Twenty-five years after his cult TV series, Kir Royal, director Helmut Dietl has now come released a sort of ?sequel? for the big screen. Zettl focuses on the high-flying career of a ruthless media man in Berlin. As satire, however, the frigid figures in Zettl fail to warm up to viewers. ...
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Berlin rappers Bushido, Sido, Fler and others shock with obscene and gruesome lyrics. How dangerous is Hauptstadt Rap? By Thomas Groß
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Should Islamic schoolgirls be excused from gym class in German schools? Should the Muezzin's call to prayer ring as loudly as the church bells in German towns? Jutta Limbach, former President of Germany's Federal Constitutional Court, sees multiculturalism on the wane in Germany. In view of the growing terrorist threat, she makes a plea for the protection of the rights of the minority, not the majority.
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Christoph Schlingensief's controversial "Parsifal" is showing at the Wagner Festival for the second year running. He talks to Tina Hildebrandt and Stephan Lebert about hero
impersonators in politics, zombies in Bayreuth and pre-election Germany.
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Burned down and raised from the ashes three times: the fabrik Potsdam produces Gemany's most courageous dance theatre. By Evelyn Finger
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The future of cinema is threatened by the rise of the DVD. But cinema is also working hard at its own downfall. By Georg Seeßlen
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The New Leipzig School is the new black. It paints the dark side of the fun society and sells like hotcakes. Christian Schüle dissects the myth.
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This year's Bayreuth Festival opened with a new interpretation of Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde" by Swiss director Christoph Marthaler. The stakes were high; the last Tristan, by Heiner Müller, enjoyed iconographic status. And for Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich, this year's performance was an unspectacular failure, with the notable exception of Nina Stemme's brilliant Isolde.
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In the wake of terrorist attacks, people who plead for a dialogue between religions are avoiding the key question: why do Muslims become terrorists? By Zafer Senocak
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Berlin stages the most comprehensive show of the Spanish master ever seen in the German-speaking world. Stamina is needed to brave the horrors of his uncannily contemporary vision, but, pleads the curator, "Don't forget the happiness of Goya!" By Claudia Schwartz.
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Sony has already packed its bags and left Berlin but the music scene is unconcerned. Electronic music in the German capital is in the hands of a lively network of small labels, experimental, alive and kicking. By Oliver Ilan Schulz
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Sociologist Ulrich Beck explains why German politicians' idea of full employment is
an illusion and why Kafka's works belong to the classics of sociology.
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The results of the federal elections have left Germany in something of a political muddle. After both mainstream parties (SPD and CDU) declared themselves victor, the coalition negotiations began. By October 18, a new chancellor has to have been named. We've put together a dossier of relevant articles on the elections and their aftermath: Arno Widmann writes that Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has dropped his media mask, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht describes the penchant for paradox hanging over the entire election, Jörg Lau runs over the spectrum of protagonists. Eva Menasse and Tanja Dückers debate the role writers should take in the election campaign...
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A small dossier on yesterday's terrorist attacks in London from the German point of view.
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If Germany's conservatives win the coming elections in September they'll be more powerful
than ever before. But what do they actually want? By
Gustav Seibt
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Now that Gerhard Schröder has admitted failure to himself and the rest of the world, German conservatives are being summoned back from political Siberia and pushed into the spotlight. But are they even still alive? By Mariam Lau
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