VEN (KABUL) — From her provisional coalition government capital in Afghanistan,  Germany’s Angela Merkel shocked reporters Monday by announcing that Ludwig van Beethoven — the sublime, brilliant, and unequaled German composer — was in fact not German at all,  but a Muslim from the Sudan who was brought to Germany  in a small wicker basket hidden among flat rye breads when he was 14 months old.

“How could it be otherwise?” Chancellor Merkel asked rhetorically.  “All one has to do is listen to the third movement of his 7th Symphony with eyes closed to realize — Mein Gott!  This man, this Islamic Moses brought to our Fatherland  by the grace of Allah, was  — like Goethe, Handel, Frederick The Great, and Meister Eckhart —  an African Moor!”

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