Word: bild
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...great scoop. "Did Minister Jung conceal the truth?" Germany's mass-circulation tabloid Bild demanded to know Thursday in a story focused on the country's employment minister Franz Josef Jung and what details he knew and when, in his former job as defense minister, about the controversial air strike, called in by German forces, on two hijacked tanker trucks in northern Afghanistan on Sept...
...fighters. Jung, who switched office last month following Germany's elections, initially claimed that only "Taliban terrorists" had been killed. But on Sept. 7 he conceded that there may have been some civilian casualties. (The number of civilians killed is now estimated to be up to 40.) According to Bild, however, the Bundeswehr (as Germany's Federal Defense Force is called) leadership and the ministry had known of civilian victims early on. Those reports were withheld from prosecutors, and also, apparently, from Jung's successor as defense minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg. (See pictures of the battle in Afghanistan...
...Bild's story quoted from reports by German military personnel on the ground, reports which reached the command center in Potsdam, near Berlin, and the ministry within hours of the attack. On its website the paper also posted a video of the strike. Even to the untrained eye, the many ant-like dots swarming around the trucks, which had become stuck in sand, suggested that those present at the scene were unlikely to all be insurgent fighters. A suggestion by the U.S. pilots to send a warning to those who had commandeered the trucks by flying low across the scene...
...impact of Bild's revelations came swiftly. Addressing Germany's parliament, which was about to begin debating a one-year extension of Germany's deployment of around 4,300 troops, zu Guttenberg told deputies that Wolfgang Schneiderhan, Inspector-General and head of Germany's armed forces since 2002, and long-serving state secretary Peter Wichert, a senior official at Germany's defense department, had taken responsibility for the breakdown in communications and resigned. Jung initially defended his actions but resigned Friday. (See pictures of the history of the Berlin Wall...
...stunned. I don't know what to say," Michael Ballack, the German team captain, told the tabloid Bild on Wednesday. Oliver Bierhoff, the team manager, broke down in tears as he told reporters that even Enke's teammates didn't know about his depression. "I feel completely empty," said Joachim Loew, the team's coach. "He was a great guy. He had incredible respect for others. We will miss him, as a top-class sportsman and an extraordinary...