Germany

BONN, Germany -- The startling thing about Germany's first potential combat mission in half a century is just how little it startles. American editors, drilled in all the ''out of [NATO] area'' quarrels of the anti-missile 1980s, still ask suspiciously how much Germany resists foreign engagement, not how far it has come.Maybe, then, it's time to debunk the myth that this is a consensus society that moves only at a snail's pace. Maybe the more accurate description is that the German establishment has created such a facade of stability verging on entropy that everybody -- Germans included -- believes the rhetoric of slumber, and doesn't even notice the innovation behind the facade.

POTSDAM, Germany -- Boris Lossik shrugged his shoulders and looked into the distance."Gorbachev, Gorbachev. It doesn't matter if it's Gorbachev or [Soviet Defense Minister Dmitri] Yazov. For the little man, it's all the same," the 34-year-old sergeant said.Sergeant Lossik is one of the 270,000 Soviet troops still stationed in eastern Germany. Like the sergeant, many ordinary soldiers seemed blase about the fall of Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.But none said they knew about the coup beforehand, and they said they hadn't been put on a heightened state of alert.

Keith Jeffcoat, a sophomore at North County High School in Anne Arundel County, is just the kind of American student the folks who build Mercedes-Benz automobiles were looking for last year when they organized an essay contest.He knows very little about Germany, the country where the cars are made, but he wrote an essay contest judges liked. So he -- with 49 other contest winners from the United States and Canada -- will get a free, three-week tour of the land of Wagner, Beethoven, Goethe, and bratwurst and beer this summer.

WASHINGTON -- The Brazilian players walked out of the locker room slowly in a single line. Few of them spoke.They had gone from the best of times to the worst of times in a span of nearly two hours.Forward Jurgen Klinsmann's goal in injury time completed a three-goal second-half rally by Germany as the Germans tied Brazil, 3-3, in a U.S. Cup '93 game yesterday.Several thousand fans from the crowd of 34,737 had started to leave RFK Stadium yesterday before Klinsmann headed in the )) goal.Regulation time had expired and the game was about one minute into injury time (extra time allotted for injury timeouts at the end of each half)

BONN, Germany -- The FBI has asked the German justice ministry for assistance in investigating General Motors Corp.'s assertions that a former executive, Jose Ignacio Lopez de Arriortua, committed industrial espionage when he jumped to Volkswagen A.G. in 1993, a ministry official said yesterday.The request by the FBI is the latest twist in a bitter 14-month dispute between the automotive giants over trade secrets.Separate investigations in Germany and the United States into GM's assertions center on Mr. Lopez, Volkswagen's head of purchasing and production, who jumped to the German automaker from GM in March 1993.

UNITED NATIONS -- Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany said yesterday that his country had "reached the limit of our capacity" to help the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and he made an unusually blunt appeal to Japan to offer them more aid.Addressing members of the American Newspaper Publishers Association gathered at the United Nations, Mr. Kohl said that Germany had done as much as it could to finance economic and political change in these countries.He...

BONN, Germany -- The German Defense Ministry admitted yesterday that 24 servicemen this year had been linked with the outbreak of right-wing extremism that now grips Germany.Defense Ministry spokesman Ulrich Twrsnik was able to provide few details, other than to confirm that investigations had been launched in all cases and that most incidents involved young draftees during their off-duty time. But he noted: "We are taking every case very seriously."A written ministry statement released early yesterday stated that the majority of the cases involved soldiers spouting neo-Nazi slogans or otherwise expressing extreme right-wing sentiments.

BERLIN -- Ill, tired and hoping to give his successor the chance to grow into his big shoes, Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher caught Germany off guard yesterday by quitting after 18 years in office.The world's longest-serving foreign minister, Mr. Genscher is also Germany's most popular politician. His resignation is expected to further weaken the government's attempts to come to grips with a host of domestic and foreign challenges.Mr. Genscher, 65, said he was not stepping down because of the government's problems or because of his poor health.

BERLIN -- In a move that could bring to a head Germany's attempts to define its new post-unification military role, the government said yesterday that it will send a destroyer to join allied warships monitoring United Nations sanctions against the rump Yugoslav state.The decision involves only light forces -- the destroyer Bayern and three reconnaissance airplanes -- but it is the first German military deployment to a region occupied by Germany in World War II and could be unconstitutional.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Germany led Bulgaria in the second half of their World Cup quarterfinal last night when German midfielder Martin Wagner took an elbow to the head.Wagner retired to the Giants Stadium dressing room for treatment. Thirty minutes later he was still clearing the cobwebs when his teammates filed silently through the door, looking every bit as dazed as he was.Wagner asked what was wrong and was told Bulgaria had just upset the defending World Cup titlists 2-1 Sunday in front of 72,416.