Today we are dealing with the question of what the SPD is doing when the last of the 23 regional conferences took place on Saturday. It is also about the everyday anti-Semitism in Germany and the attacks on the Kurds in northern Syria, which already drove more than 100,000 people into flight.
Over and out
FRIEDEMANN BIRD / EPA-EFE / REX
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Issue 42/2019
NEVER AGAIN?
The assassination of Halle and the everyday hatred of Jews in GermanyDigital Edition | Printed issues | Apps | SUBSCRIPTION
Congratulations, dear candidates for the SPD presidency , your ordeal is over. Today at 10.30 clock takes place in the Munich Löwenbräukeller the last of the 23 regional conferences, followed by a celebration of the coming cosiness!
Gone are the ever-same jokes, theses, faces, passing the nights on the train or car, to be punctual at the next appointment, passing the feeling that in the short time you have not made your own point of view. Was it all worth it?
From the outside, the debates sometimes looked like meetings of a self-help group , basically they were. How many times has the feeling of unity been conjured that has suddenly been felt? An atmosphere of departure, perhaps just right and necessary for a party in decline.
"For the SPD, it is very important to finally discuss different programmatic and strategic approaches on an open stage," SPD General Secretary Lars Klingbeil told us in a recent interview. "For years, we have suppressed these conflicts."
From Monday on, the almost 430,000 SPD members have eleven days to choose their favorites. The outcome is barely predictable, that's the exciting moment in this process. Once the winners have been determined, the Secretary General wishes that "all teams join the victors". It must then be over with trench and wing fighting.
Well, utopias, it takes in politics.
- Split SPD: Why the race for the presidency was not always harmonious
The ground on which violence grows
Jens Schlueter / Getty Images
In Halle, the visitors of the synagogue narrowly escaped a massacre , the deed of the anti-Semitic assassin and his motive will occupy us for a while.
But in the new SPIEGEL we also look at the rather quiet anti-Semitism , the everyday incitement against Jews in Germany, the harassment and abuses. "Do not buy from Jews," for example, stood on a bridge wall in Bamberg. The spell itself is bad, but much worse is that it was not eliminated for months.
Holger Münch, the head of the Federal Criminal Police Office, spoke some time ago about a "worrying rise" in anti-Semitism, xenophobia and racism . This is the context in which Halle's plot, as unique as it is in its coldness and brutality, must be seen.
Let's hope the debate on what to do now lasts a little longer than a week.
- Read the story "The new old hatred" in the new SPIEGEL.
The betrayal
STRINGER / EPA EFE / REX
55-year-old Kurdistan Asya Ismail-Hussein from Ras al-Ain describes her relationship with the US president as follows: "We thought Donald Trump was our brother," she told my colleague Alexandra Rojkov. But now the president had rammed a dagger into the back of the Kurds, he had betrayed them.
In a similar vein, many Kurds in northern Syria have been thinking about the US president since he completely unexpectedly announced a comprehensive withdrawal of troops from northern Syria and thus the end of intensive cooperation with the Kurds . A short time later, on Wednesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan launched a military offensive against the North Syrian Kurds, whose YPG militia he considers a terrorist organization .
Now, again, the US is threatening Turkey with harsh sanctions should the offensive continue. Here a massive conflict escalates. How to contain the conflict is the big question. And if that's an option for the time being.
The effects of the Turkish attack are immense. 100,000 people are according to UN data already on the run.
- Report from northern Syria: "We thought Donald Trump for our brother"
Loser of the day ...
HAYOUNG JEON / EPA-EFE / REX
... is Federal Minister of Transport Andreas Scheuer. In a detailed reconstruction, my colleagues Sven Becker, Peter Müller and Gerald Traufetter had uncovered how the CSU politician has tricked and deceived at the failed car toll, with the result that the taxpayer damages in the amount of half a billion euros could come. Among other things, it was about secret meetings between Scheuer and his officials with the operator companies whose content was never documented.
A clear contradiction to the usual practice and the promise Scheuer, in the matter to exercise maximum transparency. "At a time when the political system is questioned from many sides, even higher standards are applied to the integrity of its representatives than otherwise," writes Traufetter in the SPIEGEL editorial and calls for Scheuer's resignation.
In addition, it has now become known that the consultancy costs in the Ministry for the Reform of Highway Management and the construction of the Federal Motorway will be three times as high as originally planned. That too is not a glorious page for the ministry!
The compact news overview in the morning: current and opinionated. Every morning (weekdays) at 6 o'clock. Order directly here:
The latest news from the night
- US soldiers are under Turkish fire: The incident in northern Syria should further aggravate the situation - the Pentagon does not believe in a mistake
- Trump's Homeland Security Secretary blurts out: Kevin McAleenan says he wants more time for the family. But behind the retreat might be more stuck
- Thousands of people are fleeing forest fires: In California, the fire department is fighting huge fires. The situation awakens dark memories
The SPIEGEL + recommendations for today
- Protest researcher on "Extinction Rebellion": "Otherwise we know this from the right-wing populist environment"
- Cheap meat in the supermarket: I survive that?
- Ex-Rowohlt boss Laugwitz on her dismissal: "There were only men involved in my dismissal"
- Consumer advocate in an interview: When it pays to change the health insurance
- CO2 price, flight tax, commuter allowance: what really is to be kept from the climate package
I wish you a hopefully read-intensive Saturday!
warmly
Your Martin Knobbe
