Archive for the 'Germany' Category

Deutschlandreise 2019 – Tour of Germany

Sunday, September 29th, 2019

(Deutsch hier klicken) Once in a while, I like to take a trip back to the “old country” to visit friends and family. This year I traveled from Sept. 12 to Sept. 23. I flew into Frankfurt airport and picked up my rental car there – a brand-new BMW 220d. The car was really comfortable […]

Germany Trip

Tuesday, October 31st, 2017

In September, I went on a 10-day Trip back to Germany to visit family and friends. It had been a couple of years and it was time to go back an re-connect. I flew into Frankfurt via JFK and arrived on a crisp Friday morning. I picked up my rental car and drove to Bensheim […]

Ich bin ein Berliner

Tuesday, December 20th, 2016

Stay strong, Berlin. Stay crazy.

Vergesst Zonen-Gaby nicht!

Monday, October 3rd, 2016

Autumn

Saturday, October 31st, 2015

As the leaves are turning and the nights are getting chilly, this October had some real challenges for us. One of those challenges sent me on a short-notice trip back to Germany. While the German fall weather was mostly chilly and overcast, I had one day of nice weather. On  that day I was driving […]

Let’s dance! Tanzen erlaubt!

Tuesday, October 6th, 2015

In Germany, on certain holidays, public dancing is banned. The State of Baden-Württemberg has one of the strictest anti-dancing laws: no dancing on Sunday from 3 -11 AM plus a long list of public, religious holidays. Now the State government has decided to loosen the rules and allow public dancing on Sundays, New Year’s day, […]

The Quiet German – a portrait of Angela Merkel

Thursday, November 27th, 2014

Very lucid, well-written story by Gorge Packer in the New Yorker about the German chancellor: German politics was entering a new era. As the country became more “normal,” it no longer needed domineering father figures as leaders. “Merkel was lucky to live in a period when macho was in decline,” Ulrich said. “The men didn’t […]

The Fall of the Berlin Wall 25 years ago

Sunday, November 9th, 2014

Today is the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall – one of the most important historic events in my generation’s lifetime. Ironically, this watershed event was precipitated by a simple, clerical error. To me, the events of November 9, 1989 are profoundly German: a tired, overwhelmed official –  Günter Schabowski –  reads […]

Encore, Encore!

Monday, August 25th, 2014

Germany wins the U20 Women’s Soccer Worldcup! Deutschland’s U20 Auswahl der Frauen hat in Kanada die Auswahl Nigeria’s knapp besiegt und damit den dritten großen internationalen Titel dieses Jahres für den deutschen Fußball ergattert! Super Leistung!    

1954. 1974. 1990. 2014!

Sunday, July 13th, 2014

Deutschland ist Weltmeister!!! ★★★★ What a game! Zum ersten Mal triumphiert ein europäisches Team in der Neuen Welt!

Wiedervereinigung 1990

Thursday, October 3rd, 2013

Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit!

Marcel Reich-Ranicki, 1920 – 2013

Wednesday, September 18th, 2013

Germany has lost a feisty, thoughtful voice today. Marcel Reich Ranicki was the most respected literature critic in Germany and a fearless and honest voice for the survivors of the Holocaust. His love for literature and poetry inspired generations of readers and he relentlessly challenged German authors to advance their craft and create great works […]

Highlights of our vacation

Monday, August 20th, 2012

This is Hohenzollern Castle, one of the definite highlights of our trip to Germany earlier this month. We drove from the Rhine valley across the Black Forest to Hechingen, at the edge of the Schwaebische Alb. As you approach the castle, the roads become narrower and steeper, until the castle looms overhead in the forest. […]

Germany’s new President elected

Sunday, March 18th, 2012

Today, Joachim Gauck was elected the 11th President of the Federal Republic of Germany. The non-partisan consensus candidate of the five mainstream parties (SPD, Green Party, CDU, CSU and FDP) was elected by a majority of 991 votes out of 1228 votes cast in the Federal Convention. In the previous Federal Convention in 2010, Joachim […]

Huge WW II bomb forces evacuation in Germany

Friday, December 2nd, 2011

The largest evacuation in Germany since WW II is underway in the town of Koblenz, Germany, after an unexploded 4000 lb “air mine” from WW II was discovered on the banks of the Rhine river.  The prison, 2 hospitals and 45,000 residents have to be evacuated this weekend, so that experts can defuse the rusty, […]

Germany plans to suspend the draft

Wednesday, December 15th, 2010

Starting on March 1, 2011, the German military will “suspend” the general draft that has been in effect since 1957. After that date, only volunteers will be drafted into German military service – which essentially transforms the German military into a volunteer army. This morning Der Spiegel reported that the general draft is only suspended […]

Roll over Herr Präsident

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

Frau Angie got her way in the end – the longest session of the German Federal Assembly finally elected her faithful party soldier Christian Wulff to the office of President of the Federal Republic of Germany. The opposition candidate Joachim Gauck, a civil rights activist in Stalinist East Germany, made a respectable showing, but the […]

The Miracle of Berlin

Monday, November 9th, 2009

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 […]

Obama visits Buchenwald

Friday, June 5th, 2009

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 […]

The BBC’s Mark Mardell about Freiburg

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

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 […]