1.) I've been out of town and offline for a week, so I missed the news that Jörg Immendorff has died. I haven't had a chance yet to read what's been written.
2.) Rochus points out that NDR has put Fatih Akin's Gegen die Wand online in its entirety. It's in a streaming format, so we'll see how much patience I have with my connection... (NB: this version's available in German and Turkish.)
Dani Levy's new film "Mein Führer" is getting lots of attention lately. The basic question everyone seems to be posing is, are we allowed to laugh about Hitler? H-German has already collected a bunch of reviews and I saw this interesting essay today about watching the premier of the film with neonazis in the audience.
The Medienrauschen essay also brought up Serdar Somuncu, with a YouTube link to an MDR story on one of his shows last summer in Saxony, at which he invited the rightwing group protesting at the theatre to come up to the stage. Fascinating to watch.
Somehow I've never heard of Somuncu, but I'm trying to catch up. He's Turkish (or Turkish-German? I wasn't sure) satirist whose performances take on all comers: Germans, Turks, Nazis, you name it. What I've heard so far is very funny; his site has a few samples from the new cd. I think it's worth a listen.
Anybody seen the Levy movie yet?
A quick survey ; they'd linked to it from a story on Munich's new synagogue. The SZ has more pics of Munich specifically, but is s-l-o-w.
And while I'm thinking of new religious architecture in Germany, here's the SZ's page on the yet-to-be-built Sendlinger Mosque.
A study being discussed in the papers today (in the FR, e.g.) says that more western Germans haveright-wing attitudes than do eastern Germans--at 9.1% versus 6.6%.
I'll come back to this when I've actually had a chance to read more...if you've followed the discussion, I'd be interested to know what you think of those results.
One bit I found striking from the FR's coverage:
Rechtsextremismus ist in allen Altersgruppen vorhanden, mit steigendem Alter wächst die Zustimmung vor allem zu chauvinistischen, ausländerfeindlichen und antisemitischen Aussagen. ... Es sind also nicht die Jugendlichen, so die Studie, unter denen rechtsextremistische Einstellungen am stärksten verbreitet sind, deshalb sollte die Politik nicht einseitig auf Jugendarbeit setzen. Auch bei den Älteren gibt es durchaus Zustimmung zu Gewalt.
Let's have the funny one first, a poster found by one of the writers at Hauptstadtblog: "Nazis are stealing our jobs." A neat reversal of the usual, right-wing complaint about foreigners.
[cheers Rhochus]
Now for the less funny one. Seems some Hamburg lawyer is about to be gifted a defunct hotel in Delmenhorst so that he can develop it into a sort of Neo-Nazi conference center. The city and its residents (or, one supposes, many of them) have been trying to figure out ways to block the purchase, but the building's owner seems intent on just giving the hotel away. Delmenhorsters have raised nearly Euro 700K in a few days, I guess to buy the hotel themselves, and the city was set to donate additional funds. Then the city quickly declared the vicinity around the building a redevelopment zone, which gives it the right to purchase any building in that area before a private individual or corporation could do so. In spite of this fight, however, it seems at this point that the lawyer is going to win.
In part because it strikes close to "home" (i.e. NW Germany) for me, this news makes me feel defensive and angry. It's not the first time this guy has established Nazi facilities of this kind (the pub in Pößneck that hosted a big NPD rally and concert a few years ago is his, too), and it makes me sick to my stomach to see him branching out. But I'm wondering what other people think of this: to what extent does the state (here, the city government) have the right to step in and block a sale like this when it's clear what its purpose is? What kinds of precedents are there? And does this bring us back to the discussion of whether limiting the rights of right-wingers in Germany does anything to prohibit the growth of the movement (c.f. the discussion around banning the NPD)?
[An aside: given Grass' recent announcement, I realize that this post should be three things about Nazis, but I haven't quite gotten around to articulating my thoughts on that one yet. Mostly I think it's a shame that he didn't admit to being in the SS sooner, even if he was only a kid, and even if he never fired a shot himself. He still should have mentioned it. But I can't believe that this late admission lessens the value of his writing or his years of usually very clear-headed--if slightly smug--political critique.]
Die Zeit profiles Markus Lüpertz, a painter and sculptor who's in the news right now because one of his sculptures, on display in a park in Bamberg, were vandalized recently. (The police are still clueless.)
I wrote my MA thesis on a series of paintings of German motifs he made in the 1970s; his older painting is still interesting to me, this new sculpture much less so. But it seems to me that what really keeps him in the news is his persona, his dandy-ness, expressed through expensively-tailored yet clashing suits and marvelous turns of phrase like, "Ich entschloss mich, ein schöner Mann zu sein" ("I decided to be a lovely man" - caption under the photo accompanying the interview).
But perhaps more interesting are statements like this, in which he voices a longing for the old Federal Republic, pre-Unification, ruined as if struck by a "DDR-Virus:"
Die Bundesrepublik hatte zum Beispiel keinen Rassismus, das kann ich mit Fug und Recht behaupten, ich habe jahrelang in Kreuzberg und Neukölln gelebt.
(Right. No racism. And also, Kreuzberg and NK were, like, representative of West Germany at the time.)
He's a real charmer in general. I was going to pull out more quotes, but I realize that this is interesting mostly to me, because I was so immersed in his method for a time. Let me just summarize by stating that the interview depicts a man who feels he was born into the wrong century and who loves to hear himself talk. When I read these sorts of interviews I remember why I fume every time some newspaper refers to him as "one of Germany's greatest artists" (as here in Die Zeit, where the interviewers pose some pretty fawning, "artisty" questions). Although I know personality is not a measure of quality of work, in this case it's pretty hard for me to separate them.
Ich stimme für die Sozialdemokraten, weil sie auf Seiten der sozial Schwachen stehen und uns vor dem Absturz in amerikanische Klassenverhältnisse zu schützen wissen.
from Günter Grass' speech in support of Red-Green government. (Not to be confused with Red Green. He doesn't have a government. Yet.)
A few nice responses to the NRW elections (see Melli's entry; Tobias and others at FOE are worth a peep too). And here's the Guardian's coverage of the news that Schroeder has called for a vote of confidence, and another story, which, like many of these reports, compares Merkel to Thatcher...(Oh, wah wah wah, Edmund.)
I also just read that Lafontaine has finally left the SPD. Whether or not a new Linksbündnis will result is still up in the air, as is that new alliance's potential effectiveness. But it might be interesting to watch things develop.
Anyone have suggestions for light reading (in English) for someone travelling through Germany for the first time? Thanks...
Spiegel online has an interview with Wladimir Kaminer re: the so-called Visa-Affair. Worth a read. Kaminer pulls no punches.
[via Mehrzweckbeutel]
Coming out of the heaviest week in some time. The draft is submitted, I took two days to recuperate, and now I am easing back into a little editing, a little reading, a little writing. Oh and some blogging, finally (my one or two readers probably thought I'd fallen into a hole or something).
So, for my first real, but short post, I bring happy news that Perlentaucher has an English version of sorts, signandsight; the most useful page is the daily feuilleton review.
Huh. Maybe this means I'm becoming redundant. If they translate everything, I don't have to...Though the voice isn't really the same in English--it's sometimes quite funny and catty in the German.
Johnny has something especially thoughtful to say today:
Und daher will ich sie sehen, diese Menschen, die den Anstand nicht haben, den Opfern von Massenmorden zu gedenken, und ich will, dass die ganze Welt sie sehen kann. Ich will, dass ihre Gesichter, ihre Reden und ihr Verhalten unsere Herzen öffnen, damit wir uns ihnen mit Mut und Leidenschaft in den Weg stellen.
The essay is a critique of the press' wimpy response and the cookie cutter solution proposed by the government after right-wing members of the Saxon state assembly refused to observe a moment of silence on the day commemorating the victims of National Socialism.
Reading his last paragraph I couldn't help but think of number three in this wicked assessment of human nature. We have met the enemy and he is us.
Via these folks, Moe links to the German government's position statement against introducing university tuition (and fees) at the level of the "Erststudium," your first go-round. The issue will be raised this week in the Federal Consitutional Court, because a number of CDU-governed states consider this to be an issue that should be governed by them, not by the feds. The government's general position is that "tuition is harmful. Additional financial burdens will result in fewer young people in Germany choosing a university education."
The short list of elaborations (with my interpretations in parentheses):
Like Moe says, this is mostly a symbolic act, since the court's making the decision, but it's notable that the government has spoken so decisively. Although if I were to be a cynic, I might call it an attempt to rebuild confidence after the recent university strikes.
Several people (Johnny, Sattva) have already mentioned Heimatlos, but for those who've missed it: a Turkish-German (German-Turkish?) blogger in Hamburg. Today there was this excellent link to a super discussion of Turkish-German Rechtschreibereform. Of a sort.
also loving the T-Şörts.
Recently Sattva wrote about language learning, bringing up two points of view that I've often vacillated between:
1. if you are in germany, you should speak german or at least try. it's your right. 2. if you are just beginning to learn german, it's not always the best method of communication. language is about communicating with people the best you can.
These hit home. When you're trying to learn a language, it's frustrating to find people responding to you in your native language because they think it will make the conversation easier (not facilitate it, necessarily. Just make it easier to get through, to finish). In that sense, I do think you "have a right" to speak the local language, assuming that's part of why you're there. If it isn't, if you can and prefer to exist without the local language, or if in that moment you don't feel like using the local language, then you shouldn't have to. No one should expect you to use it, to struggle in it when you don't want to. The right rests with the speaker, doesn't it?
This gets sticky when we're talking about supermarketgerman, or postofficegerman, or other more pragmatic instances of language. Registering as a resident, paying taxes, all those kinds of administrative things are tough if you don't speak German, though many forms I've had to fill out were offered in multiple languages (Turkish, Vietnamese, Russian, Serbo-Croatian). As Sattva says, this is all tricky because it is bound up with the debate on immigration and naturalization, multikulti etc. Does "allowing" immigrants living in Germany to live there without learning German mean that German Culture will erode? Doubt it.
But beyond “functional” language, I don't know. In Germany I’ve often chosen or fallen into bilingual groups and settings, where expression both in the sense of communicating ideas and in terms of creative expression could happen in either English or German. Regardless of how well I speak German, it's nice to be able to express something in English when I need to and to know that people will understand it on more than just a denotative level. Sattva also makes the point that perfected spoken language can allow those who already have the advantage of "looking German" to disappear, to pass as German, while those who don't, no matter what their language skills, don't have that privilege. Passing was really appealing to me when I started learning German, when I really didn’t want to stand out as an American. In high school in Wilhelmshaven I found I had a talent for accents, and I emulated the dialect so closely that I sounded as if I'd been a Fischkopp my whole life. (My Spanish, which I learned in school in WHV, sounds ridiculously German.)
Passing was proof that I'd accomplished something, that I’d been successful at learning the language. It wasn't until I was in college that I started thinking that maybe I didn't really want to be mistaken for a German. The more aware I became of Turkish culture in Germany, and of immigration in Germany more broadly, the more indignant I became that people (including myself) would think of physical characteristics as a determining factor of nationality or belonging. But more personally (and lets face it, probably more importantly at 21), I started noticing that I was a different person when speaking German, and I couldn't figure out why this was. Now I think it's because, as Sattva suggests, certain intimate aspects aren't communicated the same in a second language. Ever. It took some time before I felt like my real personality was the same in both languages. I haven't been conscious of that process, but I can say that I finally felt it had happened while we were living in Berlin, after almost twenty years of speaking the language.
I can only find a reasonably-sized write up of this at Stern, but a new study regarding the attitudes of young female immigrants in Germany has just been released by the Bundesfamilienministerium. I'm sure more commentary will follow at other papers throughout the day.
update: Rochus Wolff notes in the comments that "the zdf has a short story about this [here] and also offers the study itself in pdf format."
The same story is now also available from the FR and the taz.
I haven't found anything in English yet, but I did stumble onto this photoessay on "Kotti" (at Deutsche Welle). Not especially compelling, and the text is annoying, but I guess I'll take any photos I can get.
