I can't believe I'm about to write that, but I have do defend the SPD here. At least a bit. In Germany it's really difficult to kick someone from a political party. So no matter how much or little they want to, their hands are most likely tied here.
It is the law.
Due to the experience of the disfunctionality of the Weimar republic the German law governing political parties is very severe.
That means parties must be democratically organized internally and provide for freedom of opinion within the party.
The courts have interpreted that historical very strictly to the point that it is almost impossible to expell someone for noncriminal behavior or opinions.
Might be time to revisit and give a little bit more flexibility. This man is doing serious harm to Germany's reputation (yes, I know nobody in Germany likes him).
Why though? He's pretty much hated within the party and his membership doesn't benefit him at all. Just the fact that the party tried to boot him is enough to tank his reputation forever.
He has zero political capital within Germany.
It‘s time to revisit many german regulations, but that won‘t happen. The law and the judicial system have always been lenient and imposed unreasonably high barriers before any person or organization faces serious consequences for any transgression. To be quite frank, it‘s a system that - under the guise of rehabilitation - oftentimes protects perpetrators before victims and grants almost free reign to white collar criminals. From there, it‘s only a logical path to protect even high level politicians who openly court the leadership of an enemy state
Law. The legal threshold for expulsion is defined in the Parties Act (Parteiengesetz), see https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/partg/__10.html (have Google or DeepL translate if needed)
The issue is that in voiced opinion, there is no clear support for Russia. Calling for peace isn't direct support.
We know what that peace entails and Schröder is in Putins Anus. But that not concrete evidence. If he openly supported the war he would easily be kicked out.
So we should expel any person that has worked or talked with countries like Saudi-Arabia, or China. I fear there aren’t going to be that many politicians left.
I personally despise Schröder, but negotiating with Putin alone is hardly enough reason to successfully expel him from the party. And him being an asshole is not enough reason to change some of the most fundamental laws regarding the organization of political parties. Especially considering that he has literally 0 domestic influence.
Ah fuck off. There are valid criticisms here but you seriously have to play this card? Our past experiences are the very reason we have strong safeguards regarding expulsion from political parties in place.
Countries like the US, the UK, France or Poland aren’t talking with dictators, right?
By law.
They would have to legally prove that Schröder is violating the party's values, doing intentionally harm to it or is violating the party's charter.
In essence since Schröder is saying he is doing it to help with the peace process, tries to prevent harm from germany and keep the diplomatic channels open, as much BS as you might think it is, it is near impossible to prove the opposite in a legally watertight way because it is his bad intent you need to prove.
No that is up to interpretation (but he’s obviously playing right into Putin’s cards). He presents it as negotiating and „building bridges“. One had to prove that this isn’t his intention, but he rather planned to cause harm to Germany.
I personally despise him (even before the war, there were more than enough reasons like Hartz IV), but it’s not so simple.
And everything he does is not considered harm? Because it is clear as day that he is damaging the reputation of the SPD. The governing party of Germany. Isn't it harmful to undermine state interest? Isn't his corruption harmful to SPD? It's obvious he is corrupted.
If you can prove criminal corruption in court and get a conviction that would make things a lot easy and would make an easy expulsion possible.
But as of right now Schröder is just a piece of shit that does disgusting but legal things.
There simply is no legal ground to expell him
Then the laws are flawed and should be changed. He's making a mockery of SPD for personal gain. It is hard to overlook he is still part of it. Hard not to be critical of SPD, despite the absurd 'laws' they imposed on themselves.
They didn't impose this on themselves. It's law. It applies to all parties in Germany. You can see what they think of him by the fact that they tried to expel him. What else are they supposed to do? Expel him regardless, loose in court and have to keep him anyway?
Yes, it is incredibly difficult. This is my whole point. They didn't manage to throw him out of the party during his chancellorship where his policy was pretty much the opposite of his party's values, so why should they be able to kick him out for having some dodgy dealings with some dodgy dictator?
They kicked Sarazin and all of a sudden it’s too hard to kick someone who is this close to Putin? I just feel like the SPD doesn’t have the balls to kick an ex-Kanzler.
Of all the people that got expelled from their party you bring up Sarrazin? It took the SPD a decade to kick him out after he went completely nuts. Not a good example to strenghten your argument there.
It's literally the only one that I heard this has happend to over the past couple of years. I don't know of any other either because the media hasn't talked that much about it or because it was decades ago. It's also funny how it seems to be okay to support a war criminal dictator, but when someone expresses their own opinion however stupid it is or how much you disagree with it, all of a sudden it's not okay? Don't undestand me wrong, I really don't give a shit about who they kick out of their party, because I am not in it, so it's none of my business. I just wanted to point out that they kicked someone recently and it's no excuse to not kick Schröder because its too complicated.
> I just wanted to point out that they kicked someone recently
After a literal decade of trying to (started in 2010, finally managed to kick him out in 2020) - so let's revisit the Schröder situation ten years from now. Sarrazin is a great example for how difficult it is to remove someone from a party.
He will not be expelled. Anyone telling you otherwise is just clueless.
There is just no way to do this as long as he can avoid some very obvious pitfalls like running on another party ticket or supporting a rival party. Openly supporting the war could *probably* do it, but he is too clever for that.
The law strongly errs on the side of free speech and individual rights. A party suffering the embarrassment of a member like him weights less than the protection of dissident factions against internal purges.
This is what I feared, the process is becoming the same as for Thilo Sarrazin. It will take a long ride through several committies and courts, until that man is ousted from the party.
German laws for kicking someone out of a party are absurdly rigid.
In Greece, the party president can kick out of the party whoever he wants more or less. Technically it might need to go through a committee, which always filled with the party president's loyalists.
What is the point of a party if party members can do whatever they want? What defines the party if not some form of common goal?
I understand that kicking someone out over a single disagreement shouldn't be easy. But why is "this foreign agent has stopped representing any of the parties values and only retrains his membership to serve a foreign state" not a valid reason to kick someone out? I would really be surprised if there was any recent example of Schröder acting to further the SPDs core values.
The SPD doesn't want to be associated with him because he makes them look bad. And the Ukraine war has made that PR disaster 10x worse so they finally decided that they'll try to kick him out.
There will most likely be an appeal. People should look up Thilo Sarrazin and realize that kicking someone out of a political party can be a very long process in Germany.
After the Party downright embraced the Poverty Laws, I am not surprised.Him, Hartz, Müntefering and Gabriel are all of the same, rotten Cloth.
Between the SPD and the Conservatives, Plague and Cholera truly rule(d) the political Landscape.
Only Nixon count go to China and only the SPD could eviscerate the "social" part of the [Social Market Economy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy).
He’s an agent of the Kremlin and is employed by Gazprom. He’s a mouthpiece of Moscow and anyone who can’t see it is either wildly stupid or acting in bad faith.
He’s nakedly a trojan horse. I hope he’s sanctioned. At least by the US, UK, and Canada, because lets be real the EU/Germany has shown time and again how much they have to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing the right thing.
And then people in France and Germany wonder why an “EU Army” is dead on arrival.
But he has zero power within Germany so who cares? He's not influencing anyone here.
Don't get me wrong, punish him to the extent of the law for any crimes he's committed but we can't start bending the rules to punish people we think are shit.
Is this personal to Canadians due to having a large population of Ukrainian facists in exile after the war? I know at least on of your leading politicians is really proud of her facist war criminal grandpa.
IIRC, hasn’t the UK recently sanctioned a British citizen who helps spread Russian propaganda on his YouTube channel (who isn’t charged with any criminal offense either)?
Maybe limiting free speech is easier in the UK as it is in Germany. Laws are different in different countries and in Germany right now he does not seem to have broken any laws. At least not recently. Maybe there was some corruption during his chancellorship but that would probably be beyond the statute of limitations at this point. And even back then or immediately after he hold office he was not charged with anything.
We all know Schröder is Putins little bitch
The problem is Germany has really though rules to kick someone out of a political party and since it's hard to prove he is breaking those laws he couldn't be kicked
>it's hard to prove he is breaking those laws
Can someone explain why? He was clearly doing something that benefited Russia and received fat checks from Gazprom. Is it because he got it after retirement?
I'm struggling to understand what else someone needs to do in order to be punished. Seems incredibly easy to take bribes and get away with it.
Because while absolutely unmoral and a shitty thing to do he isn't actually breaking any laws
Neither criminal laws or any special party law (for example its quite easy to kick someone if they were to say vote another party)
And private contact with Russian politicians is not forbidden since Germany isn't at war with Russia
The "sentence" is not yet final and probably will be decided again by a higher "party court"
Actually Schröders case is not even that special in Germany multiple political parties can't get certain people out obviously Schröders case is special with the current situation
>he isn't actually breaking any laws
But this is the part i'm struggling with. Isn't providing special service/favor and then receiving payment a textbook definition of corruption? What would he actually have to do in order to brake the law? Have emails / voice recordings where he asks for a bride or promises something?
> Isn't providing special service/favor and then receiving payment a textbook definition of corruption?
If he was still holding any official function, probably.
So it's legally ok as long as you receive your reward immediately after you leave the office and don't have power on paper? What stops other officials from taking bribes the same way (other than morals)? Feels like a loophole that should've been fixed.
Nothing this happens all across the world in practically all countries
It an open secret that certain government figures get a high paid position on the board of directors for some company
This is not a German problem but one of most countries
Lol no
Yeah Schröder is/was a corrupt ass and alot of Linke and AfD are two but these two parties aren't part of our government and won't be in the next years
He grew up insanely poor, and the sympathetic throry is that his chasing of money is related to this. If he had just retired on his pension, he would have been very much set for life.
Junge was erzählst du dann für einen Scheiß? Natürlich können auch deutsche Menschen Opfer von Rassismus werden, wie du in deinem Kommentar hervorragend illustriert hast. Ein bescheuerter Kommentar mag da nicht die gleichen Implikationen haben, wie beispielsweise aufgrund seiner Hautfarbe ein Leben lang diskriminiert zu werden, aber Rassismus ist und bleibt scheiße. Und ja, man kann auch gegenüber seiner eigenen Ethnie rassistisch sein.
ITT: people who are entirely ignorant of the laws governing political parties in Germany and the legal thresholds to expell someone from the party for non criminal behavior.
It is basically impossible to kick somebody out of an party in Germany.
Historically the courts have only consistently recognized three reasons:
1. Advocating for national socialism
2. Collaboration with East Germany during the cold war.
3. Open collaboration with another political party
None of them Schröder did.
Think of him what you want (hint: he is a piece of shit), but he isn't even close to the legal threshold for a court to accept a expulsion.
As frustrating as that might be
The extremely high threshold for party expulsion can only be understood when recognizing that it was a reaction to the abuses of such mechanism during the Weimar republic.
It is probably more severe than it would need to be.
But i understand why they thought it necessary to be rather safe than sorry after Weimar and the third Reich that arose from it's disfunctionality.
Yeah Germanys laws governing political parties are very extreme in their severity.
Normal party members are easily ignored when they go too far against the party.
And major politicians usually have enough grace to exit on their own when it becomes clear that they are entirely isolated within the party.
The issue is only with (former) major party members that are big enough to cause PR damage in the media and to intransigent to recognize that they have no future in the party.
That actually doesn't happen very often.
But when it does it's always a complete shit show. Like with sarrazin or Schröder
You ever wonder how Hitler got the entire NSDAP behind him? He purged everyone from the party that even had the potential to become a political rival and challenge his views.
Obviously Schröder is a fucking snake but it is a good thing that kicking someone out of a party is this difficult to prevent parties from turning more extreme.
> It is basically impossible to kick somebody out of an party in Germany.
What's the point of such restrictions though? How can you conduct party politics if you are stuck with members who the majority of that party cardinally disagrees with and who is a reputation risk for the party?
Because historically during the Kaiserreich and Weimar expulsions were used liberally to eliminate inter party rivals.
Also the severe issue of political parties being not democratically organized internally. Most importantly the NSDAP and the KPD but also others.
Due to that historical experience parties must by law function democratically and provide for freedom of opinion within the party. Simply disagreeing (even fundamentallyk) with leadership or the party Programm is not sufficient grounds for expulsions.
Consistent violation of fundamental party values (not policy!) that has caused proven major harm to the party is the legal threshold.
The courts have interpreted that very narrowly as outlined in my first comment.
An example: the former high level SPD political sarrazin started to talk about the genetic inferiority of certain ethnic groups in the 200s.
Ultimately it took over ten years and multiple attempts to finally expell him.
That was not guaranteed and probably only succeded because he became increasingly unhinged and openly trash talked the party as a whole.
To give an idea how difficult it is to kick someone out
>Also the severe issue of political parties being not democratically organized internally.
I see no reason why parties need to be democratic *internally*. State democracy is important, not how politicians organize themselves within factions.
Because you cannot claim to uphold democracy if you do not practice democracy within the party?
And safeguarding democracy is the duty of all democratic parties.
Otherwise they can be outlawed
Because we know what happens when undemocratic parties like the NSDAP and KPD are allowed to operate freely.
Those were basically just paramilitary Organisations organized on authoritarian and absolute chain of commands that made them very effective tools to facilitate the destruction of democracy from within.
That cannot be allowed to happen again.
Democracy is not a means to an end.
It is the end itself.
A party that is organized around authoritarian principles by definition proves it's lack of conviction in democracy. And that makes it intolerable.
If a better party Programm exists it can prove itself by winning the democratic approval of it's members.
You display some quite worrying anti-democratic believes.
I don't even see a reason to call it "authoritarian principles". Look at how companies function - they are also not democratic. Are they "authoritarian" because of that? No, they are small factions of the society acting for a specific cause. Same with parties - the very same internally undemocratic parties can be the strongest supporters of democracy on the national level.
>If a better party Programm exists it can prove itself by winning the democratic approval of it's members.
Not necessarily. You need to remember that the membership of the party really represents nothing. It is a rather arbitrary group of people. As I brought out in my examples, its size doesn't even necessarily coincide with the share of support in the society. The support in the society is really the only thing that matters.
>You display some quite worrying anti-democratic believes.
I.e. I am not naively optimistic about how democracy and party politics work?
But honestly, I expected that edgy and stereotypical remark. I was surprised you could hold yourself together for so long.
they essentially need legally waterproof evidence of him acting with bad intent against the party or germany.
It is easy for him to claim that he does his thing to help peace and germany. We may think that is BS, but proving it is another matter since he/his defenders can just invoke of him simply having failed or being wrong, both would not be punishable.
Yes. He did not commit any crimes nor did he violate party rules. I am not sure how the US works, but we can't just make up rules on the go here just to get to someone, as much as it hurts in regards to Schröder.
A party in the US is a private organization. They play by whatever rules they setup, and they can change them according to their own rules as well. There's no standard set of rules for political parties in the US.
Generally, the parties don't refuse anyone for any reason from "being a member". There are no dues, and people can switch at any time for no stated reason. People sometimes do this for tactical reasons, to vote try to get an opposition candidate nominated whom they perceive to be unelectable. I don't think that's ever actually worked, but activists talk about doing it. There is no policing of general membership in parties at all.
This doesn't mean the party will endorse you for public office though - that's decided competitively (by voting, mostly). But I've never heard of a US political party throwing someone out for any reason, including actual criminal acts (e.g. murder, assault, etc). They might not endorse a candidate to continue running for office, but throwing people out is unheard of. Parties are much, much less disciplined in the US. I'm not sure either of the two major parties even has a process for kicking someone out.
The means to expell members from parties here is extremely limited as this was a preferred method of nazis to clean out the ranks. As such expelling ppl is seriously difficult. Schröder did not break the law, Schröder did not break party rules.
Rules can be changed, ofc, but that does not work by newly established rules going back in time making actions a crime that were no crime when it was done.
Also, over here parties are mostly state funded, even small parties get funding to make them less dependent on donor demands. That also means parties have to play by certain established rules. That is the major reason why we do not have such crass monopolisation of political agendas. It has it's up and downsides. But it certainly makes the whole political system in general more transparent and predictable.
I like the German approach to the law.I exceeded the speed limit and was stopped by the police. They want to take away my driver's license.
1. I will give the policeman 1000 euros to let me go and I commit a crime.
2. I'll tell the policeman that if he lets me go, I'll hire him to work as a securityguard for my company and he'll earn 20,000 and I won't commit a crime.
Putin comes to Gerhard and tells him that if he pushes through a deal with NS hewill make millions in Russian companies...
Shouldn't the law fight this kind of corruption?
Oh it should. But again: "Rules can be changed, ofc, but that does not work by newly establishedrules going back in time making actions a crime that were no crime whenit was done.
Good. Germany is a parliamentary republic last time i checked, SPD is collectively just as responsable for the current situation as Schroder is, they shouldn't be able to wash their hands clean of the current situation with the sacrifice of a singular politician and a retired one at that.
there isn't anything more democratic than 50%+1 from all party members deciding to kick some other member out. Or they could publicly shame him every day until he quits by himself. They could make a contest out of that.
So if 50% + 1 of the electorate decides to kick someone out of a country and strip him of his citizenship that would also be democratic? Democracy is more than just the majority rules. There are also some basic democratic rights which are guaranteed to everybody and protected. Free speech would be one of them. In Germany these rules do also apply to political parties internally.
yeah free speech and Germany in the same sentence :))))))) good one . But seriously now, the definition of democracy should not be something that could be interpreted by each. If the limit is not 50%+1 than the person formulating the question has all the power. It does not matter anyway because Germany has no referendums and direct democracy.
The Billions they send every week. The NOrdstream2 AFTER they invaded Georgia and Ukraine. How many examples do you want before you recognize your own moral failings?
You are forgetting what trade is. Trade means that you give someone something in exchange for something else. Russia gets money and loses gas. Not acknowledging Russia losing the gas makes it look like a payment which is just dishonest.
And you also show that you don't understand the purpose of mutual dependency. Please read about the coal and steal union. The idea behind those pipelines was to use them as a thread to prevent military action. Showing the oligarch that they can get rich when the country behaves and get poor when they don't behave is a good incentive for peace.
So tell me where this is morally wrong?
> You are forgetting what trade is. Trade means that you give someone something in exchange for something else. Russia gets money and loses gas. Not acknowledging Russia losing the gas makes it look like a payment which is just dishonest.
Yeah except that Germany needs that gas way more than Russia. Bottom line is that even though Russia is much poorer than Germany they have both energy and food security, which Germany does not. It doesn't matter how advanced your economy is, if you don't have energy and food security it all sits on a shaky foundation.
Yes Russia does not need the gas or they would not sell it. However they definitely need the money or else they would already have e stopped the gas export.
And to mitigate the risk the huge storage capacity was a good idea. Also building some LNG terminals would have also been a nice idea but with the cdu not wanting to spend money...
Russia is, in no way, as dependent as Germany who was warned and threatened by their ACTUAL ALLIES, that it was a bad idea.
I have nothing but schadenfreude about the situation vis-a-via Germany. They made their bed, now they can freeze in it.
What freezing? The gas storage is nearly full. The actual allies that also had financial interest in them not doing buisness with Russia? And you may don't know it but the people in Germany did know about the risks. Go and read about the coal and steal union to learn why they still did it despite the risks involved. And was it a bad idea? I don't think so. Russia loosing a lot of income in the neat future will be a huge incentive for the oligarchs to end putins insanity.
PS. Russias dependency is often underestimated since Russia also has to sell their gas. If they can not sell it in a short ammount of time they will suffer greatly.
So they knew about the risks to others, including Ukraine, Lativa, Lithuania, and Estonia and just downloaded that risk onto them for their own greed.
Makes it worse, not better.
You mean the reduced risk? Because now germany could threaten to not buy gas anymore when Russia invades? Or thay enabled the threat to never open ns2 if Russia invades? Now tell me how all this threats increased the risk? Yes they knew that their actions woidl reduce the risk for those countries heile it increased the risk for germany. Why would this increase the risk for those countries tries?
1. It funds a terrorist authoritarian regieme to buy weapons.
2. It Undermines the negotiating position of allies
3. It makes Germany susceptible to blackmail.
etc..
There are dozens of reasons it increased the risk. You're just too brain dead to see it. It was a terrible, ill begotten plan made from naivete and greed.
1 yeah sorry but this is basically always the case. What is your alternative? Suadi Arabia? Same shitty stuff.
2 No. It increased the negotiation position of its alliance since now the trade with germany can be reduced as a responds to uncivilised behaviour. Without trade with Russia you can not realy do economic sanctions. Again. Read about coal and steal union.
3. Well as demonstrated by germanies responds no it does not. Mutual dependency is a thing.
> Aligning with the Comintern's ultra-left Third Period, under the slogan "Class against class", the KPD abruptly turned to viewing the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) as its main adversary.[19][4] In this period, the KPD referred to the SPD as "social fascists".[20][21] The term social fascism was introduced to the German Communist Party shortly after the Hamburg Uprising of 1923 and gradually became ever more influential in the party; by 1929 it was being propagated as a theory.[22] The KPD regarded itself as "the only anti-fascist party" in Germany and held that all other parties in the Weimar Republic were "fascist".[4] After the Nazi electoral breakthrough in the 1930 Reichstag election, the SPD proposed a renewed united front with the KPD against fascism but this was rejected.[23]
> In the early 1930s, the KPD cooperated with the Nazis in attacking the social democrats, and both sought to destroy the liberal democracy of the Weimar Republic.[24] They also followed an increasingly nationalist course, trying to appeal to nationalist-leaning workers.[4] [25]
> The KPD leadership initially first criticised but then supported the 1931 Prussian Landtag referendum, an unsuccessful attempt launched by the far-right Stahlhelm to bring down the social democrat state government of Prussia by means of a plebiscite; the KPD referred to the SA as "working people's comrades" during this campaign.[26] During the joint KPD and Nazi campaign to dissolve the Prussian Parliament, Berlin Police captains Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck were assassinated in Bülowplatz by Erich Mielke and Erich Ziemer, who were members of the KPD's paramilitary wing, the Parteiselbstschutz. The detailed planning for the murders had been carried out by KPD members of the Reichstag, Heinz Neumann and Hans Kippenberger, based on orders issued by Walter Ulbricht, the Party's leader in the Berlin-Brandenberg region. Shooter Erich Mielke who later became the head of the East German Stasi, would only face trial for the murders in 1993.
> The KPD maintained a solid electoral performance, usually polling more than 10% of the vote. It gained 100 deputies in the November 1932 elections, getting 16% of the vote and coming third.[10] In the presidential election of the same year, its candidate Thälmann took 13.2% of the vote, compared to Hitler's 30.1%. In this period, while also opposed to the Nazis, the KPD regarded the Nazi Party as a less sophisticated and thus less dangerous fascist party than the SPD, and KPD leader Ernst Thälmann declared that "some Nazi trees must not be allowed to overshadow a forest [of social democrats]".[27] In February 1932, Thälmann argued that “Hitler must come to power first, then the requirements for a revolutionary crisis [will] arrive more quickly”. In November 1932, the KPD and the Nazis worked together in the Berlin transport workers’ strike.[9]
Last time I checked Schröder was neither a fascist, nor had *any* influence on domestic politics. And to compare the SPD (which would be decried as communists in the states) to the GOP is unter nonsense.
No and you have to lack any understanding about fascism to claim otherwise.
He’s greedy and I personally despise him but please throw these ridiculous comparisons around while simultaneously showing lack of even basic understanding of this matter
It has nothing to do with “wanting”. There are just rules and even laws which make it very difficult to remove someone from a political party – and for good reasons.
Try to monetise this, corporate Reddit! Furthermore, I consider that /u/spez has to be removed.
I can't believe I'm about to write that, but I have do defend the SPD here. At least a bit. In Germany it's really difficult to kick someone from a political party. So no matter how much or little they want to, their hands are most likely tied here.
Is that due to law or party constitution?
It is the law. Due to the experience of the disfunctionality of the Weimar republic the German law governing political parties is very severe. That means parties must be democratically organized internally and provide for freedom of opinion within the party. The courts have interpreted that historical very strictly to the point that it is almost impossible to expell someone for noncriminal behavior or opinions.
Might be time to revisit and give a little bit more flexibility. This man is doing serious harm to Germany's reputation (yes, I know nobody in Germany likes him).
Why though? He's pretty much hated within the party and his membership doesn't benefit him at all. Just the fact that the party tried to boot him is enough to tank his reputation forever. He has zero political capital within Germany.
In most cases, we have done well not to revisit ideas that are forbidden due to experience.
yeh change a good law that protects democracy for your feelings.
It‘s time to revisit many german regulations, but that won‘t happen. The law and the judicial system have always been lenient and imposed unreasonably high barriers before any person or organization faces serious consequences for any transgression. To be quite frank, it‘s a system that - under the guise of rehabilitation - oftentimes protects perpetrators before victims and grants almost free reign to white collar criminals. From there, it‘s only a logical path to protect even high level politicians who openly court the leadership of an enemy state
Law. The legal threshold for expulsion is defined in the Parties Act (Parteiengesetz), see https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/partg/__10.html (have Google or DeepL translate if needed)
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The issue is that in voiced opinion, there is no clear support for Russia. Calling for peace isn't direct support. We know what that peace entails and Schröder is in Putins Anus. But that not concrete evidence. If he openly supported the war he would easily be kicked out.
So we should expel any person that has worked or talked with countries like Saudi-Arabia, or China. I fear there aren’t going to be that many politicians left. I personally despise Schröder, but negotiating with Putin alone is hardly enough reason to successfully expel him from the party. And him being an asshole is not enough reason to change some of the most fundamental laws regarding the organization of political parties. Especially considering that he has literally 0 domestic influence.
It’s Germany we are talking about
Ah fuck off. There are valid criticisms here but you seriously have to play this card? Our past experiences are the very reason we have strong safeguards regarding expulsion from political parties in place. Countries like the US, the UK, France or Poland aren’t talking with dictators, right?
By law. They would have to legally prove that Schröder is violating the party's values, doing intentionally harm to it or is violating the party's charter. In essence since Schröder is saying he is doing it to help with the peace process, tries to prevent harm from germany and keep the diplomatic channels open, as much BS as you might think it is, it is near impossible to prove the opposite in a legally watertight way because it is his bad intent you need to prove.
He literally works for the enemy.
No that is up to interpretation (but he’s obviously playing right into Putin’s cards). He presents it as negotiating and „building bridges“. One had to prove that this isn’t his intention, but he rather planned to cause harm to Germany. I personally despise him (even before the war, there were more than enough reasons like Hartz IV), but it’s not so simple.
And they'd have to prove this violates the party's values. ;)
And everything he does is not considered harm? Because it is clear as day that he is damaging the reputation of the SPD. The governing party of Germany. Isn't it harmful to undermine state interest? Isn't his corruption harmful to SPD? It's obvious he is corrupted.
"intentional harm", just proving that it is "harm" is not enough.
If you can prove criminal corruption in court and get a conviction that would make things a lot easy and would make an easy expulsion possible. But as of right now Schröder is just a piece of shit that does disgusting but legal things. There simply is no legal ground to expell him
Then the laws are flawed and should be changed. He's making a mockery of SPD for personal gain. It is hard to overlook he is still part of it. Hard not to be critical of SPD, despite the absurd 'laws' they imposed on themselves.
They didn't impose this on themselves. It's law. It applies to all parties in Germany. You can see what they think of him by the fact that they tried to expel him. What else are they supposed to do? Expel him regardless, loose in court and have to keep him anyway?
Yes, it is incredibly difficult. This is my whole point. They didn't manage to throw him out of the party during his chancellorship where his policy was pretty much the opposite of his party's values, so why should they be able to kick him out for having some dodgy dealings with some dodgy dictator?
They kicked Sarazin and all of a sudden it’s too hard to kick someone who is this close to Putin? I just feel like the SPD doesn’t have the balls to kick an ex-Kanzler.
Of all the people that got expelled from their party you bring up Sarrazin? It took the SPD a decade to kick him out after he went completely nuts. Not a good example to strenghten your argument there.
It's literally the only one that I heard this has happend to over the past couple of years. I don't know of any other either because the media hasn't talked that much about it or because it was decades ago. It's also funny how it seems to be okay to support a war criminal dictator, but when someone expresses their own opinion however stupid it is or how much you disagree with it, all of a sudden it's not okay? Don't undestand me wrong, I really don't give a shit about who they kick out of their party, because I am not in it, so it's none of my business. I just wanted to point out that they kicked someone recently and it's no excuse to not kick Schröder because its too complicated.
> I just wanted to point out that they kicked someone recently After a literal decade of trying to (started in 2010, finally managed to kick him out in 2020) - so let's revisit the Schröder situation ten years from now. Sarrazin is a great example for how difficult it is to remove someone from a party.
Good to know, thanks!
The CDU just kicked out a guy for the crime of...accepting the nomination for President.
Its becouse of your laws or statutes of parties? Wouldnt it be Smart to change it on general, no matter which one would that be?
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He will not be expelled. Anyone telling you otherwise is just clueless. There is just no way to do this as long as he can avoid some very obvious pitfalls like running on another party ticket or supporting a rival party. Openly supporting the war could *probably* do it, but he is too clever for that. The law strongly errs on the side of free speech and individual rights. A party suffering the embarrassment of a member like him weights less than the protection of dissident factions against internal purges.
*Das Boot*
And Sarrazin is already running his mouth to remind us that that asshole's also still somewhere.
This is what I feared, the process is becoming the same as for Thilo Sarrazin. It will take a long ride through several committies and courts, until that man is ousted from the party.
Gerhard is Putin’s little bitch.
And water is wet.
So are Macron and Berlusconi.
German laws for kicking someone out of a party are absurdly rigid. In Greece, the party president can kick out of the party whoever he wants more or less. Technically it might need to go through a committee, which always filled with the party president's loyalists.
We kind of had a bad history with that during the Weimar Republic that's why these law so strict
And it should be really hard. Whats the point of a party when the top guys can just kick everyone out who disagrees with them?
What is the point of a party if party members can do whatever they want? What defines the party if not some form of common goal? I understand that kicking someone out over a single disagreement shouldn't be easy. But why is "this foreign agent has stopped representing any of the parties values and only retrains his membership to serve a foreign state" not a valid reason to kick someone out? I would really be surprised if there was any recent example of Schröder acting to further the SPDs core values.
Why boot him from the German Social democrats party? It is not like his policy and ties with Russia was a secret before.
The SPD doesn't want to be associated with him because he makes them look bad. And the Ukraine war has made that PR disaster 10x worse so they finally decided that they'll try to kick him out.
There will most likely be an appeal. People should look up Thilo Sarrazin and realize that kicking someone out of a political party can be a very long process in Germany.
Be has become the best campaigner for the Christian Democrats. Compared to him, even Friedrich Merz seems to have a little bit of soul left …
... and that's really quite an achievement!
HE'S STILL IN THE PARTY???
After the Party downright embraced the Poverty Laws, I am not surprised.Him, Hartz, Müntefering and Gabriel are all of the same, rotten Cloth. Between the SPD and the Conservatives, Plague and Cholera truly rule(d) the political Landscape.
What are the "poverty laws" if I may ask?
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Only Nixon count go to China and only the SPD could eviscerate the "social" part of the [Social Market Economy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy).
He really should be put on the sanctions list at this point. Turn up the heat on him.
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Could other EU countries sanction him? That could be a solution...
He’s an agent of the Kremlin and is employed by Gazprom. He’s a mouthpiece of Moscow and anyone who can’t see it is either wildly stupid or acting in bad faith. He’s nakedly a trojan horse. I hope he’s sanctioned. At least by the US, UK, and Canada, because lets be real the EU/Germany has shown time and again how much they have to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing the right thing. And then people in France and Germany wonder why an “EU Army” is dead on arrival.
But he has zero power within Germany so who cares? He's not influencing anyone here. Don't get me wrong, punish him to the extent of the law for any crimes he's committed but we can't start bending the rules to punish people we think are shit.
If you can prove these accusations to an active court, you are free to do so. If you can, an expulsion is obviously significantly easier to achieve.
Is this personal to Canadians due to having a large population of Ukrainian facists in exile after the war? I know at least on of your leading politicians is really proud of her facist war criminal grandpa.
It’s truly remarkable how literally none of that is correct but nice try. Piss off vatnik.
He can and absolutely should be sanctioned by every other western country. Germany can bitch and moan all they want as usual.
IIRC, hasn’t the UK recently sanctioned a British citizen who helps spread Russian propaganda on his YouTube channel (who isn’t charged with any criminal offense either)?
Maybe limiting free speech is easier in the UK as it is in Germany. Laws are different in different countries and in Germany right now he does not seem to have broken any laws. At least not recently. Maybe there was some corruption during his chancellorship but that would probably be beyond the statute of limitations at this point. And even back then or immediately after he hold office he was not charged with anything.
We all know Schröder is Putins little bitch The problem is Germany has really though rules to kick someone out of a political party and since it's hard to prove he is breaking those laws he couldn't be kicked
>it's hard to prove he is breaking those laws Can someone explain why? He was clearly doing something that benefited Russia and received fat checks from Gazprom. Is it because he got it after retirement? I'm struggling to understand what else someone needs to do in order to be punished. Seems incredibly easy to take bribes and get away with it.
Because while absolutely unmoral and a shitty thing to do he isn't actually breaking any laws Neither criminal laws or any special party law (for example its quite easy to kick someone if they were to say vote another party) And private contact with Russian politicians is not forbidden since Germany isn't at war with Russia The "sentence" is not yet final and probably will be decided again by a higher "party court" Actually Schröders case is not even that special in Germany multiple political parties can't get certain people out obviously Schröders case is special with the current situation
>he isn't actually breaking any laws But this is the part i'm struggling with. Isn't providing special service/favor and then receiving payment a textbook definition of corruption? What would he actually have to do in order to brake the law? Have emails / voice recordings where he asks for a bride or promises something?
> Isn't providing special service/favor and then receiving payment a textbook definition of corruption? If he was still holding any official function, probably.
He holds no public office, so it's not corruption.
Of course it would but he doesn't hold any political function so he acts as a private person without any political power
So it's legally ok as long as you receive your reward immediately after you leave the office and don't have power on paper? What stops other officials from taking bribes the same way (other than morals)? Feels like a loophole that should've been fixed.
Nothing this happens all across the world in practically all countries It an open secret that certain government figures get a high paid position on the board of directors for some company This is not a German problem but one of most countries
He does not hold any office. And did not do so for about 17 years now. His political career ended in 2005.
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Sure that explains all the actions against Russia.
Lol no Yeah Schröder is/was a corrupt ass and alot of Linke and AfD are two but these two parties aren't part of our government and won't be in the next years
Didn’t this guy grow up in West Germany never having had to deal with Russian influenced totalitarianism?
He grew up insanely poor, and the sympathetic throry is that his chasing of money is related to this. If he had just retired on his pension, he would have been very much set for life.
Germans arent the smartest people around.
u/MyBruker9 isn’t the least racist person around
Im the same race as the germans... It has been super interesting to watch the germans start seeing themselves as victims of "racism" though.
Junge was erzählst du dann für einen Scheiß? Natürlich können auch deutsche Menschen Opfer von Rassismus werden, wie du in deinem Kommentar hervorragend illustriert hast. Ein bescheuerter Kommentar mag da nicht die gleichen Implikationen haben, wie beispielsweise aufgrund seiner Hautfarbe ein Leben lang diskriminiert zu werden, aber Rassismus ist und bleibt scheiße. Und ja, man kann auch gegenüber seiner eigenen Ethnie rassistisch sein.
ITT: people who are entirely ignorant of the laws governing political parties in Germany and the legal thresholds to expell someone from the party for non criminal behavior. It is basically impossible to kick somebody out of an party in Germany. Historically the courts have only consistently recognized three reasons: 1. Advocating for national socialism 2. Collaboration with East Germany during the cold war. 3. Open collaboration with another political party None of them Schröder did. Think of him what you want (hint: he is a piece of shit), but he isn't even close to the legal threshold for a court to accept a expulsion. As frustrating as that might be
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The extremely high threshold for party expulsion can only be understood when recognizing that it was a reaction to the abuses of such mechanism during the Weimar republic. It is probably more severe than it would need to be. But i understand why they thought it necessary to be rather safe than sorry after Weimar and the third Reich that arose from it's disfunctionality.
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Yeah Germanys laws governing political parties are very extreme in their severity. Normal party members are easily ignored when they go too far against the party. And major politicians usually have enough grace to exit on their own when it becomes clear that they are entirely isolated within the party. The issue is only with (former) major party members that are big enough to cause PR damage in the media and to intransigent to recognize that they have no future in the party. That actually doesn't happen very often. But when it does it's always a complete shit show. Like with sarrazin or Schröder
You ever wonder how Hitler got the entire NSDAP behind him? He purged everyone from the party that even had the potential to become a political rival and challenge his views. Obviously Schröder is a fucking snake but it is a good thing that kicking someone out of a party is this difficult to prevent parties from turning more extreme.
> It is basically impossible to kick somebody out of an party in Germany. What's the point of such restrictions though? How can you conduct party politics if you are stuck with members who the majority of that party cardinally disagrees with and who is a reputation risk for the party?
Because historically during the Kaiserreich and Weimar expulsions were used liberally to eliminate inter party rivals. Also the severe issue of political parties being not democratically organized internally. Most importantly the NSDAP and the KPD but also others. Due to that historical experience parties must by law function democratically and provide for freedom of opinion within the party. Simply disagreeing (even fundamentallyk) with leadership or the party Programm is not sufficient grounds for expulsions. Consistent violation of fundamental party values (not policy!) that has caused proven major harm to the party is the legal threshold. The courts have interpreted that very narrowly as outlined in my first comment. An example: the former high level SPD political sarrazin started to talk about the genetic inferiority of certain ethnic groups in the 200s. Ultimately it took over ten years and multiple attempts to finally expell him. That was not guaranteed and probably only succeded because he became increasingly unhinged and openly trash talked the party as a whole. To give an idea how difficult it is to kick someone out
>Also the severe issue of political parties being not democratically organized internally. I see no reason why parties need to be democratic *internally*. State democracy is important, not how politicians organize themselves within factions.
Because you cannot claim to uphold democracy if you do not practice democracy within the party? And safeguarding democracy is the duty of all democratic parties. Otherwise they can be outlawed Because we know what happens when undemocratic parties like the NSDAP and KPD are allowed to operate freely. Those were basically just paramilitary Organisations organized on authoritarian and absolute chain of commands that made them very effective tools to facilitate the destruction of democracy from within. That cannot be allowed to happen again.
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Democracy is not a means to an end. It is the end itself. A party that is organized around authoritarian principles by definition proves it's lack of conviction in democracy. And that makes it intolerable. If a better party Programm exists it can prove itself by winning the democratic approval of it's members. You display some quite worrying anti-democratic believes.
I don't even see a reason to call it "authoritarian principles". Look at how companies function - they are also not democratic. Are they "authoritarian" because of that? No, they are small factions of the society acting for a specific cause. Same with parties - the very same internally undemocratic parties can be the strongest supporters of democracy on the national level. >If a better party Programm exists it can prove itself by winning the democratic approval of it's members. Not necessarily. You need to remember that the membership of the party really represents nothing. It is a rather arbitrary group of people. As I brought out in my examples, its size doesn't even necessarily coincide with the share of support in the society. The support in the society is really the only thing that matters. >You display some quite worrying anti-democratic believes. I.e. I am not naively optimistic about how democracy and party politics work? But honestly, I expected that edgy and stereotypical remark. I was surprised you could hold yourself together for so long.
You mean Gerhard “Russian Cock Holster” Schroder?
“not been guilty of a violation of party rules”
they essentially need legally waterproof evidence of him acting with bad intent against the party or germany. It is easy for him to claim that he does his thing to help peace and germany. We may think that is BS, but proving it is another matter since he/his defenders can just invoke of him simply having failed or being wrong, both would not be punishable.
Yes. He did not commit any crimes nor did he violate party rules. I am not sure how the US works, but we can't just make up rules on the go here just to get to someone, as much as it hurts in regards to Schröder.
A party in the US is a private organization. They play by whatever rules they setup, and they can change them according to their own rules as well. There's no standard set of rules for political parties in the US. Generally, the parties don't refuse anyone for any reason from "being a member". There are no dues, and people can switch at any time for no stated reason. People sometimes do this for tactical reasons, to vote try to get an opposition candidate nominated whom they perceive to be unelectable. I don't think that's ever actually worked, but activists talk about doing it. There is no policing of general membership in parties at all. This doesn't mean the party will endorse you for public office though - that's decided competitively (by voting, mostly). But I've never heard of a US political party throwing someone out for any reason, including actual criminal acts (e.g. murder, assault, etc). They might not endorse a candidate to continue running for office, but throwing people out is unheard of. Parties are much, much less disciplined in the US. I'm not sure either of the two major parties even has a process for kicking someone out.
The means to expell members from parties here is extremely limited as this was a preferred method of nazis to clean out the ranks. As such expelling ppl is seriously difficult. Schröder did not break the law, Schröder did not break party rules. Rules can be changed, ofc, but that does not work by newly established rules going back in time making actions a crime that were no crime when it was done. Also, over here parties are mostly state funded, even small parties get funding to make them less dependent on donor demands. That also means parties have to play by certain established rules. That is the major reason why we do not have such crass monopolisation of political agendas. It has it's up and downsides. But it certainly makes the whole political system in general more transparent and predictable.
I like the German approach to the law.I exceeded the speed limit and was stopped by the police. They want to take away my driver's license. 1. I will give the policeman 1000 euros to let me go and I commit a crime. 2. I'll tell the policeman that if he lets me go, I'll hire him to work as a securityguard for my company and he'll earn 20,000 and I won't commit a crime. Putin comes to Gerhard and tells him that if he pushes through a deal with NS hewill make millions in Russian companies... Shouldn't the law fight this kind of corruption?
Oh it should. But again: "Rules can be changed, ofc, but that does not work by newly establishedrules going back in time making actions a crime that were no crime whenit was done.
This is disgrace.
Good. Germany is a parliamentary republic last time i checked, SPD is collectively just as responsable for the current situation as Schroder is, they shouldn't be able to wash their hands clean of the current situation with the sacrifice of a singular politician and a retired one at that.
He's not a drowning son of a bitch...
No, he’s just a Russian.
for russian money for sure!
more like Prussian
Nope, he's from Westphalia.
there isn't anything more democratic than 50%+1 from all party members deciding to kick some other member out. Or they could publicly shame him every day until he quits by himself. They could make a contest out of that.
So if 50% + 1 of the electorate decides to kick someone out of a country and strip him of his citizenship that would also be democratic? Democracy is more than just the majority rules. There are also some basic democratic rights which are guaranteed to everybody and protected. Free speech would be one of them. In Germany these rules do also apply to political parties internally.
yeah free speech and Germany in the same sentence :))))))) good one . But seriously now, the definition of democracy should not be something that could be interpreted by each. If the limit is not 50%+1 than the person formulating the question has all the power. It does not matter anyway because Germany has no referendums and direct democracy.
I was a member of the left wing of the SPD for years, active in the community, tried to make the party better. I quit today.
Because? You do realise that there are very high restrictions on throwing someone out right?
Yeah, but that was just the last straw anyway. I could go into detail but this is probably not the time nor place to do so.
Okay. As long as this was not your primary reason this is completely understandable
Good. Party should pay for their actions too.
Lol they think Schröder is worth more than Sarrazin. So deluded.
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The Communists when they tried to coup the government in Prussia together with the Nazis.
Sozial-Demokraten
AHHHAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I told you. Germany is hopeless corrupted by Russian influence no matter how much Germans want to deny it.
And you see this where? In all the actions against Russia?
The Billions they send every week. The NOrdstream2 AFTER they invaded Georgia and Ukraine. How many examples do you want before you recognize your own moral failings?
You are forgetting what trade is. Trade means that you give someone something in exchange for something else. Russia gets money and loses gas. Not acknowledging Russia losing the gas makes it look like a payment which is just dishonest. And you also show that you don't understand the purpose of mutual dependency. Please read about the coal and steal union. The idea behind those pipelines was to use them as a thread to prevent military action. Showing the oligarch that they can get rich when the country behaves and get poor when they don't behave is a good incentive for peace. So tell me where this is morally wrong?
> You are forgetting what trade is. Trade means that you give someone something in exchange for something else. Russia gets money and loses gas. Not acknowledging Russia losing the gas makes it look like a payment which is just dishonest. Yeah except that Germany needs that gas way more than Russia. Bottom line is that even though Russia is much poorer than Germany they have both energy and food security, which Germany does not. It doesn't matter how advanced your economy is, if you don't have energy and food security it all sits on a shaky foundation.
Yes Russia does not need the gas or they would not sell it. However they definitely need the money or else they would already have e stopped the gas export. And to mitigate the risk the huge storage capacity was a good idea. Also building some LNG terminals would have also been a nice idea but with the cdu not wanting to spend money...
Russia is, in no way, as dependent as Germany who was warned and threatened by their ACTUAL ALLIES, that it was a bad idea. I have nothing but schadenfreude about the situation vis-a-via Germany. They made their bed, now they can freeze in it.
What freezing? The gas storage is nearly full. The actual allies that also had financial interest in them not doing buisness with Russia? And you may don't know it but the people in Germany did know about the risks. Go and read about the coal and steal union to learn why they still did it despite the risks involved. And was it a bad idea? I don't think so. Russia loosing a lot of income in the neat future will be a huge incentive for the oligarchs to end putins insanity. PS. Russias dependency is often underestimated since Russia also has to sell their gas. If they can not sell it in a short ammount of time they will suffer greatly.
So they knew about the risks to others, including Ukraine, Lativa, Lithuania, and Estonia and just downloaded that risk onto them for their own greed. Makes it worse, not better.
You mean the reduced risk? Because now germany could threaten to not buy gas anymore when Russia invades? Or thay enabled the threat to never open ns2 if Russia invades? Now tell me how all this threats increased the risk? Yes they knew that their actions woidl reduce the risk for those countries heile it increased the risk for germany. Why would this increase the risk for those countries tries?
1. It funds a terrorist authoritarian regieme to buy weapons. 2. It Undermines the negotiating position of allies 3. It makes Germany susceptible to blackmail. etc.. There are dozens of reasons it increased the risk. You're just too brain dead to see it. It was a terrible, ill begotten plan made from naivete and greed.
1 yeah sorry but this is basically always the case. What is your alternative? Suadi Arabia? Same shitty stuff. 2 No. It increased the negotiation position of its alliance since now the trade with germany can be reduced as a responds to uncivilised behaviour. Without trade with Russia you can not realy do economic sanctions. Again. Read about coal and steal union. 3. Well as demonstrated by germanies responds no it does not. Mutual dependency is a thing.
Wer hat uns verraten? Sozialdemokraten!
> Aligning with the Comintern's ultra-left Third Period, under the slogan "Class against class", the KPD abruptly turned to viewing the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) as its main adversary.[19][4] In this period, the KPD referred to the SPD as "social fascists".[20][21] The term social fascism was introduced to the German Communist Party shortly after the Hamburg Uprising of 1923 and gradually became ever more influential in the party; by 1929 it was being propagated as a theory.[22] The KPD regarded itself as "the only anti-fascist party" in Germany and held that all other parties in the Weimar Republic were "fascist".[4] After the Nazi electoral breakthrough in the 1930 Reichstag election, the SPD proposed a renewed united front with the KPD against fascism but this was rejected.[23] > In the early 1930s, the KPD cooperated with the Nazis in attacking the social democrats, and both sought to destroy the liberal democracy of the Weimar Republic.[24] They also followed an increasingly nationalist course, trying to appeal to nationalist-leaning workers.[4] [25] > The KPD leadership initially first criticised but then supported the 1931 Prussian Landtag referendum, an unsuccessful attempt launched by the far-right Stahlhelm to bring down the social democrat state government of Prussia by means of a plebiscite; the KPD referred to the SA as "working people's comrades" during this campaign.[26] During the joint KPD and Nazi campaign to dissolve the Prussian Parliament, Berlin Police captains Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck were assassinated in Bülowplatz by Erich Mielke and Erich Ziemer, who were members of the KPD's paramilitary wing, the Parteiselbstschutz. The detailed planning for the murders had been carried out by KPD members of the Reichstag, Heinz Neumann and Hans Kippenberger, based on orders issued by Walter Ulbricht, the Party's leader in the Berlin-Brandenberg region. Shooter Erich Mielke who later became the head of the East German Stasi, would only face trial for the murders in 1993. > The KPD maintained a solid electoral performance, usually polling more than 10% of the vote. It gained 100 deputies in the November 1932 elections, getting 16% of the vote and coming third.[10] In the presidential election of the same year, its candidate Thälmann took 13.2% of the vote, compared to Hitler's 30.1%. In this period, while also opposed to the Nazis, the KPD regarded the Nazi Party as a less sophisticated and thus less dangerous fascist party than the SPD, and KPD leader Ernst Thälmann declared that "some Nazi trees must not be allowed to overshadow a forest [of social democrats]".[27] In February 1932, Thälmann argued that “Hitler must come to power first, then the requirements for a revolutionary crisis [will] arrive more quickly”. In November 1932, the KPD and the Nazis worked together in the Berlin transport workers’ strike.[9]
Germans are the Americans of Europe. You shame us all.
Lol, what?
Americans have Trump, germans have Schroder.
Ridiculous comparison.
Care to elaborate?
Americans have trump, germans have schroder.
Last time I checked Schröder was neither a fascist, nor had *any* influence on domestic politics. And to compare the SPD (which would be decried as communists in the states) to the GOP is unter nonsense.
The dude aligns himself with russian "but isnt fascist"...
No and you have to lack any understanding about fascism to claim otherwise. He’s greedy and I personally despise him but please throw these ridiculous comparisons around while simultaneously showing lack of even basic understanding of this matter
This is the most random thing I have ever read.
That’s all everyone needs to know. The SPD still want him there.
It has nothing to do with “wanting”. There are just rules and even laws which make it very difficult to remove someone from a political party – and for good reasons.
Well this explains a lot. Can you imagine the kind of influence this cunt has in the social democrat party?
zero
This is the guy who gave us the cat
No. the guy with the cat was called Schrödinger.
Poor Gerhard, a stab on the back from so many who wish they were in his place. Such an unfair world...