Monday 16 April, 2007

Süddeutsche Zeitung 16.04.2007

Peter Hoffmann, the biographer of Claus von Stauffenberg (original news coverage), discovered in Moscow the plans of Henning von Tresckow to overthrow Hitler drafted in 1943 . Hoffmann has published his findings in the current Vierteljahresheften für Zeitgeschichte (Quarterly for History). Christian Jostmann has read the article with excitement, as though the attack were planned for tomorrow. "Under the neutral title 'Calendar. Measures,' Tresckow planned the putsch in great detail. At the timepoint 'X-24', in other words 24 hours before the coup, things should start rolling. In District I (East Prussia) an exercise should be conducted to mobilise troops for the security of the 'Mauerwald' and the Nazi headquarters. The personnel for a radio broadcaster was also to be readied. The original reads something like this: 'X-9 orientation Ia for the directorial group z.b. on the situation and task (Gen. Staff. Off.)"


Die Tageszeitung 16.04.2007

Johannes Novy is concerned about the charm of booming New York, where investors together with architects are gnawing away at the last islands of urban life. "In the centre of Brooklyn, for instance, a complex of 16 apartment and office buildings, 200 metres in height, and a basketball arena are in the works. The locals aren't exactly thrilled about it. The project Atlantic Yards, designed by star architect Frank Gehry for the influential developer Bruce Ratner, ignores the qualities of the neighbourhood around it and has been implemented without consultation with residents – according to Daniel Goldstein, spokesman for the citizen's initiative 'Develop, don't destroy Brooklyn,' which is one of the the most active opponents to the largest building project in the history of New York." Novy recommends a book on the matter.


Spiegel Online 16.04.2007

The New York Times moves into its new Renzo Piano tower tomorrow. Mark Pritze reports from New York: "The leap from the ornamental stucco editorial palazzo from 1913, in whose basement the printing presses used to rumble, into Piano's glistening glass tower is more than a logistical show of strength. Only days before the Times' general meeting – in which the Sulzberger family clan, which holds a majority in the publishing house, is threatened with a shareholder-revolt – this is a symbolic step into an uncertain future. The 850 million dollar, totally networked 'Times Tower,' a pixel design made real, stands for the ambivalent start of a new era, in which the boundary between print and internet blurs and many newspapers fear for their lives."


Saturday 14 April, 2007

Berliner Zeitung 14.04.2007

Sabine Reichel tells a sad story of coming back to live in East Berlin's Friedrichsain district after several years in California. One of the things that irked her the most: the cyclists. "I think I'm talking for the majority of Friedrichshain's unsuspecting pedestrians when I say that all of us would just love to slit the tires of those wild hoodlums, who act as if they were out to kill us. At the very least we'd like to get them off our backs and guarantee a minimum of security for us lowly foot-folk when we go down to get the paper." On Saturdays the market on Boxhagener Street provides some consolation: "There are six expensive health food stands with politically-correct looking vegetables and matching ultra-alternative, very pale young people with huge Jamaican rastafari hats, under which they've probably stashed their most recent harvest. But otherwise there's just produce from Werder."


Die Welt 14.04.2007

"The discrepancy between doctrine and day-to-day life, between what people live privately in Tehran and what they have to comply with officially couldn't be greater," reports writer Guy Helminger after travelling through Iran. "In Isfahan a guy around fifty grabbed my shoulder from behind and told me excitedly in broken English that I had to help his people. He didn't know if I was a journalist, he said, but I should write in the papers of my country that no one in Iran likes the mullah-regime. I had to promise him that, he said. They don't want the Americans to bombard their country, under no circumstances, they've had enough of war in recent years, but the West must help them, he pleaded."


Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 14.04.2007

German artist Antje Majewski was in Damascus to give a workshop at the Art Academy on "art and photography." Her impression was less than rosy: "A student paints himself sitting in a hole in the ground. I'd asked them to use photos from their lives, or photos that would show me something about their country. That's Syria, said the student. Sitting idly in a hole with messy hair. What else are you supposed to do? The state pressures you from one side, religion from the other. People dream about being able to express their opinions freely, but you've got to settle for insinuations and allusions. You dream of just getting up and leaving, but Syria belongs to the axis of evil, and it's almost impossible for Syrians to get a visa, he said."