German Ambassador Pick Disparaged Immigrants and Refugees, Called for Martial Law at US-Mexico Border

President Donald Trump's nominee to become the US ambassador to Germany has a history of making xenophobic and racist comments about immigrants and refugees in both Germany and the US.

Retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor, a decorated combat veteran, author and frequent guest on Fox News, claimed that Muslim migrants were coming to Europe "with the goal of eventually turning Europe into an Islamic state." He criticized Germany for giving "millions of unwanted Muslim invaders" welfare benefits rather than providing more funding for its armed services.

Macgregor's newly unearthed comments come as the Trump administration announced it will withdraw nearly 12,000 troops from bases in Germany. The decision to remove troops from Germany was slammed by Republicans, Democrats and former senior military officials, who said the move would benefit Russia.

If Macgregor's nomination is confirmed by the Senate, he would oversee a new diplomatic period in US-German relations, one that has reached new lows after reports that Trump bullied and berated German Chancellor Angela Merkel on state phone calls.

....

Macgregor also described the German cultural concept of Vergangenheitsbewältigung, which seeks to "cope with the past" and confront the atrocities the country committed in World War II, as a "sick mentality" and he downplayed the country's Nazi history.

"There's sort of a sick mentality that says that generations after generations must atone sins of what happened in 13 years of German history and ignore the other 1,500 years of Germany. And Germany played a critical role in central Europe in terms of defending the serving Western civilization. So I think that's, that's the problem," Macgregor said in 2018.