Albert Schweitzer helping natives in the African jungle. Images like these made him famous in Germany and beyond.

Albert Schweitzer, celebrated for his ‘jungle’ hospital at Lambaréné in Gabon, became a symbol of German redemption after World War II. His journey to Africa began 100 years ago

By Caroline Fetscher

April 12, 2013

In March 1913 a devoted medical missionary from Alsace embarked on the journey of a lifetime. His passage from Bordeaux to the Gulf of Guinea at the equator took him to what was then known as the ailing Heart of Darkness. Little did Albert Schweitzer know then that just half a centruy later, his jungle hospital at Lambaréné on the tropical river Ogowe, a stream running parallel to the Congo, would be adorned with almost every superlative and honor possible, among them the Nobel Peace Prize of 1952.

Today, a century after he set off on his adventure, much of the world – but especially Germany – remembers him for his extraordinary feat. Exhibitions, panel discussions, church services and concerts are planned in his honour.

Beach at the Red Cliff near Kampen.

On Sylt, Germany’s jet set enjoys a good life and confidently buys the best the market has to offer. Actually, the best that Germany’s northernmost island has to offer is nature

By Edith Kresta

April 12, 2013

At the bar of private hotel Benen Diken Hof in Keitum, the innkeeper still mans the tap. According to Claas-Erik Johannsen, the guests like it that way. In the small, crowded room thick with smoke, they’re talking about the future of Sylt, Germany’s northernmost island.

“They shouldn’t allow Air Berlin or TUI to cart package tourists to their bare-bones village hotel for €399 ($520)/week,” said Hof hotel owner Johannsen. “If the standard goes down, I won’t come here anymore,” commented a regular guest from Bochum, who has been coming for years. “The excellent cuisine, the wine, and the golf courses are what make this island attractive, as far as I’m concerned.”

A photo of Henry van de Velde in his studio from 1908. In 1902/3, van de Velde completely redesigned the ground floor of the Nietzsche Archive.

From art nouveau to industrial design: Exhibitions in Weimar and Erfurt honor Henry van de Velde and Peter Behrens

By Bernhard Schulz

April 12, 2013

From the outside it appears angular, formidable even. The house with the drawn-down roof, known as “Haus Hohe Pappeln,” was built by Henry van de Velde for himself and his family in 1908 in Weimar. Its charm is revealed inside, where an elegantly curving staircase leads up to the upper floor from the entrance hall, which has been furnished in a surprisingly homely style. From pleasingly laid-out rooms, which are grand but not intimidating, the gaze is drawn into the garden. From the outside, the robust travertine facades appear to be aimed at repulsing intruders. Assigning the house to a clear design category is difficult. As a critic at the time once said, it is rather more a case of the house being in a “style that forgets all styles.”

The years around 1900 are more than a transitional era between an old century and a new one. In Germany, they also represent a cultural shift. Historicism, the practice of harking back to epochs and styles of the past, had had its day. A synonym for this new departure became “Jugendstil” (art nouveau), promoted by the Munich-based magazine “Jugend” (Youth) established in 1896, and welcomed as an expression of long-desired novelty. This was also the case in the Grand Duchy of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach with its capital Weimar, which had up to that point flourished entirely on the memory of its glorious past, when it served as the home of classical German literature in the forms of Goethe und Schiller.

Until the construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961, the Marienfelde Refugee Center was a hive of activity. An exhibition there looks at the arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees from communist East Germany.

The Refugee Center in the Berlin district of Marienfelde was the first port of call for 1.35 million refugees from East Germany

By Klaus Grimberg

April 12, 2013

There were many reasons to leave East Germany. Take Wilfried Seiring, for example: As a student in Greifswald, he wrote an open letter in late 1956 calling for solidarity with students protesting against Stalinism in Hungary. The consequences for him were ex-matriculation coupled with the stipulation that he prove himself “on the production line” for a year to offset his “error.” Or the case of Uwe Bennies: In the early 1980s, the heating engineer was repeatedly denied the opportunity to gain further professional qualifications, on the flimsy grounds that the authorities believed he and his father were planning to set up their own business – something the nationalized communist economy did not approve of.

Both Seiring and Bennies were no longer willing to be tethered to the state’s apron strings. The idea of starting a new, self-determined life in West Germany began to take shape in the minds of these two men. In May 1957, Seiring entered the Federal Republic through the loophole that was West Berlin. Bennies made a formal application to leave the country in 1986, and was then harassed in all manner of ways by members of the state security service and police force. When this treatment caused him to fly into a rage on one occasion in December 1988, a judge sentenced him to 10 months in jail for “vilification of the GDR.” The West German government then bought him out of prison in April 1989.

Amazon is promoting its new German author with a major advertising campaign in the USA.

How Amazon plans to turn Munich-based novelist Oliver Pötzsch into a worldwide bestselling author

By Thomas Schuler

April 12, 2013

Oliver Pötzsch can’t explain why he was selected. Perhaps because his books received a great deal of positive reader feedback on the German site Amazon.de. In any case, for a long time Pötzsch couldn’t quite believe what was happening to him. When a limousine picked him up at the airport in New York; when he gazed over the Manhattan skyline from the rooftop pool of his hotel before setting off across the nation on a series of readings and media conferences. Then at the latest he must have realized that Amazon was serious about him. That was August 2011. The online retailer had invited him on a 12-day trip to New York, Milwaukee, San Francisco and Seattle to talk about and read from his novel “The Hangman’s Daughter.”

US Journalists asked the 42-year-old Munich-based writer whether he was recognized on the streets in Germany – after all Amazon had billed him as a new star author. When he talks about this, Pötzsch has to laugh. He enjoyed all the attention. Later, Amazon arranged for buses to travel through New York advertising his book. A huge picture of him was displayed in Madison Square Garden.

Opinion in Munich is divided about the new extension to the Lenbachhaus. But the importance of the museum’s Blauer Reiter collection is undisputed. The famous “Blue Horse 1” by Franz Marc from 1911.

Architect Norman Foster has designed a new annex for Munich’s Lenbachhaus and its famous collection of ‘Blaue Reiter’ paintings

By Franz Kotteder

April 12, 2013

Whenever a city is gifted the property of an honorable citizen, on the one hand it is a good thing for the locality. But on the other, municipal authorities are then responsible for maintaining the building and inevitably, the time will come when it needs to be renovated. In the case of the Lenbachhaus, this has just cost the City of Munich the princely sum of €58 million. But the city is pleased with the result: On May 7, refurbishment will be completed with an official reception due to be addressed not only by Mayor Christian Ude (SPD), but also by Federal Minister of Education Johanna Wanka (CDU).

There are beans, and then there are beans – ask any barista. More Germans than ever are drinking gourmet coffee.

In the nation of price-conscious filter coffee drinkers, bean enthusiasts with gourmet ambitions have launched an attack on the taste buds – to startling effect

By Axel Hansen

April 12, 2013

Ralf Rüller sips on a flat white and looks at his portafilter machine, which was handmade in Seattle and has just brewed his coffee from hand-picked Arabica beans. Rüller is no ordinary cafe manager, and his machine is correspondingly unconventional: each brew unit has its own motor and can develop its own pressure profile. These propel the water through the ground coffee in such a way that it matches every roasting profile, which is in turn tailored to every type of bean – profiles that Rüller is perpetually tweaking.

“Coffee was abused in Germany for decades,” the Berliner sighs. This is not an accusation that can be leveled at Rüller. He is meticulous about his coffee. And anyone wanting to drink a coffee in his cafe, “The Barn” in the Berlin district of Mitte, should be just as particular. But more about that later.