Deutsche Welle reports that celebuloids like Penelope Cruz and Scarlett Johansson are invading Berlin this week ahead of one of the world's premier film festivals, the Berlinale, which begins February 7.

In Hessen Lesson, The Economist looks at the results of the recent state elections and the CDU party shake-up as the rise of The Left party and the SPD leads to more infighting in the "grand coaltion" and ruling party introspection. "Ms Merkel is still Germany's most popular politician, but the economy is slowing and she leads a coalition more inclined to squabble than act. Her bet is that German voters are clustered not on the left but in the middle, ground she hopes to occupy with an eclectic mix of policy ideas."

As NATO's problems mount in Afghanistan, The Guardian, quoting the Süddeutsche Zeitung, reports Friday that the U.S. has sternly requested more troops from Germany to replace American troops, some 3,200 to be stationed in the south. German defence secretary, Franz Josef Jung, reportedly refused the request outright.

Seventy-five years ago Hitler came to power "in a democracy with a highly liberal Constitution, and in part by using democratic freedoms to undermine and then destroy democracy itself", writes Sheffield University history professor Ian Kershaw in How Democracy Produced a Monster in the NYT. Kershaw, how has a book on the Final Solution coming out soon, also contributes the insightful and chilling How Hitler Won Over the German People, available on Spiegel Online.

Apparently, American hedge fund managers were feeling a bit more thrifty in January: Porsche sales dropped 12 percent. Meanwhile, reports the DPA, of the biggest German companies in the States, Siemens tops Daimler for the number one spot, followed by Volkswagen and T-Mobile, the latter of which many Americans have no idea is from Germany.