Geography Archives: Germany

Karl Marx (1818-83), like Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) before him, emphasized that human societies can and do undergo dramatic transformations, moving from one social order to another where each formation is governed by its own distinct laws, and a discontinuous logic separates one social order from the next.

The new formation is led by Sahra Wagenknecht (born 1969), one of the most dynamic politicians of her generation in Germany and a former star in Die Linke, and Amira Mohamed Ali. It is called the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance for Reason and Justice (Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht, BSW) and it launched in early January 2024.

On 12 January, the day commemorating the 1904 revolt of the Herero people against German colonialism, Olaf Scholz’s government announced that it would intervene in the International Court of Justice to oppose South Africa’s charge of genocide against Israel.

As part of our series commemorating 100 years since Lenin’s death, we repost Dragan Plavšić’s take on a classic text.

An epochal anniversary from the annals of modern history is coming up in another ten days that remains a living memory for the Russian people. The Siege of Leningrad, arguably the most gruesome episode of the Second World War, which lasted for 900 days, was finally broken by the Soviet Red Army on 27th January 1944, eighty years ago to be exact.

Memorial demonstration for Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. Palestine solidarity as a trigger for police attacks that left numerous people injured.

The Namibia presidency issues scathing criticism against Germany for failing to draw lessons from its genocide against the people of Namibia.

The horror of the past has returned in a new guise, and the comparison of the Jewish ghetto under Nazism with the Gaza ghetto under Israel’s current fascistic authority must cease to be sacrilegious.

Since Wolfgang Schäuble’s death on December 26, politicians and the media have been lavishing praise on the long-serving Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party chairman and Finance and Interior Minister

Open letter from students and non-tenured academics

The German chancellor has taken credit for a cunning coffee break tactic, which saw the European Union voting to advance accession talks with Ukraine.

Russia wanted to sign a peace deal with Ukraine in March 2022, but NATO countries sabotaged it, according to Germany’s former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and the parliamentary faction leader of Zelensky’s political party, Davyd Arakhamia.

Is it a tragedy or a new hope? After months, in fact years of inner-party squabbling in Germany’s LINKE party (The Left), the die has been cast, the Rubicon crossed, and Sahra Wagenknecht, with nine other Bundestag deputies, has quit the party and announced their decision to found a new party in January.

Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court’s ruling on the federal government’s Climate Change Fund is not a legal, but a political decision. It reduces the previously agreed budget by €60 billion in one fell swoop and is a signal for further social spending cuts.

Its appeal depends largely on whether voters agree that Berlin’s economic woes can be blamed on the country’s Ukraine war policy.

Why do billionaires and governments scramble to control the media? Because the power over our minds is the greatest power there is.

Again the USA marked Veterans’ Day. Now all leading German parties also want such a “Veteranentag”—to honor all those past patriots who wore uniforms, voluntarily or not, and certainly to inspire many more reluctant young men or women to put on army boots and shoulder arms.… Not so many may recall that the earlier “Armistice Day” marked the end of World War One.

Anne Frank was in hiding from fascist terror in Amsterdam from 1942 until August 4, 1944. Her diary is perhaps the most famous diary in the modern world. On the morning of August 4, 1944, Anne was arrested by the occupying power. Because they were in hiding, they were considered criminals and eventually sent to Auschwitz. Anne Frank was Jewish.

Though much marxist theory has explored the recurrent cycles and patterns of historical capitalism, not enough attention has been given to the tendency of moments of politico-economic crisis to become an ideological contestation between fascism and communism in the context of a crisis of liberalism.

If I were in Israel today I might well have fears from above, but immensely worse ones if I were in Gaza. Or the West Bank. As for Trump, I do still have fears of a come-back, despite his legal troubles. But my fears for world peace: are they unfounded, perhaps nightmare products of an upset stomach?