Geography Archives: Germany

The “mosque menace” is not confined to Lower Manhattan or the USA.  In many European countries similar alarms are sounded, usually in tones recalling Paul Revere: “The Muslims are coming!”  Although according to Sarkozy in France, Berlusconi in Italy, and the militarized neo-fascist Jobbik party in Hungary the danger is more from the Roma people […]

It all began with a jolt, and hasn’t stopped jolting yet!  Presidents in Germany are not too important; they do have a veto right, make occasional speeches,  pin on medals and take the oaths of new cabinet ministers, making them a notch or two more useful than Elizabeth II.  When President Koehler set a precedent […]

Things are really happening in Germany!  Like many others, I predicted that the federal government, an unhappy coalition of right-wing Christian Democrats led by Angela Merkel and her even more big-biz-friendly junior partners, the FDP (Free Democrats), would wait for a key election in the giant state of North-Rhine Westphalia on May 9th and then […]

Over the weekend much of Germany went temporarily berserk when one of its own, little black-haired high school senior Lena, performing in Oslo, won the Grand Prix in the huge annual Eurovision song contest.  It was Germany’s first win since 1982, when another young lady won out with her plaintive call for “A Little Peace.” […]

Second (Party List) Vote, Preliminary Results, in PercentDifference between 2010 and 2005 Second (Party List) Votes, in Percentage Points The state of North Rhine-Westphalia in the valleys of the Rhine and Ruhr is far and away the most populous German state, with 18 million people.  Once extremely prosperous, much of it is now in the […]

To believe the boulevard rags, it would be a day of revolutionary riot, bloody battles with the police, and violent standoffs between extremists of the left and right. Of course, being May Day, there were the usual union rallies in most major cities, including Berlin, where union leaders spoke rather more militantly than on the […]

Pity poor Angela!  The rock is Greece and its economic woes.  The hard place is North Rhine-Westphalia, where an extremely crucial election is due on May 9th — very soon but not soon enough!  And Chancellor Merkel is caught directly in the middle! Europe and the world have been waiting for Germany to commit itself […]

Frank Lumpkin.  Photo by People’s World. A few days ago Frank Lumpkin died, a true American hero.  I am still grateful that I was lucky enough to know not only him but his whole big fighting family! I was fresh out of Harvard, a red diaper New York radical in 1949, set on working in […]

It is sad and surprising that among the deluge of comments and letters on Greece in the European papers in the last few weeks, not one has gotten the most crucial point about the crisis.  Most commentators treat Greece’s domestic problems and those of other southern members of the European Monetary Union (EMU) as if […]

Renowned Scholar and Descendent of Holocaust Survivors Prevented by German Israel Lobby from Speaking about Gaza Norman Finkelstein, an internationally renowned scholar of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was due to talk about the state of the decades-old conflict and the situation of Gaza one year after the Israeli assault in Munich and Berlin last week.  His […]

There was unusual excitement in the otherwise so dignified Bundestag on Friday, February 25th.  Of course, everyone knew the Afghanistan extension bill would pass.  The ruling parties, Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats and their right-wing Free Democrat (FDP) partners, had a majority.  Add on the Social Democrats.  True, they were now in the opposition, but on […]

  Katherine Pratt Ewing.  Stolen Honor: Stigmatizing Muslim Men in Berlin.  Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008.  xii + 282 pp.  $60.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8047-5899-4; $21.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8047-5900-7. Katherine Pratt Ewing’s Stolen Honor provides an interesting and original approach to analyses of discourses of Islam in Europe by focusing on constructions of Muslim masculinity in […]

The Berlin anti-fascists waiting near the Spree River at 4:30 AM for the buses to Dresden were sleepy, cold, and nervous.  Not without reason.  Some had faced the Nazis a year earlier.  Every year these latter-day storm troopers try to misuse the emotions of Dresdeners mourning the loss of 25,000 to 35 000 people in […]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently claimed at a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Germany has always called for transparency and cooperation with Iran, but unfortunately Iran has not responded.  Merkel also made it clear that her government will pursue unilateral economic sanctions in case China blocks an otherwise unanimous Security […]

  Ruth Ellen Mandel.  Cosmopolitan Anxieties: Turkish Challenges to Citizenship and Belonging in Germany.  Durham: Duke University Press, 2008.  xxiv + 413 pp.  $89.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8223-4176-5; $24.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8223-4193-2. In September 1979, the first federal commissioner of foreigners’ affairs (Ausländerbeauftragte) Heinz Kühn declared Germany a country of immigration — a novel and controversial […]

While German politicians stared at the calendar, wondering nervously what the May 9th elections will bring in the biggest state, North Rhine-Westphalia, with its 18 million people, media attention suddenly switched to a personal drama within the party called Die Linke (The Left).  A few years ago this party or its predecessors were getting laughed […]

It was the Rosa Luxemburg weekend again in Berlin, like every January, this time with an unusual highlight.  Despite the transportation delays caused by big snowstorms, two conferences and the traditional memorial march kept leftists from all over Germany and guests from other countries very busy. The emotional peak occurred during the main conference on […]

It would be so simple to solve the security crisis for travelers to the USA.  Why not take a lesson from East Germany where, before the more modest West German vacationers came and objected, beaches along the Baltic and most big lakes were always crowded with nudist bathers and campers?  Everybody flying to the USA […]

Like the peaks of the Hindu Kusch dominating much of Afghanistan, the war in that unhappy country increasingly overshadows the political scenery in Germany.  Parallels with the situation in the USA are unmistakable. On December 3rd the Bundestag voted on prolonging the use of German troops in Afghanistan for another year.  But before the delegates […]

The Swiss, known for cheese, Alps, watches, chocolate, and secret bank accounts, at least two of which are full of holes, have now added a sixth important product: intolerance.  57.5 percent of its 8 million population, or of those who went to the polls, voted to forbid minarets next to Muslim mosques. As nearly everyone […]