Tag Archives | Berlin Bulletin

The late, late snow has finally disappeared from Berlin’s streets.  Visible once again, here and there, are the “stumble stones” — Stolpersteine in German. Many Berlin tourists will enjoy the night life.  They may also look upwards — at the giant TV tower, the Brandenburg Gate, at ancient and less ancient churches.  There is a […]

Angela Merkel’s face usually displays a rather plain, friendly, almost benign expression, matching her simple, benign words.  But in rare unguarded moments, some claim, they glimpse a very hard visage, which is matched, equally rarely, by hardly benign words, like her annoyed statement that Cyprus was “exhausting the patience of its euro partners.”  Yes, Angela […]

Conversation in Germany these days, when not about soccer, dealt often with beef which was part horsemeat, high-priced organic “bio” eggs which weren’t all they claimed to be, or, in thrilling, moving detail, the last weeks, days, and hours of the one and only German Pope (since 1058 A.D.). Also under often heated debate was […]

First, a glance at long-past history — at the American hero Friedrich Wilhelm Augustin von Steuben, known as Baron Steuben.  In many ways he was really a phony.  His noble title and rank as “Prussian Lieutenant General” were inventions; he had really been dropped from Friedrich the Great’s army as a lowly captain.  That he […]

Things in Berlin are all really up in the air!  No, cancel that!  Just the opposite; they are grounded — indefinitely!  That giant new hub airport for Berlin, named after Willy Brandt, was due to be opened last June after weeks and months of ballyhoo.  But it wasn’t.  Something was not quite OK with the […]

No, it wasn’t shredded wheat.  This shredding was not of breakfast food and has been much harder to digest; it was evidence on serial murder!  The related biliousness is all the more painful due to a worrisome new survey of rightist hatred in Germany.  But first some background. For a year now the case of […]

Decent news to begin with: Near Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate a memorial was finally unveiled to mark the murder of approximately 500,000 Roma people (often called Gypsies) in Nazi death camps.  The decision to erect it was made in 1992, the year a pogrom in the East German city of Rostock was unleashed when Roma refugees […]

What has Vitamin B to do with politics?  For the answer you must learn a little German, at least one key word.  “Beziehungen” — with a capital “B” — means connections, especially good connections.  It’s smart to have lots of “Vitamin B,” and not just the pharmacy kind! Now here’s a man whose pockets seem […]

A small but moving episode marked the regular annual meeting of the German organization Fighters and Friends of the Spanish Republic 1936-1939 (Kämpfer und Freunde der Spanischen Republik 1936-1939).  It was the first such meeting without a single veteran; the last volunteer in Germany, Fritz Teppich, died last winter, and none of the tiny, decreasing […]

An extraordinary mensch, an extraordinary filmmaker who made extraordinary films and lived to the extraordinary age of 101, Kurt Maetzig, who died last week, was virtually unknown in the United States, indeed, in the western world generally.  The reason: he lived and worked in East Germany, the German Democratic Republic, whose films — many mediocre […]

Germany suffered two losses last week and underwent one very intimate decision.  Whether the latter was a win or a loss depends on your (point of) view — about male circumcision. Most important to most Germans was probably their hope to win the European soccer championship, held this year in Poland and the Ukraine.  Germany […]

The media were keen for a real wide split in the Left Party.  In truth, a lot of the members feared the same.  The long-standing quarrel between the two wings — often called the reformers versus the fundamentalists — had crippled activities in the party far too long.  It seemed very possible that all the […]

What is the matter with Germany’s Left Party?  Or, more bluntly, can it be saved?  What is the truth about the charismatic leader Oskar Lafontaine, from West German Saarland, who suddenly, surprisingly withdrew from the fight for party leadership?  Is he really out of the running?  And is that good or bad?  What are the […]

Here’s “good news” and “bad news” from Germany.  The good news: the Christian Democratic Union of Angela Merkel took a real whipping in the election in North Rhine-Westphalia (usually abbreviated to NRW), the largest German state in terms of population.  Her smiling, almost benign mien, with little bluster or braggadocio, disguises less and less her […]

Berlin and its surroundings have had plenty to keep it occupied: an airline strike, a short strike of the bus, streetcar, and subway lines, the euro crisis, and price increases.  Or, on the happier side, warmer weather and the film Berlinale, with visits by many stars and an interesting, international mix of films often by […]

Americans wonder who will be president next January; Germans are still uncertain who will live in Berlin’s presidential mansion this February.  Its current resident, Christian Wulff, has been under strong pressure to do just the same as his predecessor did — and resign! For weeks the media have attacked Wulff with angry charges of corruption […]

Hurray!  Merkel won the day!  It took a long night of backroom bargaining, but except for that Tory, David Cameron, all European Union members agreed to save the euro, save the economy, save the world!  It had been on the brink of disaster, Sarkozy warned on the eve of the meeting: unless we reach agreement […]

“Ten murders traced to neo-Nazi terrorists!”  More and more ugly facts splashed through the German media, with echoes around the world.  Politicians from the “respectable” parties expressed shock and surprise.  In 2007 a German policewoman had been shot to death and her colleague badly wounded.  The murder weapon was now found in a partly burned-out […]

Once in a while there’s good news from Europe — yes, even from here in Germany.  And because Germany is so central in Europe and so strong, even minor good news from this country can be important. But, till now, there hasn’t been much good news for quite some time! The party called Die Linke, […]

Berlin voted on Sunday.  Mayor Klaus Wowereit, a Social Democrat, retains his office but his government needs reshuffling.  The only real surprise was a hefty 9 percent vote for an unusual new party, the Pirates, whose fifteen delegates in the new city parliament will be their first anywhere in Germany. With Pirates in parliament (though […]