December 21, 2011

Open Letter To Frau Merkel

The following came from the pen of Frederick Forsyth.

It was sent to me by my pal Bob and I thought I would share it with you. Like me, you will no doubt disagree with some parts of it, but the sentiment is what roused my interest.

Here you go:

"Dear Madam Chancellor,

Permit me to begin this letter with a brief description of my knowledge of, and affection for, your country. 

I first came to Germany as a boy student aged 13 in 1952, two years before you were born. After three extended vacations with German families who spoke no English I found at the age of 16 and to my pleasure that I could pass for German among Germans.

In my 20s I was posted as a foreign correspondent to East Germany in 1963, when you would have been a schoolgirl just north of East Berlin where I lived.

I know Germany, Frau Merkel, from the alleys of Hamburg to the spires of Dresden, from the Rhine to the Oder, from the bleak Baltic coast to the snows of the Bavarian Alps. I say this only to show you that I am neither ignoramus nor enemy.

I also had occasion in those years to visit the many thousands of my countrymen who held the line of the Elbe against 50,000 Soviet main battle tanks and thus kept Germany free to recover, modernise and prosper at no defence cost to herself.

And from inside the Cold War I saw our decades of effort to defeat the Soviet empire and set your East Germany free.

I was therefore disappointed last Friday to see you take the part of a small and vindictive Frenchman in what can only be seen as a targeted attack on the land of my fathers.

We both know that every country has at least one aspect of its society or economy that is so crucial, so vital that it simply cannot be conceded. 

For Germany it is surely your automotive sector, your car industry.

Any foreign-sourced measure to target German cars and render them unsaleable would have to be opposed to vetopoint by a German chancellor.

For France it is the agricultural sector. For more than 50 years members of the EU have been taxed under the terms of the Common Agricultural Policy in order to subsidise France’s agriculture. Indeed, the CAP has been the cornerstone of every EU budget since the first day. 

Attack it and France fights back.

For us the crucial corner of our economy is the financial services industry. Although parts of it exist all over the country it is concentrated in that part of London known even internationally as “the City”.

It is not just a few greedy bankers; we both have those but the City is far more. It is indeed a vast banking agglomeration of more banks than anywhere else in the world. 

But that is the tip of the iceberg. Also in the City is the world’s greatest concentration of insurance companies.

Add to that the brokers; traders in stocks and shares worldwide, second only, and then maybe not, to Wall Street. But it is not just stocks. 

The City is also home to the “exchanges” of gold and precious metals, diamonds, base metals, commodities, futures, derivatives, coffee, cocoa… the list goes on and on. 

And it does not yet touch upon shipping, aviation, fuels, energy, textiles… enough. Suffice to say the City is the biggest and busiest marketplace in the world. 

It makes the Paris Bourse look like a parish council set against the United Nations and even dwarfs your Frankfurt many times. 

That, surely, is the point of what happened in Brussels. The French wish to wreck it and you seem to have agreed. Its contribution to the British economy is not simply useful nor even merely valuable. 

It is absolutely crucial. The financial services industry contributes 10 per cent of our Gross Domestic Product and 17.5 per cent of our taxation revenue. 

A direct and targeted attack on the City is an attack on my country. But that, although devised in Paris, is what you have chosen to support. 

You seem to have decided that Britain is once again Germany’s enemy, a situation that has not existed since 1945. 

I deeply regret this but the choice was yours and entirely yours. The Transaction Tax or Tobin Tax you reserve the right to impose would not even generate money for Brussels.

It would simply lead to massive emigration from London to other havens. Long ago it was necessary to live in a city to trade in it. 

In the days when deals can flash across the world in a nanosecond all a major brokerage needs is a suite of rooms, computers, telephones and the talent of the young people barking offers and agreements down the phone.

Such a suite of rooms could be in Berne, Thun, Zurich or even Singapore. Under your Tobin Tax tens of thousands would leave London. 

This would not help Brussels, it would simply help destroy the British economy.

Your conference did not even save the euro. Permit me a few home truths about it. The euro is a Franco-German construct.

It was a German chancellor (Kohl) who ordered a German banker (Karl Otto Pohl) to get together with a French civil servant (Delors) on the orders of a French president (Mitterrand) and create a common currency. 

Which they did. IT was a flawed construct. Like a ship with a twisted hull it might float in calm water but if it ever hit a force eight it would probably founder.

Even then it might have worked for it was launched with a manual of rules, the Growth And Stability Pact. If the terms of that book of rules had been complied with the Good Ship Euro might have survived.

But compliance was entrusted to the European Central Bank which catastrophically failed to insist on that compliance. 

Rules governing the growing of cucumbers are more zealously enforced. This was a European Bank in a German city under a French president and it failed in its primary, even its sole, duty. 

This had everything to do with France and Germany and nothing whatever to do with Britain.

Yet in Brussels last week the EU pack seemed intent only on venting its spleen on the country that wisely refused to abolish its pound. 

You did not even address yourselves to saving the euro but only to seeking a way to ensure it might work in some future time. 

But the euro will not be saved. It is crumbling now. And since you have now turned against my country, from this side of the Channel, Madame Chancellor, one can only say of the Euro:

YOU MADE IT, YOU MEND IT."

In my opinion, it is unmendable. That is not wishful thinking. European cities are tearing themselves apart, and the blame can and should be laid at the door of this bastard currency.
Once the economic union dies, the political union should die too. 

I am a Restorationist. 

Let's go back to what once worked. Naturally, we can dump the bad bits and crack on.

CR.

21 comments:

Captain Ranty said...

Aye.

He was a little too polite for my liking, but I suppose if it was nasty it would just reach the bin quicker.

She seems hell-bent on creating the United States of Europe so his note will end up in File 13.

CR.

Angry Exile said...

Once the economic union dies, the political union should die too.

I'm not holding my breath, Cap'n. Before the launch of the Euro a few people in the media pointed out that the EU was doing things the wrong way round. The US dollar came along some years after political union of the former colonies and it would be putting the cart before the horse for the EU to do the currency union first. I'm pretty sure at least one predicted that it would all end in tears (this would have been in the last couple of years of the 90s).

For a while I wondered why the EU would choose to do it this way. Part of it seems likely to be plain old political arrogance making them think they can order it to work and it'll just work, and of course they're still trying variations on that theme. But I think there's also another part to it: when the Euro goes tits up there will be a lot of people saying they know what went wrong and that it would have worked if only the EU had been truly politically unified into a true federation (but a EUSSR rather than a USE, natch). And right after they've said that they'll be leading the call for full union as soon as possible in order than Euro 2.0 is a successful currency that can take it's place in world yadda yadda yadda.

Be ready, because I don't think the death of the Euro means the beginning of the end. As the man said, it's just the end of the beginning.

pat nurse said...

ah yes the bastard Euro, anyway back to the kitchen, try unused tobacco as a lovely addition to making a christmas cake.

beats the smoking ban too

andy5759 said...

Good letter, I saw it in the Guardian this morning. Only joking.

Furor Teutonicus said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Furor Teutonicus said...

XX I also had occasion in those years to visit the many thousands of my countrymen who held the line of the Elbe against 50,000 Soviet main battle tanks and thus kept Germany free to recover, modernise and prosper at no defence cost to herself.

FUCKING BOLLOX!!!

Germany paid IN FULL all costs arising from the occupation and "defence" of Germany. It was part of the Potsdam "arrangement".

It was also left to us to pay for tank/gun/wagon transport and EVERY SINGLE rail ticket for the Russian army as they left after the re-unification.

EVERY fucking centerliter of fuel for your british/American/French scum tanks, aircraft, Officers taxis, etc was paid for BY US!! And that until the official ending of the occupation in the 1990s.

Anonymous said...

post deleted? thats a first innit?

Anonymous said...

you did start it




BKA Startseite
BPOL - bundespolizei.de Homepage
Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz
Bundesnachrichtendienst
CIA Press Releases & Statements
Der Polizeipräsident in Berlin (Polizei Berlin) - Berlin.de
Feldjäger - German Military Police
Gewerkschaft der Polizei - Bundesvorstand
Kameradschaft der Feldjäger e.V.
Landeskriminalamt (LKA) - Berlin.de
Naval Open Source INTelligence
Polizei Brandenburg
Preußische Feldgendarmerie
Seite der Deutschen Gesellschaft fuer Polizeigeschichte
Willkommen beim Verfassungsschutz Berlin - Startseite - Berlin.de
www.sachsen-polizeigeschichte.de/

Captain Ranty said...

lazy,

I have never deleted a comment.

FT made a typo and deleted his own comment.

No censorship here.

CR.

Woman on a Raft said...

Love the way Pat Nurse stipulates 'unused tobacco' as a cake ingredient.

I can't see even the most ardent smoker favouring ashes instead of caster sugar.

Captain Ranty said...

WoaR,

:)

What type of tobacco though?

They have specialist cake shops in Amsterdam that may be able to help with recipes.

CR.

Richard S said...

He is wasting his time. Merkel is a pawn in the hands of the Elite - the government behind the governments - who are still working towards World Domination. She does what she is told - so does Cameron come to that!

James Higham said...

The problem, Cap'n is the word "we". We are not organized, nor at one. They are.

Anonymous said...

my fault, didn't read it properly.

bollixed said...

Interesting to find out how the average German feels about Merkel? Methinks the commie is not carrying public support.

By the way, Germany....love the place and the people.

Off-topic here but I came across this from 'Information Wants To Be Free' blog.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e2a_1324109450

Looks like a few developers are getting their elected buddies to abuse their power and get law enforcement in to destroy the lives of innocents so that the developers can make a quick buck. I hope other police watch this and start to question what lies behind the orders you are dutifully enforcing on decent folks.

Out.

Anonymous said...

I don't believe that defending the heart of the NWO beast, on a wave of jingoistic pride, is the best way forward.

Animal Outrage said...

possibly harry thats true but i believe defending the heart of jingoistic pride and NWO beast is not the way to go forward but it could be

Furor Teutonicus said...

XX Captain Ranty said...

lazy,

I have never deleted a comment.

FT made a typo and deleted his own comment.

No censorship here.

CR. XX

Correct CR. Deleted it myself.

Furor Teutonicus said...

XX bollixed said...

Interesting to find out how the average German feels about Merkel? XX

That she is an commie shit ossi FDJ Tussi that has no place in West German politics and shouzld piss off back to Meck-Pom and screw herself.

The E.U/Euro is no more popular here than it is in the U.K.

Anonymous said...

So... you would support the Rothchilds et al as long as they destroy your perceived enemies... created by the Rothchilds et al...

Furor Teutonicus said...

XX lazy said...

you did start it XX

Germany, after WWI was found guilty of starting the war, after they had fulfilled the treaty obligations of going to the help of an ally who was under attack (Austria).

Britain and France went to the aid of an ally who was under attack in 1939 (Although, why they had not declared war on Stalin/Russia, under the obligations of the same “protection of Poland” treaty after theyattacked Poland FIRST(!), is still unanswered).

Therefore, under the findings of the international court against Germany in WWI, then Britain and France were guilty of WWII. Who, in the same circumstances, reacted in the same way as Germany 1914.

So we did NOT “start it”. And we have legal precedence to prove that.

UNLESS you view WWII as a continuance of WWI.