BERLIN (Reuters) – Germans expressed fury and frustration at Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou’s shock decision to call a referendum on the latest aid package, with some saying the gamble would push Greece out of the euro zone.

“You can’t help thinking that they should be grateful as Europe is trying to help,” said Konstanze Pilge, a 26-year old student, walking near the Brandenburg Gate in central Berlin. “Now it looks like they are going to mess things up.”

BERLIN (Reuters) – The German government tried to deflect responsibility on Monday for a £47.5 billion accounting blunder that has exposed it to charges of ridicule for being inept and hypocritical after its steady criticism of Greek bookkeeping practices.

Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has summoned executives from the nationalised mortgage bank Hypo Real Estate (HRE) to explain how they made a simple accounting error that ended up raising Germany’s total debt load by 55 billion euros.

BERLIN (Reuters) – The German government tried to deflect responsibility on Monday for a 55-billion euro accounting blunder that has exposed it to charges of ridicule for being inept and hypocritical after its steady criticism of Greek bookkeeping practices.

Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has summoned executives from the nationalized mortgage bank Hypo Real Estate (HRE) to explain how made a simple accounting error that ended up raising Germany’s total debt load by 55 billion euros.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Die-hard Marxists and others raised in formerly Communist east Germany feel Europe’s sovereign debt crisis has vindicated their once-ridiculed warnings about the perils of unbridled capitalism.

Calls to shackle the banks in this bastion of Western consumerism are finding an increasingly receptive audience among Germans, some of whom now wonder whether their cash is safer under the mattress than in a bank.

BERLIN, Oct 26 (Reuters) – Germany said on Wednesday it will
close 31 of its 328 military bases and shrink installations in
another 90 locations over the next five years as part of the
most sweeping cuts in the history its Bundeswehr army, navy and
air force.

“The reforms are painful but unavoidable,” Defence Minister
Thomas de Maiziere told a media conference.

BERLIN (Reuters) – A man who set fire to more than 100 cars in Berlin, a wave of attacks blamed by some on political extremists, was motivated by envy and frustration, police who arrested him said Sunday.

The 27-year-old told police that being jobless and in debt led him to set 67 luxury cars alight in one three-month run.

BERLIN, Oct 23 (Reuters) – A man who set fire to more than
100 cars in Berlin, a wave of attacks blamed by some on
political extremists, was motivated by envy and frustration,
police who arrested him said on Sunday.

The 27-year-old told police that being jobless and in debt
led him to set 67 luxury cars alight in one three-month run.

BERLIN, Oct 22 (Reuters) – A festering dispute in Angela
Merkel’s centre-right coalition worsened on Saturday when the
chancellor publicly rejected a claim by one of her junior
coalition partners that a tax cut proposal had been scrapped.

Merkel said in a speech in Wiesbaden on Saturday that the
centre-right government was still aiming to cut taxes by 6 or 7
billion euros in 2013, ahead of the next federal election, even
though the Christian Social Union (CSU) allies oppose it.

BERLIN (Reuters) – German authorities have arrested two Russians suspected of espionage since the closing days of the Cold War, according to a report to be published in Der Spiegel news magazine on Monday.

Germany’s Federal Prosecutor confirmed that two people suspected of espionage activities for a foreign country had been arrested on Tuesday in the states of Baden-Wuerttemberg and Hesse by Germany’s elite GSG-9 special operations commando.

BERLIN, Oct 21 (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel
faced fresh domestic turmoil on Friday when one of the three
parties in her centre-right coalition openly balked at surprise
plans to cut taxes ahead of the next election in 2013.

Compounding her woes ahead of crucial meetings on the euro
zone crisis, Merkel found her coalition badly
split over tax cuts presented by her finance and economy
ministers .