Some pieces of hot T+A (trans+Atlantic) action you may have missed this week:

The Guardian reports that the US is pressuring all 27 EU countries to sign up for a long line of new security measures on trans-Atlantic travel, including allowing armed guards on all flights from Europe to America by US airlines.

John Rosenthal seems to be filling the vaccum left by David's Medienkritik of Americentric scrutiny of German media in his weekly Transatlantic Intelligencer at the World Politics Review. Last week he noticed the characterization of U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' letter requesting more German troops as "unusually sharp" and "shameless" by both Der Spiegel and the Sueddeutsche Zeitung. The rest of the German media followed suit with the same description, though discrepancies in their reports suggest that none of the reporters had any direct access to the letter itself, the same letter that all other countries participating in NATO's operation in Afghanistan received and one that French Minister of Defense Hervé Morin found to be "studiously polite."

Expert on trans-Atlantic relations and foreign trade policy, Stormy-Annika Mildner, at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin tells Deutsche Welle that John McCain as US President would entail certain perks for Germany over that of a Democratic alternative like Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, not the least being that a Democrat would place greater demands on Germany to take on a greater responsibility in the world.

The National Basketball Association is looking into creating a five-team European division of the NBA within the next ten years, reports AFP. Dirk Nowitzki of the Dallas Mavericks, the default ambassador of trans-Atlantic b-ball happiness, says, "The potential is definitely there. The arenas are there in the big cities. The knowledge is there. People over there love the sport. They follow the teams. There are plenty of opportunities. We just have to see how it plays out."

New York Times' Dennis Lim writes a decent overview of highlights from the Berlin International Film festival, albeit one that has been widely criticized for being short on surprises and long on publicity-baiting (see: Scorsese+Stones). One universal surprise: Madonna's movie doesn't suck!

Posted by Benjamin Perry at 9:33 PM | Permalink | Comment |

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.

Posted by Benjamin Perry at 8:41 PM | Permalink | Comment |

German telly has been thus far unfazed by the US writers strike, reports DW, thanks to a season-long backlog of German-dubbed American TV shows. "We are hoping the strike will end, and that we don't have to change our schedule," says ProSieben spokeswoman Katja Pichler, adding that ProSieben needs six months to dub an episode of an American series into German.

John and Sandra Nowlan discover for the Boston Globe that Hapag Lloyd's ship, Europa, does indeed offer the the best cruise experience in the world. "A voyage on Europa is a cross-cultural education. Germans tend to dress up in the evenings with jackets and ties favored among the men. Two very formal occasions on each cruise encourage elegant gowns and fine jewelry for the women and tuxedos for the men. There are no Las Vegas-style shows; Germans prefer classical music and poetry readings."

Reuters finds that Uwe Boll, leading contender for the title of world's worst director, following his third consecutive flop, is scaling back his multi-million dollar productions to smaller video game adaptions like "Zombie Massacre". You gotta give the man credit for perseverance if nothing else. Says Boll, who likes to arrange boxing matches against his internet critics during his spare time, "These are films that represent my true passion, and they can be done with small budgets."

David Crossland at Spiegel International sees the main float in this year's Karneval in Cologne -- a non-too-subtle jab at England's failure to qualify for the European football championship this year -- as rooted in a long-standing rivalry dating back to 1966. "England won the World Cup by beating Germany 4-2. Ask any German over five about that match and they will point out that England's third goal should not have been allowed. Ask any England fan, and they will reply: 'So what?' "

Video: Johan de Nysschen, Executive Vice President of Audi of America, explains to TIME the meticulous nature of Germans as their secret to success.

Posted by Benjamin Perry at 10:03 PM | Permalink | Comment |

TIME writes that Germans are gaga about about baby polar bears.

Paul Krugman [NYT] dubs Europe The Comeback Continent.

Liesl Schillinger reviews a pair of new German dealing-with-the-past novels recently translated into English, "Homecoming" by Bernhard Schlink ("The Reader") and "Night Train to Lisbon" by Pascal Mercier. The former is lauded as "sensitive and disturbing" while the latter is "long-winded and dull". Heller McAlpin in the LA Times also praises "Homecoming" as a "lean, meticulously structured, disquieting thought-provoker."

Newsweek gets a torrent of mail from European readers in response to its mid-November issue on the worldwide influence of the 1968 generation. One letter from Germany reads, "Sons, perhaps more than daughters, grew [after WWII] suspicious of what might lie behind their fathers' prolonged silence, taking it for complicity in the regime's innumerable crimes. In many ways, their history teachers at school weren't much help either, most of them having gone through traumatic wartime experiences but are still incapable of coming to terms with the past, let alone opening up about it. Hence the younger generation's often incredibly skewed assessment of contemporary politics and their conviction that the United States, after what had happened in Vietnam, was little better than Hitler and his barbarous henchmen."

The Economist columnist Charlemagne assesses the Germany's take on the US presidential campaigns. "It is striking that many Europeans skate over the political views of Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama and instead treat their fight as a simple Rorschach test of the health of the American dream. In fact, both Democratic frontrunners' policy platforms answer (at least superficially) some of the biggest European gripes about Mr Bush over the past eight years."

The United States and Germany officially recognize Kosovo's independence [IHT], though there is resistance from the other EU members: "The German Foreign Ministry said Thursday that no decision had been reached on when the EU would recognize Kosovo. It ruled out any suggestion that Germany and the United States alone would recognize Kosovo. Merkel has been lobbying the other 26 EU member states in order that the bloc will have a united stance over this issue."

Posted by Benjamin Perry at 10:04 PM | Permalink | Comment |

recently at the Hofbrauhaus in Munich, courtesty of Flickr user Slake B

Well, that was fun. A long two-week bridge between years known as "the holidays" -- that time of unpluggedness, family-ness and, maybe if you're German, fondue -- have come to an end with reality raging onward. Herewith some items of interest you might have missed while you/we were away.

Helen in Germany takes a look at Christmas in Germany.

John Laughland at The Brussels Journal lays out Why the “Anglosphere” Is No Alternative for the EU. "Pro-Europeans in France (the majority of the political class) argue that European integration is necessary to make Europe independent of the Americans, while anti-Europeans in Britain argue that it is precisely the danger of European integration that it will undermine the Atlantic alliance. This was one of Margaret Thatcher’s principal beefs with Europe and it remains a cornerstone of British Tory Euroscepticism to this day."

Michael Scott Moore marvels at the Kulturgut that is Dinner for One, an 18-minute black-and-white British comedy skit that rules deutsche TV on New Year's eve, as it has for the past four decades. Thing is, it's utterly unbekannt in the US and UK.

The Wall Street Journal looks back at 2007 and sees the German stock market alone in weathering the US credit crunch: the DAX gained by a solid 22% while France's CAC-40 flat-lined to 1.3% and UK's FTSE climbed an anemic 3.8%. Why? FT says Germany has undergone "a series of external and internal factors: economic growth, currency developments, corporate restructuring and takeover activity." Unemployment also reached a six-year low recently, good news for a country that's been plagued with it.

Paul Jenkins at The Huffington Post finds the prospect of a black presidential candidate (Obama) inconceivable to Europeans because "the prospect of an ethnically Arab French president or of a German foreign minister of Turkish descent would currently be laughable, in a sad kind of way. And so the fact that a man named Obama is a contender in America is still hard for many in Europe to fathom." True? Untrue? Discuss.

Hugh Kennedy at the PJA Blog wishes everyone a more German 2008 (read: efficient) with some words from a teutonic coworker, "I’m amazed at how much time Americans waste on meetings! And how much we bother each other all day long. In Germany you would never get up and lurk around people’s desks to exchange news. We go into work, we work all morning, and then we have lunch together and talk. That’s when we really exchange information, over lunch. Then in the afternoon we go back to our desks and work again, so we can leave at a reasonable hour.”

Frisco's DJ Earworm (who's name, we suspect, comes from the German Ohrwurm) has tackled the 2007 pop zeitgeist with a 4-minute mashup of top 25 pop songs of the year in United State of Pop. It's for free, here.

R.I.P. Davids Medienkritik -- Egad! Now German media will run rampant with anti-Americanism without your scornful stare. We'll miss you all the same.

Posted by Benjamin Perry at 6:50 PM | Permalink | 3 Comments |

Michael White faults Gordon Brown's "cack-handed handling" of the EU reform treaty signing for winning no points at home but concedes it might win him some with Chancellor Merkel of Germany, "who is at loggerheads with President Sarkozy of France over budget and agricultural reform (and who should be the new permanent EU president), would love to work more closely with Mr Brown, a child of the Protestant manse like her."

The highest-ranking German officer in Afghanistan, Bruno Kasdorf, told Spiegel Online in an interview, "We really do need more forces in order to secure and hold on to areas. That's just one part, though. At least as important are arms, air transport, reconnaissance and, above all, the deployment of specialists. We need a lot more development professionals, advisors and police. I am sure that Afghanistan will be a better place in 20 years. But all of us -- including the Germans -- must think about what we want in Afghanistan, what interests we have here and whether we are ready to deploy the necessary resources."

There is historical speculation that the Christmas tree was introduced to America by Queen Victoria via her German husband Albert. "In 1846, the London Times featured an illustration of Victoria, Prince Albert and their children standing around a Christmas tree. Seeing Victoria’s tree, Americans may have copied the fashion. By 1890 Christmas trees had become more popular in America. Unlike Germans, who preferred Christmas trees to stand at about 4 feet tall, Americans liked their trees to reach the ceiling."

Gridskipper has a pair Glühwein-based guides to Christmas markets in Berlin, which include a Chanukka-Markt. And The Guardian lists the Top 10 wacky things to do in Berlin, including a bar for cabaret, a bar for absinth and an unlit restaurant where the waiters are blind.

Watch out children, it's also the season for Krampus, the pagan Christmas devil.

American ambassador Paris Hilton invaded Berlin this week, partied randomly and was painted in gold.

Posted by Benjamin Perry at 10:22 PM | Permalink | 1 Comment |

Deutsche Welle reports that, thanks in part to the weak dollar, German companies are flocking to the American South. Steel giant ThyssenKrupp, for instance, just began building a plant in Alabama while Daimler celebrated the 10-year anniversary of its production facility there.

Germany is trying to outlaw scientology.

A new study on global opinions has been published by the German Marshall Fund of the United States about trade, agriculture and immigration, Perspectives on Trade and Poverty Reduction, conducted in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Among its many conclusions, it found a decline in U.S. global engagement, anxiety about globalisation but that a majority favour pro-globalisation policies, Europeans generally feel more threatened by China's rise than Americans and that most "favour deepening trans-Atlantic ties and regulatory cooperation."

Towering influential avant-garde composer, Karlheinz Stockhausen, passed away at 79. Pens the NYT obit, "Right from his early 20s he never doubted that he was a great composer, and this conviction guided all his actions. It made him authoritarian in his dealings with others, whether fellow musicians or administrators. It pulled him through the creative challenges he set for himself as a young man. But it left him an isolated figure at the end."

Stockhausen caught some heat in 2001 when he called the 9/11 attacks, "the greatest work of art that is possible in the whole cosmos" after which he apologized, saying his allegory had been misquoted.

Ivan Hewett writes, in a Stockhausen tribute for the Telegraph, "Some say he was just a high-class charlatan, his grandiose visions indulged by the generous German subsidy system and protected from the world by a bevy of ministering women and starry-eyed followers. Others say that he was the really the best of that great generation of composers who were born in the 20s and moulded by the traumatic experiences of war. The truth lies somewhere in between."

Posted by Benjamin Perry at 10:09 PM | Permalink | Comment |

Stryker McGuire at Newsweek sees a common thread in European politics in a rush to the ideological middle ground, especially with Brown and Merkel, and misses the daring days of more radical ideas: << The lack of ideological ferment in Germany has echoes in Britain. In both countries, the think tanks that in the mid-1990s were brave new worlds of ideas are today quieter, less radical. One reason: political parties, armed with focus groups and other sophisticated tools with which to read the voters, are more reactive than proactive. "It's the tyranny of the 'average voter,' and it leads to short-term policies," said Lars Nord, a Swedish political scientist. "Parties are becoming really smart about feeling out the voters, but more scared of leading." >>

Ed Ward visits an exhibition in Saxony of watercolors by Bob Dylan for the Wall Street Journal and asks, << But . . . why Chemnitz? This rather Russian-looking city, renamed Karl-Marx-Stadt by the East Germans after the war, stuck in a corner of Saxony by the Czech border, isn't a major tourist destination, nor is it as well known for culture as nearby Leipzig or somewhat more distant Dresden. "Well," explains the show's curator, Irene Mössinger, "I was the first to reach him and ask, and my request just reached him at the right point. >>

Ranking time: US Ranked Low in Humanitarian Aid. Of the 23 developed countries tallied, Sweden tops the list, natch, with Germany (13) hovering between the UK (9) and the US (16). And while England may surpass Germany in global aid, Germany's children are more literate. So, neener neener.

Tom Cruise is awarded the Bambi prize for courage in Dusseldorf. Eva Longoria got one, too. Claus von Stauffenberg rolls in grave.

Posted by Benjamin Perry at 9:38 PM | Permalink | Comment |

Nudism, according to this linkorama by metafilter, seems to have originated in Germany "around the turn of the century, and despite the efforts of the Nazis to eradicate the practice Free Body Culture (FKK), as the Germans call it, enjoyed great popularity in East Germany, the Communists thought it expressed solidarity, and everyone else thought it reflected West German freedoms they were being denied." Also uncovered is the spectrum of American laws and attitudes about going au naturel.

This is meta muesli: a round-up of German newspaper commentary on the falling dollar from Spiegel International, courtesy of Andrew Curry, the American writer interviewed by Reuters (blogged below) about the falling dollar. The word dollar, by the way, is of Germanic origin.

Remember that satirical Beautiful Losers piece from Gawker on the New Yorker in Berlin bragging about her dolce vita in the German Hauptstadt? Gridskipper shows that Berlin is indeed awash in puppeteers.

What happens when a German biotech machine company makes a commercial for the American market? The Strangest Laboratory Equipment Commercial Ever

NYT Travel looks at Helen, Georgia, a locale that has transformed itself into a bit of Bavaria, complete with German facade housing and an authentic Oktoberfest with an old-timer draw: "About two-thirds of the crowd this night in early fall were aged 60 and above, with a smattering of men in lederhosen and many more in green felt Alpine hats. A concession stand served wurst platters with sauerkraut and German potato salad, and the beer included imports — like Warsteiner and Erdinger — rarely seen in rural Georgia."

Posted by Benjamin Perry at 11:21 PM | Permalink | Comment |

The Times reports that residents of the UK, smarting from high housing prices, only now seem to be discovering Germany where the rents are cheap and the beer is well drinkable. "While prices across Europe have risen by between 100 and 120 per cent in the past seven years, in Germany they have actually fallen. According to Knight Frank’s Global House Price Index, in the last quarter of 2006 Germany was the only European country where prices fell – by 3.6 per cent." Especially popular is Berlin, and especially with the Irish, "Younger buyers, who quite like the idea of a Berlin studio for £21,000. The Irish, with no historic baggage, have already invaded. I heard of one Celtic tiger who owns 600 flats."

Thanks to the rising price of oil and European farmers opting for more lucrative biofuel crops like canola and corn, key ingredients for beer, hops and barley, are suddenly in shorter supply. This means German beer prices will be rising for the first time in five years, laments the Chicago Tribune. Don't laugh, American beer drinker. You've got the same problem -- plus the weaker dollar.

Hoopsworld names NBA star Dirk Nowitzki one of the Top Five Most Influential Internationals. "He is at once uber-NBA and uber-international. Having spent 90% of his professional basketball career in the States, he is certainly more of an NBA player than a German Bundesliga player. But he spends most of his spare time away from the States, looking this summer for life's big answers in the Australian wilderness before looking for an European basketball title a few weeks later in Spain." For you trainspotters: even earning dollars, Dirk is Germany's second-highest paid athlete after Michael Ballack.

Re: the unpopularity factor. Frank Kaplan at Slate this week asked readers for ideas on how to improve America's image in the world. He was surprised to see that almost all of the 120 responses came from foreigners or from Americans living abroad, i.e. very few Americans actually living in the U.S. Considering that the majority of Slate's readers are domestic, it does beg the question: do Americans even care about their image to the world? The results are fascinating. One problem area: treatment upon arrival. "Many readers seconded my points about the rudeness and paranoia on display at U.S. embassies and customs desks. Americans living in Europe say that some of their friends—even those who studied in American universities—refuse to come here anymore because they've been treated so horribly at the airports."

Posted by Benjamin Perry at 6:20 PM | Permalink | 2 Comments |

New York loves Berlin loves New York loves Berlin ad infinitum. The love-in might be getting out of control. This week Gawker pretty much pegs the shared annoyance of young New Yorkers who live in Berlin returning to underhandedly boast about their cheap and lovely dolce vita in the City of Fallen Angels; it's some wonderful first-person hipster satire:

I mean I am not trying to really diss New York. It's just, well, over. And I know you agree with me. The luxury condos, the lack of dance clubs, the NYU robots, the Nanny-culture. In BERLIN, it's different. It's different in BERLIN. We don't ascribe to the narrowed, uptight, fitted, fashiony ideology that seems to have taken over this city. For instance, the other day I woke up in my apartment (I live in a huge former button factory on the Fingerstrasse for which I am charged about 60 dollars) and I decided I would just walk down the street with a teacup on my head! And no one even looked! Because we are all beautiful losers and artists and creators and puppeteers in BERLIN!

The harmonic convergence of gespiegelt admiration and envy can be seen in two showcases now being held in each city, about the other. The Economist enthuses about Carnegie Hall's Berlin In Lights, now in its second of three weeks, "Berlin and New York have sizeable mutual admiration societies but, until recently, post-war Berlin could only dream of being in the same league of creative effervescence as New York" while pointing one reason why the reception has been so positive: As many [New Yorkers] have German- or Austrian-Jewish origins, they have a loving, knowledgeable relationship with German culture.

Meanwhile at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (an American gift to Berlin, mind you) highlights Gotham with the New York State of Mind exhibition. It finished last week. But, according to current Berlin resident Ed Ward who grew up in New York, you didn't miss all that much, unless you're really into theory, "It's been a long time since I've seen a show as incoherent and empty as this one.... Someone got so carried away with the theory behind this exhibition that it escaped the bounds of gravity and soared into the intellectual stratosphere, away from any bonds tying it to the subject matter at hand."

November 9th (Germany's own 9-11) rolls around and all Berliners wonder, "Hey, wasn't there a wall here just a minute ago?"

Posted by Benjamin Perry at 8:35 PM | Permalink | Comment |

Karen Hughes, the White House's undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, undiplomatically resigned on Wednesday. Heat, kitchen, etc. Tim Grieve's War Room at Salon captures a little exchange that day at the press briefing:

Reporter: Since [Hughes] assumed the position of undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, according to a Pew survey, the U.S. image remains abysmal in most Muslim countries. Favorable views of the U.S. in Turkey are at 9 percent. In Egypt, they're 21 percent. In Pakistan, they're 15 percent. In the Palestinian territories, they're 13 percent. In Morocco, they're 15 percent.

Dana Perino: I think I get your point.

Reporter: In Germany, in just the past two years, the favorable [rating] of the U.S. has dropped from 42 percent to 30 percent. Do you discount those numbers? I just want you to address what has happened since she has taken on that role. It sounds like she didn't do much.

Perino: I'm not going to comment on that. I think it's preposterous to think that you could question Karen Hughes' achievements in terms of being responsible for the numbers in a particular poll. That's ridiculous.

Apparently, results should only matter when they're most convenient.

Along similar lines, Newsweek Intl. Chief Editor, Fareed Zakaria, reads the results of this year's Pew Global Attitudes Survey and takes exception with American exceptionalism. "The United States is becoming utterly unexceptional on another issue—immigration. It's not really news that majorities everywhere want to restrict and control immigration. But it is strange that sentiment is as strong in the world's foremost nation of immigrants. More Americans are against immigration than Frenchmen or Germans."

FP discovers an new anti-terror initiative created by the government of North Rhine-Westphalia, a comic book. "Murat, a German resident of Turkish heritage, can't find an apprenticeship and blames his difficulties on xenophobia. Murat starts to become brainwashed by Harun, a Muslim youth who takes Murat to meet a radical sheikh who shows them extremist Web sites. The story has a happy ending after Murat finally comes to his senses when his sister Ayshe—a modern, head-scarf-wearing, Muslim girl who staunchly believes in liberal democracy—is threatened by Harun."

The German-American cultural centre, Dank Haus, is looking for oral histories from Chicago area residents whose families emigrated from Hamburg, Germany to America. "What kind of work did your ancestors find in the New World? What did they bring with them? How did they arrive in the Midwest?" Submit entries to the email in the above link.

The Dank Haus is running the exhibition "Germans in Mind: A Celebration of German Thought Through Art" until November 17.

Posted by Benjamin Perry at 7:58 PM | Permalink | Comment |

Former Princeton lecturer Joschka Fischer and filmmaker Robert Redford shared the title page of the FAZ, who just recently added a title picture to their print edition. Berlin digger Cruise joined Redford on the Euro tour of "Lions for Lambs." And both covered the red carpet at Kino International this past Wednesday with Katie as his wing woman.

Rummy got triple teamed and sued for torture by French, German and American human rights groups: Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib anyone? "The rights groups notably cite three memorandums signed by Rumsfeld between October 2002 and April 2003 "legitimizing the use of torture" including the "hooding" of detainees, sleep deprivation and the use of dogs."

Merkel is on the cover of the next Newsweek, entitled "Lost Leader." Coverage is accompanied by a piece from Bild columnist Hugo Müller-Vogg, who argues that Kohl's girl has reform angst. "And so the chancellor and the coalition bask in the light of a moderate economic upturn, sharply increased tax revenues and an unexpectedly broad decline in unemployment." None of those positive changes have Merkel's signature written on it, which is the key prong of his argument.

Eric D. Weitz gets traction for another book on Weimar Germany. "Weitz, a professor of history at the University of Minnesota, praises the republic’s achievements and condemns its murderers." The republic’s downfall was its failure to shut out its conservative enemies; funny how it's still relevant today.

Deutsche Bank, already praised for its engagement after 9/11 in NYC, is considering to join the fund to rescue the U.S. credit market. They're the second German finance company to join, after Dresdner Bank, the banking arm of the insurer Allianz.

Posted by Gerd Stodiek at 3:40 PM | Permalink | Comment |

German Chancellor Angela Merkel may have a reputation for foreign policy soft power savvy (inter-nation talks, climate change, etc.) but she's starting to flounder on hard issues like troops in Afghanistan and engaging the challenge of an ascendant China. Judy Dempsey writes in the IHT that Merkel is playing aloof about hot button issues, seemingly in the hope that not talking about them will make them go away. "It should be Merkel's job to explain why Germany has 3,300 troops based in Afghanistan. But she rarely does. She has not given a single speech devoted to Afghanistan to the Bundestag, or Parliament. She missed an ideal chance last Friday during a parliamentary debate over renewing the mandates for the German troops based there. But she left the explanation to her not terribly persuasive defense minister, Franz-Josef Jung."

Slate looks at the run-away German pop phenom Tokio Hotel, an emo-looking boy band that thanks to it's massive popularity with 14-year-old girls, has almost single-handedly rescued Universal Germany. French girls are learning German. Next stop: songs in English. Now all they have to do is learn the language.

Berlin is fretting about what namesake to grant its new unified airport: Einstein, Dietrich, Willy Brandt or von Stauffenberg? (Why don't they just call it Heinrich Heine and be done with it?)

EBay's top two global markets are in the United States and Germany, two countries of avid auctioners. The company, though, might have made a mistake buying Skpe for USD 2.6 billion three years ago. Then again, Skype profits are up by 96% in the quarter to USD 98 million. Time might show it as visionary move after all.

Alex Koppelman reviews the new book by Los Angeles Times reporter Bob Drogin about Curveball, the code-name of the "con man" who defected from Iraq to Germany and whose fake intelligence was used to launch the war in Iraq. "After 9/11 his story suddenly was literally plucked out of a safe at the CIA, and within weeks the official CIA analysis of Saddam's threat from biological weapons changed quite dramatically. This is in 2001. And by the time we get to the fall of 2002 and the real run-up to the war, his information is so dominant at the CIA that they virtually hang all of the biological weapons information on him, despite the fact that they had never met him and didn't even know his name. All the information was coming from the Germans."

Posted by Benjamin Perry at 5:18 PM | Permalink | Comment |

The English-speaking geopolitical press has been simultaneously applauding German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her unexpectedly high domestic approval ratings at this stage -- around 70 percent -- while chastising her for winning it by derailing the path of labour reform begun by Gerhard Schroeder with Agenda 2010, reforms that many economists credit with driving the country's current rebound. Her "grand coalition" merging the centre-right CDU and centre-left SPD parties, Bertrand Benoit writes in the Financial Times, is shifting to the left. "In recent weeks, Mr Beck has been busy unstitching Mr Schröder's handiwork. Mr Beck's latest initiative, a proposal to increase unemployment benefits for older jobseekers, is symbolic. Across Germany's political parties and deep within its government, the voices calling for a "reform of the reforms" are growing louder." Nicholas Kulish, the NYT's new Berlin bureau chief, wrote something along these lines last month in his Memo from Berlin that Merkel is "cruising" on her popularity by going green and ignoring the economy altogether, which harsher words about the German populace (although the same could be said of social systems in most any other country), "At heart, local analysts said, the German people did not really want aggressive reforms. They were more than content to let the state care for them, from kindergarten all the way to retirement".

Two German scientists were granted the Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry, the former, Peter Grünberg, for discovering a magnetic process that helps keep hard drives small like in the iPod (shared with a Frenchman who found it at the same time). The latter, Gerhard Ertl, and aided the advancement of all kinds of industrial products, from fertilisers to catalytic converters, with his work in surface reactions. Mr. Ertl was taken completely off guard by the call from Stockholm, all the more so it being his 71st birthday. Mr. Grünberg, not to be a victim of surprise, was waiting by his phone for the call at exactly 11:30. You can't really get more German than that.

The soon-to-be-published Encyclopedia of Northern Kentucky confirms there were a lot of northwestern Germans running along the Ohio River back in the day, "Census records for Northern Kentucky reveal that more than three-fourths of the German immigration derived from northern Germany, especially northwestern Germany, which provides a key to an understanding of the German heritage of the region and which mirrors the origins of the German immigration north of the Ohio River as well."

Posted by Benjamin Perry at 4:45 PM | Permalink | Comment |

IMAGE WATCH: Anne Applebaum's interpretation of the new Transatlantic Trends survey by the German Marshall Fund (GMF) of the United States (discussed in "Pro-American Competence" below) reflecting worldwide irritation at American ineptitude in the Washington Post, Why They Don't Like Us, gets a softer title on the Post-owned Slate as Why Don't They Like Us as Much as They Used To? The GMF, by the way, has been running a blog all year.

BIZ WATCH: It's official, CEO of DaimlerChrysler AG, Dieter Zetsche (known as Dr. Z to a good many Americans), is now CEO of just Daimler AG. Germans are irked that they didn't re-add Benz. Deutsche Bank has lost at least USD 3.12 billion in the ongoing subprime credit crunch. Wait. Is that a lot of money for a bank?

DOLLAR WATCH: Justin Fox at TIME says the falling dollar cannot be blamed on stronger European markets (which have been losing steam of late, anyway). "It has little to do with the economies of Europe (or of Canada, Australia or New Zealand, whose dollars have made big gains against the U.S. version). Instead, the real action involves the countries whose currencies haven't gained on the dollar despite dramatically improved economic prospects relative to those of the U.S." That would be the dollar-peg countries of China, Japan, Saudi Arabai and its gulf neighbours.

EUROJIHAD WATCH: Newsweek reports that 50 suspects in the German terror cell busted up last month -- remember? the one amassing mad quantities of hydrogen peroxide -- are still at large.

HEALTH WATCH: Old Europeans are better off (less diseased) than old Americans. "Physicians such as Rob Blackman, a Los Angeles internist, already counsel their patients to take a cue from Europeans in the way they eat -- less fast food -- and the way they pace their lives. Six-week vacations and afternoon siestas help reduce stress that makes people vulnerable to disease, he said."

MUSIC WATCH: Dominique Leone at Pitchfork reviews (9.4) the lost fourth album of German avant pioneers Faust, "IV". About the opening one-two, he enthuses, "For better than seven minutes, minute gradients of angelic, overdriven major-chord-sheets are exploited by who knows what devices before the drums come in and the track moves from milky, third-ear noise into MINDFUCKING KRAUTROCK. And before you can explode from the sonic congestion, 'The Sad Skinhead' starts, replete with ridiculous 60s go-go beat and skank guitar. They sing, 'Apart from all the bad times you gave me, I always felt good with you,' 'Going places, smashing faces-- what else could have happened to us?' I say needlessly: it's a jam. And then they keep going."

POPE WATCH: The pet cat of Benedict XVI, Chico, has written a biography for children about the pope's days in Germany. Don't worry, it's authorised.

Posted by Benjamin Perry at 5:07 PM | Permalink | Comment |

Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy, a new book by University of Minnesota professor Eric Weitz is equally admired and criticized at The Economist, "In one of his best chapters, Mr Weitz takes us on a ramble through the sleepless metropolis of 1920s Berlin: from the glittering cafés around Potsdamer Platz to Isherwood's cabarets and seedy bars, from the bracing beaches of Wannsee Lake to the dank and stifling dwellings of the workers' quarter, Wedding. The author's touch is less sure when he turns to literature and music....Fans of the peerless Berlin Philharmonic [will not] easily forgive Mr Weitz for identifying their orchestra as the (more lowly) Berlin Symphony."

Falling dollar or not, the eurozone is loosing steam, too. After a running start, German business sentiment, tracked by the highly-regarded Ifo index, fell again in September, the fifth month in a row. But of course analysts still managed to obliquely blame America, << At IXIS-CIB, Sylvain Broyer said that "many factors weigh on the sentiment of German business leaders: higher payrolls, the rise in commodities' prices, the appreciation of the euro, fears over the US economy ... and of course the current (financial) market crisis." >> In case you missed it, that last factor, the crumbling credit cookie, started on Wall Street in July.

And that's not all, reports the Dow Jones Financial News, there's a German mutiny of sorts at the New York Stock Exchange: Germans rethink transatlantic integration. "The near-collapse of two German banks from exposure to the US subprime crisis this summer calls into question how much integration Germany can afford. German industry is grappling with other bilateral issues – some companies are fleeing the US equity market. BASF, the world’s largest chemical company, is pulling its shares from the New York Stock Exchange because the costs of its US listing outweigh the benefits. Bayer, a pharmaceutical group, also plans to serve notice on the Securities and Exchange Commission. More Wall Street defections are anticipated, according to Deutsches Aktieninstitut."

Now there are Oktoberfests across America courtesy of the largest ethnic group in the United States.

The Berlin Marathon happens this weekend.

Posted by Benjamin Perry at 9:28 PM | Permalink | Comment |

There's an intriguing bit of analysis at the IHT about the EU's smack-down ruling on Microsoft earlier this week, showing not only a precedent but a philosophical divide between American and European federal intervention in corporate activities. A Washington anti-trust lawyer says the decision sets Europe as the world's regulatory standard, "In the U.S., both the courts and the current enforcement people fear that over-enforcement will chill competitive conduct and reduce incentives to innovate. In Europe, there is much more confidence in a regulator's ability to intervene without having an unduly chilling effect on innovation", i.e. there are over-riding concerns that trump innovation for its own sake.

Our contemporaries Atlantic Review wonder about the insecurities of "being liked" that are behind the US media's obsession with anti-Americanism formulated as either (a) love or (b) hate. (Recall all those "Why Does Germany Hate Scientology" or "Why Does Germany Hate Tom Cruise" articles a few months ago during the Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg dust-up? Update: Cruise is allowed to film at the Bendler Block in Berlin after all; TIME says Germany appears to like Tom Cruise after all. Oh, silly MSM, why are you so predictable?)

Notably in German, love and hate happily co-exist in Hassliebe.

Scott Horton at Harper's Magazine knows a lot about Wilhelmine Germany. That might explain why he sees the war of ideas through a Wilhelmine lens. His unpacking of the ideas of Leo Strauss and his "noble lies" -- the bedrock of today's Neocon intellectual -- as a perversion of a peace-loving Virgil into a "curiously bellicose" Virgil is nonetheless fascinating. "When Virgil writes “arms,” he means not just feats, but customs and rules; he is writing in the wake of Lucretius, who decried the violence and suffering of the Homeric world. Lucretius wanted a new world in which humans achieve a more dignified life through art and philosophy. He sees peace as essential to this vision." Check out Horton's emphasis on the US founding fathers' understanding of Virgil. That's why the "new world order" or novus ordo seclorum is on the dollar bill, y'all.

Malcolm in the Middle: Remember Malcom Perry, the former manager at London-based German bank Dresdner Kleinwort, who last week said he got side-lined for "not being German enough" in a merger restructuring with Dresdner Bank? Remember how he decided to sue for 10m pounds sterling on charges of racial discrimination? The guy replacing him is a Canadian who speaks no German. Doh. Looks like Anglos get the Arschkarte this round.

Posted by Benjamin Perry at 4:48 PM | Permalink | Comment |

Michael Kimmelman at the NYT (and the IHT) uses the occasion of the recently opened Karl May exhibition at the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin to look at the German "fetish" for Native American lore and, especially, Winnetou -- a fictional Apache chief -- who has been adopted as "the quintessential German national hero, a paragon of virtue, a nature freak, a romantic, a pacifist at heart, but in a world at war he is the best warrior, alert, strong, sure.” The Winnetou books written by May, Germany's most beloved author though almost unknown in America, were read and loved by everyone from Kaiser Wilhelm II to Albert Einstein: In Germany, Wild for Winnetou

Sanford Schwartz analyses the dreamlike paintings of Neo Rauch, fourteen of which are currently on display at the Met in New York.

Anglo versus Fritz: Australian Malcom Perry (no relation) is seeking £10m in damages from German bank Dresdner Kleinwort in London for firing him from his £2.2m job during a merger with Dresdner Bank. The bank admits it might have been unfair but not discriminatory, which is what Mr. Perry claims, that he was sacked for not being German enough. In the bank's defense, Perry did once impolitely reply to an email with the abbreviation "NFW", which apparently every German banker understands as no fucking way.

Operation Alberich: How the CIA Helped Germany Foil Terror Plot in Der Spiegel International is a must-read. In four long parts, the writers (and gifted translator, Christopher Sultan) present a blow-by-blow account of the covert operations leading up to the could-be catastrophe and explain why the US Embassy in Germany was suddenly warning Americans to lay low a few months ago: "When the Islamists wrote a message in April saying that they finally expected 'the Kurds,' the US embassy issued a warning to all Americans, saying that there was an elevated chance of an attack in Germany. But their initial suspicion that the term 'Kurds' referred to a 'hit team' -- a group of foreign commandos that would execute an attack -- was wrong. The men, who were not yet ready to launch an attack, needed until the summer to finalize their preparations."

Posted by Benjamin Perry at 5:14 PM | Permalink | Comment |

Signandsight.com has a profile (translated) of German wunderkind poetess, Iowa-born, Austria-raise, Berlin-residing Ann Cotton. She is shy about talking up her poems despite a "youthful radicalness", smokes with abandon, lives in Neukölln (instead of artiste default Prenzlauer Berg), does regular readings at Kaffee Burger and posts manifestos at 6 a.m. on her community snap poetry site Forum der 13. "Literature is not for entertainment", she writes. That sounds serious.

Stryker McGuire (what an awesome name) pens a long piece in Newsweek International calling the arrival of EU leaders Sarkozy in France and Merkel in Germany means closure to European anti-Americanism and the dawn of a (drum roll, please) New Atlanticism. "The driving forces behind the decline of anti-Americanism are not hard to discern. First among them is the departure, in 500 days or so, of Bush, the most reviled American president in European memory. Second is the fading of Iraq—not as a catastrophic problem, but as a bilateral issue that has leaders lunging at each other's throats."

In the wake: following the foiled terror attacks in Germany this week, Robin Moroney at the WSJ blog The Informed Reader points out that exactly 30 years ago the Baader-Meinhof gang, aka Red Army Faction, captured the nation's attention with kidnappings and killings (notably at Ramstein) by rounding up some English translated snippets from the German papers. And, woops, the euobserver notes that the EU's position for anti-terrorism coordinator has been vacant for the past six months. Doh!

Posted by Benjamin Perry at 9:01 PM | Permalink | Comment |

Employing the kinds of trans-lingual devices (like this entry's title) that anglofritzers thought were all but used up, Carnegie Hall in New York is presenting a 17-day Berlin culture lovefest in November called Berlin in Lights. Just check out the program -- it's all there and then some: cabaret, Fassbinder, architecture, photography, concerts, symphonies, more symphonies and, yes, panel discussions. How about Political Berlin: Germany and the United States? That's fifteen dollars well spent.

Carnegie Hall head honcho Clive Gillinson tells New York magazine, "There are times when you feel that a city is almost the center of the world. At the moment, it’s Berlin."

Europe (well, its four largest countries) favour US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton by a wide margin according to a recent poll. The Germans are especially keen to Clinton by a share of 45.5%, although with a name like Giuliani, you know Rudy got a bump in Italy. Related: Adam Gopnik in The New Yorker makes the provactive suggestion (in concluding a piece on France's new president), that Europe's new pro-American trinity of leaders in Merkel, Brown and now Sarkozy could mark the beginning of a new "post-American" era. Quote: They all want to normalize relations with a great power that is no longer the only power.

Angela Merkel spent three days in China, applying diplomatic pressure for reform in a number of areas, namely intellectual property and climate change.

Scott Horton is a New York attorney who writes a blog for Harper's Magazine called NoComment. He has the gall (and genius) to compare the political tactics in the twilight days of George W. Bush to those used by Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, i.e. the "stabbed-in-the-back" theme in The Weimar President.

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Carl Mortished @ The Times UK takes a look at what links the "honest burghers of Saxony" with the mayhem and chicanery of the American sub-prime mortgage market.

Who's the world police, now? Germans holidaying abroad this summer are being called on to “look beyond the palm trees” and pester staff in ­foreign airports and hotels about human rights concerns, the Berlin foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

Cameron Abadi @ Der Spiegel considers the New York festival exhibition at the newly renovated House of World Cultures, a gift from the US to Berlin fifty years ago, "even though trans-Atlantic relations are not what they were in 1957".

The Explainer, Christopher Beam (Slate) last week answered the question, why are European railway workers always striking? Because they're so powerful. That's why.

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An English translation of a joint effort by three journalists at Der Spiegel, Germany Left Out of Global Policy Loop, chronicles Merkel & Co.'s dissapointment at getting ignored by the likes of Middle East negotiators and the IMF as a medium-sized power, "especially after going through the first six months of the year basking in the warm glow of German-led multilateralism."

In the converse, Canada's Angus Reid Global Monitor lauds the The Stable Ms. Merkel but wonders about the durability of her coalition, one that comprises a rainbow of parties from the left and right and seems to be more about power-sharing than common goals.

Foodie blog alert! A motley crew of anglo expatriot epicurians present hungry in Berlin, offering how-tos and wry commentary on the ins and outs getting proper groceries in a land dominated by Wurst, Kraut und Brot. Among other topics, h.i.B. parses the wide spectrum of German creams (Sahne) for English readers and investigates what "Asia" really means anyway.

Pop quiz: who single-handedly personifies German-American relations and promotes the perm as a viable male hair style? Time's up: da Hoff! The Guardian's Organ Grinder compiles a top twenty greatest incarnations of David Hasselhoff as a Viral Video Chart. Believe us, there are some doozies on there. The phrase "being embarrassed for someone else" comes to mind. Ah, sweet Schadenfreude.

Posted by Benjamin Perry at 5:39 PM | Permalink | 3 Comments |

Genetically modified (GM) foods like soybeans are used all over the world, from North Asia to South America, and some of the largest biotech companies that produce them are in the United States. After years of struggle, companies like US-based Monsanto and Germany's BASF are eager to get approval in the EU, probably the most GM-resistant bloc in the world. This has the Bush administration -- weren't government and commerce once separate? -- leaning on Europe with increasing diplomatic muscle. This fall is a deadline for Europe to speed up approval of biotech crops, writes the International Business Times. Since a WTO ruling last year "found 'undue delays' in Europe's approval of biotech products, the EC has until November 21 to bring its system up to speed." But shouldn't they be speeding up the consideration process, not the approval process -- as if approval is already foregone conclusion? Just who are these WTO lawyers, anyway?

DW profiles new German books now available in English.

There's just something about Slate and Scientology: after Tom Cruise got called the Goebbels of Scientology by the German Protestant Chuch last week, Michelle Tsai explains why Germany has it in for the cult; Mark Oppenheimer explains why it's not a cult, it just seems weirder than other mainstream religions because it's newer. Xenu or not. Discuss amongst yourselves.

Signandsight does a press round-up of the German papers on the late Ingmar Bergman, who spent six years (1977-1983) exiled in Munich on charges of tax evasion, quoting the man himself, "Most of what came crashing down on me in the German theatre is not total freedom, but total neurosis. What can a poor director do to get audiences, and especially critics, just to raise an eyebrow?"

Posted by Benjamin Perry at 2:32 PM | Permalink | 2 Comments |

Gridskipper maps out German restaurants in New York, including Hallo Berlin, Zum Schneider where "beer for breakfast isn't always a good idea, but it seems to make sense here" and Plattduetsche Park Restaurant.

Last week The Economist took an in-depth look at the rebounding German economy. "By luck or by judgment, Germany is in the right businesses at the right time: China, India, Russia and other countries in central and eastern Europe are growing fast and wanting the goods in which Germany specialises. Indeed, exports to Russia and other European countries to Germany's east now exceed those to the United States", the report asserts.

Ulrich Mühe, whose unforgettable performance as a conflicted Stasi officer in the "The Lives of Others" brought the film international acclaim (and an Oscar), died on Sunday at 54. RIP. "Mühe contributed personally to the downfall of the GDR. He helped organise and spoke at the large demonstration on Berlin's Alexanderplatz on November 4, 1989, in which hope for 'another form of socialism' was articulated one last time, but which above all heightened the panic of the old regime."

Incidentally, the German word "mühe" means alternatively effort, labour, pain, toil and trouble.

Posted by Benjamin Perry at 2:40 PM | Permalink | Comment |

As the US dollar continues to soften against the euro, Mark Landler (who seems to be tackling all the New York Times' Germany stories these days) talks to American tourists experiencing sticker shock in Heidelberg and their pains at paying USD 5.50 for a glass of Coke at the hotel bar. Confusingly, the article Americans Still Flock to Europe as Dollar Drops got recycled with a new title today (but the same content) as As Dollar Crumples, Tourists Overseas Reel. The photo alone is priceless. The writing about global economics ain't bad either.

Also in the NYT, in case you missed it last week (like we did), John Irving ("The World According to Garp") does a book "review" of "Peeling The Onion" by Günter Grass, that is really just a story about how he's, like, good friends with Grass.

Gabor Steingart of Der Spiegel attends a campaign speech of US presidental hopeful and borderline superstar Barack Obama and is dissapointed, "For some, presidential candidate Barack Obama looks like the savior of American politics. But a visit to a campaign speech provides a sobering wake-up call: The senator from Illinois does not live up to the myth his campaigners are trying to create".

Posted by Benjamin Perry at 11:26 AM | Permalink | 3 Comments |

Three journalists at the Financial Times collaborate to bring together the back room "saga" of Angela Merkel, Deutsche Telekom and giant US equity group Blackstone in A private line to Berlin, detailing "the culture clash between Blackstone's sabre-toothed search for value and the consensual German post-war model of the social market economy, where the power of management and labour is finely balanced. Above all, it marks an audacious experiment in the evolution of German capitalism."

Movie critics are stumbling over themselves to review the new film by current US resident and anglofritz fave, Werner Herzog. Andrew O'Hehir at Salon calls "Rescue Dawn" a love letter to America. Anthony Lane at The New Yorker covers "Transformers" and "Rescue Dawn" in the same review and justifies it, finding a common spirit in Herzog and Hollywood explosario Michael Bay, "What links the showman behind 'Transformers' with the maker of 'Fitzcarraldo,' 'Aguirre, Wrath of God,' and other excursions into savagery and silence? The answer lies in a charge that Herzog has levelled at himself: 'I am someone who takes everything very literally. I simply do not understand irony.' Neither man is embarrassed by this lack, but, while it has helped to unbridle Bay and send him galloping into bombast, Herzog has been left to browse among the eccentrics and daydreamers who populate his films." Slate writer Jessica Winter admires Herzog for his "astonishing body of work" for having "the physical and psychological fortitude of an ironman triathlete".

The Telegraph profiles Count Gottfried von Bismarck (the great-great-grandson of Prince Otto von Bismarck), who died at 44 on Monday, a "pleasure-seeking heroin addict, hell-raising alcoholic, flamboyant waster and a reckless and extravagant host of homosexual orgies." As far as wild and crazy Germans go, von Bismarck was one of the wild and craziest. R.I.P. Tim Steil comments at metafilter, "I used to write obits for the Chicago Tribune years ago....damn would I have loved to write that one. That is just freakin gold."

Mark Mardell, who does Euroblog for the BBC, takes the side of the EU's current feisty