German envoy to US: Berlin must act on Israel’s behalf as it faces existential threat

MILWAUKEE — Germany’s ambassador to the US tells a gathering of Republican members and fellow diplomats that Berlin is committed to standing beside Israel amid the existential threat it faces following Hamas’s October 7 onslaught.

“If there is a country that really has to be worried… and has to do everything possible when it comes to an existential [threat to] Israel, it is the country of Germany because of the criminal past which we have when it comes to the Holocaust,” Andreas Michaelis tells attendees at an event hosted by the American Jewish Committee on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

“This is about direct assistance for Israel. This is also about material assistance for Israel, but this is also about defending Jewish communities around the world and first and foremost in my own country, because… antisemitism in Germany has increased and we can’t look away.”