Die Zeit, 08.06.2006

Author Martin Mosebach writes on the Peter Handke affair (more here, here and here): "Too bad the American ambassador who encouraged Slobodan Milosevic to wage war in Bosnia didn't come to his funeral in Belgrade. Someone like Handke who remained faithful to the dead Milosevic is much more worthy of admiration than all the Western politicians who made it possible for Milosevic to commit his crimes while he was alive."

In an exclusively online answer to writer Botho Strauß' general amnesty for geniuses in the Peter Handke affair (text in German here), Jörg Lau puts the two Peter Handkes back together: "Why do we get so upset at Handke's kitsch rendering of Serbia and things Serbian, why does his coquettishly playful relativisation of the facts annoy us so much, why do our hackles rise when he appears at the funeral of mass murderer Slobodan Milosevic? It's because he's a major poet, whose novels and diaries continually provide us with 'moments of true experience.' When we attack Peter Handke the politician, we defend Peter Handke the poet."

In a lengthy interview with Hanns Bruno Kammertöns and Stephan Lebert, playwright Franz Xaver Kroetz says his new play "Tänzerinnen & Drücker" (dancers and hawkers) will be his last. In all other respects, however, he seems as energetic as ever. "I'm not a kid any more. I've written 60 plays. There's a whole world inside me, even as I sit here in front of you. A playwright is always a monster and an angel at the same time. I need both sides; I've always needed both. One of those sides needs to love crime. I lose myself completely in my characters – without reservations; without anything. It's precisely this that can make an excessive artist's private life a living hell. I'm 60 now. That's 40 years of non-stop work."


Die Tageszeitung, 08.06.2006

In an interview with Stefan Reinecke, the theologian and former civil rights activist Richard Schröder (bio in German) defends the report of the Sabrow Commission which was set up by the former Red-Green government for the appraisal of GDR history (more here) against accusations that it seeks to play down the vicissitudes of East Germany's communist dictatorship. On the subject of a monument for victims of the SED, or communist party, Schröder is none too enthusiastic: "You know, I've got nothing against it. But I get the impression when we talk about history that we can't think of anything but commemorating victims. How about a monument for German unification? Nobody in Germany thinks of anything at all joyous, it seems we find pleasant things unpleasant. German unification simply doesn't fit in with our doom-and-gloom way of commemorating. In Germany true nobleness of spirit consists of remembering victims."


Die Welt, 08.06.2006

It's not a bad thing to include the realities of everyday life in portrayals of the GDR, writes Mariam Lau in a commentary on the Sabrow Commission's report: "Those who only show the oppression and portray the GDR as a nation entirely under the control of the Stasi are also robbing the civil rights movement of its history. The Christian who remained true to his religion, even though it cost him his career – was he also part of the resistance movement?... Many people were susceptible to the SED leaders' 'anti-fascist' rhetoric. Now we know they were mistaken, but does that mean they were all Stalinists? There's no reason not to talk about these things. The theory that this is playing right into the hands of Stasi veterans, who even now are claiming their place at memorials and mocking the victims, has a fatal resemblance with the propaganda according to which criticising the SED was playing into the hands of the class enemy."


Süddeutsche Zeitung, 08.06.2006

According to a report published by the "Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group (IWG), the CIA was aware of Adolf Eichmann's whereabouts as early as 1958. With reference to these recent revelations, Willy Winkler draws a chilling picture of a conspiracy of silence between the US, Germany and Israel, all of whom had little interest in capturing the man who engineered the Holocaust. Initially, only Simon Wiesenthal and the Hessian public prosecutor Fritz Bauer made real efforts to arrest Eichmann: "Bauer travelled to Israel several times to insist that Eichmann be arrested and brought to trial there, as this was not possible in West Germany. Finally, after two years, the Mossad made a move and kidnapped Eichmann. When Eichmann went on trial in Jerusalem, Konrad Adenauer made a TV appearance announcing to the German people: 'We want this trial to uncover the whole truth and to bring justice.' But it was precisely this truth that was to be prevented from coming to light."


Der Tagesspiegel, 08.06.2006

In the run-up to the FIFA World Cup which starts tomorrow, the paper publishes a series of short pieces by renowned authors and personalities, including Hungarian author Peter Esterhazy, Ukrainian writer Yuri Andrukhovych and Austrian Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek, who writes: "I can't really say anything about football, although I've said so much about it already. I admire the elegance and speed with which these people run around, and the malice with which they punch each other in the face and kick each other in the shins. But as I don't know the rules I unfortunately have tremendous difficulties following the game, although I am not indifferent to the drama of important matches. It just takes me forever to understand who is who and where they're running. And then after the break everything's the other way round. I'm afraid I'm not intelligent enough for this game."