"Heirs to medieval art collection sold to Nazis seek restitution" PBS NewsHour 12/07/2020
Excerpt
SUMMARY: The heirs to a 11th-century collection of art say their Jewish ancestors were forced to sell some of the collection in 1935 to Nazi agents. They are now seeking restitution in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. John Yang reports.
SUMMARY: President Trump met with Polish President Andrzej Duda at the White House Wednesday -- the first time he has hosted a foreign leader since the pandemic began. Trump reiterated his administration’s plan to base 2,000 American troops in Poland after relocating them from Germany. The move is controversial and has roiled both members of Congress and U.S. allies in Europe. Nick Schifrin reports.
SUMMARY: It's been 30 years since one of the 20th century's biggest historic events: the fall of the Berlin Wall. Although the East German dictatorship subsequently collapsed, cultural and political divisions remain, more than a generation after reunification. Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports on the wall's legacy, the polarizing issue of immigration and the lingering stain of anti-Semitism.
SUMMARY: With more than a million newcomers to Germany since 2015, there's been a resulting rise in anti-Semitism. Now there are growing calls to mandate that refugees and Muslim migrants visit concentration camps to help improve their understanding of the country's terrible past and the echoes today. Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports.
SUMMARY: A brutal murder of a 15-year-old girl in Southern Germany has placed the country's open-door immigration policy under intense scrutiny. In addition, a new government-sponsored study found that violent crime rose in one state by 10 percent in two years, with 92 percent of the increase attributed to young male migrants. Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports on the political fallout.
SUMMARY: President Trump began his second overseas trip in Poland by doing something he was criticized for not doing on his first, [this time] offering America's full commitment to the NATO alliance. The President also declared that the West would triumph over its many adversaries, offering his sharpest condemnation yet of Russia. Special correspondent Ryan Chilcote joins Judy Woodruff from Hamburg for more.
SUMMARY: As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump downplayed the importance of NATO and the role of the European Union, while promoting improved U.S.-Russia ties. On Thursday, President Trump tried to reassure European allies that his administration is in sync with them. Judy Woodruff talks to Karen Donfried and Paula Dobriansky, two former state department officials, about Trump on the world stage.
SUMMARY: German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Trump met for the first time Friday, a meeting that might have smoothed relations after a rocky start. Though they exchanged compliments, Mr. Trump pressed Merkel on NATO defense spending as well as trade issues, and the chancellor was asked to comment on the President's combative style. Chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner (NewsHour) reports.
Deutsche Bank is Trump's largest lender. While the troubled bank has settled several of the charges against it, it's still undergoing scrutiny by the Justice Department and other federal regulators, and is being overseen by six independent monitors, making conflicts of interest inescapable.
If you measure President Donald Trump's conflicts of interest by the amount of money at stake, or the variety of dicey interactions with government regulators, one dwarfs any other, his relationship with Deutsche Bank.
In recent weeks, Deutsche Bank has scrambled to reach agreements with American regulators over a host of alleged misdeeds. But because the President has not sold his company, the bank remains a central arena for potential conflicts between his family's business interests and the actions of officials in his administration.
“Deutsche poses the biggest conflict that we know about in terms of dollar amounts and the scale of legal exposures,” says Brandon Garrett, a University of Virginia law professor and author of “Too Big To Fail: How Prosecutors Compromise with Corporations.” In trying to clear up its outstanding regulatory troubles, the bank “may have tried to do its best to avoid the appearance of impropriety but it may be impossible for them to do so.”
Deutsche is Trump's major creditor, having lent billions to the President since the late 1990s even as other American banks abandoned Trump, who frequently bankrupted his businesses. While the President hasn't released his tax returns, he has made public some information about his debts. According to these incomplete disclosures and reports, the Trump Organization has roughly $300 million in loans outstanding from the bank. Trump continues to own the business, although he has turned over day-to-day management to his sons.
At the same time that it is Trump's biggest known creditor, Deutsche is in frequent contact with multiple federal regulators. While the bank agreed last week to pay $630 million to settle charges by New York state's top financial regulator as well as the U.K.'s Financial Conduct Authority that it had aided Russian money-laundering, it's still undergoing a related federal investigation into those activities, which it is also trying to settle. That will be an early big test of the Justice Department under Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The Justice Department also has an ongoing probe of foreign exchange manipulation by several banks, including Deutsche Bank.
Even if the bank clears up the ongoing federal cases, it will remain weighed down by past transgressions. During the housing bubble, Deutsche Bank misled buyers about the quality of its mortgage securities and omitted important information. In 2015, its London subsidiary pleaded guilty in connection with the multi-bank conspiracy to manipulate global interest rates and paid $775 million in criminal penalties.
Deutsche will soon have an astonishing six independent monitors monitoring its conduct — the most ever for one company, according to Garrett. Drawn from the ranks of consultancies and law firms, these overseers make sure Deutsche complies with previous state and federal settlements and regulations relating to its foreign exchange manipulations, global interest rate fraud, sales of dodgy mortgage securities, derivatives trading, and sanctions evasion.
Indeed, the independent monitor of Deutsche's derivatives reporting, Paul Atkins from Patomak Partners, has his own conflict of interest. Atkins served on Trump's transition team and played a role in appointing federal financial regulators. He is now monitoring whether Trump's business partner complies with the terms of a settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on derivatives reporting.
A Patomak spokeswoman declined to comment.
Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve has regulators sitting in Deutsche's offices, as it does with every big bank, keeping a watchful eye on the firm's safety and soundness. Last year, the Fed failed Deutsche Bank during its annual stress test, finding that it had insufficient capital and could not withstand another financial crisis. And the Securities and Exchange Commission and the CFTC regulate its investment banking and trading activities.
A Deutsche Bank spokeswoman declined to comment. The White House did not return an email seeking comment.
The Trump Organization's wide-ranging business dealings could raise quandaries for an array of government agencies, from the Department of Labor, which regulates the company's employment practices, to the General Services Administration, which leases Trump his hotel in Washington, D.C. “Just about everything that every branch, every type of enforcement, every action from every agency could touch on Trump's conflicts. There is no end to the corruption and ethics concerns,” Garrett says.
But the potential conflicts may be most acute at the Justice Department. Whether the Justice Department walks away from an investigation or takes a hard line against Deutsche Bank, its every move will be scrutinized as either too tough or too weak.
With new management, Deutsche Bank has embarked on an effort to rebuild its reputation. Deutsche CEO John Cyran has conducted an apology tour for the bank's multiple and serial misdeeds. The money-laundering settlement isn't Deutsche's only recent move to close out government probes. In January, it agreed to pay $95 million to end a tax fraud investigation by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. And in December, it became one of the last of the global banks to resolve civil charges over the creation and sale of misleading mortgages investments, agreeing to pay a penalty of $3.1 billion.
In these agreements, Deutsche capitalized on the Obama Department of Justice's eagerness to settle, according to defense attorneys who don't represent the bank but are familiar with the cases. Outgoing administrations desire to wrap investigations up so departing prosecutors may shine their resumes on the way out the door.
The Obama administration had an added incentive to reach settlements because it worried the Trump administration Justice Department might seek smaller penalties or otherwise go soft on corporations. That helps explain why Deutsche Bank's mortgage securities settlement, which included $4.1 billion in credit for consumer aid in addition to the penalty, was far below the $14 billion figure reported in the fall as Justice's opening bid. While most observers expected that figure to come down sharply, Deutsche's terms were still widely considered favorable.
Even so, Deutsche's share price remains depressed as investors worry about the bank's future payouts and ongoing fragility. The bank faces class action suits alleging efforts to manipulate interest rates and the currency markets.
Given the government's responsibilities, Trump's regulators face a fraught and sensitive task of proving their independence and fair-mindedness when it comes to Deutsche Bank. Prior White Houses have taken great care to avoid interfering in Justice Department investigations and prosecutions. Despite his early support for Trump's campaign and their personal friendship, Sessions has said he will not recuse himself from any Justice Department probe into the President, the Trump family or any of his political advisors.
The relationship Deutsche Bank has with the President cuts two ways, defense lawyers and former prosecutors say. It might be advantageous to be in business with a President who appears to regard the office as an opportunity for brand enhancement and enrichment. The bank might hope for leniency from the President's regulators because of its business ties to him.
There are signs that Deutsche's new management is not eager to continue serving as Trump's financier. Trump sued the bank in 2008 to avoid paying a loan for a Trump hotel in Chicago. The parties settled, but lawsuits have a way of fraying friendships. A former top executive at Deutsche Bank says the current top management does not like the real estate developer. “They don't want to do business with him anymore,” he says.
Given the tension, Deutsche may worry about the mercurial President. The bank's concern is that the Trump administration could use its regulatory powers to secure better business terms. Nationalist strains course through his inner circle. A top Trump economic advisor recently accused Germany of currency manipulation. Trump, some observers fear, may seek to boost American financial institutions over foreign ones like Deutsche.
In recent months, Deutsche has also sought to renegotiate its loans with Trump, according to a Bloomberg report, in an effort to reduce its exposure to the President. The bank hoped to eliminate the President's personal guarantee on loans. But such a move would not eliminate the conflict of interest, since the President's company, which Trump still owns, would remain on the hook to pay back the loans.
Correction, Feb 10, 2017: Patomak Global Partners' Paul Atkins is monitoring whether Deutsche Bank complies with the terms of a settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on derivatives reporting. This story incorrectly said the settlement was with New York state financial regulators.
When Barack Obama revealed that his last phone call as President was to Angela Merkel, reaffirming their alliance and friendship of the last eight years, he wasn't just saying goodbye. He was handing over his baton. The German Chancellor isn't just the leader of Europe, she is now the de-facto leader of the free world.
The thrice-elected, soft-spoken former scientist from East Germany, armed with a doctorate in quantum chemistry, doesn't just carry the weight of Germany and Europe on her shoulders, but that of defending freedom and liberalism across the world.
This is not an attempt to be provocative or exaggerate for effect. Donald Trump cannot claim the mantle of “leading” the free world by default. America's military might is not the only criteria necessary.
The title also requires the President to be committed to the values of liberal democracy. But unlike his predecessors since the Second World War, it is already clear that Trump has no such inclinations. He is heading, at terrifying speed, in the opposite direction.
Do I even have to make the case for this? Since his inauguration Trump has undermined and ignored judges, even though an independent judiciary and a separation of powers is key to a democracy.
But the ban on immigrants highlighted something far more draconian. If a President can abruptly restrict the rights of US residents without bothering with lawmakers or even government departments, he in effect an autocrat. That is exactly what Trump did and will continue to do so. His actions don't just undermine the rights of all Americans, they undermine the institutions that support American democracy.
Then there is Trump's assault on international trade and cooperation. He is already threatening Mexico, China and now the EU. Who will be next? We can debate whether globalization benefits people equally, but only a fool would deny that international trade is a global good. And it can only work if done on an equal, rules-based footing. But Trump doesn't care for those, he is ripping up international agreements so he can bully smaller countries into submission. That sets a dangerous precedent for the entire world.
And lastly there is the Trump administration's hostility towards the media. Regardless of its bias, a thriving democracy needs a media willing to challenge the government. Trump isn't just hostile to criticism, in his warped world it must be driven by lies and vindictiveness. He is wracked by deep insecurity. When his chief aide Steve Bannon says the media should “keep its mouth shut” – they mean it. They don't want a free media criticizing them at all. These are words that dictators use, not democrats.
The US President [Trump] isn't motivated by protecting liberal democracy or freedom, his sole ideology is Trumpism: corporate autocracy with a populist facade. And he surrounds himself with white nationalists even more hostile to liberal democracy than he is.
Having grown up in communist East Germany before re-unification, Angela Merkel is the polar opposite. She doesn't just recognize the sounds of autocracy, she chose to escape it.
This is why she has stood up to Trump's bullying and bigotry, saying on Monday that the “necessary battle against terrorism” did not justify putting “groups of certain people under general suspicion.” The British government in sharp contrast has been slavish and spineless.
It's now abundantly clear that the free world needs a new leader. With respect to Justin Trudeau, Canada simply isn't powerful enough. It has to be Angela Merkel.
Her opponents know this, which is why the pro-Trump, pro-Putin, far-right forces are lining up against her. We know this. And she knows it. It's time the most powerful woman in the world embraced her new role. The world needs her.
Reuters reports that the Trump regime is implementing a new change to America's domestic terrorism programs that will officially install religious profiling against Muslims and remove the dangerous white supremacist extremist groups who are responsible for much violence across the United States from the watch lists.
The program, “Countering Violent Extremism,” or CVE, would be changed to “Countering Islamic Extremism” or “Countering Radical Islamic Extremism,” the sources said, and would no longer target groups such as white supremacists who have also carried out bombings and shootings in the United States.
Just in the past two years, authorities blamed radical and violent ideologies as the motives for a white supremacist's shooting rampage inside a historic African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina and Islamist militants for shootings and bombings in California, Florida and New York.
A reporter at ThinkProgress tweeted that eliminating the tracking of America's homegrown extremists like the Ku Klux Klan, certain far-right “patriot” groups and neo-Nazi groups will also eliminate the crucial tracking that the CVE program does to monitor the ranks of these hate-crime gangs and criminal enterprises.
SUMMARY: Berlin's normally bustling Christmas market was quiet Tuesday, as investigators searched for clues into a truck attack that killed a dozen people and injured 50. A suspect who was detained after the attack was released due to insufficient evidence, and the Islamic State later claimed responsibility. From Berlin, special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility tonight for the Berlin truck attack that killed a dozen people and injured 50.
That word came hours after German police let their main suspect go.
Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports from Berlin.
MALCOLM BRABANT, Special correspondent: This normally bustling Christmas market was eerily quiet today, as investigators searched for clues.
Swathed in fog, and with armed guards sealing off the area, Berlin was coming to terms with its new status as a victim of terrorism, after Paris, Brussels, and Nice.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke at a morning news conference.
ANGELA MERKEL, Chancellor, Germany (through translator): There is still a lot that we don't know about this act with sufficient certainty, but we must, as things stand, assume it was a terrorist attack.
MALCOLM BRABANT: Police detained a Pakistani asylum-seeker shortly after the truck rammed into a crowd of people on Monday. But, today, he was released, due to insufficient evidence. Prosecutors said he matched a description of the suspected attacker, but he denied any involvement.
The truck, which had been carrying steel beams, was towed away earlier this morning. The body of a Polish truck driver was found inside the cabin. He had been stabbed and shot after being hijacked. The gun used to kill him has yet to be found.
PROF. PETER NEUMANN, King's College, London: It was waiting to happen, no? I'm not, like, totally surprised.
MALCOLM BRABANT: Berlin is the hometown of terrorism expert Peter Neumann. He believes German authorities were too complacent about the possibility of an attack and didn't offer sufficient protection to the Christmas markets.
PROF. PETER NEUMANN: I think, in Germany, people have been very blessed with the idea that they would be spared this kind of attack. And so I don't think that German authorities were thinking as systematically about the threat from terrorism as authorities in Britain have or authorities in other countries.
This will have to change. And there will be a very uncomfortable discussion in Germany about anti-terrorism measures, but also, of course, about the relationship with Muslim communities and with refugees.
SUMMARY: The manhunt stemming from Monday's Christmas market massacre in Berlin has spread across Europe, and there's a new suspect. His name is Anis Amri, and he is a 24-year-old asylum seeker from Tunisia. Judy Woodruff speaks with special correspondent Malcolm Brabant, who is in Berlin, about the suspect's criminal history, the reward for information about him and increased surveillance in Germany.
SUMMARY: The man suspected of carrying out an attack on a Christmas market was well known to German authorities. Anis Amri was under surveillance for six months and slated for deportation, but his home country refused to accept him. Hari Sreenivasan speaks with Peter Neumann of King's College about how German authorities could have missed the signals.
Islamic State militants are planning to insert operatives into Western Europe disguised as refugees, claim US intelligence sources, who unencrypted locked communications of the caliphate’s leadership.
The militant organization is afraid of using aircraft due to strict security rules, so they use land as an alternative, the US sources told Bild Am Sonntag, a German national Sunday newspaper.
Disguised as refugees from Syria, Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) operatives will cross the border to Turkey. Then, using fake passports, they will travel further to European countries to conduct attacks.
“In view of the chaotic conditions on the Syria-Turkey border, it is nearly impossible to catch ISIS-terrorists in the wave of refugees,” wrote Bild Am Sonntag.
Because hundreds of refugees cross the Syrian-Turkish border every day, the jihadists have a good chance of remaining unnoticed in the crowds.
Turkey is also used by jihadists who want to join the IS in Syria, as they don’t need a visa to get there. They go on ‘vacations’ as tourists and upon arrival have almost no trouble finding a way to cross the border.
According to one of Iraq’s foremost security experts with unique access to intelligence, at least 100,000 jihadists were fighting in the ranks of the IS in August.
There are some 15,000 foreign fighters from the IS in Syria alone, including 2,000 Westerners, a US intelligence official told AFP in September.
Germany continues to be one of the main goals of IS
An official from the German Interior Ministry told the paper that the country is in the “focus of jihadist terrorism,” but there is no indication at this time of any concrete attacks.
German security says that about 450 extremist German Muslims traveled in the direction of Syria.
But it is still nearly impossible to track their country’s radicals when they are heading from Germany to Syria, as they don’t need a visa to travel to Turkey, a German official told the Jerusalem Post.
About 150 Islamic fighters have returned from Syria to Germany.
Last week it was revealed that German authorities encouraged some jihadists to leave the country. Ludwig Schierghofer, the chief officer in charge of counterterrorism at Bavaria's LKA investigative police department, told public broadcaster Westdeutscher Rundfunk that such measure is aimed at "protecting our [German] population."
The issue was "to get people out of the country" if there was evidence that "the danger existed that they might commit attacks."
"If somebody had become radicalized and wanted to leave the country, then we tried to either let him depart, or even sought to accelerate their departure using legal means," Schierghofer said.
The measure was introduced in Bavaria, southeastern Germany, in 2009, but then abandoned in 2014 after the authorities understood that they were actually helping IS militants.
IS continues Middle East advance despite US strikes
US-led airstrikes on the Islamic State are failing to stop the advance of the jihadists.
The militants are reportedly approaching the outskirts of the city of Kobani, a town in the Aleppo Governorate in northern Syria near the Turkish border.
The situation in the town prompted some 186,000 Kurds to flee the area across the border into Turkey, and groups of Kurdish volunteers wishing to cross into Syria to defend the town against the IS on Saturday clashed with tear gas-firing Turkish security forces refusing to let them pass.
Around 100,000 people remain in Kobani amid the violence.
“Those who stay in the area are living in very poor conditions, there is drastic shortage of food,” Muhammad, a Kobani resident, told RT.
According to Osman, a Turkey-Syria border resident, Turkish security forces prevent them from helping the Kurds, but the residents of Kobani will continue to assist them where they can.
“We are eyewitnesses of the event. It seems that the whole world has abandoned Kobani,” he told RT. “If the Kurdish forces don’t get the supplies they need there will be a mass slaughter among the Kurdish population.”
He added that so far the local residents “haven’t seen any results of US strikes against the Islamic State.”
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): Germany announced today that it is kicking America’s top spy out of the country after new allegations of U.S. espionage. Local media there have reported that a German Defense Ministry worker who dealt with international security issues was also being investigated because of his close contacts to U.S. spies.
And last week, a 31-year-old intelligence employee was arrested on suspicion of spying for foreign powers, reportedly the CIA, since 2012. The allegations come on the heels of last fall’s revelation that the U.S. was intercepting the Internet traffic of millions of German citizens, and tapping German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone.
Before the expulsion request was made public today, the chancellor told reporters that Germany and the U.S. have — quote — “very different approaches to intelligence.”
CHANCELLOR ANGELA MERKEL, Germany (through interpreter): Spying on allies is a waste of energy in the end. We have so many problems, and I think we should focus on the important things. Just look at the challenges posed in Syria regarding ISIS. If you look at the fight against terrorism, there are huge problems. That is of the highest priority, from my point of view, and not spying among allies.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): It’s been a week now since Russian forces occupied Crimea, an area that’s been part of Ukraine for the last 60 years. Publicly, at least, neither side seems to be giving ground. Russia may be on the verge of annexing the region and the West is imposing sanctions. One country might be uniquely positioned to help resolve the dispute — that country is Germany. For more about this we’re joined from Washington by Steve Szabo, he’s the Executive Director of the Transatlantic Academy and has written extensively about German foreign and security policy for many years. So Steve, why is Germany uniquely positioned here? How could they break this log jam?
STEVE SZABO, Transatlantic Academy: Well, they are by far the most important player in Europe on Russia and Russia policy. You really can’t have a European position without Germany on Russia and of course the European position is central to the American strategy because we can’t have a really effective strategy if the Europeans are not on board. Secondly, the Germans are a huge economic player in Russia, by far the largest foreign player. So they have a lot of impact on Russia, the Russians listen to them because of this close economic relationship and so the Germans can, I think, speak to Putin with a little bit more confidence, let’s say. He would have more confidence in them then talking to, let’s say, to Obama or to somebody from other countries. So they’re increasingly important interlocutor between the West and Russia.
SUMMARY: Nearly seventy years after the end of World War II, the German government is intensifying its efforts to educate young Germans about Nazi war crimes and continues to pursue prosecution for those who committed them. William Brangham reports from Ludwigsburg, Germany.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: From the outside, it looks like a beautiful old estate, but this is no private residence. Inside, investigators for the German Federal Government are poring through decades old records, searching for the last remaining Nazi war criminals who might have escaped justice.
This is part of a much broader national effort underway in Germany to wrestle with the legacy of the holocaust… it includes the construction of memorials and museums at a record pace --- the revamping of the nation’s curriculum so that all German school kids get a fuller understanding of the Nazi era.
But perhaps few are as crucial to this effort as this man. His name is Kurt Schrimm, and he runs the central office in Germany that’s still trying to bring former Nazis to justice.
CORDELIA LYNCH, Independent Television News: Picasso, Matisse, Chagall, the roll call of grand masters behind artwork allegedly looted by the Nazis. They were found more than two years ago, but were kept secret, and we still can't see them. Some experts say it's only the tip of the iceberg.
ANNE WEBBER, Commission for Looted Art in Europe: We're talking about artworks that you can buy without any history of ownership. You can sell them without any history of ownership. People are prepared to buy. People think -- and if they are problematic, they can get sold privately.
CORDELIA LYNCH: The grand trove was found in this flat in Munich, surrounded by clutter. And it was all by chance.
Tax officials came here to speak to Cornelius Gurlitt, the reclusive son of art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt. He's been in charge of collecting so-called degenerate modern art in the run-up to the Second World War, seized from Jews or removed from galleries, but it appears he left some of them to his son.
SUMMARY: The controversy unleashed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden began in June when The Guardian newspaper first reported on leaks about U.S. monitoring of phone calls. Since then, information about the NSA's surveillance have threatened trust at home and relationships with U.S. allies abroad. Ray Suarez recaps the revelations.
SUMMARY: German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande called for a "no spying" agreement with the U.S. after reports that the NSA monitored and collected phone data from their countries. A State Department spokeswoman said the Obama administration is ready to discuss the issue. Kwame Holman reports.
SUMMARY: Revelations that the NSA has collected phone and email data from our European allies has created a "serious and awkward diplomatic problem" for the U.S. Former CIA official Philip Mudd and P.J. Crowley, former assistant secretary of state, join Ray Suarez to discuss the diplomatic ramifications.
SUMMARY: At a European Union summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel characterized the reported American monitoring of her cellphone as a "severe breach of trust." Jeffrey Brown gets background from Margaret Warner and Luke Baker of Reuters about how European leaders are responding to U.S. spying allegations.
MARGARET WARNER (Newshour): And they believe it's explained by the fact that every country knows that even friendly countries spy on one another's leaders, but the fact that it is so very public. That said, it has been embarrassing to the White House. The President has had to spend this time making phone calls to Hollande, President Hollande, to President Merkel, promising this review of the way intelligence is collected.
SUMMARY: Never before has the story been told of a group of Americans who lived in Berlin as Hitler and his Nazi party clawed their way to ultimate power. Margaret Warner speaks with former Newsweek journalist and author Andrew Nagorski about his new book, "Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power."
JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): Now, a political deal in Greece that may pull Europe back from the abyss of its two-year debt crisis.
After weeks of negotiations, the coalition government of Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos reported agreement on yet another round of austerity measures. Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos, speaking in Brussels, said it would satisfy the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
EVANGELOS VENIZELOS, Greek finance minister: After a long, tough period of negotiations, we have finally a staff-level agreement with the troika for a new, strong and credible program.
JEFFREY BROWN: The Greek goal was to win a new bailout of $170 billion and to prevent national default. Under the plan, Greece agreed to cut its minimum wage by more than 20 percent, fire 15,000 public sector employees and end dozens of job guarantee provisions.
Greek leaders also said that, instead of cutting pensions by as much as $400 million, they had found unspecified alternative cuts. The agreement won praise from some, including Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, at a late-day meeting in Brussels.
CHRISTINE LAGARDE, managing director, International Monetary Fund: There's clearly some very encouraging news coming out of Athens, and after the very heavy-duty work that has been done lately, I think it's positive.
JEFFREY BROWN: And European markets reacted favorably. Stocks moved upward. The euro traded near two-month highs.
But Germany warned, the deal fell short. The German finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, said the Greeks had not met a requirement to bring national debt down to 120 percent of economic output.
And on the streets in Greece, there was outrage.
MAN (through translator): We took to the streets to fight for our rights and for the future of our children.
JEFFREY BROWN: Electrical workers protested the austerity cuts, and Greek labor unions planned a 48-hour strike beginning tomorrow.
In the meantime, the Greek finance minister said the government also had the outlines of a separate agreement with private creditors. It could cut the country's private debt in half, with creditors accepting a 70 percent reduction in the value of their holdings.
