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Women marchers and absentees
Berlin, alone among Germany’s 16 states, has declared International Women’s Day a paid holiday, compensating for the fact that the city-state has fewer religious holidays than all the others. A third of the city was once part of the (East) German Democratic Republic, which always marked the day; that may also have contributed to the decision. This was its first year.
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Contrary creatures
A majority of Germans want peaceful relations with Russia (and in general), despite the media, politicians and big biz groups pulling toward catastrophe.
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Karl and Rosa: 100th anniversary
The masses of red flowers for Karl Liebknecht and, even more for Rosa Luxemburg, was higher than I have ever seen them. Both were murdered one hundred years ago. Why do those two names mean so much to so many people?
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Sighs of relief
Germany’s feverish political scene cooled off just a little. Two big sighs of relief permitted some people, at least temporarily, to stop chewing their fingernails.
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A political seesaw
It would be a mistake to see Germany’s Greens as radical, well to the left. While the Greens stress environment above all, they have decided that this does not require conflict with big business, which must simply be convinced that ecology and profits can be combined.
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A big rally and a Bavarian vote
Last weekend was surely the most complex in ages! Were the results favorable for “the good side”?
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Cassandra calls
Eye-catching in Chemnitz were not just Hitler salutes under the statue of Karl Marx but the friendly cooperation between leaders of nasty PEGIDA anti-Islam movement, local pro-fascist thugs and a representative of the racist Alternative for Germany party (AfD).
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Hate and hope
The sight of thick-skulled, Nazi-tattooed thugs growling threats as they stormed through the city center, chasing and beating up presumed “foreigners,” unfriendly journalists or any other foes; invoked memories of Charlottesville a year ago—or Germany in the 1930’s.
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Nazis on the march
Ten eventful days in Germany set alarm signals clanging louder and louder—worst of all in the East German state of Saxony—but in Berlin as well!
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Stand up with new hope?
If you regretted (or rejoiced) that the left-wing German scene, rarely mentioned by US media, was an unimportant sideshow, be prepared for a surprising new hope, called Aufstehen: Stand Up—or for its opposite, more fear.
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A nasty witch and apes—not from Oz
Even little victories are rare in the East German industrial landscape. But it is always worthwhile to oppose evil witches and even defy autocrats wearing golden caps full of diamonds and rubies.
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Fire and riddles at Hamburg
I wonder whether those so horrified today were sickened then at US attacks on others’ sovereignty. There has been lots of masquerading, I think, by disguised provocateurs or indignant sovereignty defenders. Their threats against even hesitant moves toward dialogue, disarmament, de-escalation in the world’s charged atmosphere are what truly sicken me—and frighten me!
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Big shots in Hamburg
Years ago the 35th US president made a speech in Germany, four words of which, in American-accented German, remain famous: “Ich bin ein Berliner!”—“I am a Berliner!” That was John F. Kennedy. Will the 45th president, soon to visit Germany’s second city, emulate him and tweet “I am a Hamburger! Wow!”
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Curiouser and Curiouser
A story worthy of a mystery author—or dramatist—has been hitting German headlines. It began when police at the Vienna airport in Austria arrested a first lieutenant of the German Bundeswehr army when he picked up a pistol hidden some weeks earlier in a bathroom. He denied it was his and was released. But his fingerprints somehow matched those of a refugee who had applied for German asylum two years earlier
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Miracles Can Happen
To follow German politics these days you have to like arithmetic. At first only up to six, for that many parties are now vying to get good grades, lots of votes, and more power in the September elections to the Bundestag, which will lead to a government ruling until 2021.
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Bears and Musical Chairs
Those who, like me, grew up with the writings of A. A. Milne may recall not just Winnie the Pooh but two other little bears and how “one of them was Bad and the other was Good” and kept getting better. In a way, that recalls German politics. The goodie in next September’s elections, it […]
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Spanish Recollections: the 80th Anniversary of the International Brigades
In one hurrying day, eighty years ago, in Albacete, a center of Spain’s La Mancha region, a few officers somehow created quarters for five hundred men arriving the following day, then five hundred more, and more. Soon three or four thousand, somehow organized in units despite a mad variety of languages, were issued a motley […]
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Berlin: An Omen for the 2017 German Federal Elections?
There is currently too much dramatic news abroad in the world, mostly bad. What can an election in one single city mean, far from most fronts? Yet the voting in Berlin last Sunday (September 18th) was full of drama and meaning, also outside Germany. The results caused some to grieve, some to applaud, and analysts […]
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National Anthems in Germany
The debate about the US anthem echoes a debate about the German anthem. The “Deutschland über alles” text goes back to 1841 but its meaning has been and still is easily misused. When East Germany was annexed in 1990 many suggested adopting the GDR anthem, written in 1949 by the anti-Nazi poet (and minister of […]
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Who Is to Blame?
Back in 1963 Bob Dylan (soon to be 75) wrote a bitter song; Pete Seeger also sang it often. It asks, after the death of a young boxer: “Who killed Davey Moore? How come he died, and what’s the reason for?” Then came the alibis of all those responsible, from the manager and media to […]