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...work he would do in the shadow of World War I. Rejected for service - he was 44 when the war began - he went on working in a Paris studio, while outside his door Europe hammered itself to pieces. Not long after, his hometown in northern France was occupied by German troops, his mother left stranded behind enemy lines and his brother sent to a prison camp. In Paris on many nights, the booming of German artillery was audible in the distance. (See the top 10 art accidents...
...government's decision to redefine the mission as a "non-international armed conflict" changes things, says Christian Schaller, a legal expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. Now, German soldiers will be operating within a clearer legal framework. For example, the troops will be able to use military force to fight against insurgents under international humanitarian law. But there could also be tougher penalties. "Germany's Code of Crimes Against International Law will apply, and in extreme cases, German soldiers could be prosecuted for war crimes," Schaller says...
...deadly battle last week also sparked a fierce row in Germany over the lack of military equipment and training for soldiers in Afghanistan. In an interview with the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, retired General Harald Kujat, formerly the highest-ranking German soldier and chairman of the NATO Military Committee, accused the government of "ignorance regarding the military's needs," especially when it comes to manpower and equipment. Likewise, Reinhold Robbe, the outgoing parliamentary ombudsman for the armed forces, told the Bild newspaper on Tuesday that members of the paratrooper unit that came under attack in Kunduz had previously complained...
...soldiers in Kunduz had nothing to do with poor equipment or bad training. "Our soldiers were well-trained - they were ambushed," said the spokesman, who declined to give his name as per policy. As part of a new parliamentary mandate, which was passed by the Bundestag in February, German troop levels in Afghanistan will also increase from 4,500 to 5,350 later this year. (Germany is already the third-largest troop contributor after the U.S. and Britain.) The new mandate places a heavier emphasis on civilian reconstruction projects and the training of Afghan soldiers, which will make German soldiers...
...Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle warned against a hasty withdrawal, saying: "If we were to retreat on the spur of the moment now, Afghanistan would return to being a shelter for world terrorism in a very short time." The question remains, though: How many more casualties will an increasingly skeptical German public tolerate...