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matthew karnitschnig Profile picture
matthew karnitschnig
@MKarnitschnig
“free born man of the usa”
3 subscribers
Mar 19 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
Scholz’s handlers are suddenly pulling back from the “frozen conflict” narrative as if the ploy didn’t have the big man’s blessing to begin with. Today’s Berlin Playbook reports Scholz now “rejects” the idea of freezing and is “rolling his eyes” over it🧵politico.eu/newsletter/ber… So we’re to believe that the chancellor had nothing to do with the initiative launched by his party’s caucus leader, Ralf Mützenich, who made the comments in a prepared speech to parliament during a heated debate over #Taurus last week. Summarized here:
politico.eu/newsletter/ber…
Aug 31, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Gorbachev's death has really brought to the for what a fantasy world Germans reside in. In almost every news report, public media assert that German reunification "would have been impossible without him." No mention of George H.W. Bush, the driving force behind reunification... much less the 12 bln DM Kohl sent to Moscow to make it happen. No mention of the fact that, his historic accomplishments notwithstanding, Gorbachev was the leader of an extremely oppressive regime that subjugated half of Europe...
Jul 19, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Scholz‘s op-ed is bizarre on many levels. Most worryingly, it displays a degree of self-delusion one has come to expect more from leaders farther east. 🧵politico.eu/article/german… To suggest, after Berlin sold Ukraine out and then left it in the lurch by refusing to send the weapons it needs, that other EU countries would be willing to rely on some kind of German-led European security architecture w/out US is absurd.
Jul 16, 2022 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
After years of downplaying the threat of Putin using gas as a strategic weapon, Germany’s political class is now convinced itself he’s going to turn it off altogether. But why would he? 🧵 He’s achieved his aims (scaring the bejesus out of Germans) just by choking it off a little and doing “maintenance” on the main pipeline.
Jul 5, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Noble effort here by @bctallis to nudge German elites to the right side of history, but the die is cast…🧵on 🧵 Germany will be remembered for blocking Ukraine’s NATO bid, shivving it in peace talks with the “Steinmeier formula,” and selling it out for NordStream2.
Jun 21, 2022 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
The latest uproar over German antisemitism (it's endemic, despite a surprisingly successful campaign to convince the world otherwise by banging bronze plaques with Holocaust victims' names into sidewalks) is one of the more grotesque chapters in recent German political life. 🧵 Over the past few days, Germany's political leadership has been feigning shock and horror over these antisemitic images, which are part of a huge mural featured at Documenta, the country's premier art festival, held every 5 years.
Jun 21, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Russia’s now threatening Lithuania over decision to halt rail cargo between Belarus and #Kaliningrad. While reporting this dispatch from the 100 km corridor known as the Suwalki Gap separating Kaliningrad from Belarus, I was surprised to see no troops…. 🧵politico.eu/article/suwalk… in the Suwalki Gap itself. Border patrols were also light. One border crossing with Belarus I visited wasn’t even manned. Aside from Lithuania’s small army, the only soldiers in the country are from a German-led battle group of about 1,000 and a small American contingent. 2
Jun 2, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Berlin’s leitmotif for what it will do to support #Ukraine is best described by the German adage “too much to die, too little to live” (zum Sterben zu viel, zum Leben zu wenig). 1/8 🧵 There’s a lot of buzz now around the German decision to send a state-of-the-art air defense system to Ukraine.Sounds good, but a closer look shows it to be yet another German head fake.The Bundeswehr doesn’t own the systems so they have to be ordered.Deliver will take „months“ 2
May 20, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
“We want to see a strategic defeat of Russia,” U.S. NATO Ambassador @Julie_C_Smith tells #Strategic_Ark in Warsaw. “We want to see Russia leave #Ukraine.” On Indo-Pacific and Ukraine: “we can address both of these challenges and threats.”
Focus now is on Ukraine, but the US “can walk and chew gum at the same time.”
May 18, 2022 • 21 tweets • 2 min read
Given the fog of war surrounding what Olaf Scholz said when over the past few months re Ukraine, I thought a timeline of his statements might be useful. On the key questions of arms deliveries, sanctions and the terms for peace, he has been all over the map 🧵 Feb. 6 Before traveling to US for meeting with Biden, Scholz says that Germany “has for years pursued a clear policy of not delivering arms to crisis regions and that includes not sending lethal weapons to Ukraine..that was correct and it remains so.”
May 16, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Important sentiment, which underscores the degree to which the USA remains the linchpin of European security. Though no one in the region ever really trusted the French or Germans, their handling of Ukraine has erased any lingering doubt that they could be relied on. 1/3 The flipside of this is that the US will (and should) reconsider its own commitments to Europe. If Biden loses the next election that could happen sooner than people think. 2/3
May 6, 2022 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
Observing Berlin’s debate from the outside, one could be forgiven for thinking the entire war is about Germany and its struggle to find its moral compass. 🧵 A current German obsession revolves around the question of whether it could be considered an active participant in the war under international law if it trains Ukrainian soldiers how to use the heavy weaponry it plans to provide.
Mar 29, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Extraordinary interview with Merkel‘s chief economy adviser Röller, which is all the more revealing if you know that it‘s one of the “authorized“ interviews common in Germany, in which the interviewee is permitted to edit his answers…1/6 handelsblatt.com/politik/deutsc… Merkel’s advisers didn’t speak publicly while she was in office, but in recent weeks a kind of cockfight has broken out over who is really to blame for her disastrous Russia policy. 2/6
Mar 4, 2022 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Amid the excitement over Germany's #Zeitenwende, it's worth stopping to remember how we got here, esp. how Ukraine got here. Today we profiled Ukraine's ambassador to Germany @MelnykAndrij, whose entreaties for Berlin to help his country defend itself 1/7 politico.eu/article/for-uk… were met for years with a mix of with open mockery and derision. Top German politicians, led by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a Schröder crony who as foreign minister was a driving force behind the failed Minsk accords, repeatedly complained to Melnyk's..2/7
Feb 26, 2022 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
Few random observations from Berlin on German reaction to the Russian invasion of #Ukraine...🧵1 #UkraineUnderAttack This being Germany, there's plenty of fingerprinting going on, with the usual suspects (the US and NATO) being blamed for offending the precious Russian soul by expanding the alliance eastward. (Never mind that it was a German idea to begin with). 2
Jan 20, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Reporting this, I stumbled on the German bestseller "America's Holy Warriors," a scorching portrait of U.S. culture and politics. Curious as to where the author, Annika Brockschmidt, had researched the book, I was surprised by the answer -- Berlin 1/5 politico.eu/article/german… The book has received glowing reviews. Brockschmidt, named one of Germany's top 30 journalists under 30, is now held up as an expert on America. Here, she appears on @MarkusLanzTV, a popular talk show, alongside former foreign minister @sigmargabriel 2/5 zdf.de/gesellschaft/m…
Aug 29, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
I hear this a lot from Germans so it's worth unpacking. 1/6 First, it's true that Germany joined the US sanctions push in the summer of 2014, but people who were in the room have confirmed to me that Germany only agreed to support tougher Russian sanctions after to the downing of MH17. Up to that point they had been dragging their feet. 2
Aug 7, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
This letter from US senators threatening sanctions on a port in Merkel’s home district (h/t @OlafGersemann) if Nord Stream 2 goes ahead has triggered another round dire warnings from the German kommentariat on long-term damage such tactics will do to trust in US (Short thread)1/5 What’s interesting is that few German politicians or journalists look at the situation through the other end of the telescope, i.e. at the damage Germany’s relentless pursuit of the project has already done to trust in Germany in US policy circles and among other NATO allies.2/5
Dec 20, 2018 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
So, here’s a little story about this DerSpiegel football reporter who says here: “Everyone at Der Spiegel reports with the utmost care”. #Relotius #Relotiuspresse During the WorldCup in 2014, he wrote that notorious match fixer Wilson Raj Perumal told him hours before Cameroon faced Croatia that Cameroon would throw the match. Perumal predicted Cameroon would lose 4-0 after a first-half red card, Buschmann wrote. m.spiegel.de/sport/fussball…
Jul 4, 2018 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
There's a lot of confusion out there, in particular internationally, about the impact of the the #Merkel-#Seehofer deal. A few points. (thread) This is not a major about-face on Merkel's part. In substance, she has given away very little. Her top priority was always to avoid unilateral action and she has achieved that, hence the support of the EU Commission yesterday. (2)