Worldcrunch
MUNICH — Dirk Rateike values ecologically friendly living and runs an organic hotel in the north of Hesse. But he’s facing anonymous threats from his own neighbors in the village of Gilserberg, between Marburg and Kassel in central Germany. The intimidation has included warnings that he shouldn’t go out at night lest he should face […]
BERLIN — Frank Underwood is a cult figure to those besotted by politics. The House of Cards protagonist is willing to walk over dead bodies to achieve absolute power. As the third season begins, we are obliged to ask ourselves why Germans have such a deep love for this American villain played by Kevin Spacey. […]
Growing old doesn’t necessarily have to mean leaving a beloved home. A growing market of technology-related services for senior citizens is helping them to keep their beloved independence.
Almost 2,000 pages, 5,000 commentaries, a huge introduction: The Institute of Contemporary History has finally released details on its new edition of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” planned for 2016.
Victor Gregg, a 95-year-old World War II veteran and the only Briton who was on Dresden soil during the Allied bombings on the German city, believes Churchill “should have been shot.”
German tabloid Bild gets straight to the point in its Thursday edition: “No! No more millions for the greedy Greeks!” it says on its front page. The daily suggests that their readers who are against another Greek bailout print the page, take a selfie with it and send it to their staff. The Bundestag, Germany’s […]
It’s not important whether Islam is “a part of Germany,” as the country is debating. Fascism once was utterly German. The real question is, will Muslim leaders accept reason and freedom as the central values of society?
Handbags made out of volleyball nets and soda cans, courtesy of one of the sisters of the Fendi family used to face assaults by animal rights activists.
Yes, an open mind in Europe is necessary, but debt reduction isn’t even in the Greeks’ own interest. It’s time to change the way Greece works.
A trial public work program for German drug addicts promised modest hourly wages and optional bottles of beer. The results have surprised social workers.
Soil-free gardens, pollution-free factories moving back to town. City dwellers will see dramatic changes to life and work. Some bumps for sure, but overall good news for urbanites.
In 1794, German immigrants brought a petition to the U.S. House asking for all legislation to be published in German and English. It narrowly failed, leading to the Muhlenberg urban legend.
After the Greek election of radical leftists and the European Central Bank’s new liquidity, Europe is still where the rest of the world looks to understand themselves. History has so much to say.
Another more environmentally friendly option for what to do with the dearly departed has been legalized in a few U.S. states, with several European countries now considering it as well.
“My Great-Grandmother’s Suitcase” — Die Welt, Jan. 27, 2015 The suitcase featured on Die Welt“s front page is kept at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and is labeled “Zdenka Fantl.” It belonged to a young woman who was taken to the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1943 — and survived it. The woman’s great-granddaughter Kim Sarah Mojecki […]
For their First Communion, these German mädchen were still dressed as little brides, before albs became more customary.
For many in these very different extremist camps, it all begins with a “lying media.”
While the United States’ political system is gridlocked by ideological poison, the German coalition government limits the benefits of bickering. A search for that perfect dose of acrimony.
Police in the eastern city of Dresden have issued a blanket ban on all demonstrations following reports of a “concrete threat” against the founding member of the anti-Islamization movement Pegida (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West), the daily Die Welt reports on its front page Monday. Pegida had been marching in growing numbers […]
Two entrepreneurs have seized on a business idea first founded in Dallas, a place where people who want to dispense with their aggression can destroy set rooms with castoff furniture. But does it work?
Where the French Revolution took place, religious terror now haunts the streets. Today’s voices of free speech must turn to state authority to feel secure. What we need to do now.
I was a young philosophy teacher in eastern France when we went to Berlin, then divided in two. My wife took this picture of me at the crossroads between Leibnizstrasse and Kantsstrasse — though Spinoza has always been my favorite.
The Pegida movement’s weekly Monday night protests against the “Islamization of Europe” were supposed to rally Germans to their cause. But it now appears to be having the opposite effect, as counter-demonstrations have sprung up around the country. “Pegida flops outside of Dresden,” Tuesday’s German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung’s declared, citing the eastern city where the […]
Modern feminism is too focused on the image of feminists themselves, rather than renewing debate of the movement’s core principles. What can be done about feminism fatigue.
Man’s best friends have long followed their owners through hard times and stormy weather — and now, even into rehab. Germany’s Schloss Tessin center is the first of its kind in the country and integrates pooches as part of the therapeutical process, Die Welt reports. The center has even been adapted to accommodate its four-legged […]
Germany is tracking the growing number of so-called “protective” marriages, arranged among friends to avoid an immigrant being sent back to poverty and peril in their home country.
Why do our hands wander toward our faces: stroking chins, scratching eyebrows, rubbing noses? German researchers have discovered the neurology and psychology at play.
KARLSRUHE — Both of Annette Röser’s parents suffered from dementia, and she remembers a precious means of connecting with their hidden world was music. Her mother’s eyes would light up when Röser played folk songs or “Memories of Heidelberg.“ Röser’s experience with her late parents led her to found SingLiesel Verlag, a German-language publisher specialized […]
Splashed ever more across popular culture, mermaids are now something very real for enchanted girls and women who can don tails and dive in. Some are better at it than others.
A recent study shows overwhelming agreement that it’s unnecessary to offer pre-school children digital training. And nearly all parents agree on strict limits to screen time as kids get older.
Aware of the profound effect Christmas has on people, researchers have studied our reactions to everything from supermarket music to gender-specific gifts and delayed gratification.
Though the country’s major scouting associations say the practice of “Pflocken,” in which children are tied down, isn’t acceptable, the timeworn practice continues.
The U.S. currency is stronger on world markets than it’s been in years, which could fundamentally undermine emerging economies that have borrowed trillions in dollars.
Gabi Orrù, a fifth-grade teacher at the Heinrich Andresen School in the northern German town of Sterup, has a staff of two, but they aren’t paid a dime and sometimes they scratch their ears during class. Her assistants, Stableford and Dimple, are Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers, who have been coming to morning classes since […]
Use of this incredibly addictive drug is growing in Germany, especially among Millennials who say it makes them feel invincible.
MUNICH — Peter Laubach used a tattoo needle for the first time when he was 11 years old. A friend asked him for a sailboat tattoo, offering him four Bavarian meat loaf sandwiches as payment. He earned his friend’s appreciation and a sharp paternal slap for his efforts. Now 60 years old, Laubach is a […]
A heated national debate in Germany over raising the retirement age is posing the wrong questions. A German writer in the U.S. sees a different solution.
The young Turkish-German woman was killed after defending others, and in death has become a symbol of how immigration is central to Germany’s modern history.
A new study from Shell shows that changing behavior among younger generations of Germans will eventually lead to fewer cars on the road – and more women behind the wheel.
MUNICH — For people driving through Germany in a normal car, things couldn’t be easier. With just a single debit card, they can refuel everywhere at anytime. That is not, unfortunately, the case for people who drive electric cars. To travel, let’s say, from Wolfsburg via Stuttgart and Munich to Berlin and back, that person […]