29.3.02022

Post photo: Affenmusik | © Pixabay

Table of Contents

missile defense

The current discussion is another step towards nationalism and another departure from NATO. Air defense is one of NATO's tasks because there is no other way to coordinate it and then to maintain it.

Germany has continuously reduced its contribution to this over the years, including abolishing the army air defense and reducing its own overall capacities to a kind of "cluster defense", which means that the German Bundestag and its members of parliament can still be protected today. In the event of war, they continued to rely entirely on NATO — that is, the USA.

In view of the size of the country, promising the Germans a national anti-aircraft defense system for huge sums is hardly financially viable and cannot be implemented in terms of personnel, and it can only be maintained within the framework of NATO, even in the event of a war. This promise, which will certainly be welcomed by our population (just us - we don't give a damn about everyone else!) has only two goals. Firstly, to make a few cousins even richer again (100 billion euros pot) and secondly, to signal to the Americans that it would be better if they campaigned exclusively for democracy and freedom in Asia in the future.

My conclusion: Putin's comrades are doing a good job in Germany.

Addendum (29.03.2022: 11.35 a.m.)

Please also read this comment by Thomas Stoelzel in business week: First inform, then buy weapons! (March 28, 2022)

moral outrage

If telling the truth in a democracy is the most dangerous thing that can happen to a politician, then we all have a big problem!

In this very specific case: "Washighton, we have a problem." The US President recently said Joe Biden rightly so during his visit to Europe: "For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power."
He didn't mean the Heilbronn mayor, he probably won't know where Baden-Württemberg is, let alone Heilbronn, but his statement was true Vladimir Putin, the butcher of Europe's east.

And up to Victor Orban and a few German politicians, this statement will also be understood and probably shared by all other people. The problem is, this statement came from the heart and is the pure truth - so completely unprofessional and therefore unacceptable!

Therefore now had to Joe Biden as follows: "I was expressing the moral outrage that I feel, and I make no apologies for it." And at the same time assure that this is not a political statement by the US President or even a change in US policy. He probably doesn't want to make a complete mess of us Germans.

from Städtepartnerschaf

As far as town twinning is concerned, Heilbronn is a very, very sad place. For decades, only the Young European Federalists (JEF) have been able to successfully promote town twinning in Heilbronn. The rest of the townspeople were at best indifferent to town twinning. And so it was not surprising that a leading article writer at the time for the Heilbronner Voice publicly made fun of these attempts by young people to win town twinning for Heilbronn and accused these more progressive people from Heilbronn of “only wanting to be received in a bourgeois manner.”

There was a second momentum in the town twinning of Heilbronn when the former JEF district chairman dr Manfred Weinman became mayor of our city. After Weinmann, however, it became very quiet again about our existing partnerships.

I always found it sad when people from Heilbronn with a history of moving to the city of Heilbronn proposed new town twinnings in vain. I still remember two such attempts quite well, namely the proposals to enter into new town partnerships with towns in Italy and Hungary. The EUROPA-UNION was also asked at the time to support this and also only received refusals from the city. The tenor was always the same: "Heilbronn already has enough town twinning."

I found it very sad when the call for help from our twin town Neath Port Talbot in June 2015, which incidentally had existed since 1966, was answered by our current mayor by ending this partnership for "financial reasons". The girls and boys from Port Talbot were also always an enrichment of the meeting place Europe and thus probably another disturbing element for our city leaders.

So I was amazed when the OB 2019 - in the middle of the Ukraine-Crimea-Donbas conflict - concluded a new town twinning with a city in the area of responsibility of a dictator and mass murderer (also of Union citizens). The explanations for this ranged from concessions to the Russian community in Heilbronn (allegedly, the “Russians” from those who had immigrated to Heilbronn should also vote) to a declaration of solidarity Vladimir Putin, who still has many friends in German politics (especially in the SPD).

But then I had to realize that at least for some city councilors the motives were far more banal and the former editor of the Heilbronner Voice had only been wrong about the group of people.

With the start of the Russian Federation's attack on the rest of Ukraine, the intensified and now unrestrained mass murder of women and small children, my concerns about such a partnership were heard by more and more city councillors, but were shattered again.

Only when our federal government also took a somewhat more distanced stance towards it Vladimir Putin decided, and other German cities had already ended their partnerships, slowly took hold a distancing from this partnership in the municipal council through. And so it probably came to a diaper-soft suspension of this town twinning; Even today, those who "understand Putin" seem to find a hearing in Heilbronn.

I was no longer surprised that the SPD again acted in an over-the-top manner, calling for another town twinning, namely with a town in the Ukraine. The fact that this is now supported again in unison by all municipal councils is something. What consequences this will have in the future, at least for our two new partner cities, will only be completely unclear to our municipal councils and the top management.

I think it's an absolute shame that the majority of us Heilbronn residents still don't know what to do with town twinning, that our local councilors only want to be welcomed in a bourgeois manner and that those Heilbronn citizens who have been committed to existing town twinning for decades do not find any support. Not to mention my regrets towards those Heilbronn residents who may now believe that Heilbronn will finally enter into a town twinning with towns in Italy, Hungary, Spain or even Turkey.

Then you have to listen to it again, that the city of Heilbronn has enough town twinning and, by the way, there is no money for something like that either!

If, contrary to expectations, many "real" Heilbonners suddenly start to ask how such a "geeiere" can be at all, then the municipal council and the city administration will certainly sound in unison that all this is really a big misunderstanding and that Heilbronn will from now on agree with everyone existing countries such town twinnings: Heilbronn is the world champion in town twinning. Then there will be new city signs and the world will be fine again for everyone in Heilbronn.