Thursday, April 18, 2024

Germans complain about Donald Trump and the decline of the liberal order, but they’re doing little themselves to defend it

By Christoph von Marschall

Donald Trump is causing Germans so much emotional grief these days that they can no longer soberly distinguish what’s good and bad for Germany, what poses a tangible danger to the country and what is, plainly put, just terribly annoying. …

What should Europe do with its captured IS militants?

By Georg Mascolo and Ronen Steinke

The admonition from Washington came in loud and clear, and it made immediate waves across Europe. In late February, US President Donald Trump publicly called on European governments to finally take back citizens who had fought for the Islamic State …

The Basic Law – Germany’s constitution – at 70

By Gertrude Lübbe-Wolff

Ten years ago, when Germany’s Basic Law turned 60, the birthday party in Berlin attracted hundreds of thousands of citizens. They strolled along Strasse des 17. Juni where official institutions had set up their exhibition stands. They crowded in front …

Germany’s carmakers must break out of their deep sleep and reinvent themselves as soon as they can

By Ulrich Viehöver

There are increasing fears that Germany’s automotive industry will not be able to master the problems it faces in the future. Some experts even claim that the demise of this paragon of industries – along with its suppliers and more …

A Berlin initiative is calling for the expropriation of private housing companies. A crazy idea or a necessary step?

By Tong-Jin Smith

Imagine you live in Berlin, one of Europe’s most vibrant cities. You really love your apartment and your neighborhood. It’s affordable, the people are nice, parks and grocery stores are just around the corner. In a matter of minutes, public …

No man’s land

By Rüdiger Rossig

While welfare recipients in Germany are required to disclose extensive details about their wealth and possessions before they can receive benefits, data on large-scale property owners is at best nebulous. Why the double standard?

Germans love to argue about issues …

Climate change is more painfully noticeable today than ever before

By Marlene Weiß

For a long time, climate change was a phenomenon of the future. While always more and more threatening with each new scientific forecast, its gloom and doom has remained something most of us could manage to ignore – until now. …

German youths have taken up the mantle, cutting class on Fridays to demand more effective climate protection

By Heike Holdinghausen

For many Germans, the demonstrations held on Fridays by schoolchildren calling for climate protection have exposed a family scandal of sorts. While everyone knows and quietly accepts that the entire family has long been dumping its waste behind the house, …

Ready for take off: Tom Enders parts ways with Airbus and hands the reins to Guillaume Faury

By Jens Flottau

It had to be those red cowboy boots. “My favorite shoes, very comfortable,” Tom Enders says, raising his jeans a bit to show off his footwear. His last meeting with the media in a Munich hotel, no pressure any more. …

The once-proud Deutsche Bank is in dire straits

By Mark Schieritz

It should have been the high point of its global conquest. In 1999, after a series of acquisitions, in terms of its balance sheet Deutsche Bank rated as the biggest bank in the world. In actuality, it was the beginning …

Bayer’s purchase of Monsanto is giving the aspirin makers a big headache

By Wolfgang Mulke

The chief executive of the pharmaceutical and chemical giant Bayer is preparing for a tumultuous meeting with his shareholders. They will convey their displeasure about the company’s massive loss in value to Werner Baumann at the corporation’s general meeting on …

The US ridesharing company Uber is facing considerable resistance in Germany

By Martin Gropp

If you’re flying from the United States to Germany and you want to use the American ride-hailing company Uber to get from the airport to downtown, there are two things you need to know: first, you’re going to have to …

Listen up: Huawei, 5G and the new geopolitics

By Daniel Leisegang

The next generation of wireless systems – 5G –
promises to revolutionize our lives. The new mobile communications technology will blow away all current wireless standards and set in place certain pre-conditions for telemedicine, driverless cars and Smart Cities. These …

Climate change is transforming viticulture in Germany

By Nikolas Rechenberg

Vineyards that reach the Baltic Sea? We’ve seen it once before – some 800 years ago. Today’s climate change is bringing warmer and warmer weather to Germany. And accordingly, German winemakers have started moving even further north, all the way …

A very special relationship, Germans and their forest

By Dieter Borchmeyer

Hardly any other German myth has been cited and celebrated as consistently as that of the German forest. In Jacob Grimm’s 1835 publication Deutsche Mythologie (Teutonic Mythology), the author singled out the forest as the specific primordial site of popular …