Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 09.05.2006

In a special section devoted to Europe Day (today), the French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut speaks of Europe's identity, its borders and why the EU is opposed to Turkey's entry. "Those who are against it for reasons of history and geographic affiliation are called racist: critics of Turkish entry are accused of blaspheming against the religion of human rights. I think that's dangerous. I see things differently. (...) The price of the calamity that Europe has caused in the course of the 20th century must not be a lack of definition, a willingness to do without borders. The past is not just a horrifying example. Those who feel committed to their own traditions, and act with them in mind, are not bad people. The supposedly generous religion of human rights forgets that the crime of Auschwitz does not effect the entire world. The film 'In the Valley of the Wolves' proves it. (read more) I saw it. It's incredibly stupid propaganda, Goebbels-style. The doctor in the American torture prison is portrayed as a Jewish Mengele. Those who present this sort of thing want to say to us: Auschwitz is your, European history."


Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 09.05.2006

Klaus Englert reports that at the end of the "Heritage at Risk" conference in Moscow, the participants adopted a "Moscow Manifesto" denouncing the destruction of precious architectural monuments. "All of the buildings by Konstantin Melnikov, for example the legendary Melinkov House and the famous Rusakov Workers' Club have been either left to decay or badly renovated. And outstanding constructions like Le Corbusier's Centrosoyus, Moisei Ginzburg's Commune House and the Vesnin brothers' film theatre are also badly damaged." Surprisingly, even Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who was responsible for numerous buildings being torn down or left to decay, also signed the manifesto, to push through his own "fake architecture, which emulates the Belle Epoque."


Die Welt, 09.05.2006

Historian Noman Stone who teaches in Ankara explains what he sees as being the main obstacles to a Turkish entry to the EU. "There are enough people who recognise that Turkey has made enormous progress. So it surprises me a bit then a parade of Europeans appears that's critical of everything. The Scandinavians annoy me the most. Sweden for example - a country where nothing has happened since the Congress of Vienna. Then they come here and start preaching human rights. Please! The Swedes were castrating the Lapps well into the 1970s. They castrated 80 000 Lapps on the basis that they were short and drank too much."

Sven F. Kellerhoff presents the new edition of the memorial book listing the German victims of the Holocaust. A total of 149,625 names list all of the Jewish victims who were still living within the German Reich shortly before the war. "But there are still gaps: especially in the areas of Silesia and East Prussia, as well among the Jewish emigrants deported to the extermination camps from countries they had fled to (primarily France, Belgium and the Netherlands). Exactly how extensive the gaps are can no longer be determined with the sources we have at our disposal."


Der Tagesspiegel, 09.05.2006

Klaus Hartung considers how the WM is changing Berlin's look – with all the huge screens, advertising wrapping and the Adidas arena: "It's well known that reputation is important to those who don't have it. That's how we, together with Thomas Flierl (Berlin's Senator for Culture - ed), defend Berlin's wonderful image whose deficiencies otherwise don't bother us. The disappointing thing about these major new developments is that they end up being accusations against us, against our broken relationship to the city, the fragile image we have of our city, our diffuse centre with its polluted empty spaces. The places that have aesthetic rank and status, where we feel obliged to make a bella figura are rare and disparate: Gendarmenmarkt, parts of Unter den Linden, Brandenburger Tor, the Reichstag... What else? Every world capital would make a scene out of such a huge event, would pretty itself up. We (not to mention the senate) have no idea what that means. The German capital with its exciting history, Berlin the metropolis, where everything is still beginning – the city could have shown that. But the city is only taking a minimal initiative: a multi-layered anti-Hooligan defense squad and an 'anti-dirt campaign'. Dirt telephone: 75 92 27 80."


Süddeutsche Zeitung, 09.05.2006

Bernd Graff reports from a conference in Stuttgart on the state of digital animation technology. Nowadays everything is possible, just one hitch remains, the "dead eye problem". "The talk given by Mark Sagar shows what an immense amount of time and energy it takes to give animated faces a life-like appearance. Sagar works for the New Zealand firm Weta Digital Ltd., and he was the one who breathed life into the face of King Kong. This was ultimately a painstaking translation job because the big ape's grimaces were played by a human. The actor Andy Serkis was shown scenes with Naomi Watts and told to react. The programmers then transferred Serki's responses to the ape's physiognomy. They left out his nose, accentuated the mouth and eyes, and above all gave King Kong's blinking gaze the sympathetic human touch."