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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Swiss architect Peter Zumthor's new Kolumba art museum for the Archbishopric of Cologne is magnificently successful, in terms of both material presence and dignified handling of the past. Sitting astride a Gothic church, an archeological site and a 1950s chapel, it builds on a history stretching back thousands of years. By Jörg Biesler
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The German Book Prize 2007, an annual award for the best German language novel, has been awarded to Julia Franck. Read an English excerpt of her book, "Lady Midday", and of the other five on the shortlist.
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Cologne Cathedral looks back at a long and eventful history. The inauguration of Gerhard Richter's stained glass window for the South Transept adds a new chapter, bright with 72-colour, frame-breaking abstraction. By Petra Kipphoff
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The third anti-porn campaign of the women's feminist magazine Emma is absolutely necessary and, at the same time, hopelessly old-fashioned. You can't use the tools of the 70s to fight the pornographication of today's market - at least not if you want to win. By Iris Radisch
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"Yella", the new film by director Christian Petzold, hits the screens in Germany today. He talks to Christiane Peitz about working with actress Nina Hoss, abandoning Hitchcock, and his personal bugbear, the amphibian film.
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Thirty years ago, the kidnapping of German industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer by the Red Army Faction signalled the beginning of the Deutscher Herbst, the highpoint of German terrorism. Arno Widmann looks back on the culture of violence in the 1970s.
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Ann Cotten is the poster girl for Germany's poetry jet set. She publishes manifestos at 6 in the morning, pours through dictionaries of foreign words and takes very fruitful lunch breaks. By Ina Hartwig
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The Berlin festival Tanz im August presents human swarms, wailing feedback and the dark side of the pas de deux. This is good for dance. By Katrin Bettina Müller
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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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