Germany’s ambassador to the Netherlands is slated to attend a commemoration at a cemetery where many SS soldiers are buried, according to a report Wednesday by the Dutch De Telegraaf daily that the envoy is aware that it contains the remains of SS soldiers.

Amb. Franz Josef Kremp is supposed to attend the commemoration on Nov. 16 at the Ysselsteyn cemetery near Eindhoven in the eastern Netherlands, a cemetery for victims of World War II. He is,

Herman Loonstein, founder of the Federative Jewish Netherlands group and a Jewish activist against commemoration in the Netherlands of Nazis and soldiers who fought for Germany, told the daily: “I think this is an affront. Mr. Kremp should not be presenting SS soldiers as victims. Jews were the victims.”

De Telegraaf reported that it had obtained a letter written by Kremp about the Ysselsteyn cemetery — where neo-Nazis have gathered in the past to honor Nazi soldiers buried there — in which he stated: “Among the dead resting here are German and Dutch war casualties, including Waffen SS.” The report did not say to whom the letter was addressed and in what context.

The Waffen SS was an elite Nazi unit whose men are responsible for the murder of countless Jews during the Holocaust.

Holland, which saw heavy battles between soldiers fighting for Nazi Germany and Allied forces, has many cemeteries where combatants from both camps are buried.

In recent years, Jewish groups like Loonstein’s have protested an emerging trend, in which commemorations are extended not only to the Allied forces’ casualties and Holocaust victims, but also to the German soldiers. Organizers of such events have justified them as promoting reconciliation.

The Center for Information and Documentation on Israel, the Jewish community’s watchdog on anti-Semitism, has criticized this practice, warning it blurs the line between victim and perpetrator.

The lethal Ebola virus is making its way across the European continent and has apparently reached Germany.

A medical center in Leipzig reported Tuesday that a 56-year-old member of a United Nations team admitted to the facility has died.

St. Georg Hospital said the patient, whose name was not released, became infected with Ebola in Liberia.

The victim died overnight despite “intensive medical procedures” according to the hospital spokesperson.

No further details were released.

Last week German Chancellor Angela Merkel took a strong stand against the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe when she appeared at a Berlin rally against Jew hatred. Lamenting the attacks on Jews throughout Europe but especially in the country that had supposedly done the most to learn the lessons of the Holocaust, she vowed that her government would do everything in its power to fight against the revival of Jew hatred.

The question is not so much her undoubted commitment to this task but whether other European leaders and opinion leaders will draw the proper conclusions from the connection between the anti-Israel invective they have encouraged and the rising tide of anti-Semitism.

Speaking at the rally Merkel said the following:

It is a monstrous scandal that people in Germany today are being abused if they are somehow recognizable as Jews or if they stand up for the state of Israel. I will not accept that and we will not accept that.… It’s our national and civic duty to fight anti-Semitism…. Anyone who hits someone wearing a skullcap is hitting us all. Anyone who damages a Jewish gravestone is disgracing our culture. Anyone who attacks a synagogue is attacking the foundations of our free society.

Merkel deserves credit for putting herself and her government on the line on this issue at a time when this issue is becoming more of a concern. The atmosphere of hate she references is the result of a combination of factors in which the influence of immigrants from the Arab and Islamic worlds has combined with traditional Jew hatred as well as the willingness of many European academic and political elites to countenance verbal assaults on Jews and Israel in a way that would have been inconceivable in the first decades after the Holocaust.

Over the course of the past several years as anti-Semitism has moved from the margins of European society back to its mainstream, Israel has become the focus of anti-Semites. Seeking to veil their hate with the guise of legitimate political commentary, they have sought to draw a distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, a difference that even many Jews continue to accept.

But Merkel’s pointed remark including supporters for Israel in her recitation of those under threat should alert her listeners to the fact that the line between hatred of Israel and that for Jews in general has long since been erased.

The idea that anti-Zionism is legitimate in a way that anti-Semitism is not has long been more a matter of nuance and semantics than reality. Those who would deny to Jews the same rights – the right to a state in their ancient homeland and the right of self-defense – they deny to virtually no other people on the planet is, by definition, an act of bias, and acts of bias against Jews are anti-Semitism, pure and simple.

While it is perfectly acceptable to criticize the policies of any government of Israel – Israelis do it every day – those who are dedicated to the destruction of Israel and opposed to any means of self-defense on its part, as opposed to just wishing to change its borders or government, are not engaging in legitimate political argument. They are, whether they initially intend it or not, actively supporting those who wish to commit ethnic cleansing and/or genocide against the six million Jews of Israel.

What we have witnessed this year is that anger over Israel’s refusal to allow itself to be attacked with impunity by Islamist terrorists is blurring any distinctions between socially unacceptable anti-Semitism and anger at Israel that has been deemed mere politics rather than hate speech.

A German man who went on trial in Frankfurt, Germany Monday for being a member of the extremist ISIS group once played for a Jewish soccer club.

Kreshnik Berisha, 20, is alleged to have traveled to Syria where he fought with the group for five months before he returned to Germany, according to the Associated Press.

Berisha, 20, reportedly comes from a Muslim family from Kosovo. He was arrested in Germany in December on charges of membership in a foreign terrorist organization and is believed to be one of about 400 German citizens who have joined jihadist groups fighting in Syria since the beginning of the more than three-year-long civil war.

State prosecutors said he underwent firearms training in Syria and reportedly worked as a medic for ISIS.

“On top of this, he took part in combat missions that occasionally lasted several days,” the charge sheet read.

He has since “turned his back” on ISIS, defense lawyer Mutlu Günal told the British newspaper The Guardian. The judge reportedly is working with prosecutors on a plea deal in exchange for information about the extremist group.

Berisha played on the under-17 youth team of Makkabi Frankfurt, a prominent Jewish soccer club, as recently as 2011.

Membership in the team is not restricted to Jews and is described as diverse. Israeli teams also are also careful not to discriminate with regard to race, religion or color.

All that matters is to win and be proud to say that the team is from Israel, even if not one player is Israeli and not one is even Jewish.

When you hear the lefties talks about a “Jewish democratic state of Israel,” the “Jewish” is in name only.

JTA contributed to this report.

Germany has charged a 93-year-old former guard at the Auschwitz death camp with 300,000 counts of accessory to murder.

The former guard and his lawyer said he “only” witnessed murders and in any case was only a “cog” in the Nazi death machine.

Groening, in good health, is one of approximately 30 former Auschwitz guards who face possible charges.

He previously has talked freely about the Nazi slaughter of Jews and told Der Spiegel in 2005 that once he heard a baby crying and “I saw another SS soldier grab the baby by the legs… He smashed the baby’s head against the iron side of a truck until it was silent.”

But he was only a cog, right? Just following orders.

Twenty Auschwitz survivors and relatives of victims are co-plaintiffs against Groening, and one of them, Thomas Walther, told the Associated Press, time is running out “to participate in bringing justice to one of the SS men who had a part in the murder of their closest relatives.”

Groening was a guard at Auschwitz in 1944, and his job was to take and count money from hundreds of thousands of Jews who Nazis crammed into cattle cars and transported from Poland to Auschwitz. Most of them were butchered or gassed to death, but only after Groening made sure their money was counted and in the hands of his superiors.

Radical Muslim Salafists have formed a “Sharia police force” and are patrolling the city of Wuppertal, targeting the nightlife area of the western German city.

Germany has outlawed extreme Salafist groups, but that has had little effect on fundamentalists bent on enforcing Islamic law on “infidels.”

The self-style police are so brazen that they wear easily-seen orange vests with the words “Sharia police” emblazoned on the back. They distribute leaflets that urge people to refrain from alcohol, drugs, gambling, and even attending concerts.

Police last week arrested nearly a dozen men, but the only charges that they might be able to file are illegal assembly.

“Intimidation or provocation won’t be tolerated,” Wuppertal Police Chief Birgitta Rademacher said on Friday.

That sounds a bit familiar.

As seen in the news report below, a political leader who is a critic of radical Islam said, “I underestimated the danger the Salafists pose…. Now I cannot walk without police protection, not even shopping.”

The Sharia police is a new challenge for German.

“An appearance that intimidates, unsettles and provokes will not be tolerated. There is no legitimation for this “Sharia Police,” Birgitta Radermacher, police chief of Wuppertal was quoted as saying in a statement.

Time will tell.

German Salafists this weekend posted a YouTube video showing a poster with the English headline “Sharia Controlled Zone” and footage of Salafists recruiting young people and visiting gambling halls.

Der Spiegel’s website reported that police in Bonn are investigating reports that Salafists are harassing people, assaulted a youth for drinking alcohol and tried to force a Muslim girl to wear a veil.

Israel’s first German-made Dolphin II nuclear-capable submarine is on its way to Israel, Israeli Navy Commander Vice Admiral Ram Rothberg said at a naval ceremony in Haifa Tuesday night.

The German weekly “Der Spiegel” reported that the submarines have a nuclear capability and will help Israel defend against an Iranian nuclear threat.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has denied that the submarines have a nuclear capability but sources have noted that all indications from Germany’s Defense Ministry are that the submarines can carry nuclear weapons.

Dubbed INS Tanin, the Hebrew word for “crocodile,” the sub “can dive deeper and further and for longer and work more powerfully than anything we have previously known,” the naval commander said.

In five years, the scheduled arrival of two more nuclear submarines from Germany will bring to six the number of subs in the fleet.

The boat on its way to Israel can remain under water for extensive maneuvers for weeks without surfacing, far longer than the submarines now in the fleet.

The Tanin officially was launched by Israel two years ago, as seen below, but it remained there for trial runs and the finishing touches before sailing to Israel this week.