Geography Archives: Germany

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 […]

It recalled ancient Greek tragedies.  The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), founded in the 19th Century, is the country’s oldest party, and now its saddest one.  On September 27th it suffered its worst election defeat since 1897, losing six million former voters and ending up with only 23 percent of the vote.  It had […]

  North versus South Cf. SOURCE: Financial Times, 18 October 2009 Laz (Humberto Lázaro Miranda Ramírez) is a Cuban cartoonist.  This cartoon was first published by Juventud Rebelde. | | Print  

Play now: “Not everybody is happy about what happened after the Wall went down.  In fact, it’s often referred to in East Germany not as German reunification but as West German annexation or even colonization, because the economy in East Germany took a nosedive after the two joined, the East and the West joined — […]

  If we examine the status of women strictly from the socioeconomic perspective, this portrayal of reunification [as the silencing in which traces of the East German social, cultural, and ideological framework were erased and replaced by the Western capitalist social, economic, and cultural framework] seems apt.  Indeed, scholars persistently describe the reunification as a […]

I hate to sound like the grouchy Grinch.  Here in Berlin radio and TV are celebrating the Fall of the Wall twenty years ago so intensively there’s hardly a moment for the weather report, which, unfortunately for all the planned events, turned out nasty and rainy.  From my window I just watched the fireworks’ brave […]

Today, close to my Berlin home, I saw a frightening march of Nazis, calling themselves the Nationale Sozialistische Partei Deutschlands — leaving out only the word Arbeiter (Worker) from the name Hitler used.  Several thousands of them, almost all in black, many skinheads but also many all too normal-looking youngsters (and a smattering of very […]

October 7th marked the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the German Democratic Republic, and the media let no one forget it!  Sarcasm prevailed, the attacks were all-embracing and almost interrupted, the only GDR relics spared in the attacks were the TV Sandman broadcasts for children, the jolly green and red figures on traffic lights […]

Much of the media complained that the German election campaign was dull; after all, the two main opponents had worked together in a coalition for four years and generally agreed or compromised on most issues.  Dull or not, however, it had three important results. Angela Merkel of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) will remain in […]

  Birgit Müller.   The Disenchantment with Market Economics: East Germans and Western Capitalism.  Translated by John Bellamy, Jennie Challender, and Kathleen Repper.  European Anthropology in Translation.  New York: Berghahn Books, 2007.  ix + 244 pp.  $80.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-84545-217-9; $27.50 (paper), ISBN 978-1-84545-506-4. “Disenchantment with market economics” is the type of phrase that comes […]

  Klaus Lederer, leader of the Left Party in Germany, at an 11 January 2009 pro-Israel demonstration titled “Solidarity with Israel — Against the Terrorism of Hamas” On this coming Thursday (16 July 2009), the leader of the left-wing party in Berlin, Klaus Lederer, will speak at the offices of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in […]

The religious struggle in Berlin which ended Sunday with joy for some and great disappointment for others was primarily a political battle, even though it dealt with schools and religious lessons.  Many Berliners never did understand the complicated issue.  For an outsider to even try, a few German peculiarities need explaining. First of all, church […]

  André Meier, dir.  Do Communists Have Better Sex? (Sex im geteilten Deutschland).  First Run/Icarus Films, 2006. 52 mins., color, subtitles in English. This film, a mixture of scholarly research and light-hearted presentations of stereotypes about the role of sex in divided Germany (from the end of the Second World War to the fall of […]

She’s called Emmely; her real name is Barbara E. — with the family name omiited in line with legal practice here.  All over Germany people are talking about her, most frequently with anger in their voices.  For Emmely, a cashier in East Berlin, was fired by her discount store employer for allegedly filching 1.30 euro […]

A large-scale anti-fascist action in Dresden last weekend ended with brutal violence.  February 13th has for years been a day of solemn ceremonies in this city on the Elbe, the capital of Saxony.  It marks the date in 1945 when British and American planes destroyed the heart of Dresden, a treasure chest of baroque architecture […]

Sunday’s special elections in the German state of Hesse were the first in a year jammed full of state and national votes.  The two main results: the right-wing incumbent Ronald Koch won again; and the young party, the Left, again overcame the 5 percent barrier to win six seats in the state legislature. In the […]

  Karin Hunn.   “Nächstes Jahr kehren wir zurück. . .”: Die Geschichte der türkischen “Gastarbeiter” in der Bundesrepublik.  Moderne Zeit: Neue Forschungen zur Gesellschafts- und Kulturgeschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts.  Göttingen: Wallstein, 2005. 598 pp. Tables, bibliography.  EUR 46.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-3-89244-945-4. Karin Hunn’s meticulously researched, highly informative, and well-structured study is a […]

Yes, the big economic crisis is hitting Germany, too.  The evidence includes the hasty meetings of top politicians and the decision by the government coalition of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats to save the suffering banks with 500 billion Euros in credit. Another piece of evidence: Karl Marx’s famous book Das Kapital is selling better […]

The rolling stock of the German railroads, due to be peddled off to the highest stock market bidders on October 27th, has been saved, at least temporarily, and is still nationally owned.  That seems to be the one possible bit of good news in the present economic crisis.  All the rest is bad. The railroad […]

Bavaria, Germany’s largest state, borders on Austria: both have countless Alpine peaks, lots of men in lederhosen, and many right-wing Roman Catholic traditions.  Both had elections on Sunday.  Before nightfall many an otherwise happy yodeler showed tightly compressed lips and a grim look. In Austria the main parties, the conservative Austrian People’s Party and the […]