Remigijus Žemaitaitis, leader of Lithuania’s populist Dawn of Nemunas ruling coalition party, has been found guilty of incitement to hatred against Jews and downplaying the Holocaust in a decision by the Vilnius Regional Court. In a Thursday ruling the court said his public statements had “mocked Jewish people, denigrated them, and encouraged hatred toward the Jewish community.” Žemaitaitis was fined €5,000 — a fraction of what the prosecutor had requested — and is at risk of being stripped of his seat in parliament. “This is a politicized decision,” Žemaitaitis said, while indicating he will appeal. The court considered several social media posts in which Žemaitaitis blamed Jews for the “destruction of our nation” and for “contributing to the torture, deportation, and killing of Lithuanians.” After Israeli authorities demolished a Palestinian school on May 7, 2023, Žemaitaitis wrote: “After such events, it is no wonder that statements like this emerge: ‘A Jew climbed the ladder and accidentally fell. Take, children, a stick and kill that little Jew.'” His lawyer, Egidija Belevičienė, told local media that while her client’s remarks “may have been inappropriate and may have shocked some people, they did not reach the level of danger for which a person is punished with a criminal penalty that necessarily results in a criminal record.” Lithuania’s ruling Social Democrats, who share a coalition with Žemaitaitis, have yet to respond to the ruling, noting that it “is not yet final.” In a Thursday social media post the party said any form of antisemitism, hate speech or Holocaust denial “is unacceptable to us and incompatible with our values.” Still, Žemaitaitis’ record of antisemitic comments was known to the Social Democrats when they formed a coalition with his party last November. He had resigned his seat in parliament the previous April after the country’s Constitutional Court ruled he had violated the constitution by making antisemitic statements on social media. “The Social Democrats were not bothered last year … nor are they bothered now,” said Simonas Kairys, deputy leader of the Liberal Movement opposition party. Laurynas Kasčiūnas, chair of the opposition Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats, accused the Social Democrats of suffering from Stockholm syndrome. “They have been taken hostage by Žemaitaitis, and they’re beginning to like it,” he said. The country’s political opposition is calling on the Social Democrats to sever ties with Žemaitaitis — and is threatening to kick him out of the country’s parliament if they won’t. “The Social Democrats could simply tell Žemaitaitis ‘goodbye,’” Kasčiūnas said. If they fail to cut ties after the court’s ruling becomes final, he added, “an impeachment initiative will emerge in the Seimas.” Žemaitaitis has made a name for himself recently for more than antisemitism. In November he tabled a draft law to simplify the process of firing the head of the country’s LRT public broadcaster, sparking public outrage that the government was preparing to install a political flunky in the post. A street protest is scheduled for Dec. 9; as of Thursday over 124,000 people had signed an online petition against the draft law in a country of 2.8 million.

LONDON — Nigel Farage has gone to war with the BBC after a radio presenter suggested he had “a relationship when he was younger with Hitler,” vowing he would not speak to the national broadcaster until it apologized for its own past “racist” content.  Speaking to reporters at a press conference in Westminster, the Reform UK leader angrily rejected claims he had targeted antisemitic racial abuse at fellow pupils in his schooldays at the independent Dulwich College, in south London, and read out a letter from a Jewish classmate who supported him.  The furor blew up after Radio 4 presenter Emma Barnett asked Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice about the allegations that Farage had made comments about the Holocaust to a Jewish pupil.  Interviewing Tice on the Today program on Thursday morning, Barnett said: “Let’s talk about your leader Nigel Farage’s relationship when he was younger with Hitler.” Tice then dismissed the claims as lies. “I thought this morning’s performance by one of your lower grade presenters on the Today program was utterly disgraceful,” Farage told a BBC reporter at the press conference on Thursday. “To frame a question around the leader of Reform’s relationship with Hitler, which is how she framed it, was despicable, disgusting beyond belief.”  While denying he had ever racially abused anyone, Farage accused the BBC of “double standards and hypocrisy” because in the 1970s, at the time he was alleged to have made the comments, the broadcaster aired many comedy shows that contained racist humor which would now be totally unacceptable.  He listed “homophobic” and “racist” content, listing shows such as “Are You Being Served,” “It Ain’t Half Hot Mum,” and performances by “Bernard Manning.” Nigel Farage accused the BBC of “double standards and hypocrisy” because in the 1970s the broadcaster aired many comedy shows that contained racist humor which would now be totally unacceptable. | Andy Rain/EPA “I cannot put up with the double standards of the BBC,” he said. “I want an apology from the BBC for virtually everything you did throughout the 1970s and ’80s.”  Farage read a letter from a school contemporary which said the culture was very different in the 1970s. “Lots of boys said things they regret today,” the letter said. Farage’s comments were “offensive” sometimes, “but never with malice.”

BERLIN — Before Leif-Erik Holm became one of the German far right’s leading figures, he was a morning radio DJ in his home state in eastern Germany celebrated, by his station, for making “the best jokes far and wide.” Ahead of regional elections across Germany next year, Holm, 55, is now set to become the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party’s top candidate in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, a largely rural area bordering Poland and the Baltic Sea. With polls showing the AfD in first place at 38 percent support in the state, it’s one of the places where the party — now the largest opposition group in Germany’s national parliament — is within striking distance of taking significant governing power for the first time since its formation over a decade ago. Holm embodies the type of candidate at least some AfD leaders increasingly want at the top of the ticket. With an avuncular demeanor, he eschews the kind of incendiary rhetoric other politicians in the party have embraced and says he seeks dialogue with his political opponents. Asked what his party would do if it takes power in his state next year, Holm rattled off some innocuous-sounding proposals: invest more in education, including STEM subjects, and ensure children of immigrants learn German before they start school. “I’m actually a nice guy,” Holm said. Underneath the guy-next-door image, however, there’s a clear political calculus. National co-head of the party, Alice Weidel, is attempting something of a rebrand, believing that the AfD won’t be able to make the jump to real political power unless it moves away from candidates who embrace openly extreme positions. That means moving away from controversial leaders like Björn Höcke — found guilty by a court for uttering a banned slogan used by Adolf Hitler’s SA storm troopers — and Maximilian Krah, who last year said he would “never say that anyone who wore an SS uniform was automatically a criminal.” Instead, the preferred candidate, at least for Weidel and people in her camp, is someone like Holm, who can present a more sanitized face of the party. But the makeover is proving to be only skin deep, and even Weidel, despite her national leadership role, can’t prevent the mask from slipping. NEW LOOK, SAME POLITICS Since its creation in 2013 as a Euroskeptic party, the AfD has grown more extreme, mobilizing its increasingly radicalized base primarily around the issue of migration. Earlier this year, Germany’s federal domestic intelligence agency — which is tasked with surveilling groups found to be anti-constitutional — deemed the AfD an extremist group. Weidel is now trying to tamp down on the open extremism. The effort is intended to make the AfD more palatable to mainstream conservatives — and to make it harder for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s center-right alliance to refuse to govern in coalition with the party by maintaining the postwar “firewall” around the far right. Weidel’s push to present a more polished party image isn’t necessarily supported by large swaths of the AfD’s rank and file — especially in its strongholds in the former East Germany — who point to the fact that the party’s political ascent coincided with its radicalization. The argument isn’t without merit. Despite its rising extremism, the party came in second in the snap federal election early this year — the best national showing for a far-right party since World War II. The party is now ahead of Merz’s conservatives in polls. Alice Weidel’s push to present a more polished party image isn’t necessarily supported by large swaths of the AfD’s rank and file. | Sean Gallup/Getty Images  Weidel is nevertheless pressing ahead with her drive to try to soften the AfD’s image. As part of this effort, Weidel has tried to somewhat shift her party from its proximity to the Kremlin — seeking closer ties with Republicans in the U.S. From now on, the party will “fight alongside the white knight rather than the black knight,” a person familiar with Weidel’s thinking said. In another remake attempt, earlier this year, an extremist youth group affiliated with the AfD dissolved itself to avert a possible ban that might have damaged the party. Last weekend, a new youth wing was formed that party leaders will have direct control over. Other far-right parties across Europe have made their own rebranding efforts. In France, far-right leader Marine Le Pen has attempted to normalize her party — an effort referred to as dédiabolisation, or “de-demonization” — ditching the open antisemitism of its founders. As part of that push, Le Pen moved to disassociate her party from the AfD in the European Parliament. In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has moderated her earlier anti-EU, pro-Russia stances. For the AfD, however, the attempted transformation is less a matter of substance — and more a matter of optics. Underneath Weidel’s effort to burnish her party’s reputation, many of its most extreme voices continue to hold sway. THE POLISHED RADICAL Perhaps no AfD leader embodies that tension more than Ulrich Siegmund, the lead candidate for the party in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, where it is polling first at 40 percent support ahead of a regional vote next September. It’s here, in this small state of just over 2 million people, where AfD leaders pin most of their hopes of getting into state government next year — possibly even with an absolute majority. Like Holm, Siegmund too tries to cultivate a regular-guy persona. Even members of opposing parties in the state parliament describe him as friendly and approachable. With over half a million followers on TikTok, he reaches more people than any other state politician in Germany. Perhaps no AfD leader embodies that tension more than Ulrich Siegmund, the lead candidate for the party in the state of Saxony-Anhalt. | Emmanuele Contini/NurPhoto via Getty Images At the same time, Siegmund is clearly connected to the extreme fringe of the party. He was one of the attendees at a secret meeting of right-wing extremists in which a “master plan” to deport migrants and “unassimilated citizens” was reportedly discussed. When news of the meeting broke last year, it sparked sustained protests against the far right across Germany and temporarily dented the AfD’s popularity in polls. Speaking to POLITICO, Siegmund minimized the secret meeting as “coffee klatsch,” claiming the real scandal is how the media overblew the episode. He described himself not as a dangerous extremist — but as a regular guy concerned for his country. “I am a normal citizen, taxpayer and resident of this country who simply wants a better home, especially for his children, for his family, for all of our children,” Siegmund said. “Because I simply cannot stand by and watch our country develop so negatively in such a short time.” Yet, when pressed, Siegmund could not conceal his extremism. He defended the use of the motto “Everything for Germany!” — the banned Nazi phrase that got his party colleague, Höcke, into legal trouble. “I think it goes without saying that you should give your all for your own country,” Siegmund said. “And I think that should also be the benchmark for every politician — to do everything they can for their own country, because that’s what they were elected to do and what they are paid to do.” Siegmund also took issue with the notion that the Nazis perpetrated history’s greatest crime against humanity, so therefore Germans have a special responsibility to avoid such terms. Ulrich Siegmund also took issue with the notion that the Nazis perpetrated history’s greatest crime against humanity, so therefore Germans have a special responsibility to avoid such terms. | Heiko Rebsch/picture alliance via Getty Images “I find this interpretation to be grossly exaggerated and completely detached from reality,” he said. “For me, it is important to look forward and not backward. And of course, we must always learn from history, but not just from individual aspects of history, but from history as a whole.” Siegmund said he couldn’t judge whether the Nazis had perpetrated history’s worst crime, relativizing the Holocaust in a manner reminiscent of some of the most extreme voices in his party. “I don’t presume to judge that,” he said, “because I can’t assess the whole of humanity.” One lesson from Germany’s history, Siegmund added, is that there should be no “language police” or attempts to ban the AfD as extremist, as some centrist politicians advocate. “If you want to ban the strongest force in this country according to opinion polls, then you’re not learning from history either,” he said. INTERNATIONAL NATIONALISTS The AfD’s national leaders privately smarted at Siegmund’s comments for making their faltering rebrand more difficult. (Holm did not respond to a request for comment on the statements.) That’s especially the case because Weidel and other AfD leaders are increasingly looking abroad for the legitimacy they crave at home and fear such rhetoric will complicate the effort. Weidel and people in her circle have sought to forge closer ties to the Trump administration and other right-wing governments, seeing connections with MAGA Republicans in the U.S. and other populist-right parties in Europe as a way of winning credibility for the AfD domestically. In Europe, Weidel has repeatedly visited Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at his official residence in Budapest. The party is also making an effort to reestablish connections with members of Le Pen’s party in the European Parliament, according to a high-ranking AfD official. Not everyone in the AfD, however, sees eye to eye with Weidel on the attempt to moderate the party image, especially when it comes to relations with Moscow. The AfD’s other national co-leader, Tino Chrupalla, recently told an interviewer on German public television that Vladimir Putin’s Russia poses no threat to Germany. Chrupalla’s rhetoric is much more friendly to the Kremlin, and he’s the preferred party leader among many of the AfD’s most radical supporters in eastern Germany — where pro-Moscow sympathies are more prevalent. Many of the AfD’s followers in the former East Germany, where the party polls strongest, see Weidel, born in the former West Germany, as too mild in her approach. Ultimately, the direction of the AfD — in next year’s state elections and beyond — may well depend on which leader’s vision prevails.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Kanzler Friedrich Merz ist auf diplomatischer Mission in Afrika, doch der G20-Gipfel wird von einem 28-Punkte-Friedensplan aus den USA für die Ukraine überschattet. Gordon Repinski berichtet aus Angola, wie Merz versucht, Europa im Spiel zu halten und einen „Diktatfrieden“ durch Donald Trump zu verhindern. Hans von der Burchard ordnet die hektische Diplomatie zwischen Genf, Berlin und Johannesburg ein. Im 200-Sekunden-Interview: Norbert Röttgen. Der CDU-Außenpolitiker findet drastische Worte für den kursierenden Plan. Er nennt ihn eine „Aneinanderreihung von Unverschämtheiten“ und warnt davor, dass Europa am Donnerstag – zu Thanksgiving – vor vollendete Tatsachen gestellt wird. Röttgen fordert stattdessen ein klares finanzielles Signal der EU für Kiew. Außerdem: Der Nachklapp zum „Spaziergang“ mit AfD-Mann Ulrich Siegmund. Pauline von Pezold analysiert, wie die AfD intern auf die Holocaust-Aussagen ihres Spitzenkandidaten reagiert: Zwischen öffentlicher Verteidigung und Kritik hinter vorgehaltener Hand. Zudem reagiert Gordon ausführlich auf das Hörer-Feedback und die Debatten auf X. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig. Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren. Mehr von Host und POLITICO Executive Editor Gordon Repinski: Instagram: @gordon.repinski | X: @GordonRepinski. Legal Notice (Belgium) POLITICO SRL Forme sociale: Société à Responsabilité Limitée Siège social: Rue De La Loi 62, 1040 Bruxelles Numéro d’entreprise: 0526.900.436 RPM Bruxelles info@politico.eu www.politico.eu

PARIS — The banks of the Seine were still cloaked in early morning darkness when a security guard at the Paris Holocaust Museum, seated just a stone’s throw from the Notre Dame Cathedral, noticed a suspicious scene. Two men in dark clothes were spraying red paint across the Wall of the Righteous — a stone monument inscribed with the names of those who saved Jews in France during World War II. As the guard gave chase, a third man emerged from the shadows of a nearby building to film the night’s work: 35 red-painted handprints, splashed across the 25-meter wall. The attack, which took place in May of last year, was not an isolated act of hate. Police quickly identified and arrested three Bulgarian suspects whose trial begins in Paris on Wednesday — a case that investigators and intelligence officials say offers a rare window into Russia’s escalating campaign to destabilize France through covert influence and psychological operations. The vandalism of the Holocaust memorial was one of several symbolic assaults to shake the country over the past two years — featuring pig heads dropped at mosques, Stars of David sprayed on buildings, coffins left next to the Eiffel Tower— each seemingly designed to inflame tensions between France’s Jewish and Muslim communities or to erode French support for Ukraine ahead of a pivotal 2027 presidential election. They point to how France has become a hot spot in Russia’s hybrid war against Europe, as Moscow seeks to undermine one of Kyiv’s most powerful backers by aggravating its political and social tensions. Analysts and officials say France presents both a prime target and a weak flank — a nation with global weight but domestic vulnerabilities that make it especially susceptible to manipulation. “This reflects a geopolitical reality: Russia considers France to be a serious adversary, it’s the only nuclear power in the EU, and the president of the Republic is quite vocal on support for Ukraine, considering scenarios such as the deployment of French soldiers to Odesa,” said Kevin Limonier, a professor and deputy director at the GEODE geopolitical research center in Paris, where his team has mapped out Russia’s hybrid war operations in Europe. “In France, we are a little further away from the eastern flank and we don’t have the same level of prevention as the countries from the former Soviet Union,” said Natalia Pouzyreff, a lawmaker from President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party who co-authored a report on foreign interference earlier this year.  “The population is more receptive to this kind of rhetoric.”  RED HANDED French authorities have accused four men of orchestrating the defacement of the Holocaust memorial. The three allegedly on the scene, Mircho Angelov, Georgi Filipov and Kiril Milushev, fled Paris that same morning by bus to Brussels, then boarded a flight to Sofia.  Filipov and Milushev were later arrested by Bulgarian authorities and extradited to France. A fourth man, Nikolay Ivanov, suspected of financing the operation, was arrested in Croatia. Angelov remains at large. The men stand accused of conspiring to deface the monument, with the aggravating circumstance of acting on antisemitic motives. French investigators also suspect they may have acted, knowingly or not, as Russian agents. The operation could “correspond to an attempt to destabilize France orchestrated by the Russian intelligence services,” according to an assessment by the domestic intelligence agency DGSI cited in a note from the prosecutor’s office.  French authorities have accused four men of orchestrating the defacement of the Holocaust memorial. | Dimitar Dilkoff/Getty Images The same assessment links the act to “a broader strategy” aimed at “dividing French public opinion or fueling internal tensions by using ‘proxies’, meaning individuals who are not working for those services but are paid by them for ad hoc tasks via intermediaries.” During preliminary hearings, Filipov and Milushev did not deny being present but pointed to Angelov as the main orchestrator. The Paris raid wasn’t the first time members of the group had met: Angelov, Ivanov and Milushev are all from Blagoevgrad, a town in southwestern Bulgaria close to the border with North Macedonia. Contacted by POLITICO, Milushev’s lawyer Camille Di Tella said her client, a longtime casual acquaintance of Angelov, had only filmed the tagging without actively participating in the vandalism and “was not aware of what he was really meant to do” when he agreed on the trip. Martin Vettes, a lawyer for Filipov, declined to comment on the case ahead of the trial.  Vladimir Ivanov, a lawyer for Nikolay Ivanov, said his client only paid for hotel nights and bus tickets as a service to Angelov. He strongly denied his client had antisemitic motives or was aware of any Russian connection. POLITICO was unable to reach Angelov for comment. The DGSI declined to comment for this story.   Angelov’s Facebook feed, identified by POLITICO, includes selfies from around Europe, from Greek beaches to the Swiss Alps. Pictures of him show large tattoos covering his chest, upper arms and legs, featuring neo-Nazi symbols including the numbers 14 and 88 and a black Totenkopf, the emblem of a prominent SS division.  On May 12, two days before the attack on the memorial, Angelov posted a picture of himself in front of the Notre Dame Cathedral wearing a blue T-shirt and ripped jeans that partly concealed his tattoos. During his brief stop in Brussels he shared another picture taken in front of a glass building, followed by a winking emoji. The red handprints painted on the memorial are a symbol used by some pro-Palestinian activists to denounce the war in Gaza. But they are also seen by Jewish groups and scholars as a reference to the killing of two Israeli soldiers during the second Intifada in the 2000s, and a call for antisemitic violence.  The attack coincided with the anniversary of the first mass arrest of Jews in France under the Nazi occupation, drawing condemnation across France’s political spectrum. That evening, museum staff and local organizations held an impromptu vigil outside the site. “In a climate of rising antisemitism, we are shocked by this cowardly and heinous act,” Jacques Fredj, the memorial director, posted on social media. Privately, museum employees were hesitant to attribute the attack to pro-Palestinian groups. “We didn’t see the logic of it coming from activists,” said one of them, who declined to speak on the record given the sensitivity of the subject.  The Intifada reference felt old and out of touch, the museum employee said. The attacks also felt similar to a 2023 incident in which Stars of David were tagged across the French capital in an operation French prosecutors described as possible foreign interference.  The Paris prosecutor’s office also cited a report by Viginum, France’s national agency monitoring online disinformation, that found news stories about the red handprints were amplified by “thousands of fake accounts on Twitter” linked to the Russian Recent Reliable News/Doppelgänger network — a group already implicated in spreading reports about the Stars of David. FOREIGN INTERFERENCE The trial opening Wednesday is just one of nine cases involving attacks on religious communities or high-profile French monuments under investigation by the Paris prosecutor’s office since late 2023.  The most recent is from Sept. 9, when Najat Benali, rector of the Javel mosque in southeastern Paris, was woken by a call from worshippers attending the early morning prayer. They had been shocked to find a pig head drenched in blood at the mosque’s entrance.  The vandalism of the Holocaust memorial was one of several symbolic assaults to shake the country over the past two years. | Antonin Utz/Getty Images Benali rushed to the scene. “It was still dark, I got scared,” she said. She alerted local officials and learned that eight other mosques had been targeted. Prosecutors quickly traced the act to a group of Serbian nationals after a Normandy pig farmer flagged a suspicious bulk purchase. The pig heads were dropped “by foreign nationals who immediately left [French] soil, in a manifest attempt to cause unrest within the nation,” said a note from the Paris prosecutor’s office dated mid-September. Later that month, Serbia announced the arrest of 11 of its citizens related to the incident.  Serbian authorities said the group is also suspected of throwing green paint on Paris synagogues and a well-known Paris falafel restaurant situated in the capital’s old Jewish neighborhood.  Allegations of foreign interference do little to alleviate the distress felt by the Muslim community, said Bassirou Camara, head of Addam, a nonprofit organization keeping track of anti-Muslim attacks.  “It doesn’t diminish the feeling of fear and disgust,” Camara said. “Because we know they are exploiting a crack that already exists.” France’s deep social, economic, cultural, religious and political divisions offer fertile ground for the Kremlin’s interference, several policymakers, academics and military officers told POLITICO. Unlike Russia’s neighbors such as Estonia or Lithuania, France is also unused to being the subject of Russian propaganda. Even though it’s a NATO member, the country historically saw itself as an independent ally of the U.S. and before the invasion of Ukraine kept open channels with the Kremlin. “Before, the Russians didn’t want to upset France because it had a kind of non-aligned role,” said a high-ranking French military officer, who was granted anonymity to talk candidly about a sensitive topic. “Now, they think they need to fracture our society and show the French that Emmanuel Macron is leading them down the wrong path.”   Large segments of the French political spectrum are also historically friendly to Russia. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen, long accused of cozying up to Vladimir Putin, has sought to distance herself from the Russian president since he launched Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Meanwhile, leftist firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon is a fierce critic of NATO.  “There is an ambiguous ground in France, with a primitive anti-Americanism that sometimes swings into pro-Russian sentiment as a mirror effect,” the military officer explained. “We are paying for our historical position on Russia; we have always allowed a certain amount of doubt to linger, and the French have been fed on that.”  Stoking tensions in France requires little effort in a society already on edge. “The Russian intelligence sphere understands the cleavages in society,” said Kristine Berzina, a senior fellow and security expert at the German Marshall Fund think tank. It has “this very particular awareness and desire to instrumentalize highly painful domestic political issues and opportunism to tap those pain points at the right moment of political salience.”  One major flashpoint is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. France is home to the EU’s largest Muslim and Jewish populations — roughly 5 million and 450,000 people, respectively. “French society, with its Jewish and Muslim minorities, is the perfect breeding ground for provocation,” said a Paris-based European diplomat.   On the day the pig heads were dropped, local leaders denounced a rise in violence against Muslims.  France is home to the EU’s largest Muslim and Jewish populations — roughly 5 million and 450,000 people, respectively. | Geoffrey Van Der Hasselt/Getty Images “These clearly coordinated acts mark a new and sad step up in the rise of anti-Muslim hatred, and aim to divide our national community,” Chems-eddine Hafiz, rector of Paris Great Mosque, said in a statement.  Figures from the left were quick to blame “a toxic climate … fueled by the stigmatizing rhetoric of certain politicians,” pointing their fingers at the country’s far-right leaders. EASTERN EXAMPLES Several experts said they expect Russia to ramp up operations ahead of the 2027 French election, when Le Pen’s National Rally — a party far less sympathetic to Ukraine’s plight than Macron — may have its best shot yet at taking the presidency.  In the meantime, French officials have taken note of the spate of attacks. In May the government announced a new policy regarding Russian cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns, promising to call out foreign governments in an effort to raise awareness. The country has also beefed up its legal arsenal. Last year, lawmakers toughened penalties for violence “committed at the behest of a foreign power.”  French authorities are reaching out to countries such as Estonia, Poland, Finland and Sweden to better understand the Russian psyche, several French officials told POLITICO.  France has valuable lessons to learn from frontline nations, many of which spent decades under Soviet control, the officials said. These include fostering media literacy and raising awareness of the threat of disinformation instead of focusing on countering fake news and spreading counternarratives. The new approach may already be starting to bear fruit. The French public is becoming more savvy at spotting foreign interference, said Pouzyreff, the Renaissance party lawmaker, referring to the pig heads episode.  “After having reported one, two, three attempts at interference, by the fourth the public was waiting for more information and [the controversy] deflated much more quickly,” she said. 

BELGRADE — Serbia has arrested 11 of its citizens on suspicion of high-profile hate crimes in Berlin and Paris — involving pigs’ heads and green paint — that were widely viewed as seeking to stir up tensions between religious groups in Western capitals over the war in Gaza. The Serbian interior ministry said the main organizer of the group with the initials M.G. was still on the run and had acted on the “instructions of a foreign intelligence service.” Since Stars of David were painted across Paris in 2023, French authorities have told the media that they have been seeking to stop Russian attempts to sow instability. The Serbian interior ministry gave no indication of which “foreign intelligence service” was involved in the more recent offences. The Serbian ministry said the 11 detainees were part of a group of 14 and that their activities between April and September 2025 had included “throwing green paint on the Holocaust [memorial in Paris], several synagogues and a Jewish restaurant.” The individuals also placed “pigs’ heads near Muslim religious buildings, all in the Paris area, as well as in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin,” the statement continued. The ministry added the group had “aimed to spread ideas that advocate and incite hatred, discrimination and violence” based on “differences in race, skin color, religious affiliation, nationality and ethnic origin.” The suspects are being held in Smederevo, a city close to the capital Belgrade, as they await questioning within the next 48 hours. The government, led by the Serbian Progressive Party, maintains a strong relationship with the Kremlin. It recently promoted a report by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) that claimed the EU is fomenting a “color revolution” in Serbia by supporting months-long anti-government protests. Serbia did not join the EU’s sanctions on Russia following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and operates regular flights to St. Petersburg and Moscow.

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron wants to pull off a grand diplomatic coup on Monday by collecting several Western countries together to recognize a Palestinian state, but he’s a long way from delivering a genuine breakthrough in Gaza. The limits to what he can achieve at the United Nations General Assembly are clear. European heavyweights like Germany and Italy will not be joining his initiative and there’s little prospect his efforts can sway U.S. President Donald Trump or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war. The big idea in New York is to trumpet the recognition of Palestinian statehood by France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Portugal, Luxembourg, Malta, Andorra, Australia and Canada. One French official called it a “diplomatic victory” for Paris.   Macron’s ultimate goal is to show there is a global counterweight to Trump’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza, and to ramp up the pressure for peace. Comparisons are already being made with France’s defiance under Jacques Chirac to stand up to the U.S. over the invasion of Iraq in 2003 — a position also articulated in a landmark speech at the U.N. There is, of course, a strong domestic political motive too. European leaders are conscious of their need to ride a wave of public anger about the war, which is only growing as the death toll in Gaza surges. The pollster YouGov has found public support for Israel in Western Europe is plumbing historic lows. But how much influence does Macron actually have? Even the French admit the grandstanding and big gestures in New York will make no immediate difference to the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, as Israeli tanks crunch forward in a ground offensive.  Neither Israel nor the United States will hold back because of Macron. What’s more, the French president’s attempt to show a common front also reveals how disunited Western Europe looks, particularly when EU and NATO countries are treading on eggshells around Trump because of the war in Ukraine. Germany, Italy, Greece and the Netherlands won’t be signing up. Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz will not even attend, having found more pressing concerns at home. Italy’s Giorgia Meloni has insisted she is not in favor of recognizing a Palestinian state “prior to establishing it,” and will arrive a day after Macron’s event. ‘IT DOESN’T CHANGE ANYTHING’ The gamble, according to one European diplomat, who was granted anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, was that “Israel would give some ground” as international pressure mounted against it. But the diplomat conceded it didn’t look like the gamble was paying off: “That doesn’t look like it’s happening. The U.S. supports Israel, and they are accelerating annexations in the West Bank.” Another diplomat noted that as long as Israel has the support of “their great ally the United States with its Iron Dome … it doesn’t change anything.” For many observers, though, Macron’s push is less about the immediate impact and more about creating a watershed moment in Europe’s relations with Israel.   Displaced Palestinians move with their belongings southwards on a road in the Nuseirat refugee camp area in the central Gaza Strip following renewed Israeli evacuation orders. | Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images Europe is haunted by its role in the Holocaust and has only ever taken “symbolic, small” steps against Israel, said Kristina Kausch, Middle East expert with the German Marshall Fund think tank, even if Europeans were “uncomfortable with how Israel treated the Palestinians.” “But the developments in the last two years, and in last months, led to the realization that things can’t carry on,” she said.   For Kausch, the European Commission’s move last week toward imposing sanctions and tariffs on Israel represents that sea change in Europe’s mindset. “It is unprecedented,” she said. “Trade measures are usually only taken against authoritarian countries such as Myanmar or Belarus,” she said.   UNDER PRESSURE In the weeks and days ahead of Macron’s conference on Palestine, the U.S. and Israel have tried to scupper France’s diplomatic offensive. Washington last month refused to grant the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, a visa to travel to the U.S. to attend the annual gathering of the United Nations.   Israel is floating various retaliatory measures against France, and Prime Minister Netanyahu and his top aides are mounting a last-minute bid to persuade Macron to tie French recognition of Palestinian statehood to the release of the remaining Israeli captives held by the Hamas militant group.   “If he’s going to tie the recognition with the release of hostages, then Israel can swallow it,” an Israeli official told POLITICO on the condition of anonymity to speak about a sensitive issue.  For France, the backlash is proof that its diplomatic efforts are having an effect and that Israel and the U.S. are increasingly isolated.   “It’s not going to change much for the Gazans,” said France’s former Ambassador to the Mediterranean Karim Amellal. “But we are seeing alliances shifting. There’s Israel and the U.S. against most European nations including Germany … and the dynamic now is going to accentuate their isolation,” he said. France’s former Ambassador to Syria Michel Duclos drew direct parallels with France’s push against the Iraq war in 2003. “France was weakened politically, economically, but it was still capable of channelling the feelings of a majority of countries,” he said. But another parallel is clear too. As Duclos recalls, France’s turn in the diplomatic limelight in 2003 did not prevent the invasion of Iraq, or the ensuing years of turmoil across the Middle East. “It risks being a waste of time,” he said.  Prime Minister Netanyahu and his top aides are mounting a last-minute bid to persuade Macron to tie French recognition of Palestinian statehood to the release of the remaining Israeli captives. | Julien Mattia/NurPhoto via Getty Images The first European diplomat quoted above dismissed Macron’s statehood conference as “the last act of a president who wants to leave a legacy behind him.” EXCUSES, EXCUSES, EXCUSES The cast list for Macron’s conference on Palestine is hardly stellar in terms of European leaders. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Belgium’s Bart De Wever, Portugal’s Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and leaders from Luxembourg and Malta will attend Monday’s conference. A bit more heft will come in the form of Canada’s Mark Carney and Australia’s Anthony Albanese, who are expected to make speeches. In a sign that European resolve to stand up to the U.S. and Israel is fragile, a majority of other European leaders, even like-minded ones, have found reasons to steer clear of Macron’s conference.  British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is attempting to navigate between pressure from his own party and avoiding the opprobrium of Trump, who paid a largely friendly visit to the U.K. last week.  Starmer is not expected to attend the U.N. gathering, leaving it to the Deputy PM David Lammy and Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper. He has faced criticism since taking office for the amount of time he has spent abroad at international summits, while several of his most pressing domestic missions remain unsolved.  Germany’s Chancellor Merz won’t be attending, either, sending his Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul instead. Officially, Merz’ absence is due to domestic matters requiring his attention, such as parliamentary discussions on next year’s national budget.   The convenient timetable clash also allows the German chancellor, a firm opponent of recognizing Palestinian statehood, to avoid directly confronting Paris — and others — on the international stage. Time and again, the chancellor and his government have spoken out against such a step.  “The German government is not currently considering recognizing Palestinian statehood,” Merz said on Thursday night during a visit to Madrid. “We continue to view such recognition as one of the final steps, not one of the first, on the path to a two-state solution.” Kausch from the German Marshall Fund explained: “It’s not necessary, nor politically convenient for him to go. … It’s enough that they do not block things and let France and Spain move the conversation forward,” she said, with reference to Germany’s decision to back France’s declaration in support of a two-state solution. Spain already recognizes a Palestinian state. Standing alongside Sánchez, who has taken a particularly tough line on Israel among EU states, Merz added: “It comes as no surprise that we may have different opinions on this matter. Of course, this also has something to do with German history.” Italian Prime Minister Meloni, never a fan of backing Macron’s initiatives, is also staying away, choosing to arrive in New York a day after the conference. Last week, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani dismissed moves to recognize Palestine as “absolutely useless.”   Palestinians, including children, in Gaza city, where the Israeli army launched ground attacks following airstrikes, are migrating towards the southern regions. | Mohammed Nassar/Anadolu via Getty Images “Recognizing a Palestinian state today is way of giving ourselves a good conscience and doesn’t solve the problem,” he said in the Italian senate on Thursday.  A senior Greek official said the timing was wrong: “We are unreservedly in favor of the establishment of a Palestinian state. However, we believe that unilateral recognition at this moment does not produce any beneficial results.” On Monday, Macron may be able to airbrush out the divisions among Europeans with a rousing speech and a carefully choreographed conference, but the splits matter when it comes to taking action. For now, there hasn’t been sufficient support among EU countries to pass either sanctions or tariffs against Israel, with the latter requiring a qualified majority to pass. But this could change. According to two diplomats in Brussels, if Israel takes steps such as annexing territory in the wake of Macron’s statehood conference, EU countries that have so far opposed any EU-wide measures against Israel, notably Germany, may decide to change their position. Even then, however, the real power will still lie with Israel’s rock-solid allies in Washington. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has not minced his word’s about the French president’s “reckless” plan that he says will be “a slap in the face to the victims of October 7th.” Nicholas Vinocur, Nektaria Stamouli, Jamie Dettmer, Aitor Fernández-Morales and James Angelos contributed reporting.

The deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza have finally persuaded officials in Brussels to step up their efforts to punish Israel. It’s not likely to help. On Wednesday, the European Commission will set out detailed proposals for suspending preferential trade terms and sanctioning “extremist” ministers and violent Israeli settlers.  The timing of the announcement is critical. It comes just 24 hours after a United Nations commission concluded Israel was perpetrating “genocide” and as Israeli forces begin major ground operations designed to occupy Gaza City. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has been under mounting pressure in recent weeks to take a tougher line against Benjamin Netanyahu’s government as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsened.  According to Kaja Kallas, the EU’s chief diplomat, the new package will see duties imposed on more than one-third of Israel’s trade with the EU, which was worth €42.6 billion last year.  On paper, the impact would be significant as the EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner. “Definitely this step will have a high cost for Israel,” Kallas told Euronews in a Tuesday interview.  But in reality the proposal has almost no chance of winning enough support from European governments to be implemented in the short term, or perhaps ever.  The EU’s record of action against what its leaders have condemned as Israel’s man-made famine this year has been one of strong words immediately undermined by weak follow-through.  It’s been 51 days since the Commission proposed what at the time was seen as the mildest possible penalty against Israel in protest at the mass starvation of Palestinians: suspending parts of the Horizon Europe research cooperation program. But not even that limited proposal made it beyond the debating stage.  While ever more governments have taken their own steps — sanctioning Israeli ministers and pledging to recognize a Palestinian state — the EU as a whole remains hopelessly split.  As von der Leyen herself admitted last week, “this is stuck without a majority. We must overcome this. We cannot afford to be paralyzed.” Europe’s “inability to agree,” she said, is “painful.”  Ursula von der Leyen has been under mounting pressure to take a tougher line against Benjamin Netanyahu. | Omar Havana/Getty Images The most tortured position of all is that of the bloc’s economic and political powerhouse: Germany.  Friedrich Merz, Germany’s new leader, who hails from the same conservative political family as von der Leyen, has grown increasingly outspoken in his criticism of Netanyahu’s administration since taking over as chancellor in Berlin in February. Last month he banned the export of all German weapons that could be used by Israel in Gaza. But that immediately triggered a party backlash. Now, nobody in Brussels believes Merz is about to buckle and endorse von der Leyen’s plans to suspend the EU’s trade deal with Israel, even if some believe Germany and others will support more sanctions against violent Israeli settlers.  Without Germany’s support, the penalties on trade will not have the backing of the qualified majority of EU countries they need to be enacted. Formal sanctions against Israeli ministers will be even harder, as these measures require the unanimous support of all 27 EU governments to pass.  For Germany’s Merz, the question of how to handle Israel is miserably difficult. The Nazi legacy of the Holocaust casts a long shadow over German politics: On Monday night, an emotional Merz fought back tears in a speech at a synagogue in Munich denouncing a new wave of antisemitism.  “In politics and society, we have turned a blind eye for too long to the fact that a considerable number of the people who have come to Germany in recent decades were socialized in countries of origin where antisemitism is virtually state doctrine, where hatred of Israel is taught even to children,” Merz said. Countries that fail to act to stop genocide can potentially be treated as complicit under the Genocide Convention, a fact that could theoretically push more European governments to support the EU’s sanction plans.  Nobody in Brussels believes Friedrich Merz is about to buckle and endorse Ursula von der Leyen’s plans to suspend the EU’s trade deal with Israel. | Omar Havana/Getty Images Yet for Merz, domestic considerations are likely to make it impossible for his government to endorse the assessment that genocide is under way, still less to take concrete action to curtail Israel-EU trade.  Katja Hoyer, a German-British academic and author of Beyond the Wall, said Merz’s relations with his own Christian Democrats will likely weigh on his thinking. “Surveys suggest that Merz has the majority of the German public on his side when it comes to a tougher stance on Israel, but his problem is the backlash he’d get from his own party,” she said.  “The CDU/CSU has long been the home for those who staunchly support Israel. For many, this is an integral part of the party’s soul. Already under pressure for various broken promises and for having disappointed conservative purists on a number of issues, I don’t know if Merz will feel that he can survive a policy change in this area unscathed.”  As for von der Leyen, the pain of Europe’s paralysis is likely to continue.  Karl Mathiesen contributed reporting. 

President Ursula von der Leyen used her annual State of the Union speech to announce the European Commission will take a tougher approach on Israel ― drawing applause and jeers from a divided European Parliament. The EU’s executive will pause bilateral payments to Israel, von der Leyen said, as she seeks to blast through gridlock in the bloc’s response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The Commission will propose sanctions on violent settlers and a partial suspension of trade aspects of the EU-Israel Association Agreement — even though these are measures that are likely to be stalled by persistent divisions among the capitals over how to restrain the Israeli government’s response to the attacks by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. “What is happening in Gaza is unacceptable,” Von der Leyen told the Parliament in Strasbourg. “We will propose sanctions on the extremist ministers and on violent settlers.” Von der Leyen acknowledged that disagreement among national governments had blocked more concrete action — including suspending EU research funding — and said that was fueling public anger. “We will put our bilateral support to Israel on hold,” she said, adding that funding for the Holocaust museum Yad Vashem and Israeli civil society would not be affected. Referring to “man-made famine,” she said: “For the sake of humanity, this must stop.” LARGEST TRADING PARTNER The announcement that the EU will sanction key Israeli officials and settlers drew applause and heckles from across the chamber. Many lawmakers, some of whom were wearing red in solidarity with Gaza, welcomed the announcement. But it sparked uproar on the right-hand side of the chamber where some members, including from Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), shouted interruptions, prompting attendants and MEPs to tell them to be quiet. The EU is Israel’s largest trading partner, accounting for 32 percent of its total trade in 2024, so any possible suspension will have a major effect on the Israeli economy. The EU exports machinery and transport equipment, chemicals and other manufactured goods to Israel, with total exports amounting to €26.7 billion in 2024. In long, behind-closed-doors negotiations between the main political groups ahead of von der Leyen’s speech, the Parliament failed to agree on a joint stance on Gaza. Von der Leyen’s center-right European People’s Party (EPP) walked out of a deal as they disagreed with the content of the final text, which means the resolution will not pass Thursday’s vote, three officials, granted anonymity to speak freely, said. The toughened stance of the Commission president’s speech, however, has opened hopes among center-left political groups that the EPP will change course to reflect von der Leyen, their highest-ranking member. “I continue to receive mixed signals from the EPP regarding their support for the Gaza resolution,” liberal Renew lawmaker Hilde Vautmans, negotiating the Gaza resolution, told POLITICO. “But this morning, there was a clear shift in Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s position by proposing sanctions on Israel and the suspension of the trade pillar of the EU–Israel Association Agreement. She has set a new and important direction. “I hope this momentum will positively influence EPP support for the resolution,” she added. A suspension of the trade aspects of the association agreement with Israel would not amount to targeted sanctions or an EU-wide arms embargo — steps that civil society and some member countries have also called for to exert economic pressure on Israel — but would instead reimpose tariffs. Still, reaching the necessary qualified majority to suspend that wouldn’t be easy. While a majority of countries voted in favor of reviewing the EU’s association agreement with Israel, that doesn’t mean all of them will vote in favor of suspending its trade part. The Commission’s previous proposal to suspend the country’s participation in the research and innovation fund Horizon did not gather enough support among member countries. Large critical countries — such as Italy and Germany — would need to support the suspension. And close Israel allies such as Hungary, Czechia, Austria and Poland are also unlikely to waver in their support.

BERLIN — It was a beating hot summer day and Gregor was dressed in the formal uniform of the German army: a sky-blue shirt and navy trousers, which he had received that week, the fabric still stiff. The 39-year-old office manager had never been patriotic, and like many liberal-leaning Germans his feelings toward the military for most of his life had been ambivalent at best. When he was 18 he’d even turned down the option of doing a year of military service, believing it was a waste of time. Now, two decades later, life had taken an unexpected turn. As a steel band played, he marched in time alongside 17 others dressed in the same freshly pressed outfits into an open square at Germany’s Ministry of Defense, a towering grey neoclassical building in western Berlin, following the commands they had learned just a few days earlier. They were all there to do the same thing: take the oath required of all new recruits to the German armed forces. Afterward, they would begin their official training as reserve officers, learning the basic skills needed to defend against a military invasion. Everything had changed for Gregor on Feb. 24, 2022, when news broke that Russia had invaded Ukraine. Suddenly, the peace he had always taken for granted in Europe didn’t seem so guaranteed. “I was watching videos of Ukrainian civilians joining soldiers to fight off Russian tanks as they rolled toward their towns,” he said. “I thought to myself: ‘If something like that happened here, I wouldn’t have any practical skills to help.’” It was a fitting day to take the oath: July 20, 2024, the 80th anniversary of the so-called Operation Valkyrie, when a group of German soldiers plotted, and failed, to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Usually oath ceremonies are low-key affairs, carried out at barracks with a few family members present — the close associations between the military and Germany’s dark history means servicemen are not celebrated with the pomp and pageantry they are in other countries. But in honor of the special date, around 400 other recruits from various divisions from all over Germany were gathered in the same square, ready to take their pledge. The country’s defense minister, Boris Pistorius from the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), gave a short speech, telling the recruits that the prospect of defending Germany’s democracy had “become more real after Putin’s attack on Ukraine.” Then a lieutenant colonel shouted out the words of the oath, as the group repeated them back: “I pledge to loyally serve the Federal Republic of Germany and to courageously defend the right and liberty of the German people.” As he repeated the words of the oath, Gregor felt an unexpected swell of emotion. “I realized this is going to be a big part of my life now,” he said. “I’m going to be dedicating a lot of my time to it, and I’m going to have to explain to people why I’m doing it.” His mother remarked afterward that she also experienced surprising feelings while watching from the benches. “That was the first time I ever heard the national anthem being sung and felt like I actually wanted to join in,” she told him. Across Germany, both politicians and members of the public have been going through a similar transformation. The country’s army, officially named the Bundeswehr — which translates as “federal defense” — was established by the United States during the Cold War. It was designed to support NATO rather than ever lead a conflict, for fear that a German military could be misused as it was during World War II. This supporting role suited Germany’s leaders: Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, the country’s politicians carefully shaped an image of a peaceful nation that prefers influencing global politics through trade and diplomacy. After the end of the Cold War the Bundeswehr began scaling down, with military spending falling from a high of 4.9 percent of GDP in 1963 to just 1.1 percent in 2005. But in the months following the Russian invasion, then-chancellor Olaf Scholz surprised the world by announcing a radical change in German foreign policy, including a €100 billion ($116 billion) plan to beef up its army. Then in early 2025, five days after the February election of new chancellor Friedrich Merz of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), Donald Trump invited Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky into the Oval Office for a browbeating broadcast around the world that signaled his lack of interest in standing up to Russia. A shocked Merz, who had campaigned on a platform of low taxes and low spending, immediately agreed with Scholz to work together to reform the country’s strict borrowing laws — which were embedded in the constitution — and build up its defense capabilities as quickly as possible with a €1 trillion loan, which amounts to about 25 percent of the country’s GDP. According to Lorenzo Scarazzato, a researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), this type of defense spending was previously unheard of during peacetime. “Countries that spend this much are usually those at war, or autocratic states that don’t have democratic oversight,” he said. The following month, Germany’s lawmakers voted to back the plan, setting the country’s military on track to be the best-funded in Europe and the fourth-biggest in the world. In Merz’s view, Europe didn’t just need to arm itself against Russian aggression, but also “achieve independence from the USA.” Later in the year, NATO members would agree to raise their defense spending to 5 percent of GDP, at Trump’s behest. It marks a huge shift not just from how Germany manages its finances but how it perceives both itself and its place in the world. “After World War II, the allies did a tremendous job of re-educating the German population,” said Carsten Breuer, the Bundeswehr’s highest serving general. “This led to a society which I would say is peace-minded, and of course there’s nothing wrong with that. But it is also non-military.” So far, committing resources to the military has been fairly easy for the German government. But now it needs to convince thousands of people to do the same as Gregor and dedicate themselves to military service. After the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, the government began scaling down the Bundeswehr from 500,000 soldiers to the current 180,000. The country’s national service, in which young men had to choose between serving in the army or undertaking another type of civil service, was scrapped in 2011. Now, General Breuer estimates the total personnel needs to rise to 460,000, including both full-time staff and reservists. Bundeswehr applications are up 20 percent this year, though not everyone will make it through the physical and security tests. Even then, that still isn’t enough to plug the gaps, and it is likely that conscription of some kind will return. Breuer believes the German public is softening up to the military after decades of standoffishness. The war on Ukraine, as well as the Covid-19 pandemic and the disaster response to devastating floods, have put many people in closer touch with the Bundeswehr, he says. “When I was talking to my soldiers in the early 2000s, they would always ask, ‘Why isn’t it like the U.S. here, where people thank you for your service?’” he said. “Nowadays, we’re starting to see this in Germany.” He recounted a recent moment when he was waiting for a flight in the city of Dusseldorf and an elderly man tapped him on the shoulder to offer his thanks. However, for many people, any glorification of the German military will always have uncomfortable associations with the country’s dark history: Neo-Nazi groups still use German military symbols and history as part of their recruitment propaganda, and the Bundeswehr has been plagued by far-right scandals in recent years. For some, the government’s push to embrace the army is one more sign of a dangerous transformation in the country’s political sentiments: The far-right AfD is currently second in the polls, and the ruling CDU has shed former leader Angela Merkel’s liberal image in favor of a harsh anti-immigration stance. And as welfare, social services and climate protection face possible cuts to support military spending, Germany’s politicians face a challenge in seeing how long they can keep the newfound support going. “When you have a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail, and you forget the rest of the toolkit, which includes diplomacy and cooperation,” said Scarazzato from SIPRI. “Military gives some level of deterrence, but engaging with the other side is perhaps what prevents escalation.” He warns that a beefed-up army “is not necessarily a panacea for whatever issue you are facing.” The Heuberg training ground in Baden-Württemberg has a long and dark history. Nestled in the southwestern part of Germany near the Swiss border, it was originally built as a base for the German Imperial Army, which existed from 1871 to 1919 and fought in World War I. Some timber-framed buildings and stables from this time still exist, many crumbling and disused. In early 1933 it became one of the country’s first concentration camps, housing 2,000 political opponents, before it was used as a base for the SS, the Nazis’ violent paramilitary group. Now, it is where the next generation of German military reserves come to train. This past June, I watched 18 people struggling through the same type of training Gregor undertook a year earlier. Heuberg serves as the anchor for recruits hailing from Baden-Württemberg, with each region of the country playing host to its own reserves trainings. The one I observed at Heuberg takes 17 days in total, spread out over long weekends throughout the summer. None of the recruits, including Gregor, can share their surnames for security reasons — the Bundeswehr says its soldiers have been targeted by foreign intelligence and been subject to identify theft. The lieutenant colonel leading the training, Stefan, told me that the sessions cover the most basic skills, meaning these recruits will know how to defend a barracks if Germany were attacked by a foreign power. They can then continue regular training as part of local defense units, learning how to secure critical infrastructure. The recruits range in age from their 20s to 60s, with most in their 30s and 40s, and work a variety of jobs. There’s a forester, a teacher, a chemical engineer and even an ex-journalist, although only three of them are women. Everyone mentioned the war on Ukraine as the catalyst that got them interested in the military. A German army spokesperson said a total of 3,000 untrained citizens have expressed interest in joining the reserve over the past five years, with a major peak just after the invasion of Ukraine and another in early 2025 following the U.S. election. The training is not for the faint-hearted. Recruits must learn to fire an 11-pound rifle, hike around the base in the soaring heat while carrying their 33-pound backpacks, and practice running and doing push-ups in their gas masks and protective clothing, which restricts their breathing. They will also learn orienteering and radio communication, with the 17 days eventually culminating in a simulation of a Russian attack, during which recruits will be fed information through their radios and organize themselves to defend the barracks. Stefan, who served in NATO missions in the former Yugoslavia, Mali and Afghanistan, explained that several people had dropped out already. “That’s normal, it’s not for everyone,” he said. As well as the physical strain, recruits often struggle with the emotional aspect of learning to fire guns. “I tell them, at the end of the day, you’re a soldier — it’s part of your job.” Kevin, 29, works as a banker. “In school, my best friend wanted to join the army, and I remember telling him he would be wasting his life,” he said. His father also had to do compulsory military service, “and he told me no one wanted to be there, it was so uncomfortable because you were reminded of history the whole time.” After the invasion of Ukraine, he remembers sitting in his office watching the price of commodities skyrocket. “We all watched Biden’s speech about the start of the war, and it really felt like a turning point in history,” he said. After many hours of running, shooting and hastily learning new commands, the recruits — many slightly red-faced — finish the day by learning to clean their guns, pushing strings down the barrel and out the other end. Some get stuck, prompting some awkward tugging. The commando deputy, Col. Markus Vollmann, looked on admiringly. “They are all quite extraordinary, how motivated they are,” he said. “They’re only a minority though.” So far, 45 percent of Germans say they are in favor of the country’s new 5 percent defense spending target, with 37 percent against and 18 percent undecided. It’s a marked difference from the days of the Afghan war, when two-thirds of the country wanted German troops to be withdrawn. Military sociologist Timo Graf says this fits with how most Germans have consistently viewed the Bundeswehr: The majority say its main role should be defense of the country rather than interventionist missions abroad. At Heuberg, Vollmann is nervous about how long support for military spending will be maintained once people see other services being cut around them. Germany is able to borrow much more than its European neighbors due to its low debt levels, but Merz is sticking to his low-tax-low-spend ideology with planned cuts to welfare spending. “We need to communicate better with the public about what we are doing and why it is necessary, but without scaring them,” he said, adding that debt-averse Germany needs better investment in all industry and infrastructure. “There’s no point having the most expensive tanks if, once you drive them out of the barracks, the roads are all potholed and the bridges are crumbling.” Stefan, the training manager, believes the many years of peace have left Germany ill-prepared to potentially face Russian aggression head-on. “We have too many soldiers who have never seen war,” he said. “If you have never smelt burning flesh or seen spilled blood everywhere, then you cannot understand how to make decisions in that environment. You can’t train adequately.” Just one week after the NATO conference sparked headlines around the world in July, I arrived at Germany’s Ministry of Defense to speak to Breuer, the highest serving general in the Bundeswehr. The building in western Berlin, also known as the Bendlerblock, was the home of the Nazi’s supreme military command and their intelligence agency, as well as the headquarters of the resistance soldiers who carried out the failed July 20 coup attempt. Breuer became a familiar face to Germans during the pandemic, as the head of the military’s Covid-19 task force. When we met, he was warm and jovial in his everyday combat uniform, rather than the formal jacket adorned with medals that he sports in his TV appearances. He is beaming about the budget increases, which he believes are long overdue. Following Germany’s post-Cold War disarmament, spending on everything from clothing to ammunition to helicopters was reduced — some argue by too much, leaving soldiers with out-of-date helmets and 30-year-old radio equipment. Breuer is particularly critical of how German troops were sent to support NATO missions abroad — most notably in Afghanistan — without adequate equipment. “It was clear to me that if you are sending soldiers on operations, risking their life and their health, then you have to give them everything they need,” he said. A total of 59 German soldiers were killed in the conflict. “We are now moving from a war of choice to a war of necessity,” he explained. From security analysis he believes Russia will be capable of attacking NATO territory by 2029, with the caveat that this depends on the outcome in Ukraine and whether the war exhausts the Kremlin. “Russia is producing around 1,500 battle tanks every year,” he said. In comparison, Germany currently produces 300. “And it is also building up its military structures facing West.” He says his main priorities are ramping up air defense, procuring battle tanks and drones, expanding homeland security, and beefing up the personnel that enables combat missions, such as engineers and logisticians. But tanks and drones don’t amount to much if the country can’t enlist and train to its goal of 460,000 personnel. German media is currently full of near-daily headlines about how this personnel target might be reached. Defense Minister Pistorius has proposed a hybrid voluntary draft, inspired by Sweden’s new model, in which all 18-year-old men will be sent a questionnaire. Only the most physically able will then be invited for service. However, if that fails to get the numbers needed, he has warned some kind of compulsory draft will be created. The country is already facing a massive skilled labor shortage and the Bundeswehr struggles to offer competitive salaries in fields such as IT. Business leaders such as Steffen Kampeter of the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations have claimed the German economy cannot cope with young people delaying their careers through serving in the army. One solution would be for service to be combined with vocational training, and Pistorius also wants to increase Bundeswehr salaries to make them more attractive. Breuer says he has no opinion on what system would be preferable for meeting the recruitment goals, explaining this is an issue for politicians to decide. “My military advice is: This is the number we need,” he said. At the same time as equipment and staff need to be beefed up, Breuer says administration and bureaucracy must be scaled down. Germany’s procurement offices have become so bloated over the past 30 years that multiple reports of their comical inefficiency can be found, such as parachutists having to wait over a decade for new, safer helmets that U.S. soldiers have already worn for years. Germany is also entering its third consecutive year of recession, and its heavy industries that are struggling to stay competitive are now hoping the defense spending will give them a boost: Shares in the steel sector have shot up since the announcements. However, the years of restricted budgets mean the country is starting the sudden ramp-up on the back foot. It is unlikely that industry can meet the targets in such a short space of time, meaning a large amount of equipment is likely to be purchased from U.S. companies, perhaps undermining the goal of European independence. “The fact is, once you buy the more complex weapons from the U.S., you become somewhat dependent on their systems,” said Scarazzato, the SIPRI researcher. “It would make more sense to be very deliberate in how the money is spent in order to avoid finding ourselves in the same position in 10 years’ time.” “For me it’s not about companies, it’s about capabilities,” confirmed Breuer. “This means that in a lot of cases we will have to buy off the shelf. We can’t afford the time you need to develop new items, new systems and new platforms.” With the rush across Europe to procure weapons and soldiers, Scarazzato warns that leaders should be careful not to “put all their eggs in one basket, which is the military.” Arms races also lead to issues such as price gouging and oversight processes potentially being circumvented. “You risk a race to the bottom,” he said. I asked Breuer if he had anything to say to people who are still skeptical about the need for rearmament. “I would like to take them with me on one of my visits to Ukraine.” How powerful the Bundeswehr should be, and even whether it should exist at all, has been fiercely debated ever since it was founded. As an institution, it has only existed since 1955 and was preceded by the Nazi-era Wehrmacht (1935 to 1945), the Weimar Republic’s Reichswehr (1919 to 1935) and, before that, the Imperial German Army. When the United States and its allies took control of Germany after the end of World War II, they dissolved the Wehrmacht and banned German military uniforms and symbols. As part of a larger “denazification” process, the country was prohibited from having an army in case it could be misused in the same way as the Wehrmacht. This changed as the Cold War intensified. After the 1950 North Korea invasion of South Korea, the United States urged its NATO partners to rearm Germany and admit it to the alliance. The country’s first Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, believed it could be an opportunity for the young democracy to regain its sovereignty and establish itself as an equal partner amongst allies, and on Nov. 12, 1955, the first 100 volunteers joined the Bundeswehr. “The country had to answer the question of how to create an army that could integrate into a democracy and could follow the constitution,” said Thorsten Loch, a Bundeswehr officer and military historian. The founding officers decided to construct the new army around a concept known as “Innere Führung,” or “inner leadership,” meaning soldiers must think for themselves and not follow orders blindly. They decided soldiers should be “citizens in uniform,” with national conscription designed to keep the forces rooted within society. Parliament wields huge powers over the army, and its stated mission is supporting other NATO forces rather than leading battles itself. Germany’s constitution has strict rules about how and when the military can be deployed — for example, reserves can only be called up if another nation declares war on Germany. When it came to staffing the new army, however, making a complete break from the Wehrmacht was more complicated. As Loch points out, any army that needed to pose a serious threat to the Soviet Union couldn’t be staffed by 12-year-olds. Chancellor Adenauer declared in 1952 that anyone who had fought “honorably” in the Wehrmacht — that is, those who had not committed any war crimes — would be welcome in the new army. “The officers ‘cleaned’ themselves,” explained Loch. “I believe they knew amongst themselves who had committed crimes.” They are likely to have also had input from the British, French and American intelligence services. In comparison, communist East Germany opted to staff its Volksarmee (people’s army) with younger, inexperienced soldiers in order to avoid former Nazis. Whether this “self-cleaning” was effective is a point of contention. Only a tiny number of Wehrmacht officers were ever tried for war crimes, and the concept of “honorable” soldiers has led to what many perceive as a whitewashing of the Nazi-era army, often referred to as “the myth of the clean Wehrmacht.” “The narrative was born that it was the Nazi Party who committed the atrocities, not the Wehrmacht soldiers,” said Loch. “And of course this isn’t true, as things are more complicated in reality.” Some of those early Bundeswehr officers still have questions over their heads as to what they did in World War II. The first director of operations was Lt. Col. Karl-Theodor Molinari, who resigned in 1970 after it became public that he might have been involved in the shooting of 105 French resistance soldiers, although the allegations were never proven. And while care was taken to strip away the most obvious signs, symbols and rituals of the Wehrmacht, some remain, such as military music, which also pre-dates the Nazi era. Barracks were renamed after resistance figures but were not demolished. This is one of the reasons that German rearmament was unpopular with the public at the time, and the purpose — and even existence — of an army remains a divisive topic. There continues to be a push-pull between those who say the Bundeswehr must do more to fully break with its past, and those who argue the Wehrmacht is a part of military history that cannot just be ignored. On Sunday, June 15, around 1,000 people had decided to forgo summer picnics in the park to gather outside Germany’s Reichstag for the country’s first-ever Veterans’ Day celebration. After many years of campaigning by the Association of German Deployment Veterans the government finally decided to make the celebration official in 2025, symbolizing a major shift in how politicians seek to position the Bundeswehr in society. A German language EDM band blared loudly over speakers next to stalls selling beers and bratwursts, while children petted a military donkey. The turn-out was not huge: There was no line to enter, and the dancefloor in front of the stage was largely empty. All attendees I spoke to were from military families, rather than curious civilians. “We would like to build up a veterans’ culture like they have in the USA,” said Ralph Bartsch, who runs a veterans’ motorcycle club. “It’s an absolutely overdue event,” agreed another soldier, who was dressed in civilian clothes and did not want to give his name. “It makes the Bundeswehr stronger in our society.” Not everyone is so eager to see societal norms change. The day before, in the Berlin neighborhood of Kreuzberg, I watched as Kai Krieger, 40, and his companion demonstrated how they switch out bus stop posters for those of their own design. After unscrewing the case at the bottom, rolling up the existing poster and tucking it behind the frame — essential for ensuring they are not committing any crimes — they then unrolled a doctored Bundeswehr recruitment advertisement in its place. “German mix: Nazis, cartridges, isolated cases” it reads, alongside a banner, “No to veterans’ day.” It’s a reference to a series of scandals from recent years. In 2022, Franco Albrecht, a 33-year-old first lieutenant with far-right views, was found guilty of plotting terror attacks that he hoped would be blamed on refugees. Several members of the elite KSK — Germany’s equivalent of the Navy SEALs — were found to have been stockpiling weapons and Nazi memorabilia, and members were reported to have made Hitler salutes and played extremist music at gatherings. This led a parliamentary panel to determine in 2020 that “networks” of far-right extremists had established themselves in the Bundeswehr. Ex-military personnel were also involved in a bizarre 2022 foiled plot to overthrow the German state and replace it with a far-right monarchy. “I do think it’s possible for armies to not be fascist or far-right influenced, but the German army is so toxic to the country’s history that I don’t see how that can happen here,” Kai said. He would go as far as saying that Germany should not have an army at all, because “the history is just too heavy. … They say all these nice-sounding things about defending democracy, but then the nasty things always seem to come to the surface.” Despite the Bundeswehr’s efforts to emphasize its historical connections to resistance fighters and position itself as a defender of liberal values, Germany’s far-right groups continue to view the country’s military as their own. In 2019, the German office for the protection of the constitution reported that neo-Nazi groups were organizing lectures with former Wehrmacht soldiers around the country, in which speakers would praise the SS and deny or trivialize the Holocaust. Kai’s group posted around 100 of their posters across the city that weekend, but anti-military activism doesn’t currently have much momentum behind it. Outside the Veteran’s Day celebrations, only a mere cluster of protesters were holding signs and singing anti-war songs. It’s a far cry from the 1980s when the German peace movement was a major civic force, with four million people signing a petition that the West German government withdraw its promise to allow medium-range ballistic missiles to be stationed in the country. Kai doesn’t hold back on the reasons for the movement’s unpopularity. “Our organizations talk a lot of bullshit,” he said. According to him, many of his fellow peace activists “don’t agree that Vladimir Putin is conducting an illegal war in Ukraine. … They’ll say it’s NATO’s fault,” he added, rolling his eyes. While pacifism was long associated with the left, this has shifted in recent years as various far-right movements aligned themselves with Russia. The AfD opposed military aid for Ukraine and expanding the Bundeswehr, and peace marches have become associated with cranks and conspiracy theorists. The Bundeswehr’s recent far-right scandals give potential reserve volunteers pause for thought. Burak, 38, opted out of military service back when he was 18, but in February 2025 he withdrew his conscientious-objector status. “It took me two whole years to decide if I really wanted to do that,” he said. As someone of Turkish heritage, he is still worried about whether it will be “a safe environment” for him. Burak has been involved with the country’s Green Party for many years, and during the Covid-19 pandemic he began looking into the possibility of training in disaster relief. Then when the invasion of Ukraine happened, he considered the military for the first time in two decades. “I feel like this is going to be another burden on younger people, along with things like climate change,” he said. “My generation had the privilege to say that we didn’t want to do this.” Michael, who is 50, spent his youth in Berlin’s left-wing punk scene, putting on anti-fascist gigs in abandoned buildings, and still sports the tattoos and gauged ear piercings. The invasion of Ukraine “shocked me to my core,” he said. “I am an anti-fascist, and to me, the biggest fascist project in Europe right now is Russia,” he explained. “The whole symbol of Europe is under attack.” He added that he also wants “to know where I stand” if tanks ever did roll into Germany one day. “I don’t want to be sitting there thinking, ‘Do I flee or not?’” he said. “I don’t think we should allow the Bundeswehr to just be staffed by nationalists,” he continued, when I ask how it fits with his leftist politics. “We need to think: What brought the Third Reich down? What brought liberty to Europe? It wasn’t talking with Hitler for 10 years.” A year after Gregor completed his basic training, his life looks quite different. At home, he has three huge boxes of uniforms, gas masks and helmets that his girlfriend begrudgingly agreed could be stored in their apartment, as long as he kept them tidy. Other hobbies have had to make way for his continued service, which he now dedicates around 50 days a year to. With his defense unit he practices handling weapons and understanding the logistics of how to protect Berlin’s critical infrastructure and clear paths for military transport. “We learn about the motorways and railway network, and how troops can move through them without the risk of sabotage,” he said. As a major urban center, his Berlin unit would probably be one of the first to be called up if an invasion ever happened. His company, a Berlin-based tech startup, has been understanding of his time off: “My bosses said a war would be bad for business, so they’re happy I’m doing this.” Some of his closest friends are now those he went through training with. “You’re paired with everyone in the platoon for exercises at some point,” he said, which enables deep bonds. Whenever people struggled, the others rallied around them, invested in getting the whole team past the finish line. If someone got nervous learning how to handle rifles, the others were there to calm them down. Even when he’s not training, he’ll often spend his evenings mentoring others who want to join the reserves, talking them through the process. He wears his military uniform travelling to and from training, sometimes encountering people who thank him, other times being pestered by kids who want to try on his backpack. He often has conversations with friends who don’t understand why he is doing this, or who are politically opposed to the idea of a German military. “I have realized since I joined that people in the German military do tend to be more on the conservative side,” he said. “I would like to see more left-leaning people, to balance it out and make it more reflective of society.” He thinks some form of conscription would be a good idea, to help people understand what the army involves, and that there’s much more to it than frontline conflict. “But you need to make it meaningful to their lives. There’s no point in people feeling like they’ve been forced, or that they’ve wasted a year.” The idea of serving his country still makes him feel uncomfortable. “I don’t really like the term patriotism as it’s too closely associated with nationalism for me,” he said. “But I think about the things in my country that I like, such as free education and affordable health care, and how I want kids in the future to enjoy those, too. And I think that is worth defending.”