German Army Recruits Told to Imagine Killing Blacks

A video recently released shows a German army recruit being told, during rifle training, to imagine killing Black Americans. See BBC report and video.

This sent chills down my spine because I lived in Germany for more than 3 years, back when I was a teenager. I came in contact with the German Army on a daily basis. German troops (not American forces) were responsible for guarding the joint German/U.S. Army Post where my father was stationed. We lived in a sprawling U.S. Housing area, just outside of the small Post. So whenever I would go to base, I had to be checked by Germans. Luckily the Germans that I came in contact with were usually reasonable, approachable people. I can't recall any major problems.... they usually knew who the military dependents were...and (if we were not on any alerts) they would just wave you through half the time. But you never really knew what was really on their minds... largely because of the language barrier.

I hope that this was just an isolated situation....and that the German military does something to discourage this kind of activity in the future. But then again....if they do change, will it be because they really wanted to change, or because they got caught this time? You can never get the true answer to this kind of question.

I would also like to know how long this had been going on? I'm sure that it didn't start with the incident that was released on video.

The U.S. government has been far too quiet on this story, although diplomatically I hope that someone is saying something. You have a foreign government (ally or not) telling its soldiers to imagine killing U.S. citizens, and we hardly hear a peep from our government? Something is wrong with that picture. If this had occurred between any other 2 countries, it would likely be considered a major diplomatic incident. Depending on how you look at it, the lacking U.S. response either shows that the countries have a very good, mature relationship, or it shows a high level of indifference on the part of White America regarding this story (particularly among the elites in Washington D.C.).

This irks me, considering the number of Black Americans who have participated in the defense of that country, and considering how U.S. taxpayers basically built the modern Germany...and continued to subsidize that country for decades.

Additional Report from The Guardian