Germany

European Parliament President Martin Schulz told a national television audience in Germany on Sunday evening that he called Chancellor Angela Merkel earlier, with both agreeing to do whatever they can to keep Greece in the Eurozone.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble on Tuesday denied reports that there was a rift between Chancellor Angela Merkel and himself on Greek debt negotiations.

"You shouldn't waste much time on these rumors," Schaeuble said during a panel at an economic conference organized by Merkel's conservative CDU party in Berlin.

By Birgit Jennen, Rainer Buergin & Brian Parkin

A split between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble is widening over Greece as the funding standoff goes down to the wire, said people familiar with the matter.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel weighed in, convincingly in fact, on Tuesday against stereotypes in Europe, speaking at a high school in Berlin where many of the students are from an immigrant background, particularly Turks.
“Namely, one suddenly saying ‘Oh, the Bulgarians, the Greeks, we know what they’re like’,” she said, adding: “We can’t ever say that.”

RT reported on Wednesday of new footage showing Berlin in the aftermath of World War II.

The video, filmed in July 1945, shows famous landmarks like the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag in ruins as ordinary Berliners going about their daily lives.

Two Germany Navy vessels reached Crete on Monday, on a mission to assist in migrant rescue operations in the Mediterranean, the German Defense Ministry announced.

Task force supply ship Berlin and frigate Hessen are expected to reach their final destination off Libya later in the week.

Berlin has distanced itself from recent statements by German President Joachim Gauck, who voiced support for Athens?s demands for reparations for the Nazi occupation of Greece during World War Two.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel left open a “window” of possibility over talks for war reparations to Greece, simply noting that “we’re carefully dealing with all that we (Germans) caused during the period of National-socialism (Nazism)”.
Her high-profile statement comes after comments by the German president, who said the sensitive issue must be re-examined.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel touched upon on a subject that is taboo for the German people during her message for the 70-year anniversary since the end of World War 2 on May 8. Speaking about the dark pages of German history and the Nazi atrocities during WWII, Merkel underlined that nobody should draw a segregational line with Germany’s past.

Despite German President Joachim Gauck?s recent comments and Turkey?s official reaction, the German parliament?s stance on using the word ?genocide? for the killings of Armenian citizens at the hands of the Ottoman Empire in 1915 remains uncertain, with Turkish academic Hüseyin Ba?c? saying Germany?s thoughts on the issue were mixed.