Just over 25 years after its foundation, the European Union looks like it could be falling apart under the weight of its own contradictions. Everywhere you look, the major parties are coming under increased pressure due to the heightening of the class struggle as a result of 10 years of crisis. This has meant that, in one country after another, the ruling class can no longer rule in the old way.

The German Revolution of 1918 ended the First World War. During a little-known episode of the Revolution, German soldiers liberated Belgium from a brutal military occupation before the armistice of the 11 November was signed. This revolutionary movement was also crucial in pushing through a swift introduction of universal general suffrage in Belgium.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has announced her withdrawal from the Christian Democratic Union’s (CDU) leadership election race, as well as her candidacy for the next German parliamentary election. This marks a political earthquake and the end of an era in German politics, as Merkel has been Chancellor since 2005 and leader of the CDU since 2001.

It wasn’t long ago that Germany was considered one of the few countries with a stable political situation. On the surface at least, with high economic growth and a dominant position within Europe, everything seemed to be going well for the German ruling class. However, this stability is turning into its opposite.

On Sunday, 14 January 2018, tens-of-thousands of activists from different labour and left-wing organisations came to the Berlin Socialist Memorial Cemetery in the Eastern suburb of Friedrichsfelde to commemorate the murder of the outstanding German revolutionaries and Marxists Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht on 15 January 1919.

Temprano en la mañana del lunes 20 de noviembre, los líderes alemanes del partido derechista liberal Partido Demócrata Libre (FDP), declararon repentinamente su salida de las conversaciones preliminares para formar un gobierno de coalición y abandonaron la sala. Las negociaciones con los Demócratas Cristianos de la Canciller Angela Merkel y su partido hermano bávaro, la Unión Social Cristiana (CDU/CSU) y los Verdes se habían llevado a cabo durante casi cinco semanas.

Early on Monday morning, 20 November, the leaders of the German, right-wing, liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) suddenly declared their exit from preliminary coalition talks and walked out of the room. The negotiations with Chancellor Angela Merkel`s Christian Democrats and their Bavarian sister party Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) and the Greens had been going on for nearly five weeks.

A political earthquake is the best way we can describe the federal elections that took place in Germany on Sunday, September 24. For the first time ever in post-war history an extreme right-wing party has been elected to the Bundestag (federal parliament). At the same time the parties that formed the “Grand Coalition” lead by Chancellor Angela Merkel since 2003 have suffered historic defeats.

On Monday, a truck ploughing through a crowded Christmas market at Breitscheidplatz in Berlin highlighted once again the mess that has been created in the Middle East by imperialist meddling. Twelve victims are believed to have been killed while 49 have been injured. The perpetrator of this crime had hijacked the truck from a Polish driver whom he subsequently killed. After the attack, he fled the scene and is still unaccounted for.

The spectre of Lehman Brothers is haunting Europe.

A political earthquake is shaking Germany as the right-wing racist AfD ("Alternative for Germany") scored startling two-digit election results in recent local and state elections.

Over five-hundred reports of abuse and harassment were made to the police in Cologne on New Year's Eve. What exactly happened remains unclear. Whether we will ever get a clear picture of events is highly unlikely, given the way the Cologne events have already been incorporated into right-wing racist propaganda.

Some 250,000 activists from all over Germany marched through the city of Berlin last Saturday in protest against the envisaged free trade agreements TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) and CETA (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement). This event had been called by a broad alliance of over 100 organisations and groups—including trade unions, ecologists and environmentalists, consumer and welfare organisations, farmers associations, the Greens and DIE LINKE (Left Party), as well as many other left-wing and pressure groups.

The City of Frankfurt was the scene of a 25.000 strong anti-austerity demonstration on Wednesday, March 18, the day of the inauguration and grand opening gala of European Central Bank's (ECB). The new skyscraper attracted crowds of protestors from all over Germany. As the protest took off the crowds moved into the stornghold of many German and international banks. The construction of the new ECB premises in

96 years ago, on January 15, 1919, the famous German revolutionaries and Marxists Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were murdered by reactionary "Freikorps" forces who had formed a counter-revolutionary conspiracy with right-wing social democratic (SPD) leaders to drown the revolution in blood. (See the book Germany from Revolution to Counter-Revolution by Rob Sewell, available here)