Similar to why there's a significant fraction of pro-mainland China people in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Reasons include people who benefitted from the Soviet Union, often due to business and trade. Analogy would be Foxconn, a Taiwanese company which is dependent on manufacturing in China.
Nostalgia/rose-tinted glasses/rosy retrospection, Ostalgie in German.
Families that were ethnically from Russia, moved during the Soviet Union times and still have ties to Russia.
The former East Germany is way more pro-Russian than the former West Germany, showing the effects of these factors.
From what I see here it’s a mixture of anti-Americanism, „Ostslgie“ (the longing for the good old times of the DDR, a feeling often inherited from parents) and a crap ton of Russian propaganda that floods social media.
Combine this with a step economic decline and voila you got the perfect conditions for autocratic sympathies
Some part of the population was subject to 60 years of continuous propaganda. That's three generations. You might say people should be able to see beyond that, but the ones influencing them were professionals too.
I would not say it's many but certainly there are some. I found it surprising that in recent sabotage or spy cases in Germany there were often Ukrainian or Latvian accomplices to the Russians. But then again it's obvious that not all Ukrainians have the same opinion about the war.
It’s not sympathy so much with Russia, more of a complete distrust of US-led causes for war.
The US has betrayed a lot of humanity with the catastrophic wars it has fought since 2003. But in Europe, the results are very, very clear: many Europeans actually have the temerity to establish relations with the refugees who have been arriving for decades now, and seek to understand that the world is being kept at war needlessly.
Many Western observers tend to miss the fact that there was a period between the end of the cold war and the beginning of the Ukraine conflict where Europeans were kind of glad to have peace in Europe - like actually with Russia being considered a part of the European community, where after years of distrust, peaceful relations between Europe and Russia were actually kind of happening.
This has all gone to /dev/null now, but there is still an unheard/heavily censored group of European citizens - in pretty much all of Europes’ western sphere - who simply would prefer to establish peaceful relations with Russia, and go back to actually flourishing and prospering.
Oh, and ending all wars on the Middle East, so the refugees from the US’ wars can rebuild their countries and go back home. Some day. Maybe.
Of course you won’t hear about them much, but if you pay close attention in the cafes and bars and riverside grills, you will hear it: many Europeans do actually believe in and want peace and simply don’t think the current crop of leaders are capable of it. So they express this not as sympathy with Russia, but as a willingness to effect the political change necessary to avoid catastrophe.
They want to see a return of peaceful relations between Europe and Russia, and unfortunately that would in fact mean addressing the injustices and crimes of the Ukrainian conflict - this cannot occur, while those crimes are still being committed.
But many Europeans don’t believe that Russia is going to be defeated, nor that the Donetsk->Crimea corridor is worth igniting the rest of Europe over. The most common refrain I hear, is that portion of Ukraine should have independence and neutrality, like Austria. How this is to be attained, of course nobody knows, but it is very definitely a common refrain.
Yeah, the only problem is that you can't really establish a lasting peace with a government that is more interested in land grabbing, and turning its neighbors into vassal states.
If Europe gives in to Russia in Ukraine, anyone with basic understanding of history can see that they'll turn their attention towards Baltics, Moldova and maybe Finland and Poland. Putin doesn't want to return those "good years" between cold war and Ukraine conflict, he wants to return to the glory days of Cold War when Russia (Soviet Union) was a real superpower.
On the other hand, if you think history is the only guide for humans to follow, Europe will self-implode before Russia gets there, anyway.
Fortunately, there are growing segments of European society who actually want to have a bright and prosperous future. This doesn’t happen with war - it happens by making sure your neighbors are well fed, too.
So, what do you suggest as a practical solution? Give Ukraine to Russia? Or maybe Baltic states too? How much land do the Russian elites need until they're satisfied and "well fed"?
I think the real issue is that Russian people consistently fail to hold their leaders accountable. It's the local rich, corrupt oligarchy stealing their prosperity, not any foreign power. They're the ones waging war as well.
I'm worried of growing segments of Western European population that are happy to make an unfair deal with Russia, as long as it's some Eastern Europeans and not them who will suffer the consequences. I guess from their viewpoint some dead Ukrainians, Estonians or Poles is acceptable if they personally get cheaper petrol and gas.
My personal opinion is that the only way Western democracies can wean themselves off the war teat is for us to direct our attention to our own war crimes.
With Gaza, Germans have been enlightened to the fact that the war in Ukraine isn’t the only atrocity their state is involved in. German ammo kills kids: a growing segment of German society is starting to understand this.
> I think the real issue is that Russian people consistently fail to hold their leaders accountable.
Yes, and I think Europeans understand that the most effective way for Russians to learn this, is for Europe to lead by example. Accountability for European leadership is also a massive problem. Germans seem to be very much more aware of this than most.
Yes, I think Europe should take a stronger stance towards what is happening in Gaza. But I wouldn't be so hopeful about Russians learning from that. The culture of political tyranny, apathy, corruption and indifference just runs too deep there. As long as Russia is that way, German weaponry is needed to defend kids in Eastern Europe.
>The culture of political tyranny, apathy, corruption and indifference just runs too deep there.
You can easily say this about the UK and the USA as well, you know. There isn't something exceptional about the US' corrupt military-industrial complex, except for the absolutely horrendous, atrocious scale of its victims.
Russia can fix itself. I am as optimistic of that fact, as I am of Americans fixing their issues, too. Seriously, Americans, fix your shit. Only then will you have what it takes to get Russians to fix their shit, too. Not before.
Yeah, I agree with you there mostly. There's plenty of fix in America and UK too, and their military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan in particular have brought way more misery than good. Still, their military support of Ukraine is justified, as Ukraine is fighting a defensive war.
> Over here in Finland, we would absolutely love to have peaceful relations with Russia, based on mutual respect and trade. But we're under no illusion about it being possible with current Russian administration.
Russian administration is the reflection of the nature of Russian people. Look at Russian history - it is very unlikely that different administration would behave differently.
Russia is the worlds largest state; Russians know full well the designs for their submission floating in the halls of various Western power centers. There will be a string of Putins because of this.
Russians will never submit to war or threats to subjugate their nation.
They will align with mutual economic prosperity, however.
German society seems to be having a moment where it realizes this, suddenly. Germans really don’t want another billion euro’s being spent on slaughtering children. They want the cheap energy back, and they want peace in Europe through the only way there has ever been peace in Europe: strong economic ties between states and mutually assured prosperity.
Would you be okay with another nations nukes on your border, within 7 minutes of your capital city?
Would you be okay if Russia had its bioweapons facilities located within a strong winds’ distance of your states major population centers?
Would you be okay with foreign investors in your country using power and wealth to gain cover for their genocide and influence your politi … ermm .. okay, never mind, you probably are okay with that if you’re an American ..
> It’s not sympathy so much with Russia, more of a complete distrust of US-led causes for war.
The ex-DDR folk has nothing to do with this. They literally want a tzar and claim the life was better in DDR (translate: got stuff for free, didn't have to do much).
Europe, and indeed Germany, is so much more than ex-DDR.
There are plenty of ex-DDR folks who think we should just get on with the war and start annihilating everyone from Dresden to Kamchatka, too.
Alas, the challenge for those who want peace is to get those who see only war to sit down and shut up for a while. Germans are actually good at that when they want to be.
Well, Europe East of Berlin wall is only so much. But we talk about Germany here.
> Germans are actually good at that when they want to be.
Yeah, whatever that is. They don't know themselves.
Unlike the ex-DDR folk craving for Russia to take care for them. There's a reason why that part of Germany turns right and votes AfD now. It's a mix of USSR nostalgia and dislike of the Western Germany because they believe they are still mistreated, 35 years on.
There are many in Western Germany who also believe that Germany has been mistreated by its allies and that Germany should disassociate itself with warmongering states - such as the UK and the USA - and instead use its economic muscle to bring peace. It would be a big mistake to limit support of the AfD to the ex-DDR folk. There is a rising anti-NATO sentiment in German youth, also.
Between the end of the Cold War and the start of the war in Ukraine, there was no peace in Afghanistan, in the Caucasus, in Syria, in Georgia, and in Crimea.
Russian misinformation and funding of far-right parties had never stopped. Every country in Russia's vicinity knew that it was coming for them. In the West relations were peaceful indeed, because all these wars were with faraway peoples.
If you're not a paid shill but genuinely believe what you're saying, you're what they call a useful idiot. This attempt at the apology of Russia, in this pretend calm tone, with emotional bits peppered throughout, is disgusting.
A lot of people who came to the West thanks to the peacefulness of Russia also want to go rebuild their countries 'Some day. Maybe.'
And lower down you say Ukraine should have some neutral autonomous territory. Maybe parts of Poland and of the Baltics and of Finland will also know the prosperity and peace that comes with 'neutrality'.
I’m describing what I’m observing on the ground in Europe: a growing segment are sick of the endless slaughter by Western entities and indeed by their own nations involvement in atrocious wars, resulting in an inundation of refugees. It’s not just Ukraine - its all war.
It is Western wars producing the conditions for 35 million war refugees to flood the worlds borders.
Do you think all Germans are ignorant of what the warmongers in their state have contributed to the situation in Gaza? And that they are being nevertheless led by those same warmongers into yet more catastrophe?
A rising segment of the German population are sick of frothy-mouthed warmongers having the podium and recognize that if they don’t change the leadership who brought only war and calamity to the world, it will end in disaster.
Yes, Russia needs better rulers, and yes Russia should face justice for its wars - they won’t get this at the end of a European spear, however. The only people who can do anything effective about Russia, are Russians: Germans understand this very, very well. And they are turning to apply the very same rule to their own state.
Because Russia has a long way to go to come even close to the atrocities of Western allies. The USA and its allies are a far, far worse danger to the world, by orders of magnitude. Russia is following the Western lead on war atrocities, and we have, by far, the worst stats of them all.
When we prosecute our own war criminals, only then will we have the moral altitude to jump on Russias case - but not before that happens. The populations of Poland, the Baltics, and Finland may not understand their own states’ culpability for contributing to atrocity - but Germans sure do.
Intelligent, informed Europeans know that the only path to peace involves personal responsibility for the war crimes of their own states.
So they let their democracies function. Those politicians who promise to rein in the warmongers - whatever else their parties promise - are gaining traction because of this fact.
The Eastern Germans remember the old days fondly (you know, before "the West destroyed their industry" and whatnot) while the Western Germany had a national policy of "not provoking Russia" and "accepting its sphere of influence" for basically all of it's existence.
From personal experience I would also say that Germans and Russians are alike in quite a few ways - both are pretty chauvinist societies looking down at other nations, and both have very low empathy. Obviously, there are big cultural differences as well.
> Documents supplied to the Hamburg court indicated that Hanning was the go-between with the Israelis. According to media reports, these Hamburg court documents contained clues to his other business activity with classified BND information.
Are you sure it says that? As far as I can see it only says he dealt with Israeli ex-spies in an (unrelated) kidnapping and that he was friendly with Israeli spies.
One of the things you eventually learn is how important it is to understand how the media reports on a story. Not only what they say and how they say it but also what they don't say.
In this case, the reporting I've seen on this doesn't mention the country that he was allegedly spying for. That means it was Israel. Because if it was any other country, particularly Russia, it would absolutely be blasted from the rooftops.
It's honestly depressing how captured institutions, the media and Western governments are by the Israeli lobby. My only hope is that history will correctly label all those involved as collaborators.
Let me give an example: Jonathon Pollard [1], who was responsible for one the largest national security breaches in American history and was tried and convicted for espionage. This was a sticking point where basically every Israeli PM would ask for his release. No president would do it until Trump on his first day of his second term [2].
Trump mega-donor Sheldon Adelson lent Pollard his private plane [3] for his return to Israel where he was given a hero's welcome [4]. He's since met with the Israeli PM and even invited into the US Embassy in Israel [5].
Beyond spies, even Israelis are aware that Israel has become a refuge for the worst kinds of criminals [6].
There is no evidence of Mossad involvement. Far from me to defend Israel's spy agency but the article only mentions a possible connection to Azerbaijan.
This one doesn't since it's a US outlet and they don't have free speech in the US, on Israel-related matters. The Irish Times reported the Israel connection though.
Are you really unironically claiming "Jews control the media" tropes as an 'everyone knows' fact? No, it isn't totally cool because you ran a find and replace with "Israel" first.
Oh wait. You're a Holocaust denier. So you are evil AND have vapor for brains.
Most people do know that now, it's not some fringe conspiracy. Part of media literacy is understanding who is telling you things and what their motivations might be, and in the West that means treating all of our mainstream news with suspicion as we know it is going to have a pro-jewish (or anti-goyim) angle wherever the opportunity presents.
You're not a virtuous person for pretending to be oblivious to this influence. You're just a shabbos goy, a useful idiot.
Both corporations are owned by jews.
It might make you uncomfortable, but mainstream media in the USA(and the western world in general) is mostly owned by jews.
You don’t see many mergers between somalian media conglomerates.
The Russians claim otherwise - https://www.rt.com/news/646794-german-spy-chief-arrested/ -... According to them, his private agency also sub-contracted some high-profile kidnapping to Yaakov Perry, the former chief of Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, Shin Bet.
Actually the even more fun part is that they only found out because they raided his house due to this really sketchy case he was contracted for via his really sketcy swiss(!) private eye company: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/20/germany-christ...
“Among several alleged accomplices are August Hanning, a former head of Germany’s federal intelligence service, the BND, who according to prosecutors forged the initial contact between Block and the Israeli spy firm believed to have carried out the abduction.”
The connection to the current case may actually be a more direct one, via the Israeli spies.
Someone downvoted you, but if you do look at the sweatshirt sales webpage, it does say this
"Licensor: Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the German Foreign Intelligence Service
The BND logo is a registered trademark of the Bundesnachrichtendienst in Berlin, Germany. The BND is not involved in the operation, production, or sale of these products and accepts no liability. The BND does not receive any revenue from the BND Shop."
It very much sounds like this was not their idea originally... wouldn't be surprised if this was initiated by BND, and they are legally not allowed to run it themselves or sth like that
That's not a thing. What triggers moderation and/or banning is when accounts break the site guidelines by going into political/nationalistic/ideological flamewar, as they unfortunately often do on divisive topics.
I think the problem is better stated as a large flagging contingent, rather than anything intrinsic to the site's code. And the real problem is that it has an outsized chilling effect on substantive comments, which require putting in actual effort just to possibly be killed. From what I've observed comments/stories get a penalty from flags (before they actually end up [dead]) and this seems to be the actual objective - to stymie concrete discussion while a topic is popular.
Yeah. I was just replying to someone's personal political perspective (which met the HN post guidelines) that I partly agreed-disagreed with - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49983014 - but after typing out my thoughts on it, I found that I couldn't post a reply to it because it has now been flagged. That's 15+ minutes of my time wasted. And their time wasted. Which as you pointed has a "chilling effect" on the whole discussion, and is the intent.
Yes, it's a problem. We do manually take flagging rights away from accounts that are abusing flags as a weapon of political battle (in any direction!) but whack-a-mole approaches aren't enough, and we probably need to get to something more systematic.
I don't even know why they needed to hire a spy anyway when they could have used the tried and true method of invoking the Holocaust as the reason Germany should give them all their intel or else calling them nazis if they don't comply.
In 2013 he was a defence witness for the oligarch Oleg Deripaska who was then tied to Putin. He was also on the board of companies such as PNB Banka (operated by a Russian Grigory Guselnikov). Also connections to many shady "security consulting" firms, among them "Prevent" who were suspected to have planted child porn with a manager of HSH-Nordbank. Incidentally child porn was also planted with the husband of Christina Block in Denmark, a case in which Hanning is also involved.
On the angle of Azerbaijan who allegedly bought Hanning's secrets it's interesting that in the past there were several court cases about corruption against German politicians. It's summarised in the so called Aserbaidschan-Affäre (Azerbaijan Affair) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aserbaidschan-Aff%C3%A4re
High key, maybe look at Gerhard Schröder for the same thing. His ceding of sovereignty over Germany's energy infrastructure and subsequent board seat at Gazprom is a flashing red siren.
Maybe look at Ukraine stealing transit gas which was one of the reasons for Nord Stream. And collecting Russian transit money until 2025, long after they blew up Nord Stream.
But it is great that Germany now has more expensive "sovereign" US gas and the fallback Qatar was sabotaged in the Iran war. Great independence.
I've seen an uptick online of russian proxies informing the EU nations their supreme national interest is in cheap energy, and nevermind funding a 1900s conquest on their doorstep.
Yes, it is much better that China gets natural gas at a quarter of the price so it can eradicate all EU industries.
That funding also seems to have increased since the Nord Stream money bought Russia alleged broomsticks in 2022 and after the Nord Stream money stopped they have an army.
China doesn't get natural gas any cheaper from the European cutoff because of the way the infrastructure is organised and China is not going to unilateraly pay for the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline like Russia needs, because Russia is too likely to collapse in the near future.
Or Merkel for pushing 'green' russian gas. And all traitors who destroy LOCAL coal industry.
Europe has several gas, oil and coal fields (like Netherlands). We are just not allowed to use them!!! We must depend on hostile foreigners, like Putin, Trump and Saudis!!!
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 80.0 ms ] threadCan someone please explain what's going on here? What am I culturally missing?
Putin got'em addicted to cheap Russian gas and paid up anti nuclear NGOs who also got cash from big oil.
Also Berlin still has some Russian minority since the GDR.
Reasons include people who benefitted from the Soviet Union, often due to business and trade. Analogy would be Foxconn, a Taiwanese company which is dependent on manufacturing in China.
Nostalgia/rose-tinted glasses/rosy retrospection, Ostalgie in German.
Families that were ethnically from Russia, moved during the Soviet Union times and still have ties to Russia.
The former East Germany is way more pro-Russian than the former West Germany, showing the effects of these factors.
Combine this with a step economic decline and voila you got the perfect conditions for autocratic sympathies
Do you think that Germany might have done something right before this "subjugation"?
Maybe 25-40 million things?
The US has betrayed a lot of humanity with the catastrophic wars it has fought since 2003. But in Europe, the results are very, very clear: many Europeans actually have the temerity to establish relations with the refugees who have been arriving for decades now, and seek to understand that the world is being kept at war needlessly.
Many Western observers tend to miss the fact that there was a period between the end of the cold war and the beginning of the Ukraine conflict where Europeans were kind of glad to have peace in Europe - like actually with Russia being considered a part of the European community, where after years of distrust, peaceful relations between Europe and Russia were actually kind of happening.
This has all gone to /dev/null now, but there is still an unheard/heavily censored group of European citizens - in pretty much all of Europes’ western sphere - who simply would prefer to establish peaceful relations with Russia, and go back to actually flourishing and prospering.
Oh, and ending all wars on the Middle East, so the refugees from the US’ wars can rebuild their countries and go back home. Some day. Maybe.
Of course you won’t hear about them much, but if you pay close attention in the cafes and bars and riverside grills, you will hear it: many Europeans do actually believe in and want peace and simply don’t think the current crop of leaders are capable of it. So they express this not as sympathy with Russia, but as a willingness to effect the political change necessary to avoid catastrophe.
But many Europeans don’t believe that Russia is going to be defeated, nor that the Donetsk->Crimea corridor is worth igniting the rest of Europe over. The most common refrain I hear, is that portion of Ukraine should have independence and neutrality, like Austria. How this is to be attained, of course nobody knows, but it is very definitely a common refrain.
If Europe gives in to Russia in Ukraine, anyone with basic understanding of history can see that they'll turn their attention towards Baltics, Moldova and maybe Finland and Poland. Putin doesn't want to return those "good years" between cold war and Ukraine conflict, he wants to return to the glory days of Cold War when Russia (Soviet Union) was a real superpower.
Fortunately, there are growing segments of European society who actually want to have a bright and prosperous future. This doesn’t happen with war - it happens by making sure your neighbors are well fed, too.
I think the real issue is that Russian people consistently fail to hold their leaders accountable. It's the local rich, corrupt oligarchy stealing their prosperity, not any foreign power. They're the ones waging war as well.
I'm worried of growing segments of Western European population that are happy to make an unfair deal with Russia, as long as it's some Eastern Europeans and not them who will suffer the consequences. I guess from their viewpoint some dead Ukrainians, Estonians or Poles is acceptable if they personally get cheaper petrol and gas.
With Gaza, Germans have been enlightened to the fact that the war in Ukraine isn’t the only atrocity their state is involved in. German ammo kills kids: a growing segment of German society is starting to understand this.
> I think the real issue is that Russian people consistently fail to hold their leaders accountable.
Yes, and I think Europeans understand that the most effective way for Russians to learn this, is for Europe to lead by example. Accountability for European leadership is also a massive problem. Germans seem to be very much more aware of this than most.
You can easily say this about the UK and the USA as well, you know. There isn't something exceptional about the US' corrupt military-industrial complex, except for the absolutely horrendous, atrocious scale of its victims.
Russia can fix itself. I am as optimistic of that fact, as I am of Americans fixing their issues, too. Seriously, Americans, fix your shit. Only then will you have what it takes to get Russians to fix their shit, too. Not before.
Russian administration is the reflection of the nature of Russian people. Look at Russian history - it is very unlikely that different administration would behave differently.
Putin is not a blip, he is the trend.
Russians will never submit to war or threats to subjugate their nation.
They will align with mutual economic prosperity, however.
German society seems to be having a moment where it realizes this, suddenly. Germans really don’t want another billion euro’s being spent on slaughtering children. They want the cheap energy back, and they want peace in Europe through the only way there has ever been peace in Europe: strong economic ties between states and mutually assured prosperity.
Would you be okay if Russia had its bioweapons facilities located within a strong winds’ distance of your states major population centers?
Would you be okay with foreign investors in your country using power and wealth to gain cover for their genocide and influence your politi … ermm .. okay, never mind, you probably are okay with that if you’re an American ..
The ex-DDR folk has nothing to do with this. They literally want a tzar and claim the life was better in DDR (translate: got stuff for free, didn't have to do much).
There are plenty of ex-DDR folks who think we should just get on with the war and start annihilating everyone from Dresden to Kamchatka, too.
Alas, the challenge for those who want peace is to get those who see only war to sit down and shut up for a while. Germans are actually good at that when they want to be.
> Germans are actually good at that when they want to be.
Yeah, whatever that is. They don't know themselves.
Unlike the ex-DDR folk craving for Russia to take care for them. There's a reason why that part of Germany turns right and votes AfD now. It's a mix of USSR nostalgia and dislike of the Western Germany because they believe they are still mistreated, 35 years on.
Between the end of the Cold War and the start of the war in Ukraine, there was no peace in Afghanistan, in the Caucasus, in Syria, in Georgia, and in Crimea.
Russian misinformation and funding of far-right parties had never stopped. Every country in Russia's vicinity knew that it was coming for them. In the West relations were peaceful indeed, because all these wars were with faraway peoples.
If you're not a paid shill but genuinely believe what you're saying, you're what they call a useful idiot. This attempt at the apology of Russia, in this pretend calm tone, with emotional bits peppered throughout, is disgusting.
A lot of people who came to the West thanks to the peacefulness of Russia also want to go rebuild their countries 'Some day. Maybe.'
And lower down you say Ukraine should have some neutral autonomous territory. Maybe parts of Poland and of the Baltics and of Finland will also know the prosperity and peace that comes with 'neutrality'.
How dare you.
It is Western wars producing the conditions for 35 million war refugees to flood the worlds borders.
Do you think all Germans are ignorant of what the warmongers in their state have contributed to the situation in Gaza? And that they are being nevertheless led by those same warmongers into yet more catastrophe?
A rising segment of the German population are sick of frothy-mouthed warmongers having the podium and recognize that if they don’t change the leadership who brought only war and calamity to the world, it will end in disaster.
Yes, Russia needs better rulers, and yes Russia should face justice for its wars - they won’t get this at the end of a European spear, however. The only people who can do anything effective about Russia, are Russians: Germans understand this very, very well. And they are turning to apply the very same rule to their own state.
Because Russia has a long way to go to come even close to the atrocities of Western allies. The USA and its allies are a far, far worse danger to the world, by orders of magnitude. Russia is following the Western lead on war atrocities, and we have, by far, the worst stats of them all.
When we prosecute our own war criminals, only then will we have the moral altitude to jump on Russias case - but not before that happens. The populations of Poland, the Baltics, and Finland may not understand their own states’ culpability for contributing to atrocity - but Germans sure do.
Intelligent, informed Europeans know that the only path to peace involves personal responsibility for the war crimes of their own states.
So they let their democracies function. Those politicians who promise to rein in the warmongers - whatever else their parties promise - are gaining traction because of this fact.
From personal experience I would also say that Germans and Russians are alike in quite a few ways - both are pretty chauvinist societies looking down at other nations, and both have very low empathy. Obviously, there are big cultural differences as well.
Any idea which foreign country he was spying for?
> Documents supplied to the Hamburg court indicated that Hanning was the go-between with the Israelis. According to media reports, these Hamburg court documents contained clues to his other business activity with classified BND information.
https://www.irishtimes.com/world/europe/2026/10/06/former-ge...
Where there’s smoke there’s fire, and western intelligence precedent (eg russian “illegals program”) is that when it’s Russia/China, it’s named.
So the omission here itself (and denial of Russia) is some additional speculative information, on top of his already known ties to Mossad.
In this case, the reporting I've seen on this doesn't mention the country that he was allegedly spying for. That means it was Israel. Because if it was any other country, particularly Russia, it would absolutely be blasted from the rooftops.
It's honestly depressing how captured institutions, the media and Western governments are by the Israeli lobby. My only hope is that history will correctly label all those involved as collaborators.
Let me give an example: Jonathon Pollard [1], who was responsible for one the largest national security breaches in American history and was tried and convicted for espionage. This was a sticking point where basically every Israeli PM would ask for his release. No president would do it until Trump on his first day of his second term [2].
Trump mega-donor Sheldon Adelson lent Pollard his private plane [3] for his return to Israel where he was given a hero's welcome [4]. He's since met with the Israeli PM and even invited into the US Embassy in Israel [5].
Beyond spies, even Israelis are aware that Israel has become a refuge for the worst kinds of criminals [6].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Pollard
[2]: https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-israel-jonathan-poll...
[3]: https://forward.com/fast-forward/461235/watch-flown-to-israe...
[4]: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/30/world/middleeast/jonathan...
[5]: https://www.reuters.com/world/white-house-was-unaware-us-amb...
[6]: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2016-03-22/ty-article/.p...
Bad news, only nerds care about history.
Agree with everything else you said though.
Well that clears that up.
Is anyone else shocked that the head spy was a spy, or that Germany was being blackmailed by Mossad?
Is the sky in your world green?
Oh wait. You're a Holocaust denier. So you are evil AND have vapor for brains.
You're not a virtuous person for pretending to be oblivious to this influence. You're just a shabbos goy, a useful idiot.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/10/paramount-comple...
Both corporations are owned by jews. It might make you uncomfortable, but mainstream media in the USA(and the western world in general) is mostly owned by jews.
You don’t see many mergers between somalian media conglomerates.
"Haunted by grief, Gaza's displaced still wait overseas for return" [1]
"Israeli strike kills five in Gaza, including four women, health officials say" [2]
"Israeli settlers kill Palestinian in West Bank, officials say"[3]
[1]https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/haunted-by-grief-g...
[2]https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-strike-kil...
[3]https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/haunted-by-grief-g...
The connection to the current case may actually be a more direct one, via the Israeli spies.
I just wanted to share the journalism pearl.
https://www.bnd.shop/en
"Licensor: Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the German Foreign Intelligence Service
The BND logo is a registered trademark of the Bundesnachrichtendienst in Berlin, Germany. The BND is not involved in the operation, production, or sale of these products and accepts no liability. The BND does not receive any revenue from the BND Shop."
Which does seem a little bizarre.
https://www.antsandfriends.com/bnd-shop/
It very much sounds like this was not their idea originally... wouldn't be surprised if this was initiated by BND, and they are legally not allowed to run it themselves or sth like that
I assume you're asking about Israel. HN Search shows 168k comments: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....
If you meant some other country, it's easy enough to check this about any of them.
https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/hanning-festnahme-spiona...
In 2013 he was a defence witness for the oligarch Oleg Deripaska who was then tied to Putin. He was also on the board of companies such as PNB Banka (operated by a Russian Grigory Guselnikov). Also connections to many shady "security consulting" firms, among them "Prevent" who were suspected to have planted child porn with a manager of HSH-Nordbank. Incidentally child porn was also planted with the husband of Christina Block in Denmark, a case in which Hanning is also involved.
On the angle of Azerbaijan who allegedly bought Hanning's secrets it's interesting that in the past there were several court cases about corruption against German politicians. It's summarised in the so called Aserbaidschan-Affäre (Azerbaijan Affair) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aserbaidschan-Aff%C3%A4re
See also https://www.esiweb.org/proposals/caviar-diplomacy
But it is great that Germany now has more expensive "sovereign" US gas and the fallback Qatar was sabotaged in the Iran war. Great independence.
Thankfully, the Europeans aren't stupid.
That funding also seems to have increased since the Nord Stream money bought Russia alleged broomsticks in 2022 and after the Nord Stream money stopped they have an army.
China doesn't get natural gas any cheaper from the European cutoff because of the way the infrastructure is organised and China is not going to unilateraly pay for the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline like Russia needs, because Russia is too likely to collapse in the near future.
Europe has several gas, oil and coal fields (like Netherlands). We are just not allowed to use them!!! We must depend on hostile foreigners, like Putin, Trump and Saudis!!!