Twenty years after the border between East Germany and West Germany was breached, we now know that in that fateful press conference Schabowski simply read the wrong memo. But after Schabowski, a member of the Central Commitee of the SED,  had announced that all travel restrictions had been lifted for all East Germans – effective [...]

President Obama today visited the former Nazi death camp Buchenwald near Weimar, Germany. From what I’ve read he was the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit since Eisenhower, who was the commander of the Allied Forces when Buchenwald was liberated. Obama’s great uncle was one of the soldiers who helped liberate Buchenwald.
I think Obama should challenge [...]

Mark Mardell is the BBC’s Europe Editor and he wrote in his Euroblog about Freiburg, Germany – the town where I was born, and where I went to college. Mardell seems very impressed by how green and clean Freiburg is.
It’s possibly my imagination, but the air here seems to taste cleaner. This pretty city nestling [...]

The German upstart car maker Loremo did a first test of its EV prototype on public roads. Eventually, this vehicle is supposed to be available in three flavors: gasoline (petrol), diesel or electric. The YT video below shows the electric version. Sadly – no sound, just ambient music bubbling along …

German Vice-chancellor and foreign minister Steinmeier is in Togo for talks with Faure Gnassingbe. He appears to be following the new EU strategy of engagement with Gnassingbe, whereby they hope to win concessions on the development of a more functional democracy in Togo. Good luck with that.
Also, I cannot stand these idiotic descriptions of Togo [...]

The Beluga Skysails, a container ship powered in part by a 500sqm towing kite, has “set sail” from the German North Sea port Bremerhaven across the Atlantic. This is reportedly the first commercial trip of a Skysail powered ship. Spiegel Online has a video (in German).
As I have said previously, this is a brilliant reinvention [...]

As of last night, nine new members of Europes Schengen zone expanded the freedom to travel without hassle at the borders hundreds of miles toward the East and to a total population of over 400 million Europeans. This makes it possible to travel freely up to the border of the countries that were formerly the [...]

German President Köhler honored the team that defended the Women’s Football Worldcup Championship earlier this year in China. All the players received the highest sports-honor from the German government. In addition, the coach Silvia Neid received the Federal Cross of Merit in recognition of outstanding leadership in raising the profile of Women’s Football in Germany and making [...]

A huge storm is brewing in the North Sea. The Dutch and the Brits are closing their imposing coastal barriers to keep the water away from their cities. The largest seaport in Europe, Rotterdam, is closed for a day, and oil rigs have been evacuated. The coastal residents in Britain, Holland, Germany, Denmark, and Norway [...]

What a game! The German Women’s Football Team beat Brasil and defended the World Championship in a tough and fast game. Special Kudos to Nadine Angerer our fantastic goalie with a head like a brick and nerves of steel! She did not concede a single goal in the Worldcup!! Let me repeat this: SHE DID [...]

Women’s Football WorldCup, that is … The German women beat Norway 3:0 and will play against the winner of tomorrow’s game Brazil-USA on Sunday. Sadly, I was not able to see the game, as it started at 8:00 in the Morning here, and I have to be at work, and I have no cable TV [...]

With three stokes of his wooden mallet, the Mayor of Munich tapped a 224-Liter beer barrel today – the first of many beer barrels to be drained at this year’s Oktoberfest in Munich. He poured the first Mass for the Ministerpräsident (governor) of Bavaria.
Organizers expect to sell 6 Million Mass (Liters) at €7.90, as well [...]

There is so much interesting and important stuff going on:

A new film documents the ongoing genocide perpetrated on the Acholi people in Uganda (HT to Vicky), perpetuated by, among other things, US military aid (war-on-terror-dollars)
The US Congress is debating about subsidies for a road fuel that releases twice as much pollution as gasoline: liquefied coal
The [...]

Germany’s President Köhler made the right decision. He apparently carefully considered the petition for a pardon for Christian Klar and then decided to deny it. The political right in Germany was all in a huff over the fact that he even as much as considered the request, especially after it became public that he [...]

The German Constitutional Court ruled (de) that symbols that use the Nazi schwastika as part of a clear, unambigous ANTI-Nazi message is legal in Germany.
WOW. I was a bit worried about this.
It would have been quite ironic if people who clearly express an Anti-Nazi sentiment had been criminally prosecuted for wearing the illegal Nazi symbol. [...]

Congratulations to the German Team Handball Men’s Team! Today they defeated Poland in the final 29:24 (17:13) and won the Worldcup for Germany in Germany!
This is rather amazing – expectations were not very high before the tournament, but the German team really came together and played some amazing handball. And after the football Worldcup last [...]

… but doesn’t want to. A tale from the Black Forest in Germany.
Once upon a time, in 1791, to be exact, some Benedictine monks in the Black Forest decided to wean the folks in the nearby village off their beloved Schnapps (brandy). Folks were just drinking too much, and often things got out [...]

To Accra, to be specific. The German President Horst Köhler headed a delegation of 170 Germans at the Partnership with Africa conference that included several African heads of state and international leaders: Presidents John Agyekum Kufuor (Ghana), Festus G. Mogae (Botswana), Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (Liberia), Olusegun Obasanjo (Nigeria) as well as Alpha Oumar Konare of the [...]

A year ago today Angela Merkel succeeded Gerhard Schröder and became the first female chancellor and the first chancellor from the former East Germany. I was not thrilled. She is a political protegé of Helmut Kohl, aka Birne, the corrupt, corporatist pigdog chancellor from hell of the 80s.
Yet, 2006 so far was a pretty good [...]

November 9 has been a fateful day in German history. The März revolution was started, the emperor was dethroned and the Berlin Wall fell on that day. During the night of that fateful day in 1938 German Nazis damaged or destroyed “1574 synagogues (constituting nearly all Germany had), many Jewish cemeteries, more than 7,000 Jewish [...]