Bild

Now, David Irving, the controversial historian who had appeared on Newsnight a few days before questioning the authenticity of the documents, was on his way over to spoil the conference, to intervene.

[gentle music] In the brief conversation I had with him on the way over, he told me that he was working for Bild, which was a German tabloid, effectively, and a big competitor of Stern.

And, you know, he, he was really looking forward to it.

Uh, I mean, I think you really got a sense that this was his moment.

He also told me that he was being paid a lot of money by Bild.

As it turns out, Irving isn't the only Nazi hunter in town.

Hugh Trevor-Roper, who declared the diaries genuine in The Times, has also been booked to appear at the press conference.

So, uh, good for Meloni and good for, good for Italy.

Now, this incursion came after Bild, uh, the newspaper Bild, revealed that Germany was planning to send as many as a thousand troops to Lithuania by the end of this month, and, uh, by the end of next year, around nearly five thousand of them are going to be permanently stationed on NATO's eastern flank.

And, uh, the brigade that they have there, or will have there, operates tanks and drones, and it's obviously there to, uh, to send a message to Russia, so well done Germany as well.

Yeah, it's interesting.

The Germans made this doll.

And the whole point was there's a magazine called Bild, which I believe means picture in German.

And there was a comic strip in there called Lily.

So they made a doll of this character.

Like, you can look this up in the corruption index, the Corruption Perception Index from Transparency International.

Okay, uh, also from RT, who's going to try to amplify this kinda narrative, Germany hits a political tipping point as the AfD surges to 30% in support according to Bild.

Uh, it wasn't RT saying it.

They just amplify what Bild does.

A new GMS poll put the party at 30% nationwide while Merz's, uh, CDU sits at 20%, and that's true.

Now, that doesn't mean that the Germans all want Russia to do this or pro-Russia or yay Russia, but they're amplifying probably mostly pro-immig- uh, anti-immigration sentiment, and th- the AfD is the only one championing that, and the people want that, the anti, the immigration to be locked down.

But one last story out of Germany before I turn to Washington briefly.

An investigation by Bild has uncovered a series of suspicious drone flights over Berlin, so another example of the kind of operations we're talking about, including during President Zelenskyy's visit in August.

Journalists at the newspaper trawled through one point five million files from the Berlin Senate that were leaked by a hacking group, including internal emails, confidential reports, passwords, and personal data.

They uncovered that during the Ukrainian president's state visit, authorities detected fifty significant drone flights.

Ten of them entered a designated no-fly zone.

Four flew in the immediate vicinity of Berlin Airport, where Zelenskyy's plane landed.

Bild's investigation also revealed dangerous drone flights happening near the airport daily, including more than two thousand over a nineteen-day period in summer last year.

We'll link to that piece too in the show notes.

It's Franz Beckenbauer.

He's German, not African.

I know a lot of you are like, what? All right.

Let's look at these homophones.

Great, great job.

Laura, Chris, K-Roller Girl, and B-T-I.

We've also got German checking in as well.

He says, hello, English Dream Team.