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      Your Monday Briefing

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Aleksei NavalnyNavalny’s Life in OppositionKremlin AnxietyCourt DecisionWhat Will Yulia Navalnaya Do?Putin’s ‘Palace’AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyYour Monday BriefingThe Schengen Area closes up.Feb. 21, 2021, 10:13 p.m. ETGood morning.We’re covering travel restrictions within the E.U., the worst day of violence in Myanmar since the coup and the coming U.S. milestone of 500,000 deaths from Covid-19.[embedded content]A police officer addressing a driver at a checkpoint at the German-Czech border near Bad Gottleuba, Germany. Credit…Filip Singer/EPA, via ShutterstockA fresh blow to Europe’s open bordersAs new variants of the coronavirus are spreading rapidly, European countries such as Germany and Belgium have introduced new border restrictions, flying in the face of the free movement that has long been seen as a fundamental pillar of the European Union.The European Commission, the E.U. executive, has tried to pull countries back from limiting free movement since March, on the grounds that it had disrupted the bloc’s single market. The result has been an ever-shifting patchwork of border rules that has sown chaos and not always successfully limited the virus’s spread.But many countries cannot seem to resist taking back control of their borders. A suggestion by the commission that new restrictions be reversed induced a swift pushback from Germany, even as the new rules triggered supply chain disruptions and long lines of commuters from Austria and the Czech Republic.Background: Countries within the Schengen Area have the explicit right to reintroduce checks at their borders, but they need to clear a few legal hurdles to do so, and they are not meant to retain them over the long term.Here are the latest updates and maps of the pandemic.In other developments:As the American death toll nears 500,000, more Americans have now died of Covid-19 than on the battlefields of World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War combined. No other country has counted as many deaths in the pandemic.To secure the release of an Israeli civilian held in Syria, Israel secretly — and contentiously — agreed to finance a supply of Russian-made Covid-19 vaccines for Damascus.Australia began vaccinating its population against the coronavirus on Sunday, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison and 19 others getting their shots. The first to be vaccinated was an 84-year-old woman who lives in a nursing home.Dozens of protesters were injured in Mandalay, Myanmar, on Saturday.Credit…Aso/Associated PressMyanmar security forces open fire on protestersWitnesses said two people were killed and dozens wounded when security forces on Saturday opened fire on protesters in the city of Mandalay, Myanmar. It was the bloodiest day of protests so far against the military’s Feb. 1 coup.The shootings occurred as the authorities were trying to force workers back to their jobs at a local shipyard. The work stoppage there in protest of the ouster of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s civilian leader, has paralyzed river transport on the Irrawaddy, the country’s most important commercial waterway, according to Radio Free Asia.Details: The authorities used water cannons, rubber bullets, tear gas, slingshots and live ammunition to break up the crowd. At least 40 people were wounded, according to medics.Mansour Abbas, center, an Islamist leader hoping to join the next Israeli government, campaigning in Daburiyya, an Arab village in northern Israel.Credit…Dan Balilty for The New York TimesIn the Israeli election, an opportunity for ArabsAccelerated by Israel’s election campaign, two trends are converging: On the one hand, Arab politicians and voters increasingly believe that to improve the lives of Arabs in Israel, they need to seek power within the system instead of exerting pressure from the outside.Separately, mainstream Israeli parties are realizing they need to attract Arab voters to win a very close election — and some are willing to work with Arab parties as potential coalition partners.Both trends are born more of political pragmatism than dogma. But while the moment has the potential to give Arab voters real power, it could backfire and split the Arab vote, ultimately lowering the numbers of Arab lawmakers in the next Parliament.Context: Arab politicians and voters have not shed all their discomfort with Zionism and Israeli policies in the occupied territories. But there is a growing realization that problems the Arab community in Israel faces — gang violence, poverty and discrimination in access to housing and land — will not be solved without Arab politicians shaping policy at the highest level.If you have 7 minutes, this is worth itLibraries to honor women lost to violenceCredit…Kiana Hayeri for The New York TimesNajiba Hussaini, who died in a Taliban suicide bombing in Kabul in 2017, was a determined, highly accomplished scholar, who landed a prestigious job in Afghanistan’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum.Today, her memory lives on at the Najiba Hussaini Memorial Library, in the Afghan city of Nili, as a symbol of the progress made toward gender equality and access to education in Afghanistan. As of 2018, as many as 3.5 million girls were enrolled in school in the nation and one-third of its teachers were women.But amid negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban, many worry that a peace deal could mean that the progress Afghan women have made over the past two decades will be lost.Here’s what else is happeningAleksei Navalny: A Russian court has cleared the way for the possible transfer of the opposition leader to a penal colony, the latest step by the authorities to silence the country’s most vocal critic of President Vladimir Putin.Libya weapons: Erik Prince, the former head of the security firm Blackwater Worldwide and a supporter of former President Donald Trump, violated a United Nations arms embargo on Libya by sending weapons to a militia commander who was trying to overthrow the government in Tripoli, according to U.N. investigators. He has denied any wrongdoing.Venezuela: Millions of women in the troubled South American country are no longer able to find or afford birth control. The situation has pushed many into unplanned pregnancies or illegal abortions at a time when they can barely feed the children they have.ISIS: Frenchwomen who joined the Islamic State and are now held in squalid detention camps in Syria have gone on a hunger strike to protest France’s refusal to bring them back.Credit…Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesSnapshot: Above, Novak Djokovic won his third straight Australian Open title. His victory over the fourth-ranked Daniil Medvedev gave him his 18th career Grand Slam title. Naomi Osaka beat Jennifer Brady for her fourth Grand Slam title.Cephalopod sensing: An octopus’s arms can sense and respond to light — even when the octopus cannot see it with the eyes on its head, according to a study published this month in The Journal of Experimental Biology.Bollywood: Increasingly, new Hindi productions are showing mothers, and women over all, as full and complex human beings — not melodramatic side characters, but outspoken, independent leads who are in charge of their own fates.What we’re reading: The U.S. may experience a wonderful summer this year — even if the pandemic is not yet behind us, writes the health journalist James Hamblin in this long read from The Atlantic.Now, a break from the newsCredit…Con Poulos for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Jerrie-Joy Redman-Lloyd.Cook: This shrimp étouffée draws inspiration from Cajun and Creole cuisines.Listen: Radio drama, especially from its golden age in the 1930s through the ’50s, is now freely available, thanks to the internet. Here are six shows to enjoy.Do: Many mothers have felt obliged to put themselves last during the pandemic. But making time for self-care may give you what you need to keep on going.Restore your sense of self. At Home has our full collection of ideas on what to read, cook, watch, and do while staying safe at home. And now for the Back Story on …Taking stock of 500,000 deathsA graphic on Sunday’s front page of The New York Times depicts the totality of Covid’s devastation in the United States. From afar, the graphic looks like a blur of gray, but up close it shows something much darker: close to 500,000 individual dots, each representing a single life lost to the coronavirus.Credit…The New York TimesThis is not the first time The Times’s designers have used the front page to represent the scale of the pandemic’s toll. When Covid-19 deaths in the United States reached 100,000 last May, the page was filled with names of those lost — nearly a thousand of them, just 1 percent of the country’s deaths then.And as that number approached 200,000, the lead photograph on the page showed the yard of an artist in Texas who had filled his lawn with a small flag for every life lost to the virus in his state.But this is the first time the front page has depicted all the U.S. fatalities. “I think part of this technique, which is good, is that it overwhelms you — because it should,” said Lazaro Gamio, a graphics editor at The Times.That’s it for this briefing. See you on Tuesday.— NatashaThank youTo Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh for the break from the news. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.P.S.• We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is on children and Covid.• Here’s our Mini Crossword, and a clue: What light travels in (five letters). You can find all our puzzles here.• Claire Cain Miller, a reporter who worked on our series on working mothers, “The Primal Scream,” spoke to NPR about the toll of the pandemic on women.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      European leaders hail 'new dawn' for ties with US under Biden

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      European leaders have voiced relief at Joe Biden’s inauguration, hailing a “new dawn” for Europe and the US, but warned that the world has changed after four years of Donald Trump’s presidency and transatlantic ties will be different in future.“This new dawn in America is the moment we’ve been awaiting for so long,” Ursula von der Leyen, the European commission president, told MEPs. “Once again, after four long years, Europe has a friend in the White House.”The head of the EU’s executive arm said Biden’s swearing-in was “a demonstration of the resilience of American democracy”, and the bloc stood “ready to reconnect with an old and trusted partner to breathe new life into our cherished alliance”.But Von der Leyen said relief should not lead to illusion, since while “Trump may soon be consigned to history, his followers remain”.Charles Michel, the president of the European council, also said the US had changed. Transatlantic relations had “greatly suffered” and the world had grown “more complex, less stable and less predictable”, said Michel, who chairs summits between the EU’s 27 heads of state and government.“We have our differences and they will not magically disappear. America seems to have changed, and how it’s perceived in Europe and the rest of the world has also changed,” he said. Europeans “must take our fate firmly into our own hands”.A study this week showed that while many Europeans welcomed Biden’s election victory, more people than not felt that after four years of Trump the US could not be trusted, and a majority believed Biden would not be able to mend a “broken” country or reverse its decline on the world stage.The EU has invited Biden to a summit and top-level Nato meeting when he is ready, with Michel called for “a new founding pact” to boost multilateral cooperation, combat Covid, tackle climate change and aid economic recovery.The German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said he was “greatly relieved” at Biden’s inauguration, hailing “a good day for democracy”. He said democracy under the Trump administration had faced “tremendous challenges and endured … and proved strong”.Steinmeier said the transfer of power to Biden brought with it “the hope that the international community can work together more closely”, and he said Germany was looking forward “to knowing we once more have the US at our side as an indispensable partner”.However, he said that “despite the joy of this day”, the last four years had shown that “we must resolutely stand up to polarisation, protect and strengthen our democracies, and make policy on the basis of reason and facts.”Italy’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, said his country was “looking forward to the Biden presidency, with which we will start working immediately.” He said the two countries had a strong common agenda, including “effective multilateralism, climate change, green and digital transition and social inclusion.”The Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said Biden’s victory represented “the victory of democracy over the ultra-right and its three methods – massive deception, national division, and abuse, sometimes violent, of democratic institutions.”Five years ago, Sánchez said, the world had believed Trump to be “a bad joke. But five years later we realised he jeopardised nothing less than the world’s most powerful democracy.”Britain’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, who has faced criticism for his close relationship with Trump, said he was looking forward to working closely with Biden, citing a host of policy areas in which he hoped to collaborate.“In our fight against Covid and across climate change, defence, security, and in promoting and defending democracy, our goals are the same and our nations will work hand in hand to achieve them,” Johnson said in a statement.The former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev called for Russia and the US to repair their strained ties. “The current condition of relations between Russia and the US is of great concern,” he said in an interview with the state-run news agency Tass. “But this also means that something has to be done about it in order to normalise relations. We cannot fence ourselves off from each other.”Among the US’s more outspoken foes, Iran, which has repeatedly called on Washington to lift sanctions imposed over its nuclear drive, did not miss the chance to celebrate Trump’s departure.“A tyrant’s era came to an end and today is the final day of his ominous reign,” said the president, Hassan Rouhani. “We expect the Biden administration to return to law and to commitments, and try in the next four years, if they can, to remove the stains of the past four years.”Biden’s administration has said it wants the US back in the landmark Iran nuclear accord from which Trump withdrew, providing Tehran returns to strict compliance.The Nato chief, Jens Stoltenberg, said the military alliance hoped to strengthen transatlantic ties under the new president, adding that the world faced “global challenges that none of us can tackle alone”. More

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      Merkel’s Party to Choose New Leader, and Possible Successor as Chancellor

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMerkel’s Party to Choose New Leader, and Possible Successor as ChancellorAfter nearly a year of jockeying, no clear front-runner has emerged to lead Germany’s Christian Democratic Union. Three men are vying for delegates’ votes this weekend.Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, shown last month, has led her country for the past 15 years. She stepped down as party leader in 2018.Credit…Michael Kappeler/DPA, via Associated PressJan. 15, 2021, 9:28 a.m. ETBERLIN — Germany’s largest political party will choose a new leader on Saturday, with the winner well positioned to succeed Angela Merkel as the next chancellor of Europe’s leading economy.Regardless of the result, it will signal a new chapter for Germany and Europe, where the staid but steady leadership of Ms. Merkel has been a constant for the past 15 years. She earned respect for holding Europe together through repeated crises and, most recently, her deft handling of the coronavirus pandemic over the past year.“In a sense, an era is ending,” said Herfried Münkler, a political scientist at Humboldt University in Berlin. “But in certain basic positions, such as the geopolitical situation and the economic conditions within the E.U., that all remains unchanged, regardless of who’s the chancellor.”German voters will elect a new government on Sept. 26, and Ms. Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union remains the country’s most popular party, according to a survey by Infratest/Dimap last week.Ms. Merkel led the party for 18 years, stepping down in 2018. She was replaced by one-time heir apparent Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who announced her own departure nearly a year ago over internal party strife. Since then, three men have been jockeying for the leadership position. But no clear front-runner has emerged.While all three candidates appear to have a lot in common — all male, all Roman Catholic, all from the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia — each harbors a divergent vision of the future of the party that has governed Germany for 50 of the past 70 years.Here is a look at the candidates and where their leadership could take Germany:Leadership skills have been the strongest campaign point for the governor of Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia state, Armin Laschet.Credit…Pool photo by Marius BeckerArmin Laschet — the CentristIn terms of experience, Mr. Laschet, the governor of Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia since 2017, has the strongest hand. The only candidate who has won an election and served as a governor, the 59-year-old Mr. Laschet has nevertheless struggled to generate enthusiasm for his campaign.He announced his candidacy last February, flanked by Ms. Merkel’s health minister, Jens Spahn, who ranked above the chancellor as Germany’s most popular politician in a survey in late December. Mr. Spahn had sought the party leadership position in 2018, but this time around, he pledged to back Mr. Laschet.The popularity of Mr. Spahn and another man who is not vying for party leadership, Markus Söder, the governor of Bavaria, has led top Christian Democratic officials to sever the decision over who will run for chancellor in elections from the party leader vote on Saturday. That means that whoever is chosen party leader will not necessarily be the next chancellor.Mr. Spahn’s backing of Mr. Laschet was supposed to garner support from those who saw in the 40-year-old Mr. Spahn a chance to rejuvenate the party. But instead, it has shifted the focus to a possible scenario in which the health minister could run for chancellor while Mr. Laschet remains party leader.Mr. Laschet is seen as the candidate most likely to continue Ms. Merkel’s centrist style of stable politics. He is a strong supporter of German industry and shares the chancellor’s idea that Germany benefits from diversity and integration.Staunchly pro-European, Mr. Laschet also considers a strong relationship with Russia as central to Germany’s success, although he views the United States and NATO as essential to lasting security in Europe.Friedrich Merz has not held political office since 2002, when Ms. Merkel ousted him as leader of the Christian Democrats’ party caucus in Parliament.Credit…Pool photo by Michael KappelerFriedrich Merz — the ConservativeMr. Merz, a former lawmaker, is viewed as the candidate most likely to break with Ms. Merkel’s style of leadership and return the party to its more traditional conservative identity. At the same time, he has had to reassure voters that the would not move “one millimeter” toward the far-right Alternative for Germany.Mr. Merz, 65, has not held political office since 2002, when Ms. Merkel pushed him out as leader of the Christian Democrats’ party caucus in Parliament. Three years later, he left politics for the private sector, where he amassed a personal fortune that he has played down in the campaign, portraying himself as upper-middle class instead of a millionaire.He is the least popular with women, who flocked to the party under Ms. Merkel’s leadership and became an important voting bloc. Many recall that Mr. Merz voted against criminalizing rape within marriage in 1997, and Anja Karliczek, Germany’s minister for education, has warned that his penchant for a sharp quip on hot-button issues such as immigration could threaten party cohesion.But that style is popular with young conservatives and the party’s right flank, which welcomes his criticism of Ms. Merkel’s decision to take in nearly 1 million migrants in 2015 and his calls to return to tighter fiscal policy.A proponent of strong ties between Europe and the United States, Mr. Merz views a deeply integrated European Union more skeptically and criticized the recent 1.8 trillion euro, or $2.2 trillion, stimulus and budget package agreed to in Brussels, which included issuing joint debt — long a no-go for Germany. Norbert Röttgen, a former environment minister, has focused on issues that appeal to younger voters, including climate change and digitization.Credit…Pool photo by Christoph SoederNorbert Röttgen — the Dark HorseMr. Röttgen, a former environment minister under Ms. Merkel, has been seen as less of a favorite, although he recently had a strong showing in polls. It is probably not enough, however, to ensure him a clear shot at the party leadership. Still, the 55-year-old foreign policy expert could carve out a path to the top if the race comes down to a runoff between him and Mr. Merz.Mr. Röttgen lost his post as environment minister in 2012 after a poor performance in the race for governor of North Rhine-Westphalia that year. Since then, he has become a leading foreign policy expert in Parliament and took many by surprise when he entered the race for the party leadership.Mr. Röttgen has built a following among younger voters and women, pointing to his role in working to transform the German economy to one powered by green energy and emphasizing the importance of improving digital infrastructure and know-how to position the country for a future where it can compete with China or the United States.Mr. Röttgen says he wants to build on the issues of diversity and equality championed by Ms. Merkel, ensuring the conservative Christian Democrats remain relevant in the face of a rise in popularity of the Greens, especially among young urban voters. He is in favor of continued European integration and strong ties to Washington, but he says that Germany needs to take a stronger role in the trans-Atlantic relationship.He many have enhanced his appeal to party delegates who have an eye on the general election in the fall with his willingness to cede the candidacy for chancellor if it is in the party’s best interests, stressing the importance of teamwork over individualism.Christopher F. Schuetze More

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      Far-Right Protesters Stormed Germany’s Parliament. What Can America Learn?

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyFar-Right Protesters Stormed Germany’s Parliament. What Can America Learn?It might be time to crack down, rather than reach out.Ms. Sauerbrey is a contributing Opinion writer who focuses on German politics and society.Jan. 8, 2021, 4:53 p.m. ETProtesters gathered in front of the the Reichstag in Berlin on Aug. 29. Credit…John Macdougall/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBERLIN — When the first pictures of rioters mounting the steps to the Capitol started to beam across the world on Wednesday, many Germans felt an unpleasant twinge of familiarity.On Aug. 29, during a demonstration in Berlin against government restrictions to rein in the spread of the coronavirus, several hundred protesters climbed over fences around the Reichstag, the seat of Germany’s national Parliament, and ran toward the entrance. They were met by a handful of police officers, who pushed the crowd back and secured the entrance.Things went differently at the American Capitol, of course. Still, even if the German protesters weren’t able to enter the building, the shock was similar: an assault on a democratically elected legislature. Some of the German protesters were far-right activists; several waved the “Reichsflagge,” the black, white and red flag of the German Empire, the colors of which were later adopted by the Nazis.In the days that followed, Germans asked themselves a series of questions: Was this “a storming of the Reichstag,” evoking dark memories of the building being set on fire in 1933, which led to the suspension of the Weimar Republic’s constitution? Was it a sign that our democracy was under threat? Or was this just a bunch of extremist rioters exploiting a blind spot in the police’s strategy?In a way, it feels inappropriate to compare what happened in Berlin in August to what happened in Washington on Wednesday. The crowd here was much smaller, it did not enter the building, and luckily, nobody was hurt, much less killed. The goals were different, too. American protesters wanted to overturn an election; Germany’s wanted to overturn a set of policies. And most importantly, while some far-right populist politicians backed the Berlin demonstrations, they did not have the support of the country’s leader.And yet, the similarities are too big to ignore — and I fear that they indicate the arrival of a new phenomenon that may be found in many other countries, too: the decoupling of protest from the real world.What connects the protesters on both sides of the Atlantic is a deep distrust in officials and a belief in conspiracy theories. In fact, many in both countries believe in the same conspiracy theories. The QAnon conspiracy theory, which holds that President Trump will defend the world from a vast network of Satanists and pedophiles, is shockingly popular with many in Germany’s anti-lockdown movement, as it is with the president’s fiercest partisans at home.The woman who uttered the decisive call to storm the stairs to Reichstag claimed in her speech that President Trump was in Berlin and that the crowd needed to show that “we are fed up” and would “take over domestic authority here and now” and to “show Donald Trump that we want world peace.” She was referring to QAnon.The similarity that struck me most, however, was how aimless and lost some of the rioters both in Berlin and Washington appeared to be once they had reached their target. At the Capitol, some trashed offices or sat in chairs that weren’t theirs. In Berlin, too, there was no plan beyond this spontaneous gesture of rage and disobedience. Many just pulled out their smartphones and started filming once they had reached the top of the stairs. Is this their revolution? A bunch of selfies?It seems like protesters on both sides of the Atlantic long for some sort of control, and want to assert their power over legislative headquarters that they see as representative of their oppression. But all they get in the end is a cheap social media surrogate. Their selfies may resonate in their digital spheres — and eventually spill back into the real world to create more disruption — but their material effect may be pretty limited.In that case, what can politicians do to deal with these extremists?So far, many politicians have tried to defang the far-right by placating its voters. Since the rise of the Alternative for Germany party in 2015, the mainstream consensus in Germany has been to stress that these voters should not be viewed as extremists, but as angry people, who can and should be won back. Many of them, particularly people in Eastern Germany where the AfD is much stronger than in the West, are seen angry about real grievances, like deindustrialization, job loss, and all the other cultural and economic traumas of Reunification. In some places, this has worked to peel off right-wing voters and bring them back to the mainstream.But the remaining fringe has only drifted further away. Right-wing leaders and conspiracy theorists have now redirected the anger at made-up causes largely decoupled from real world grievances: Many on the far-right in Germany believe that Chancellor Angela Merkel wants to create a “corona dictatorship” and that vaccines will be used to alter people’s genes. The American equivalent, of course, is that the election was stolen from Mr. Trump.This is a problem. Political compromise, and ultimately, reconciliation, starts with recognition. But real-world politics cannot follow those who become believers in their alternate realities. A different strategy is needed.German policymakers have started to realize this — and it’s only become clearer since the August protests. Germany’s secret service has decided to put sub-organizations of the AfD, which is increasingly radical, “under observation,” an administrative step that allows for the collection of personal data and the recruitment of informants within the party. Organizers of the coronavirus protest in August are becoming a focus, too. The minister of the interior banned several right-wing extremist associations in 2020.Of course, attempts to win voters back, to wrestle them from the grip of the cult, must never stop. But there are no policies and no recognition politics we could offer people who adhere to a cult. Instead, to protect our democracies, we must watch them, contain them, and take away their guns.Anna Sauerbrey, a contributing Opinion writer, is an editor and writer at the German daily newspaper Der Tagesspiegel.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      1918 Germany Has a Warning for America

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      HAMBURG, Germany — It may well be that Germans have a special inclination to panic at specters from the past, and I admit that this alarmism annoys me at times. Yet watching President Trump’s “Stop the Steal” campaign since Election Day, I can’t help but see a parallel to one of the most dreadful episodes from Germany’s history.One hundred years ago, amid the implosions of Imperial Germany, powerful conservatives who led the country into war refused to accept that they had lost. Their denial gave birth to arguably the most potent and disastrous political lie of the 20th century — the Dolchstosslegende, or stab-in-the-back myth.Its core claim was that Imperial Germany never lost World War I. Defeat, its proponents said, was declared but not warranted. It was a conspiracy, a con, a capitulation — a grave betrayal that forever stained the nation. That the claim was palpably false didn’t matter. Among a sizable number of Germans, it stirred resentment, humiliation and anger. And the one figure who knew best how to exploit their frustration was Adolf Hitler.Don’t get me wrong: This is not about comparing Mr. Trump to Hitler, which would be absurd. But the Dolchstosslegende provides a warning. It’s tempting to dismiss Mr. Trump’s irrational claim that the election was “rigged” as a laughable last convulsion of his reign or a cynical bid to heighten the market value for the TV personality he might once again intend to become, especially as he appears to be giving up on his effort to overturn the election result.But that would be a grave error. Instead, the campaign should be seen as what it is: an attempt to elevate “They stole it” to the level of legend, perhaps seeding for the future social polarization and division on a scale America has never seen.In 1918, Germany was staring at defeat. The entry of the United States into the war the year before, and a sequence of successful counterattacks by British and French forces, left German forces demoralized. Navy sailors went on strike. They had no appetite to be butchered in the hopeless yet supposedly holy mission of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the loyal aristocrats who made up the Supreme Army Command.A starving population joined the strikes and demands for a republic grew. On Nov. 9, 1918, Wilhelm abdicated, and two days later the army leaders signed the armistice. It was too much to bear for many: Military officers, monarchists and right-wingers spread the myth that if it had not been for political sabotage by Social Democrats and Jews back home, the army would never have had to give in.The deceit found willing supporters. “Im Felde unbesiegt” — “undefeated on the battlefield” — was the slogan with which returning soldiers were greeted. Newspapers and postcards depicted German soldiers being stabbed in the back by either evil figures carrying the red flag of socialism or grossly caricatured Jews.By the time of the Treaty of Versailles the following year, the myth was already well established. The harsh conditions imposed by the Allies, including painful reparation payments, burnished the sense of betrayal. It was especially incomprehensible that Germany, in just a couple of years, had gone from one of the world’s most respected nations to its biggest loser.The startling aspect about the Dolchstosslegende is this: It did not grow weaker after 1918 but stronger. In the face of humiliation and unable or unwilling to cope with the truth, many Germans embarked on a disastrous self-delusion: The nation had been betrayed, but its honor and greatness could never be lost. And those without a sense of national duty and righteousness — the left and even the elected government of the new republic — could never be legitimate custodians of the country.In this way, the myth was not just the sharp wedge that drove the Weimar Republic apart. It was also at the heart of Nazi propaganda, and instrumental in justifying violence against opponents. The key to Hitler’s success was that, by 1933, a considerable part of the German electorate had put the ideas embodied in the myth — honor, greatness, national pride — above democracy.The Germans were so worn down by the lost war, unemployment and international humiliation that they fell prey to the promises of a “Führer” who cracked down hard on anyone perceived as “traitors,” leftists and Jews above all. The stab-in-the-back myth was central to it all. When Hitler became chancellor on Jan. 30, 1933, the Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter wrote that “irrepressible pride goes through the millions” who fought so long to “undo the shame of 9 November 1918.”Germany’s first democracy fell. Without a basic consensus built on a shared reality, society split into groups of ardent, uncompromising partisans. And in an atmosphere of mistrust and paranoia, the notion that dissenters were threats to the nation steadily took hold.Alarmingly, that seems to be exactly what is happening in the United States today. According to the Pew Research Center, 89 percent of Trump supporters believe that a Joe Biden presidency would do “lasting harm to the U.S.,” while 90 percent of Biden supporters think the reverse. And while the question of which news media to trust has long split America, now even the largely unmoderated Twitter is regarded as partisan. Since the election, millions of Trump supporters have installed the alternative social media app Parler. Filter bubbles are turning into filter networks.In such a landscape of social fragmentation, Mr. Trump’s baseless accusations about electoral fraud could do serious harm. A staggering 88 percent of Trump voters believe that the election result is illegitimate, according to a YouGov poll. A myth of betrayal and injustice is well underway.It took another war and decades of reappraisal for the Dolchstosslegende to be exposed as a disastrous, fatal fallacy. If it has any worth today, it is in the lessons it can teach other nations. First among them: Beware the beginnings.Jochen Bittner (@JochenBittner) is a co-head of the debate section for the weekly newspaper Die Zeit and a contributing opinion writer.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      BioNTech chief rejects Trump claim it delayed Covid vaccine news

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      The scientist behind the BioNTech/Pfizer coronavirus vaccine has defended his company from Donald Trump’s accusation that it deliberately delayed news of its rapid progress until after the election, saying “we don’t play politics”.
      BioNTech, a German company, and the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced on Monday that their jointly developed vaccine candidate had exceeded expectations in the crucial phase 3 vaccine trials, proving 90% effective in protecting people from coronavirus infections.
      Quick guide Who in the UK will get the new Covid-19 vaccine first?
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      The UK government’s joint committee on vaccination and immunisation has published a list of groups of people who will be prioritised to receive a vaccine for Covid-19. The list is:
      1. All those 80 years of age and over and health and social care workers.
      2. All those 75 years of age and over.
      3. All those 70 years of age and over.
      4. All those 65 years of age and over.
      5. Adults under 65 years of age at high at risk of serious disease and mortality from Covid-19.
      6. Adults under 65 years of age at moderate risk of at risk of serious disease and mortality from Covid-19.
      7. All those 60 years of age and over.
      8. All those 55 years of age and over.
      9. All those 50 years of age and over.
      10. Rest of the population

      The US president criticised the timing of their press release. Trump accused the companies of holding back the good news until after the American elections “because they didn’t have the courage to do it before”.
      But BioNTech’s chief executive, Prof Uğur Şahin, told the Guardian in a wide-ranging interview he only was notified of the outcome of the interim trials on Sunday at 8pm in a call from the Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, who himself had only been informed three minutes earlier by the independent monitoring board.
      “We want to develop this vaccine as quickly as possible, and we have our own system of coordinates,” Şahin said in response to Trump’s accusation. “Every day counts, and we were desperately waiting for the day of the trial results. It couldn’t come early enough.”
      “Pharmaceutical research should never be politicised. It’s a question of integrity. Withholding information would have been unethical. What’s important for us is that we are developing a vaccine and we don’t play politics.”
      Others have criticised the two companies for not holding on to their information long enough. Bourla raised eyebrows when he sold $5.6m (£4.2m) in stock as company shares soared on Monday night.
      Pfizer says the shares were sold via an automated system after they hit a certain price, under a plan set up in August. More

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      Nord Stream 2: Leverage Against Russia?

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      Following the poisoning of the Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny with a nerve agent from the Novichok group, the possibility of using Nord Stream 2 to put pressure on Russia has been widely discussed. Specifically, there are calls to abandon the project, to impose a moratorium or to block gas deliveries through the pipelines if the Kremlin refuses to assist investigations.

      The Nord Stream 2 Baltic gas pipeline is highly symbolic, embodying the willingness of Germany and other European partners to cooperate with Russia. Five European energy companies hold stakes in the project, which is led by Gazprom. It began in 2015 — one year after Moscow’s annexation of Crimea — and has been the target of unrelenting criticism ever since, initially concentrating on Moscow’s declared goal of bypassing Ukraine.

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      The German government recognizes the project’s economic benefits for consumers and the gas market and has backed it within the existing legal framework under the paradigm of keeping politics out of business. In order to cushion Ukraine’s losses, Berlin also backed a Russian-Ukrainian agreement guaranteeing Kyiv gas transit revenues for another five years. To keep its options for completing the pipeline open, Berlin blocked attempts by Brussels to assert control. That is now both a burden and an opportunity.

      Pressure From Washington

      Recent developments have been largely driven by the US, which has successively stepped up pressure to abandon the project. The American Protecting Europe’s Energy Security Act has succeeded in stopping pipelaying since the end of 2019, and Congress has taken steps to make it impossible to resume the work. The US administration has also altered the guidance of the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, threatening to penalize any entity or individual involved in construction since July 15, 2020.

      If construction is to resume, Berlin will have to act more proactively to counter the impact of Washington’s sanctions. On the one hand, it will be difficult to politically justify actively supporting the construction of Nord Stream 2, while on the other hand, Berlin must continue to reject and criticize such secondary sanctions as a matter of principle.

      Stopping Nord Stream 2 would be seismic. But what happens when the dust has settled? The government will have to make difficult choices. The following four aspects need to be considered.

      First, the immediate effect on the energy supply would be marginal. The project is neither — as so often asserted — a danger to European energy security, nor is it essential. Existing pipelines through Ukraine retain an annual capacity estimated at 100 to 120 billion cubic meters, with the Yamal-Europe pipeline through Poland and Belarus adding 33 billion cubic meters and Nord Stream 1 another 55 billion. There are also pipelines to Turkey and Finland. Together, these would easily cope with the peak volume of more than 190 billion cubic meters, which Gazprom supplied to Europe in 2017-18.

      Embed from Getty Images

      That means, conversely, that stopping Nord Stream 2 would not in the slightest reduce the volume of gas purchased from Gazprom. But this direct, efficient modern pipeline would reduce the risks of transit disruption and technical failure. Without it, Nord Stream 1 and its connecting pipelines become crucial.

      Second, indirect effects on the economy and energy supply are hard to estimate. Sunk costs in the Baltic would hurt Gazprom but would also be costly for European companies. Aside from the commercial repercussions, it should be remembered that Nord Stream 2 would improve the resilience of the European gas supply and that an expanded gas supply would benefit industry and consumers.

      The gas reserves on the Siberian Yamal Peninsula have already been developed, while the global LNG market can quickly tighten again. The “Energiewende” (green energy transition) will naturally reduce demand for natural gas, but the speed with which that occurs will also depend on an expansion of the power grid and a rapid, consistent transformation in heating and industry. Here, there is still much work to be done.

      Third, abandoning an economic infrastructure project for political reasons would represent a paradigm shift for Berlin. Major infrastructure projects undeniably have (geo)political implications, and other states do link business and politics in pursuit of national interests, too. That new geo-economic reality represents a challenge for Germany’s strategic sovereignty, also in the energy sphere.

      But that is precisely the point: Other states act in pursuit of their interests. For all the political fireworks, the project is a strategic asset for German commerce and industry. Germany and its EU partners would only be harming themselves if they stopped construction just to send a normative message to the Kremlin. Putin would probably interpret this as Germany simply caving to US pressure, further weakening the political signal

      Fourth, the normative justification raises questions: Is the situation really qualitatively new? Would earlier events not actually have offered more solid grounds? Here, we are confronted with an almost insoluble dilemma of the fossil-based energy system: We purchase oil and gas from authoritarian regimes every day. In that regard, the Energiewende has a geopolitical dividend.

      But make no mistake: Even a successful energy transition will rely on energy imports from these countries, and on the ability to reliably realize major infrastructure projects. The days of the special strategic energy partnership with Russia are over, but a functioning modus vivendi for trade and exchange with this big and resource-abundant neighbor remains essential. From that perspective, a moratorium would gain time for all involved. But the conditions for resumption would have to be clearly communicated, agreed with EU partners and implementable for Russia.

      *[This article was originally published by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), which advises the German government and Bundestag on all questions relating to foreign and security policy.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      The Mechanics of Discontent Visible in Berlin

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      The vacuum of leadership and the visible missteps throughout much of the Western world have turned developed nations into a fertile ground for what some people see as the resurgence of modern versions of fascism. Until the past few months, such a statement would have sounded provocative at best, delusional at worst. But the evidence confronts us every day and the most sober, level-headed among us cannot avoid the suspicion that, thanks to a raging and still mysterious pandemic, we are living on some kind of political brink that could end up with the overturning of the existing social order.

      Katrin Bennhold, the Berlin bureau chief of The New York Times, reports on an event that, because it took place in Berlin, will fatally evoke ominous overtones for the average reader. The article bears the title, “Far Right Germans Try to Storm Reichstag as Virus Protests Escalate.”

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      At one point, Bennhold quotes an expert on far-right extremism, Matthias Quent, who offers his description of the motley crew participating in the event, which took place on August 29. “We have everything from Hare Krishna fans to Adolf Hitler fans on the streets. It’s a very disparate crowd but what unites people is an angry discontent with the establishment. It’s a mix of populist and egoist outrage,” he says.

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Egoist outrage:

      The ultimate expression of political revolt in individualistic Western societies where the ego has become the absolute reference and authority that founds every individual’s moral judgment

      Contextual Note

      With its title highlighting the dramatic action of the storming of the Reichstag, The New York Times may deliberately be making a mountain out of a molehill. It could be seen as a typical journalistic gambit of scaremongering to hook the reader, followed by more reassuring, level-headed analysis. The story contrasts, for example, with DW’s article on the same event that avoids pushing the idea of a neo-Nazi threat. Instead, it concentrates on the political and legal choices available to the immense majority of Germany’s people and its authorities seeking counter the attempts of the neo-Nazi right who are attempting to use the current health crisis to disrupt German politics.

      Beyond the headline, once it gets into the body of the story, The Times article itself gives a reasonably objective account of the event and its possible consequences. The quote by Quent confirms that the discontent behind the demonstration had little to do with building a neo-Nazi political force. The “populist and egoist outrage,” he mentions, should be interpreted as an unfocused cry of despair of a mostly younger generation that reflects a vague sense of decline in the authority of institutions and an absence of a political vision for the future.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Quent offers a particularly reassuring take that contradicts the implicit evocation of a return of Nazi stormtroopers. “In Germany, like many other European countries, we see that far-right parties are losing ground, that there is growing trust in incumbent governments. In the short term the pandemic can’t be exploited by far-right parties.” That doesn’t mean the protesters believe that today’s political institutions are doing a great job and should be encouraged to continue on their merry way.

      But Quent calls the outrage “egoist,” implying that it may simply be a symptom of the reigning individualism in contemporary German culture. The article also tells us that “Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is enjoying high levels of trust and popularity, and the great majority of Germans approve of its virus control measures.” If all of that is true, the sensationalism associated with imagining a neo-Nazi resurgence begins to disappear.

      Because this is The New York Times, we know that the article was written for Americans who are always eager to know which foreign threat they need to be afraid of. Bennhold accordingly gets Quent to admit that the fly is in the ointment and things could quite possibly flare up again. “If the economy deteriorates further and unemployment rises,” she quotes him as saying, “that equation may change. Already, the AfD and more extreme far-right groups are trying to capitalize on the discontent as they begin positioning themselves for what may be a much uglier political scene some months from now.”

      Bennhold dutifully reminds us of this important point: “Even before the pandemic hit Germany, far-right extremism and far-right terrorism had been officially identified as the biggest danger to the country’s democracy.” She then offers several paragraphs of evidence that neo-Nazis have been infiltrating the police before concluding the article with a quote by Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier: “Far-right extremism has deep roots in our society. It is a serious danger.”

      In other words, The Times is up to the task of making sure that Germany lives up to the disturbing image Americans have of it.

      Historical Note

      Among the reminders of recent history included in the article, Katrin Bennhold offers an update for those who are still trying to digest the scary events from five years ago when the crisis caused by massive refugee immigration mostly from the Middle East seriously destabilized Germany and much of Europe. That paranoia, itself a direct consequence of the disastrous American wars in the Middle East, very directly contributed to the success of the Brexit vote in 2016 that was largely motivated by fear of extra-European immigration.

      Bennhold elaborates: “The migrant wave helped propel the AfD into Parliament in the last election, but the issue has lost much of its political potency, as the resettlement has been broadly deemed a success. And with its own lawmakers and voters deeply split over the country’s coronavirus measures, the party has seen its share of the vote dip below 10 percent in recent polls.”

      Most Americans, including most readers of The New York Times, were probably not aware of the fact Bennhold dryly reports today that all’s well that ends well or, more specifically, “the resettlement has been broadly deemed a success.” In 2018, Bennhold herself wasn’t very sure. In an article she co-authored with Max Fisher, they asked at the time, “Has the German migrant fight been resolved?” And the curt answer they gave was simply, “Maybe, but probably not.”

      This is the eternal problem with the news, even for a serious outlet like The New York Times. Crises sell in the sense of motivating the publication to write them up and spare no details in describing the extent of the damage as the crisis is unfolding. But when a crisis is resolved, totally or partially, unless it is the result of a sudden dramatic gesture, the news outlet will find other crises flaring up that are more urgent to cover. This is especially true when a policy devised to address a crisis is “deemed a success.” All journalists know that “deeming” is never newsworthy. Storming the Reichstag is.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More