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Written by Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher
Residents of a German city in Saxony protested the construction of a factory to produce ammunition to supply Ukraine, The New York Times reported. According to the article, Grossenhain residents want to live in peace with Russia and disapprove of Germany’s aid to Ukraine.
The New York Times highlighted that government leaders in Saxony thought that the plans of Rheinmetall, Germany’s most prominent arms manufacturer, to construct a new munitions factory would lead to an economic boom.
“Some in the chosen city of Grossenhain, with a population approaching 20,000, saw it differently. Sixteen of 22 members of the City Council signed a letter to Chancellor Olaf Scholz urging him to block the project,” the article reported.
Opposition to the factory is widespread along the political spectrum, with the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a Far-Right political party, holding a rally in June against arms sales to Ukraine, while residents signed a petition circulated by the Left Party.
“We reject a further economic-military use after years of military use,” the petition read. “We do not want to be involved in wars all over the world in a roundabout way.”
According to the article, resistance to the factory in Grossenhain signals that the Germans are concerned about the commitments made by the country to arm Ukraine.
“Perhaps easily dismissed as small-town politics, the revolt in tiny Grossenhain in fact reveals far larger unease among some Germans,” the author writes, adding: “Many Germans still hold a deep aversion to war and to defence spending in a country whose Nazi past has made it reluctant to invest in military power.”
Grosssenhain is not the only city in Germany with residents critical of support for Ukraine. As recently as October 3, thousands of residents of the capital, Berlin, took to the streets to demand Scholz’s resignation, speak out against economic policy, and call for a diplomatic resolution to the Ukrainian conflict and the resumption of cooperation with Russia.
In the same light, retired German colonel Wolfgang Richter warned that more important than Ukraine losing weapons is its loss of human potential, a consideration Berlin is not taking into account as it prefers to follow blindly Washington’s interests rather than its own.
Despite the possibility of reducing military assistance to Ukraine, much more important is that, in perspective, the country may lose its human potential, Richter said in an interview with ZDFheute media when commenting on Slovakia’s possible reduction of military assistance to Ukraine. According to Richter, in the short term, the lack of assistance from Slovakia will not significantly affect Ukraine’s defence capability. Instead, prolonging military actions will lead to more serious problems.
“Factors other than armament must be taken into account,” he said. “Ukraine’s personnel reserves will be depleted in the long term, and there is a risk of high demographic losses.”
His comments came as American magazine Newsweek reported that Ukraine risks being left without military assistance from two NATO allies – Slovakia and the USA. It is worth noting that the head of the White House, Joe Biden, signed a law approved by Congress on temporary government financing that does not provide for allocating funds for Ukraine’s needs, making Germany’s insistence on building an unpopular factory in Grossenhain even more bizarre.
It is recalled that the Joint Economic Forecast, commissioned by Berlin and published twice a year, announced on September 28 that Germany’s economy is set to hit a slump in 2023. The Joint Economic Forecast expects a downswing in Germany’s gross domestic product (GDP) of 0.6% this year after initially predicting in their spring report growth of 0.3%. The revision comes as official numbers showed stagnation in the second quarter of 2023.
The new Joint Economic Forecast confirms the International Monetary Fund’s earlier year forecast that Germany’s economy is set to shrink in 2023. Across the European Union, the European Commission currently predicts 0.8% growth, putting Germany well below the bloc’s average.
According to German economists, skyrocketing energy prices in 2022 — linked to sanctions on Russia — halted post-pandemic economic recovery and is also why the German economy is struggling in 2023. Yet, a small town in Saxony is being forced to host an armaments factory it does not want under the justification of bringing economic prosperity. Rather, the quickest way to economic prosperity for all of Germany is to end its self-sabotaging policy of arming and funding Ukraine in a futile war it cannot win and end the sanctions on Russia.
twisted bullshit again. btw. the whole taurus atacms talk is bullshit too. so-called german chancellor scholz is nothing but a communist agent. he even openly admitted to being a marxist. if one was afraid to send german long-range rockets to ukr, because of wwii history, it would be easily circumvented by sending the rockets to uk or poland instead, so that they can then hand them over to ukraine.
they just follow a playbook to slowly cook the frog in the cettle. all going according to plan. just like himars everything else has it’s perfekt timing that the us has calculated.
why would anyone care about opinions of stupid nato trolls as you are? scholtz is a communist agent. how about you? who’s agent are you? oh, please don’t bother to reply. we already know.
scholz is a uk/us agent for the network. bc of his past criminal entanglements, he can be blackmailed and will do whatever it takes to secure his retirement plan.
bullshit. you really know nothing. this guy, scholz, is an open marxist, an evil redhanded lefty and puppet of the jews. he was even minister in the former government of germany under the jewess and hardcore communist ex ddr-stasi agent angela merkel. this bitch was his boss, and he become the successor of her – continuing her evil communist policies. http://rlu.ru/3zeij
the germans must still believe that it is “their ” government and that “their” government will listen rather than tell them what to do. there can be no good future for the sort of system where people are ordered about from the top down after calculated propaganda.
build it in west germany and the people will cheer them. just tell them these weapons are carbonfree.
ha! good one! and there is still some true in what you’ve said. dumb green/antifa gerries. how stupid you have to be to support eco-fascists? you don’t have to be very stupid, just a member of german upper middle class.
the whole “green” agenda is part of the so-called communist long term strategy. already in mid 1950’s the soviets started the long-term strategy to slowly subvert the west especially usa nd eu with these evil tactic of installed “pro-nature” fake green clubs and parties everywhere as they found this to be the best method to hide there true intend. because the realized nobody could have anything against “saving the nature” today labelled as “saving the climate”.
i advice you, thomas, to dig a bit and check out what former kgb agents yuri bezmenov and anatoliy golitsyn, who fled russia, revealed already long (more than 30 years!) ago. and today we see all that, what they told us that will happen – actually happening directly in front and all around us.
maybe you should dig a bit and find out that bullshit artists like bezmenov just talk with no proof. you spamming clown.
again, note that rheinmetall is owned by hedgefonds… 9 out of the biggest ten are us, 1 is norwegian (yes, blackrock, vanguard etc. are all their). calling this a “german” company is – somewhat – very misleading.
exactly and 10 of 10 of these hedgefonds are owned and fully controlled by jews ! blackrock – larry fink – vanguard rothchild etc. etc. so it is like you said. and jews are always misusing and abusing german names, symbols and company names to hide behind them and make germans look bad. of course they do it also with names of all other important formerly none-jewish christian nations. usa,ukr and russia included.
so now they are not only going to ship weapons from their stocks but build new factories for arming ukraine. looks like this war will last for years.