Britons find nudity hilarious. Germans take it very seriously. An apostil by Roger Boyes ...
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A document recently made public testifies that the secret police of the GDR were instructed to shoot anyone attempting to escape over the border to West Germany. While the fact is already widely known, the publication has unleashed a new debate about the shootings at the wall. East German author Reinhard Jirgl explains why. (Image © Peter-Andreas Hassiepen)
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Ernst Tugendhat, philosopher and critic of German pseudo-profundity, talks to Ulrike Herrmann about the fear of death, Heidegger, anti-Semitism and unfounded speculations in brain research.
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The elites of East Germany lack orientation, as only the West has left its imprint on the power structure. Roland Mischke talks with political scientist Gunnar Hinck about imbalances and incompetences among East German leaders.
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"Keep on keeping on" is Walter Kempowski's motto and he applies this unique pertinacity to collecting German life stories. Critically ill, the great writer remains true to himself to the end. Instead of getting sentimental, he looks back matter-of-factly. By Peer Teuwsen (Editor's note: Walter Kempowski passed away on October 5th 2007 in Rostock. We put this
interview, published earlier this year, back onto our homepage in
his remembrance.) Image © Helmut Fricke
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Raul Hilberg, the father of Holocaust research, died on August 5th. The sobriety of tone and relentness precision with which he exposed the administrative machine behind what he termed "The Destruction of the European Jews" contributed to the book's failure to receive recognition for decades. His portrayal of facelessness spells out a chilling lesson for the future. By Gustav Seibt
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Berlin's famed housing settlements from the Weimar Republic are competing to join the Unesco list of world heritage sites, with the help of an exhibition in the Bauhaus Archiv. A critical look is being taken at the ideas of architects like Bruno Taut and Walter Gropius. By Dankwart Guratzsch
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A great theatre pair – director Luk Perceval and actor Thomas Thieme talk about fear, fury and self-hatred on the occasion of their five-hour Moliere marathon which just premiered at the Salzburg Festival. And about being a potato. By Peter Michalzik
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Probably never before has there been so much hype around a premiere at the Bayreuth Festival. Because the director of this "Mastersingers of Nuremberg" is Katharina Wagner, great granddaughter of Richard Wagner, who could one day take over as festival director. By Marianne Zelger-Vogt (Image: Katharina Wagner. © Enrico Nawrath, courtesy Bayreuther Festspiele)
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Fighting the system of informers in the GDR was his life's task. It made him ill - and famous. On the death of Ulrich Mühe. By Matthias Heine
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Now, as the last eye witnesses are dying out, totalitarianism is tempting a new generation to warm their hands in its fire. From Bernd Eichinger, Jonathan Meese and now Tom Cruise, is there no letting go of the Führer? By Georg Diez
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Thomas Mann was enchanted by German classical music but was also wary of its seductive powers. In his novels, he anticipates its instrumentalisation by the Nazis, who used it as the gateway to bourgeois German hearts and minds. By Wolfgang Schneider
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Is German academic language dying in the face of the dominant Anglo-Saxon? Well, revive it! Biophysicist and author Stefan Klein doesn't think German scholars should try to impress the world with mediocre English. He makes a case for the mother tongue, proposing incentives such as prizes for the best scientific texts. After all, everyone craves rewards.
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So Martin Walser, Siegfried Lenz and Dieter Hildebrandt are Nazis now. Oh please! Ever more intellectuals who have spent a lifetime fighting for left-liberal causes are being outed as party members. By Franziska Augstein
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The Mülheimer Theatertage is a festival of contemporary plays. Christopher Schmidt takes a look at current trends and discovers truth-protocols, text surfaces and the Hamburg telephone book. But is there a dramatist in the house?
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Both the Venice Biennale and the Documenta in Kassel have taken the dark side of modernity as their theme. Looking at how the two mega-exhibitons do battle, Hanno Rauterberg prefers Kassel's investigation of evil to Venice's concession to it. (Untitled, from the series Spring-Sow-Plum-Scene, 1996, mask 6, 2003. © Aoki Ryoko)
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