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Germany finds itself in a dilemma. After WW2, laws were put in place to ensure that the Federal Government could never again subvert the security apparatus to create something similar to that which enabled the Nazis to seize power. A quite laudable aim, at least at the time. As a result the German States, of which there are currently 16, are each responsible for their own security and intelligence organizations. The Federal Security organization has only limited responsibility for the security at such places as borders and railway station etc.
In a speech reported here the Federal Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maiziere has suggested that this split of responsibilities needs to be rethought to enable acts of terrorism which are targeting at the country rather than the individual states to be effectively combated:
De Maiziere examines national as well as European security structures in the article, and concludes: reforms are "required." The core of his analysis calls for expanded federal responsibilities, which will demand that states relinquish some of theirs. Formulations such as "centrally operative crisis management" or "control competence over all security agencies" appear throughout the article.
However, the recent terror attack, the most serious in Germany in over 35 years, did not prompt de Maiziere's considerations, it simply gave him a reason to group them together into a kind of list of demands. The interior minister writes that he himself had proposed most of the changes "prior to the attack." The demands affect all authorities and areas of government concerned with defense against the threat of terror: Namely, the police and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany's domestic intelligence agency - but also, as the minister sees it, the army. The international scope of the problem, he says, touches on the need to secure Europe's external borders, as well as the global dimensions of the right to asylum.
This suggestion has not gone down well, particularly with those who were living in fear of a state controlled secret intelligence organisation (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, MfS), commonly known as the Stasi) until relatively recently.
[Continues...]
For example, this report contains the following:
Anis Amri, believed to have carried out the [recent Berlin] attack, was allowed to remain in the country because he did not have a valid travel document and his home country, Tunisia, initially refused to produce one.
To handle such cases, Mr. de Maizière suggested setting up federally controlled "departure centers," which could be placed "close to German airports" to aid the process.
He argued that such measures were already possible within existing German law and suggested extending the period for which a person can be detained pending deportation beyond the current maximum of four days.
Opposition lawmakers sharply rejected that suggestion, insisting that the government had a responsibility to respect the human rights of each individual, even those who are to be deported.
"In a country governed by the rule of law, the end does not justify every means," said Ulla Jelpke, an interior affairs expert with the left-wing Left Party.
She further criticized the plans as a "frontal assault" on the decentralization of powers that were set up to prevent another takeover like that of the Nazis.
What initially appeared as a problem with a relatively simple solution has become a lot more complex.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05 2017, @01:10AM
You really think Germany is going to become a Nazi state again if they centralize their police/military force? It will never happen again, one nuke would wipe them out. Let them reorganize if it'll help fight terrorism.
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Thursday January 05 2017, @08:18AM
One nuke might disable the state, but most certainly not wipe us out. Also, states have nukes in order *not* to use them. Planning on actually using them is more or less insane, and everyone but Trump knows that. To understand some of the concerns regarding security forces in Germany, it might be interesting to take a look at there history.
BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst [wikipedia.org])
The predecessor of the BND was the German eastern military intelligence agency during World War II, the Abteilung Fremde Heere Ost or FHO Section in the General Staff, led by Wehrmacht Major General Reinhard Gehlen. Its main purpose was to collect information on the Red Army. After the war Gehlen worked with the U.S. occupation forces in West Germany. In 1946 he set up an intelligence agency informally known as the Gehlen Organization or simply "The Org" and recruited some of his former co-workers.
So, the leader of the Nazi military intelligence service built up the new intelligence service as well, relying on former colleagues. This mess was never cleaned up properly, and former Nazi leaders can be suspected to hire mainly ideologically compatible personal. The sentiment procreates through the decades.
BKA - Bundeskriminalamt [wikipedia.org]
from German wiki entry [wikipedia.org]
Fortwirken der NS-Zeit in Personal, Organisationsstruktur und polizeilichen Konzepten
Die Behörde wies bei ihrer Gründung und für die folgenden 20 Jahre ähnlich wie Justiz, Verfassungsschutz und BND vor allem in der Führungsetage einen zunächst fast hundertprozentigen Bestand an ehemaligen Mitgliedern der NSDAP und Angehörigen der SS auf.
Translation (unfortunately not part of the English wiki entry)
Continued influence of NS-times on personal, organisation-structure and police procedural concepts
The office shows at the time of its founding and the following 20 years, similar to judiciary, office for protection of the constitution and BND, especially in the leadership section, nearly one hundred percent former members of the NSDAP and of the SS.
Again, these leaders can be expected to choose ideologically compatible candidates as subordinates as well.
MAD - Militärischer Abschiermdienst [wikipedia.org]
This service is not old enough to have a direct connection to the NSDAP. But even they managed to get entangled [wikipedia.org] in the affairs around the NSU [wikipedia.org].
Several off-the-record informants for BKA, BND and MAD were paid handsomely by the different services, and it turned out that the NSU was funded in large parts by these payments, while the information gained was not used to solve their acts of murder.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday January 05 2017, @09:10AM
Maybe if the agencies had been able to use the information from each other, they would not have paid a full set of informants each, and the NSU would at least have gotten just 1/3 of the funding.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.