Germany gets fed up with the European Union

By Erica Alini - Wednesday, July 20, 2011 at 9:47 AM - 3 Comments

Alex Domanski/Reuters

Germans are angry. Some of them are outright enraged. And almost anyone with a basic awareness of current affairs feels deeply frustrated.

Back in 1999, when the euro was born, Germany’s number one concern was that it would somehow have to cover up for the excesses and crooked ways of southern European governments. Now it’s happening. The European Union is about to sign a second hefty cheque for Greece, something politicians obstinately call a loan, but many suspect is plainly a cash handout. That comes on top of $150 billion the EU and the International Monetary Fund already started injecting into the Greek economy in 2010. In both cases, Germany, Europe’s economic powerhouse, gets to do most of the financial heavy lifting. “The Greeks are going to bankrupt Germany,” the Bild, a German tabloid with a daily circulation of three million, wrote last year in anticipation of the first bailout. The paper even sent a reporter to Athens to hand out bundles of drachmas, the old Greek currency, a stunt meant to persuade the country to drop out of the euro. It was a rude joke many condemned as irresponsible populism, but one that captured the riotous mood of German public opinion.

Even highly respected and normally poised German newspapers, such as the venerable Frankfurter Allgemeine, have been lashing out at “the failure” of the Greek bailout. “I find it embarrassing that we are paying so much money for other countries who have not been able to deal correctly with their money,” says Joachim Jahn, an editor at the paper. Not everyone feels as chafed as Jahn, but many are starting to question whether Europe is really all that good for Germany. A recent poll showed that 63 per cent of Germans have low to no confidence in the EU.

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Armed and libellous?

By Stephanie Findlay - Monday, May 16, 2011 at 9:50 AM - 14 Comments

An international spat between Greece and Germany was sparked when Venus de Milo, a Greek marble statue of Aphrodite—arguably the most famous armless goddess in the world—made a controversial appearance on the cover of the German magazine Focus. The problem? Her right arm was intact and she was flipping readers the bird. The magazine’s cover story—“Swindlers in the euro family”—explored German concerns regarding the bailing out of debt-stricken Greece, and outlined the nation’s supposed “2,000 years of decline,” including tax fraud and failed construction projects.

The cover was condemned by the Greek president shortly after it hit newsstands in February 2010. And now, more than a year later, six Greek citizens are taking legal action against Focus—alleging the cover was defamatory, libellous, and responsible for the denigration of Greek national symbols. Along with nine other employees of Focus, Helmut Markwort, the magazine’s founder, is due to appear in an Athens court on June 29. Despite facing two years in prison if found guilty, Markwort is unfazed: “I’m not on the run, and I’m also not afraid that I will have to go to prison.” He says he has a “clean conscience” and that he was simply doing his “journalistic duty.”

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Newsmakers: May 5-12, 2011

By Nancy Macdonald - Friday, May 13, 2011 at 11:15 AM - 0 Comments

EMPICS Entertainment/Keystone Press

Compassion for bin Laden

Angela Merkel’s remark that she was “glad” Osama bin Laden had been killed sparked a firestorm of controversy in Germany. Hamburg judge Heinz Uthmann even filed a criminal complaint, alleging the German chancellor broke a law barring the “rewarding and approving of crimes”—in this case, bin Laden’s “homicide.” Politicians denounced her, and 64 per cent of Germans agreed: bin Laden’s death was “no reason to rejoice.” In L.A., however, even the Dalai Lama—compassion incarnate—said he had it coming. “If something is serious and it is necessary to take counter-measures, you have to take counter-measures,” said the Tibetan spiritual leader.

Mother’s day miracle

After 49 days alone in a Chevy Astro van on a logging road in remote Nevada, Rita Chretien was found barely conscious, but clinging to life. The 56-year-old Penticton, B.C., native and her husband, Albert, were stranded en route to Las Vegas on March 19; Albert, who left two days later to find help, hasn’t been seen since. Rita’s faith, and a bit of trail mix, was all that kept her going until finally she was spotted by hunters on ATVs. “We were praying for a miracle and, boy, did we get one,” her son Raymond told reporters Sunday.

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Midnight in the garden of evil

By Brian Bethune - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Andrew Tolson

There’s an obvious chicken-and-egg question that arises in an interview with British author Philip Kerr. A thorough pro, Kerr has penned stand-alone novels in various genres, including science fiction, and a first-rate preteen fantasy series (Children of the Lamp). But he’s best known for seven thought-provoking novels featuring German private eye Bernie Gunther. A note-perfect Berliner, from his alcohol consumption to his instinctive antipathy to authority, Bernie is both an everyman striving to maintain his humanity (and his life) in the Nazi and postwar eras, and the Teutonic reincarnation of Raymond Chandler’s PI, Philip Marlowe.

So which came first, noir or Nazis, an interest in hard-boiled detective stories or in the Third Reich? “Germany—I went there long ago,” the 55-year-old replies, “to do a post-grad degree in philosophy of German law. Really, just an excuse to read German philosophy. You know how Bernie hates lawyers? That’s because I hate lawyers.” Immersed in German history, Kerr—like so many writers before him—fell under Berlin’s spell. “Its role in the world wars and the Cold War, its cultural influence in the 1920s—Berlin is the ur-city of the 20th century.”

And the city’s inhabitants won him over too, partly because Berliners had, in Kerr’s opinion, the right enemies—any group loathed by Bismarck and Hitler couldn’t be all bad—and partly because of their black humour, which “sounds cruel if you don’t understand it,” Bernie once remarked, “and even crueller if you do.” Rather like the detective’s comment during his harrowing if brief stay in the Dachau concentration camp, where he met an inmate who was not only Jewish but homosexual and a Communist: “That made three triangles. His luck hadn’t so much run out as jumped on a f–king motorcycle.”

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No need for a scholarship

By Josh Dehaas - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 1:50 PM - 3 Comments

Peter Gilfoy

Five people were arrested in Quebec in early April for protesting a $325 increase to annual tuition fees. By 2016, tuition in the province will hit $3,800 a year. But that’s still a bargain compared to Ontario, where the average bill tops $6,500. So it’s no wonder an increasing number of Canadian students are studying in Germany, where tuition is free for citizens and foreigners alike. There are currently 534 Canadians enrolled at German universities—up 52 per cent since 2002.

Peter Gilfoy, a 23-year-old from Halifax, couldn’t believe his luck when he stumbled upon free tuition during his year-long exchange at the University of Frankfurt. He had already paid his fees for that semester to Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, where he’s now finishing his commerce degree. But free tuition allowed him to stay an extra year in Frankfurt and take university courses simply to improve his German.

He was even more surprised when students marched in the streets to protest a new fee: $280 to cover their train pass. “I was in awe considering they know full well how much Canadians and Americans pay,” he says. Gilfoy also found bargains on rent, beer—only $1.50 per half-litre—and cafeteria food, which is government-subsidized.

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And the cow jumped over the . . .

By Erica Alini - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 12:00 PM - 0 Comments

Kerstin Joensson/AP

Having a pony is one of those little girl dreams that are usually dashed by a resounding parental “nay.” Most kids simply scale back their request to a puppu or another similarly manageble pet, but not Regina Mayer. Instead, she taught a cow to be her horse.

The 15-year-old in Laufen, Germany, is making headlines for jumping over logs and makeshift obstacles on the back of Luna, one of the cows on her family’s farm. Getting the bovine to wear a saddle, and perform horse-lie acrobatics, took a lot of treats and cajoling, but Luna now responds to commands such as “go,” “stand,” and “gallop.” Mayer also used some tips from a cow-training school in Switzerland that teaches the animals such tricks as rolling out carpets with their nose. Still, Luna can be stubborn. “When she wants to do something she does it; when she doesn’t, she doesn’t,” says Mayer. But, she added, her cow is so fond of her new identity, she has come to shun the company of her own species. Instead, say Mayer, Luna is “constantly following the horses around.”

Taking the NY out of NYSE?

By Kate Lunau - Monday, April 18, 2011 at 3:40 PM - 0 Comments

A long-standing symbol of American capitalism, the venerable New York Stock Exchange traces its history back almost 220 years. Now, facing a likely merger with German market operator Deutsche Börse, a pressing question has emerged: what will the new stock exchange be named?

As the deal was announced in February, U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer insisted that “New York” should come first in the new name. “NYSE is one of the most pre-eminent brands in the financial industry,” he said, “and there is no reason it shouldn’t come first.” But German politicians have patriotic concerns as well: although NYSE chief executive Duncan Niederauer is set to take the same title at the new company, Deutsche Börse will own 60 per cent. (The company will be headquartered in both Frankfurt and New York.)

An early front-runner for the new name, “DB NYSE Group,” is apparently out of contention. According to the Wall Street Journal, employees of both companies have submitted more than 1,000 suggestions, which will be looked at over the next few weeks by a committee of experts. Set to become the largest stock exchange in the world, it seems likely that—whatever the new company’s called—its name will eventually become an icon of sorts, too.

And today's lesson is…

By Kate Lunau - Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 7:29 AM - 2 Comments

Jeff Gross/Getty Images

In the town of Ratekau, what started as a fifth-grade demonstration of where meat comes from—and how it was prepared in the days before refrigeration—ended with outraged parents, upset kids, and a denouncement from state officials. As part of a curriculum unit on how people lived in the Stone Age, one parent (a farmer) volunteered to slaughter a rabbit for the class. Teachers voted in favour, but apparently didn’t inform parents or the principal. Some fifth-graders launched a petition to save the rabbit, but teachers seem to have ignored them. “One can’t collect signatures against a math test either,” one told the newspaper Lübecker Nachrichten.

In the end, 50 students voluntarily gathered in the school courtyard. They said goodbye to the rabbit; the farmer then hit it with a hammer, slit its throat, gutted and skinned it, and hung it to drain. It was later grilled and consumed. Parents complained, leading the state’s Education Ministry to denounce the slaughter as “educationally problematic.” “My point wasn’t to show children death,” the farmer told Der Spiegel. “We wanted to demonstrate that killing animals involves taking on responsibility.”

Is 30 per cent representation the new gender-equality dream?

By Anne Kingston - Wednesday, April 6, 2011 at 9:48 AM - 10 Comments

Paul Yeung/Reuters

In February, Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann created a firestorm with his remark that more women on corporate boards would make life “more colourful and prettier.” Certainly it would at Ackermann’s bank, Germany’s biggest, whose 12-member executive committee is entirely male. Editorialists and bloggers around the globe slammed the banker for his sexist barb. Less discussed was the serious debate that inspired it: proposed quotas in the German Bundestag that would require the country’s largest publicly traded companies to fill at least 40 per cent of their management and supervisory boards with women, up from a current 8.6 per cent.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has filled one-third of her ministerial positions with women, quashed the proposal. Instead, she offered companies “one last chance” to redress the issue before she imposed legislation. Ackermann’s comment, at least according to his PR people, was intended to support that idea; he was trying to highlight the bank’s achievement of filling 16.5 per cent of management positions with women.

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HIER, kitty, kitty…

By Jane Switzer - Wednesday, April 6, 2011 at 9:23 AM - 3 Comments

Gillian Murdoch/Reuters

Overrun with stray cats and finally fed up, the German city of Bremen is proposing a law that would take drastic action against wayward felines. Anyone with an outdoor cat would be forced to pay to have it neutered. Bremen has good reason to worry: the city’s cat shelter used to look after around 120 cats at any one time, but now has 378 on its books and fears that number will soon reach 500. In addition, an estimated 1,000 cats roam the streets, threatening the local songbird population.

Bremen would be the latest in a number of small German towns which already advocate the compulsory neutering of stray felines, including Paderborn in North Rhine-Westphalia, which was home to 40,000 stray cats before it introduced forced castration three years ago. If the law is passed in Bremen, it could lead to nationwide legislation. Wolfgang Apel, chairman of the Bremen Animal Protection Society, said the government should take responsibility for the growing problem: “There are so many [cats] that the situation has got out of control,” he told the Süddeutsche Zeitung. “They are becoming a burden to the public.”

Spooks with shady pasts

By Jen Cutts - Thursday, March 3, 2011 at 3:23 PM - 0 Comments

Michael Sohn/AP

Germany’s foreign intelligence service is looking into its past—and turning up Nazis. After admitting last year that “about 200 former Nazi criminals” were in its employ after the Second World War, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) is in final talks with a team of historians who will be given access to the spy service’s files to create a public record.

The BND’s president, Ernst Uhrlau, campaigned for years for greater transparency, facing opposition both from inside the organization and from Germany’s government. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s staff had blocked Uhrlau’s efforts, but relented after the finance and foreign ministries opened up about their own shadowy pasts. Exploring the intelligence files could be embarrassing for Merkel’s CDU, potentially confirming suspicions that Konrad Adenauer, the party’s founder and West Germany’s leader from 1949 to 1963, was aware of employees’ Nazi pasts.

Former chief inspector Georg Wilimzig’s squad murdered thousands during the German invasion of Poland in 1939. Former SS captain Johannes Clemens was involved in the execution of 335 civilians in Rome in 1944. Both were hired by the intelligence agency after 1945.

Showdown on the high seas

By Kate Lunau - Thursday, February 24, 2011 at 9:17 AM - 0 Comments

Christian Charisius/Reuters

It wasn’t so long ago that owning a luxury yacht with just one helipad was status symbol enough. These days, the truly decadent insist on having two. Over the past 20 years or so, Germany has carved out a niche for itself as the global capital of the luxury yacht-building industry, according to a report in the German newsweekly Der Spiegel. And even after the recent economic downturn, the luxury yacht-building business is cruising along.

Shipbuilders Lürssen and Blohm & Voss have made a name for themselves by catering to their clients’ every demand, from on-board recording studios to showers that spray both water and champagne. In December, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich’s 536-foot yacht, Eclipse, set sail from Hamburg, where Blohm & Voss is based. Its building costs were pegged at $1.2 billion. The Eclipse is the world’s largest private yacht, but not for long: Lürssen is now working on a 590-foot yacht. “The desire to own the largest yacht will always be a competition among the super-rich,” says designer Joachim Kinder.

German defence minister accused of plagiarism

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 18, 2011 at 2:36 PM - 10 Comments

Following accusations of plagiarism, German Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg has temporarily renounced his doctorate. German media and political opponents allege that the minister lifted several passages of his 2006 thesis from other people’s work. He has strongly denied the claims, but said that he will “temporarily” give up his doctoral title, while helping his former university investigate the claims. The charismatic 39-year-old minister is seen as a possible successor to Angela Merkel.

BBC News

Daddy dearest

By Jane Switzer - Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 2:26 PM - 0 Comments

Robert Harding Picture Library/Alamy/Getstock

Former German chancellor Helmut Kohl retired from politics nearly a decade ago, but the details of his turbulent family life are just beginning to surface in a memoir penned by his estranged eldest son. In his book, Live Your Life or Be Lived: First Steps on the Path to Reconciliation, Walter Kohl, the son of Kohl and his late first wife Hannelore, creates a damning portrait of his father as a single-minded career politician and an absent husband and parent.

Excerpts from the book, published last week in the German magazine Focus, describe in vivid detail the strained father-son relationship as the senior Kohl climbed the ladder of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party to the chancellorship: “Politics was and is my father’s real home,” Walter writes. “His true family is called CDU, not Kohl.”

Walter’s decision to publish intimate revelations while his father is still alive could further complicate Kohl’s already divisive reputation. Widely regarded as a political powerhouse, he had a 16-year tenure (the longest of any German chancellor since Otto von Bismarck) that oversaw the end of the Cold War, the reunification of Germany and the creation of the European Union through the Maastricht Treaty. But his reputation was tarnished in 1999 with allegations that the CDU had received illegal donations during Kohl’s leadership. The charges were never proven in court, but paved the way for then-CDU secretary general and current Chancellor Angela Merkel to advocate for the party’s break with Kohl over the scandal. Kohl officially resigned from politics when he left the Bundestag in 2002.

Now 80 and living a largely private life, Kohl is riling politicians and residents of Dresden over the possible erection of a monument in his name. Germany’s Der Spiegel reported the local CDU chapter is pushing for a plaque to pay tribute to a speech Kohl made there in December 1989, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, to hundreds of thousands of citizens of what was still East Germany. The centre-left Social Democrats, the Left Party and the Greens are opposed to the monument.

During his political career, Kohl crafted the image of a family man. But Walter claims that is a lie, and that the familial rift intensified in 2001 when Hannelore committed suicide at the family’s home in Ludwigshafen. The final straw for Walter came in 2008, when he found out about his father’s second marriage, to Maike Richter, through a telegram. He wasn’t invited to the wedding, and learned the details of the ceremony from a tabloid newspaper. After that, Walter severed all ties with his father.

Still inscrutably private, Kohl hasn’t commented publicly on his son’s book. Though Walter says he’s made peace with their estrangement, he’s still haunted by the duplicity of Kohl’s image as a once-revered politician and the absent father he barely knew. “Every boy dreams of a father with whom he can explore the world, who would go camping with him or play soccer,” he writes. “Every boy hopes to have a father who is also there for him. I was not able to reach my father.”

Thilo Sarrazin spreads his word on Muslim immigration

By Jane Switzer - Wednesday, February 2, 2011 at 2:00 PM - 26 Comments

Sean Gallup/Getty Images

With his controversial book dominating the German integration debate, former German central banker Thilo Sarrazin is spreading his message to the English-speaking world: immigrants must integrate, or leave the country. Last week, Sarrazin defended his views on restrictive immigration on the BBC’s call-in radio talk show Have Your Say. Sarrazin’s book, Deutschland schafft sich ab (translated as “Germany is Doing Itself Away”), claims, among other things, that immigrant Muslims are reluctant to integrate into German culture and tend to rely heavily on social services.

Though the majority of callers lambasted Sarrazin for his views, the integration zealot is no stranger to controversy. Last September, he was removed from the executive board of the Deutsche Bundesbank after criticizing Islam and describing Arab and Turkish immigrants as unwilling to integrate. Sarrazin ended the BBC show with characteristically blunt advice for a caller named Kübra, the daughter of Turkish guest workers in Germany who experiences discrimination regularly for wearing a hijab. His answer? It’s her problem: “It is your own choice to wear a head scarf and to live in Germany. You could as well live in the U.S. or Turkey.”

She can't seem to get it right

By Josh Dehaas - Thursday, January 13, 2011 at 1:00 PM - 1 Comment

Her political style, some suggest, just isn’t very ‘inspiring’ | Michael Sohn/AP

After four years spent deftly navigating a coalition government with her left-wing rivals, German Chancellor Angela Merkel finally formed her “dream coalition” following the 2009 election. But just over a year into her new term, support for Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has sunk to 37 per cent, down 12 per cent since the election. “It’s a curious phenomenon,” says William Drozdiak, president of the American Council on Germany. “Especially considering Germany’s economy is doing quite well.”

It’s more than just a bit troubling for Merkel, especially since seven of Germany’s 16 states will elect regional representatives this year—votes that are considered a test of the chancellor’s leadership—and if the CDU flops, the party could oust her. According to Der Spiegel, if an election was held today, Merkel’s allies could lose all seven votes—even Baden-Württemberg, a state that the CDU has held since 1953.

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The reich's labour shortage

By Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze - Thursday, December 16, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 4 Comments

Tobias Schwarz/Reuters

Despite having an economy that is one of the strongest in Europe, Germany is facing a major economic dilemma. For decades, experts have warned that the country’s declining birth rate, accompanied by an exodus of highly trained workers to other parts of the world, would create a labour shortage. That forecast is now becoming a reality. According to the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce, the country lacks 400,000 skilled workers—and the region with the greatest shortage is eastern Germany. Since 1990, the eastern states have seen 1.5 million workers move westward, either to other parts of the country or abroad. If the trend continues, the population between the ages of 15 and 64 in the east could be cut in half by 2050.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere has rejected proposals to help skilled foreigners get their credentials more easily recognized. But the pressure to make changes will only intensify—economists estimate the shortage is costing the economy upwards of 20 billion euros a year.

Going, Going…

By Brian Bethune - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 9:40 AM - 0 Comments

Simon Cowell; Lloyd Robertson; Jaroslav Halák | Byron Purvis/Keystone Press Agency; Adrien Veczan/CP; Len Redkoles/NHL/Getty Images

Quit: Steven Slater
In 2010, no one cheered the hearts of disgruntled workers everywhere more than Jet Blue flight attendant Slater, who left his job—and his aircraft—in spectacular fashion. In August, he told off an annoying passenger, grabbed two bottles of beer, released the emergency exit on his landed plane, and slid away to freedom. And into a world of trouble: in October, he pleaded guilty to criminal mischief and was fined US$10,000. For the rest of us, though, it was worth it.

Evicted: the Niqab
After a pharmacist in a niqab—a face veil that reveals only the wearer’s eyes—refused to remove it during French-language class, the Quebec government announced plans to ban government agencies and public institutions from offering services to veiled women. Bill 94, when it becomes law, will effectively eject the niqab from Quebec’s public square in the name of gender equality and maintaining secular values in public services. Meanwhile, the imposing crucifix in the national assembly remains in place.

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Death before justice

By Julia Belluz - Thursday, December 2, 2010 at 4:00 PM - 2 Comments

Yad Vashem Photo Archive/AP

He was accused of aiding in the murder of 430,000 Jews at the Belzec death camp, and of shooting 10 people dead. But before Samuel Kunz, 89, could stand trial, he died on Nov. 18 in his home near Bonn.

Kunz, born in Russia to an ethnic German family, was captured by the Germans during the Second World War and given the choice of becoming a POW or working with the Nazis. He allegedly chose the latter, and was accused of leading Jews into gas chambers and throwing corpses into mass graves. He allegedly shot and killed wounded prisoners, and Jews trying to escape trains headed for a death camp.

After the war, Kunz resumed a seemingly normal life in Germany. He worked as a civil servant, and though he was questioned about his past, the former guard avoided trial. In April, Kunz became the third-most-wanted living Nazi when he caught the attention of investigators preparing for the trial of John Demjanjuk, the man accused of being an accessory in the murder of nearly 30,000 people. Kunz was to stand trial next year.

A trove of 'degenerate' art

By Josh Dehaas - Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 2:40 PM - 0 Comments

Getty Images

Workers digging for a new metro line near Alexanderplatz in Berlin have unearthed a slew of important Nazi-era bronze and ceramic sculptures. “Never before have artworks with this background been found during a dig,” wrote Matthias Wemhoff, the head of Berlin’s Museum of Prehistory and Early History, and Germany’s chief archaeologist.

The statues represent “entartete Kunst” or “degenerate art,” the label Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels gave to all “un-German” artwork, much of it created by Jews. The find includes works by Marg Moll and Otto Baum, who were mocked during the 1937 Entartete Kunst show, the culmination of a propaganda campaign to turn working-class Germans against cultural elites. Entartete Kunst included 5,000 works confiscated from museums and private collectors that were paraded across Germany with virulent labels such as “revelation of the Jewish racial soul.” When the show ended, the works disappeared. So did many of the artists: Max Ernst, Paul Klee and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner all fled during or after the show.

Officials believe the works became buried after the building they were stored in, the propaganda ministry, burned down. The art is now on display at the Neues Museum. This time, it’s shown with respect.

The Schröder-Bush dust-up

By Adnan R. Khan - Wednesday, November 24, 2010 at 9:20 AM - 7 Comments

Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images

Berlin political circles were buzzing last week after the publication of former U.S. president George W. Bush’s memoirs, in which he accuses Gerhard Schröder, Germany’s ex-chancellor, of breaking a promise to support the Iraq war. In the memoir, entitled Decision Points, Bush alleges Schröder told him in a Jan. 31, 2002 meeting in the Oval Office that, “If you make it fast and make it decisive, I will be with you.” Later, with German elections looming and public opinion strongly against the war, he turned tail and joined the anti-war camp. “I put a high premium on trust,” Bush goes on to write. “Once that trust was violated, it was hard to have a constructive relationship again.” Schröder went on to win the 2002 election on an anti-war platform, ushering in a brief period of frigidity in German-American relations that lasted until Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats ousted Schröder from office in 2005. But over that three-year period, the two leaders barely met, and their animosity became emblematic of a widening political gap between the U.S. and Europe.

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Auf Wiedersehen, Deutschland

By Jane Switzer - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 11:00 AM - 0 Comments

Ben Birchall/PA/Keystone Press

The British are leaving Germany. British Prime Minister David Cameron recently announced his intention to remove the last British troops, after 65 years on German soil, by 2020—15 years earlier than expected. The decision comes amidst the U.K. government’s struggle to tackle its budget deficit and restructure its army, which has maintained a presence in Germany since the Second World War. An estimated 20,000 soldiers and 23,000 dependants and British civilians currently work at 12 bases in North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony, many of them living as part of the local communities, and married to Germans.

The early withdrawal could be a blow to the German economy, which draws in an estimated $1.8 billion from the British presence each year. The town of Bergen is preparing for what Mayor Rainer Prokop calls a devastating situation. Prokop estimated the population of 16,000 would drop by a third once the British troops left, and between 20 and 40 per cent of local business could go under. “This is the most severe upheaval for us since the Second World War,” Prokop told the German news website The Local.

The battle of Bavaria

By Jason Kirby - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 at 3:00 PM - 2 Comments

GORAN GAJANIN/ACTION PRESS/CP

As corporate brand battles go, Coke vs. Pepsi and Nike vs. Adidas are fine for the masses, but among the amply-lucred, nothing beats the raucous showdown between Audi and BMW for the hearts, minds—and wallets—of luxury car buyers. In the past few years, the two German automakers have stepped up their ad campaigns, calling each other out in TV spots and on billboards. But after months of red-hot sales, Audi clearly has the momentum.

In almost every month this year, the company has broken its previous worldwide sales records. In Canada, Audi is leading almost every other brand so far this year in growing its sales, up 33.3 per cent to roughly 12,700 vehicles, compared to the first 10 months of last year. And thanks to the fat margins on every new A4 sedan, Q5 crossover and spaceship-like R8 sports car, Audi fuelled half of parent company Volkswagen’s profits last quarter.

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The Memory Project – David Dickson, How tobacco saved a life

By Philippe Gohier - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 at 4:00 PM - 1 Comment

David Dickson at Courseulles-sur-Mer, FranceGerman newspaper article about David Dickson| Courtesy of The Memory Project

Click play to hear David Dickson’s complete audio story

David Dickson, of the North Nova Scotia Highlanders, recalls how a tin of tobacco may have saved his life in March 1945

My company, D Company, was given the task of following a dyke along the west side of Bienen, Germany, and getting into the town. Unfortunately, Bienen was very stoutly defended by a large number of machine guns and we suffered great casualties there. I suffered a wound while crossing the dyke, trying to get into the buildings of the town. I got a bullet through me that penetrated my right side and came out the middle of my back, and went through my lung, liver and kidneys. [The bullet] broke several ribs and went through my diaphragm.

My wife used to send me John Cotton pipe tobacco from England and I never could keep a tobacco pouch. I used to keep the tin of tobacco down inside my battledress blouse. I was pulled off the dyke, ultimately, by another artillery signals corporal, after one of my sergeants had been killed almost on top of me by a mortar shell. The corporal got my jacket off and the tin of tobacco fell out. He said, “My God, look.” He said the bullet went right through the tin of tobacco. The bullet missed my spine by only half an inch where it came out the back and made a big hole. I always felt that perhaps that tin of tobacco saved me from being incapacitated for the rest of my life. Or being dead for the rest of my life, I guess.