting the bombing suspect shortly after McVeigh was released from the U.S. Army.
Strassmeir, whose father, Guenter Strassmeir, is a former general secretary of the Berlin CDU and whose brother now serves in Berlin's regional parliament, left the U.S. in late 1995 after two years at Elohim City. He is now in Germany, living with his parents. The 36 year old insists he did not flee the United States. Strassmeir told Germany Alert that he remained at Elohim City for four months after the bombing.
Strassmeir claimed that no U.S. authorities have tried to contact him in connection with investigations of the bombing.
Strassmeir said his U.S. attorney is Kirk Lyons, an extremist who has been filmed taking part in neo-Nazi activities in Germany. While Strassmeir was living in Oklahoma, Lyons met with his parents during a trip to Berlin, the son admitted. Given extensive media coverage of Lyons at neo-Nazi gatherings and his reputation as lawyer for U.S. neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members, Holocaust-deniers and other extremists, it is most unlikely that the senior Strassmeir did not know Lyons' background. The lawyer has told journalists he went to visit the Strassmeirs to inform them that their son was happy and well living in the U.S.
During an interview, Strassmeir said he had no part in the Oklahoma City bombing, but expressed caution about speaking about McVeigh or the massive explosion which killed 169 persons. "I'm kind of gun shy right now," Strassmeir declared. "Being innocent is one thing, but running your mouth gets you in trouble."
Strassmeir said his father formerly headed a faction within Kohl's CDU party that always believed in the nationalist dream of "German reunificataion." The night that Guenter Strassmeir and Kohl were shown on television around the world at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, celebrating annexation of East Germany, was "kind of a victory" for his father, Strassmeir said.
The link between McVeigh and Strassmeir raises numerous questions about the U.S. government's investigation. The Justice Department in Washington frequently dismissed reports that it had information of a German connection to the bombing.
Strassmeir said he and his father seldom discuss politics.
When asked what attracted him to Elohim City, an enclave that promotes the Christian Identity belief that Jews are the offspring of Satan and that blacks are "mud people," Strassmeir said, "I was attracted to the alternative lifestyle."
BONN (January 27). Word that the son of chancellor Helmut Kohl's former chief of staff and trusted friend Guenter Strassmeir was linked to the Oklahoma City bombing suspect is the latest in a series of disclosures tainting Kohl in association with hate.
The latest disclosure comes, ironically, only days after Kohl was honored by B'nai B'rith, a conservative Jewish organization.
Several years ago The Indepedent, a respected British daily, reported that Kohl had chosen a book by notorious Holocaust-denier David Irving as a Christmas gift.
Kohl has frequently chosen nationalists and extremists as members of his government. Several deputy ministers and CDU leadership officials in Kohl's inner circle have been linked to organizations seeking to retake parts of Poland, the Czech Republic and Russia as parts of a greater Germany.
BERLIN (January 26). One million German users of the Internet have been blocked from gaining access hundreds of sites on the World Wide Web. The action was taken by Deutsche Telekom, the government-run monopoly which runs Germany's harshly criticized telephone service.
Deutsche Telekom's T-Online, an Internet provider, blocked access to all sites run by Webcom, a Santa Cruz, California based web services company.
T-Online claimed it was reacting to a Mannheim prosecutor's order to block access to the Web site of Ernst Zuendel, a notorious pro-Nazi who rents space on the Webcom server. But while blocking Zuendel's site, Telekom officials also chose to wipe out German access to more than other 1,400 sites which run through Webcom. The sites include many businesses, childrens' sites and several public service organizations.
Germany Alert stopped using Webcom to distribute this publication on the Web six months ago after Zuendel began renting web space from the firm. But a statement from Germany Alert said that Webcom has now offered free web space for GA to expose the anti-Semitic and racist commentaries of Zuendel.
Webcom president Chris Scheffler condemned all acts of anti-Semitism and racism, including those on Zuendel's site. Scheffler added, however, that Webcom believes in the U.S. constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech.
LUEBECK. Germany's attempt to pin the murder of ten refugees on a 21 year old Lebanese resident is beginning to look as suspicious as the killer blaze itself. An attorney Safwan Eid, who has been arrested and charged with the 10 murders, says his client, who was injured while escaping the inferno, was asleep when the firebombing took place.
Much more damning to the government's claims, however, comes in a statement from Gustaf Sossou, an African refugee who German officials say got into a fight with Eid on the night before the blaze. Sosson told reporters that he had not even argued with Eid.
Speaking through his lawyer, Eid said that he, his parents and six brothers and sisters were all asleep when the fire began. Eid's mother and a sister were seriously injured while trying to escape the raging fire.
The disintegrating government story has led to further speculation that Germany is staging a massive attempt to cover-up for neo-Nazis who had threatened the refugees on numerous occasions and are believed by many to have firebombed the four-storey building.
Three Germans, all reportedly identified with the neo-Nazi scene, were detained after the killer blaze but later released because, according to government claims, that had an alibi.
Among the ten dead in the Luebeck fire were four children. Refugees from Lebanon, Syria, Zaire, Togo and Poland were attacked as they slept.
Survivors said they fear Germany is staging a cover-up to deflect international outrage at the pogrom. Skinheads shouting fascist slogans and other Germans wearing Nazi armbands had on numerous occasions threatened to murder the refugees, but the government refused requests for security guards, they said.
Fire officials and a local prosecutor said Thursday that multiple fires set off the inferno. Survivors spoke of smelling an odor like kerosene - frequently used in Nazi attacks -- as they fled the raging inferno. But on Friday some government officials tried claiming the refugees may have died from an "electrical fire." Luebeck's police chief said the fire began on the first floor of the gutted apartment complex. Then, on Sunday, officials claimed the blaze started on the fourth floor, and was set by Eid.
Meanwhile in Bonn, PDS parliamentarian Ulla Jelpke revealed hundreds of attacks that had previously gone unreported. From last January through November there were 406 racist, anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi attacks in Germany, government figures obtained by Jelpke disclosed. They included 33 anti-foreigner and 2 anti-Semitic firebombings, 282 anti-foreigner and 8 anti-Semitic attacks against persons, 31 anti-Semitic cemetery desecrations, and 50 anti-Semitic attacks that caused property damage. The government figures disclosed an additional 1,248 "anti-foreigner and right-wing-extremist" and 662 other anti-Semitic crimes had been commited. Jelpke revealed government statistics documenting 351 persons who had been injured in the attacks.
The refugees Luebeck were fire bombed about 3:30a.m. Thursday as most of them lay sleeping in the turn of the century structure.
Eyewitnesses said one of those killed in the pogrom, an African woman, died when she jumped out of an upper floor window while holding a baby in her arms. The infant was reported alive but seriously injured.
On Friday, German police freed four neo-Nazis who had been held as suspects in the attack. They had been seen in the area of the refugees' home only minutes after the firebombing but claimed they had an alibi.
Luebeck is the same western German port city where Nazis firebombed a synagogue during the 1994 Jewish Passover holiday. Before the new murderous attack, Germany's worst anti-foreigner attack was in Solingen, where five Turkish women and children were murdered.
Bonn. A new German law forces all doctors in the country to provide the government with an ongoing stream of data on the psychic and physical condition, as well as sexual habits, of their patients.
The law, which went into effect on January 1, eliminates all pretense of confidentiality between doctors and patients in Germany.
Medical societies, human rights organizations and the government's own official in charge of privacy are now condemning the law. Rights experts state flatly that the law smacks of Nazi methods that could lead to terrifying misuse.
Under the law, every doctor in Germany is required to provide the government with all details on patients including diagnoses, medicines prescribed and observations. The data is encrypted through the government-defined computer code ICD-10.
The government's official in charge of privacy, Joachim Jacob, protested Sunday that the law goes far beyond Bonn's claimed need to control medical costs in Germany.
BERLIN. German neo-Nazis have launched a major drive to back the FDP, minority partner in the government coalition. A coordinated series of appeals on extreme nationalist telephone networks and online bulletin boards urged supporters to join and actively support the party.
The pro-Nazis heaped praise on former chief federal prosecutor Alexander Von Stahl, a confidant of chancellor Helmut Kohl. Von Stahl leads a sprawling faction of the FDP which has adopted anti-foreigner policies that closely mirror those of self-proclaimed neo-Nazi groups.
In the latest phase of his drive to steer the FDP to the extreme right, Von Stahl failed in a bid to be elected chairman of the party's Berlin branch. Former Berlin party boss Gunther Rexrodt, himself an ex government minister, warned that Von Stahl seeks to remold the FDP as a "right-wing populist" party. The media-friendly phrase is used frequently to describe neo-Nazi, near-fascist and other extreme nationalist right-wingers.
Von Stahl became a confidant of both Kohl and foreign minister Klaus Kinkel during a long stint as chief federal prosecutor. Praised by the media and the chancellor alike, Von Stahl used his broad powers to crush the German left but declined to act when Nazi gangs began fire bombing the homes of foreigners throughout Germany.
Fascist groups have consistently praised Von Stahl, but their approval has now risen to giving him hero status. In a series of online bulletin boards and telephone networking services, neo-Nazis urged their backers to join and become active in FDP affairs in order to broaden support for Von Stahl and his backers.
Bonn. Last year foreign minister Klaus Kinkel ran around the world asking support for Germany as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. This year he is ordering, not asking, other countries to back the move. Germany wants the permanent seat and shall get what his nation deserves, Kinkel asserts.
Meanwhile, chancellor Helmut Kohl and his finance minister Theo Waigel are dictating Germany's demands to its neighbors for a common European currency, the Euro. If Europe doesn't do what Germany tells it to do, Kohl henchman Wolgang Schaeuble threatensopenly, Europe will descend into war.
Interior minister Manfred Kanther is taking a similar line on what the role of Eurocops, the European security agency which is controlled defacto by Bonn. Kanther demands that the EU give in to German demands for a blitz of spying on ordinary citizens all over the continent. He tells fellow EU ministers they have no choice on the matter.
But resistance is growing to the seemingly insatiable German dictatorship of Europe. Former chancellor Helmut Schmidt warns that his country is taking on "imperial airs," according to The Economist.Schmidt's blast was directed specifically at Waigel, but friends of the ex-chancellor said it was meant as a general cry of alarm.
The French, fed up with their country's affairs being increasingly decreed by ministers in Bonn, not Paris, are reacting too. Le Mondequoted a French government official as condemning the attempt by Germany to rewrite and falsify its history. The diplomat said it won't be long before the Germans will treat Hitler much as the French treat Napoleon.
Even the Netherlands, until recently the country which seemed to give in to each and every German demand, is sending clear signalst hat it's had enough. An article in the influential NRC Handelsbladgave eight reasons why the Dutch should outright oppose Bonn's dictates for the Euro. "Why must to changeover to a European currency happen totally under German conditions?" the article asks.
Francois Mitterand, dead at 79, will be remembered for numerous deeds, good and evil. Many people in former East Germany will recall Mitterand as the world leader who did the most to assist in the thwarted attempt at building a reformed democratic independent nation.
Mitterand, sensing that West German leaders would try to swallow-up the East, risked Bonn's fury buy choosing to announce an official state visit to East Berlin after the Stalinists were ousted in1989.
His visited was scheduled for late December, only a month after it was announced. Mitterand planned to bring the leaders of French industry and finance with him to help shore up the German Democratic Republic as an independent state and thus avoid the perils of dealing with a giant single Germany.
West German chancellor Helmut Kohl was enraged at Mitterand's plan, and aware that it could derail his scheme to annex East Germany. So Kohl abruptly staged a masterful one-upmanship stroke, visiting Dresden one week before Mitterand's scheduled arrival.
The West German media treated the trip as a near-royal occasion, totally eclipsing Mitterand's plans to boost the millions of GDR citizens who were trying to shape their own independent destiny.
When it was clear that his strategy failed, Mitterand acceptedthe political consequences by deepening relations between France and Germany.
Munich. The chief prosecutor in Bavaria has now admitted that the German police compiled a list of 200 Internet newsgroups which were banned by CompuServe. Among the groups are several for gays and one for handicapped persons, two groups which were also German targets during the Third Reich. Speaking in Munich, chief prosecutor Manfred Wick declared that the list was given to CompuServe during a meeting in early December. Wick claimed that CompuServe was not under direct orders to ban the groups but admitted that his prosecutors warned the online service they were prepared to prosecute on grounds of disseminating "child pornography."
Gays and handicapped groups have condemned Germany's action, pointing out the significance of a new wave of repression against them form the same country which carried out mass murder of homosexuals and handicapped persons under the Nazis. Meanwhile, CompuServe announced it would is seeking ways to restore access for most if not all of the newsgroups to users around the world except in Germany. The online service said it would face criminal charges if it resumed service within Germany. Earlier, Germany accelerated its frontal attack on Internet free speech by announcing that online services will be held criminally responsible for all content deemed "illegal" in the country. The move led to increasing fear that dissidents, gays and handicapped persons are the real targets in a campaign which officials claim is aimed solely at wiping out child pornography. In interviews on German television, government officials said that CompuServe was not being singled out as the sole target of an criminal investigation into child pornography. All online service providers whose services run into, from or through German will be held criminally liable if they disseminate "illegal" material, a spokesperson for the Bavarian prosecutor's office declared. Dozens of Internet newsgroups running Nazi propaganda, which is illegal in Germany, were not shut down. No threat of criminal prosecution was issued to CompuServe regarding Internet groups whose members call openly for the murder of Jews, gays and the handicapped.