New Year's party goes out of control

Published: 2 Jan 11 13:10 CET
A 16-year-old's New Year's party descended into chaos in a house in Augsburg, Bavaria, with wardrobes ending up in swimming pools and laptops stolen.
The girl's parents had given permission for the party, to which 75 people had been invited via the internet. But the party proved a little too successful, as around 200 people are thought to have descended on the house, according to the police.

Having celebrated the New Year elsewhere, the parents returned in the morning to find footprints on the walls, banisters damaged, and the mother's wardrobe floating in the swimming pool outside.

Several vases, sculptures and three laptops were also stolen during the party, and youths had apparently urinated in various parts of the house. The cleaning bill was estimated to run into several thousand euros.

The parents have pressed charges, though it is unclear against whom.

DAPD/DPA/bk

Women have strengthened army, says military association

Published: 2 Jan 11 14:02 CET

Women have been able to join the German military for ten years, and Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Sohst, regional chairman of the German Army Association (DBwV), believes the Bundeswehr is better for it.

Speaking to news agency DAPD in Bonn, Sohst said the introduction of women into the armed forces had enriched the country's military.

At the start of 2001, women were enlisted into the German military for the first time, with 244 women joining up. Today, there are 17,300 women in the Bundeswehr, 9.2 percent of all soldiers.

"Women are part of normal society, and so they have become a normal part of the army," Sohst said. The fact that no woman had yet been promoted to general or colonel was down to the fact that women had only been part of the armed forces for a decade, he added.

But Sohst believes that the Bundeswehr will soon see its first female battalion or brigade commanders.

Sohst said the army had not yet successfully managed to balance work and family life for its women. "We're not at the end of the road on that yet," he said, saying that new rules for protecting mothers and providing parental allowance were needed.

The lieutenant colonel suggested that one solution would be to have two people temporarily taking over a position while someone else is on parental leave.

DAPD/bk

Berlinale invites 'anti-regime' Iranian director to serve on jury

Published: 7 Dec 10 07:58 CET
The Berlin Film Festival has invited outspoken Iranian film-maker Jafar Panahi, who was jailed for three months for work deemed "anti-regime," to serve on its jury in February.
"We hope Jafar Panahi will be able to attend the festival and perform this important task on the international jury of the 61st Berlinale," the event's director Dieter Kosslick said in a statement on Monday.

Panahi, 50, went on a hunger strike to protest the conditions of his detention after his March 1 arrest and was released from Tehran's Evin prison on May 25 after posting bail of two billion rials (around $200,000).

A vocal backer of Iran's opposition movement, Panahi was arrested at his home along with 16 other people, including his wife and daughter. Most were subsequently released.

The charges against Panahi were not announced.

But Culture Minister Mohammad Hosseini said in April that he was detained for making an "anti-regime" film about the unrest that rocked Iran after last year's disputed re-election of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

His imprisonment sparked petitions from dozens of cinema figures inside and outside Iran signed by leading directors including Robert Redford, Steven Spielberg, Michael Moore and Oliver Stone.

In February the Iranian authorities banned Panahi from leaving the country to attend the 2010 edition of the Berlin Film Festival.

Cannes then invited Panahi to join its own jury in May, while he was still in prison.

Headed by "Alice in Wonderland" director Tim Burton, the panel called for his release and left a seat symbolically empty for him on stage at the festival's red-carpet gala opening.

Despite his release, Iranian authorities have refused to return Panahi's passport and he was unable to attend the Venice Film Festival in September to present his short film "The Accordion" on the opening day.

Panahi, who has been unable to make a feature film in five years, told AFP in an interview in September that he did not understand why he should face a travel ban.

"When a filmmaker does not make films it is as if he is jailed. Even when he is freed from the small jail, he finds himself wandering in a larger jail," he said.

Panahi is known for his gritty, socially critical movies such as "The Circle," which captured the 2000 Venice Golden Lion award, "Crimson Gold" and "Offside," winner of the 2006 Silver Bear in Berlin.

Italian-American actress and director Isabella Rossellini will chair the international jury at the Berlin Film Festival, one of Europe's top cinema showcases, from February 10 to 20.

The panel selects the winners of the Golden and Silver Bear top prizes.

AFP/ka

Three seniors killed in nursing home fire

Published: 7 Dec 10 08:09 CET
A fire at a Würzburg retirement home killed three people and injured another six overnight, Bavarian police said Tuesday. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
The blaze at the facility in the city’s Hiedingsfeld district broke out on the first floor, and police were alerted around 11:30 pm.

A 67-year-old man and a 70-year-old woman died at the scene despite attempts by rescue workers to revive them.

Fire fighters found the body of the 89-year-old woman who lived in the apartment where the fire began.

Among the six other residents injured, two were in critical condition, police said. Meanwhile, three rescue workers were also treated at a nearby clinic.

Nineteen residents of the first floor, some of whom were bedridden, were evacuated.

Some 50 fire fighters at the scene were able to control the blaze quickly, police said.

DAPD/DPA/ka

The Best of Berlin in December

Published: 7 Dec 10 11:07 CET
Berlin’s leading English-language magazine, in December tells you where to get your Glühwein on, hits the ice rink, and tries to be charitable for the holidays.
Holy fun markets

Advent in Berlin is all about hot Glühwein, merry-go-rounds and handmade knicknacks. Visiting every Weihnachtsmarkt would kill even Santa. EXBERLINER guides you through the best.

Zauber Market
Upgrade your Christmas nostalgia at the Weihnachtszauber in the handsome shadows of the Konzerthaus: endless arts-and-crafts booths, fire-swallowers, Santas, acrobats and stands selling tooth-rotting delights like caramelized almonds and candied apples. Here you can also enjoy a fancy meal in tent versions of Galerie Lafayette and Lutter und Wegner without being bothered by the riffraff (the fake Prussian soldier collecting €1-euro entry fees will see to that).

Gendarmenmarkt, Mitte, U-Bhf Französische Str., daily 11-22, (Christmas Eve 11-18, New Year’s Eve 11-01), through Dec 31. Entry is €1, kids under 12 are free

Eco market
The Adventsökomarkt at Kollwitzplatz is a tribute to the neigbourhood’s near-obsession with organic living: here you can indulge in fair trade sausages, wholegrain waffles and freshly baked Christmas cookies from Ökobäcker. Stock up on presents like toys made from recycled cans in Africa and wool slippers from Bavaria. Just try not to step on the children.

Kollwitzplatz, Prenzlauer Berg, U-Bhf Senefelderplatz, Dec 5, 12, 19, 12-19, free

Fairy tale market
Visit the Domäne Dahlem Adventsmarkt to feel like you’ve stepped into a 19th-century children’s book. It's on a farm, so the kids can take tractor and pony rides or make their own beeswax Christmas ornaments.

Königin-Luise-Str. 49, Dahlem, U-Bhf Dahlem Dorf, Dec 5, 12, 19, 11-19, free

Old world market
The old-world loveliness of Weihnachstmarkt Alt-Rixdorf complements Richardplatz’s village feel with an excellent selection of vendors and several ponies that will let you ride them if they aren’t too pissed off about being in Neukölln instead of Dahlem.

Richardplatz 28, Neukölln, U+S-Bhf Neukölln, Dec 4-6, Fri 17- 21, Sat 14-21, Sun 14-20

Holy Land market
At the Hanukkah Market in the Jewish Museum’s glass-covered courtyard, you’ll find crafts and cuisine from Israel, as well as puppet shows and live music celebrating the rededication of the temple in Jerusalem more than 2,000 years ago. Cause nothing says “we won the holy war” like a puppet show.

Jewish Museum, Lindenstr. 9-14, Kreuzberg, U-Bhf Kochstr., daily 12-18 (closed Dec 24), through Dec 26, free

Medieval market
Out west, the Spandauer Weihnachtsmarkt offers a special kids’ market and a medieval market that gives a glimpse of life in the Dark Ages, in addition to 200 stalls that show a less Inquisition-y side of the holiday.

Altstadt Berlin-Spandau, S-Bhf Spandau, U-Bhf Rathaus Spandau, Sun-Thu 11-20, Fri 11-21, Sam 11-22, through Dec 23, free

Nordic market
Named after the Nordic goddess of light, the Lucia Weihnachtsmarkt in Kulturbrauerei is big with families: kids hit the mega-trampoline or carousel while their parents sip Glögg (Scandinavian Glühwein).

Kulturbrauerei, Schönhausesr Allee 36, Prenzlauer Berg, U-Bhf Eberswalder Str., Mo-Fri 15-22, Sa-Su 13-22, through Dec 22, free

Hipster market
If you prefer dissolute twenty-somethings to sugar-drunk children, head for the Holy Shit Shopping lounge for a singles’ weekend. No rides, no candyfloss. Instead, for €3, you’ll get DJs and over 150 young designers and artists hawking their goods in a ‘club context’. We’ll have the candyfloss, thank you.

Galerie Spandauer Str. 2 + HBC, Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 9, U-Bhf Alexanderplatz, Dec 11-12, Sa 12-22, Su 12-20, entry €3


Berlin on ice

Here are five places to show off those brand-new skates this winter… Don’t have any? Don’t worry: you can hire them on the spot.

Skating under the cosmos
Wrapped around romantic Neptunbrunnen, this rink must be the prettiest in the city. The Greek god Poseidon will watch over your skating adventure as you circle him, hand clasped to that of your beloved, with the Rotes Rathaus in the background.

EISBAHN AM NEPTUNBRUNNEN | Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 8, Mitte, U+S-Bhf Alexanderplatz, 1.5 hours: €4 (no entrance free, only for skates), Nov 22-Dec 26

Beat and Speed
Already got all the moves down perfectly: why not try it with music?

SPORTFORUM HOHENSCHÖNHAUSEN | Konrad-Wolf-Str. 39, Hohenschönhausen, Adults €3.30, Kids €1.60, Skates: prices vary according to shoe size, Music on Ice every second Friday (+ €1), Through March

Skate and the city
Come winter, Potsdamer Platz (photo) morphs into a flashy downtown winter amusement park. Catch a flick, browse the
Weihnachtsmarkt, tube down that fake snowy hill and then cap it off by skating among the skyscrapers.

EISBAHN AM POTSDAMER PLATZ | Marlene-Dietrich-Platz 1, Mitte, U+S-Bhf Potsdamer Platz, 1.5 hours: €2.50, Skate rental prices vary according to shoe size

For the real pros
Embrace your inner Olympian at this massive rink – sorry, ‘ice stadium’ – in Neukölln.

EISSTADION NEUKÖLLN | Oderstr. 182, Neukölln, U+S-Bhf Hermannstr., Adults €3.30, Kids €1.60, Skate rental prices vary according to shoe size, Through March 13

For rookies (and Bavarians)
This fun suburban rink offers not only skating classes for beginners but also a range of special events, like ice hockey, Kinderdisco, and the strange medieval sport that is Bavarian curling.

EISBAHN LANKWITZ | Leonorenstr. 37, Steglitz, S-Bhf Lakwitz, Adults €4, Kids €3.50, Prices vary according to equipment and shoe size, Through March 24


Goody goody Christmas: trials of an eager volunteer

So you’re all alone in Berlin this Christmas while your friends are home getting high on stuffed goose and liquor with their families. How can you stave off holiday despair? Help the less fortunate! That’s the true meaning of Christmas after all, right?

But forget the Red Cross (DRK) - they don't want your help, just your money. And even if you’re well-versed in Hundedeutsch, Berlin’s biggest animal shelter is closed for the holidays.

That left Caritas, the huge Catholic charity. In Berlin, they help the homeless, asylum-seekers, downtrodden youth, the old, etc. We called and called. They picked up and put us through to a non-existent extension. So, we emailed. A true Christmas miracle: they called back! “You don’t have to worry about your language skills to tend to the old-aged,” the nice English-speaking lady explained. “For them it’s all the same.” (!)

So what about the poor? Obviously we weren’t the first to try to help out at Suppenküchen. They’re overcrowded with volunteers. But if you’re hell-bent on ladeling out grub for the huddled masses, food-for-the-poor charity Berliner Tafel does need help handing out groceries on Christmas Eve. It’s a popular gig though, so be sure to sign up before December 17 – they even have an English website.

Don’t give up! Here are a few DIY tips for selfless action:

1. Go door to door in your Kiez singing Falco songs. “Rock me Amadeus” will be a relief after hearing “Jingle Bells” a thousand times at the mall.

2. Bake some gingerbread and put a smile of the faces of the poor BVG drivers who don’t get a Christmas break.

3. Offer a free shoulder rub to a burned-out Santa at the Weihnachtsmarkt. Just don’t give him the wrong idea – we don’t want the kid in his lap getting an extra Christmas ‘surprise’.

Of course, you should be volunteering all year round, not just to cure your Christmas blues. You can help children on a regular basis at Caritas, for instance. Even if it’s only once a month – whatever you give, you will get it back thousand-fold. So think of it as a selfish endeavour. There, doesn’t that feel better?

CARITAS | Tel 030 8578 4120. For more information email k.eichhorn@caritas-berlin.de

A long journey: Germany celebrates 175 years of rail travel

Published: 7 Dec 10 11:30 CET
Germany celebrated 175 years of train travel on Tuesday with the anniversary of the maiden journey of the steam locomotive “Adler” between Nuremberg and Fürth in 1835.
Chancellor Angela Merkel will speak Tuesday night at a large celebration in Nuremberg, organised by national rail operator Deutsche Bahn.

Deutsche Bahn CEO Rüdiger Grube, Transportation Minister Peter Ramsauer, Bavarian Economy Minister Martin Zeit and other officials will also be on hand for the culmination of celebrations and exhibitions that took place around the country this year.

The Adler clocked 35 kilometres per hour on its first journey, flanked by jubilant citizens along the tracks. Just five years later the country had laid some 500 kilometres of railway, and by the First World War, Germans were travelling on a network of some 58,000 kilometres of tracks, which had become the vehicle of industrialisation.

Click here for a choo-choo photo gallery.

Troops were transported to the front during the war, and afterwards the country combined various state-level services to create a national railway.

Today high-speed ICE trains race through Germany at speeds of up to 300 kilometres per hour, though the network has been reduced to a route system of 38,000 kilometres.

But Germany’s railways also played a major role in the country’s darkest hours.

“Neither the war of extermination in the east or the deportation of millions to concentration and death camps would have been possible without the state railway,” Deutsche Bahn said.

When Germany was divided after the Second World War, rail service developed separately in the east and west. While trains in the west competed with cars and aeroplanes, East Germany’s main form of transport for both people and goods remained the railway.

The two services were merged after reunification 20 years ago, and trains remain an integral part of Germany’s industry, tourism, and daily life.

Sadly the original Adler steam locomotive no longer exists. The steam engine was converted into factory engine in Nuremberg in 1858, though a replica stands in Deutsche Bahn’s museum there.

DPA/ka

German schools make slight improvement

Published: 7 Dec 10 08:40 CET
Updated: 7 Dec 10 12:04 CET
Germany's school standards have improved slightly after a dismal performance a decade ago but are still mediocre when compared with other developed countries, the latest PISA international tests showed Tuesday.
While German students' scores for maths and sciences were slightly above the average for OECD countries, they still lagged behind the world’s top performers in Finland and South Korea, who tested one to two grade levels ahead.

Germany did have the dubious honour of scoring highly on inequality – with opportunities between native-born children and those from immigrant families sharply divided.

“Germany has advanced from the second to the first league,” OECD Berlin head Heino von Meyer said. “But Germany is still far from the Champions League.”

Germany was shocked a decade ago when the first PISA test showed it was lagging far behind many comparable countries on student performance. Further improvement will require more training and better integration of students from immigrant families, von Meyer said.

Students from 65 countries, including the 33 OECD countries, took part in the 2009 assessment, which focussed on reading comprehension, maths and science for 15-year-olds.

Reading comprehension among the teens was noticeably different than 2000 results, up from 484 points to 497 – on par with other average performers France, Britain, the United States and Sweden, but still well below studious Finland and South Korea, which scored 536 and 539.

And girls were ahead of boys in reading by an average of one school year in Germany.

While the number of students with unsatisfactory results fell, their results were still marked by the social and economic differences between their families, more so than in any other country tested.

Despite improved results, German Education Minister Annette Schavan said the country had still not reached its goals.

“We have come a long way forward in reaching the goal of an educational republic of Germany,” she said, adding that more must be done.

Schavan announced a new national reading programme she announced on Monday. But she said there needed to be more uniformity between states, while parents and communities needed to become more involved.

The selection of teachers in Germany could also be improved, said the head of the PISA study, Andreas Schleicher.

“One should try to win the best brains for the schools,” he told daily Frankfurter Rundschau. “Countries like Finland do this really successfully.”

But progress has been made in the quality of German education, he said, explaining that is has become more hands-on than before.

Improvements have also been made in early child education and the support of immigrant students, he told the paper.

The Paris-based Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is the world’s largest standardised educational test, with some 500,000 students taking part this time, among them 5,000 at 223 German schools.

DPA/DAPD/ka

Children and teens unlikely to stumble upon web porn

Published: 7 Dec 10 11:32 CET

German parents need not panic about their children being exposed to internet pornography, according to a new study, which found that just one in 20 youths stumbled onto sexual content on the web in the past year.

The massive survey of European children’s internet use and the risks posed by it, presented Tuesday in Berlin, found that German children are much less likely to be exposed to negative content than their peers in most neighbouring countries.

No other EU country had such a low figure as Germany’s five percent when it came to accidental exposure to web porn, said Uwe Hasebrink, head of the Hans Bredow Institute, which co-authored the study, “EU Kids Online,” with the State Centre for Media and Communication in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

The institutes surveyed 23,000 youngsters aged nine to 16, along with one of their parents, in 25 countries. It was the first Europe-wide survey of internet use by German children and teens.

The countries where children most commonly came across sexual content by accident on the web were Estonia with 30 percent and the Czech Republic with 29 percent.

According to the surprise result, only eight percent of children in Germany had had “bad experiences” on the internet, Hasebrink said. That was substantially lower than the 12 percent recorded across Europe.

The results showed was no need for parents to panic about the content to which their children may be exposed, he said.

“If you regard the internet only as a danger zone, you’re not doing children any favours,” he said. “The internet is one of the most powerful communications instruments that we have.”

One reason for the relatively low danger for German children is that they simply use the internet less than many of their European peers.

“German children use the internet more seldom and less diversely,” Hasebrink has said previously. “This makes them less exposed, but they also make only restricted use of the opportunities the internet offers.”

DAPD/The Local/dw

Wetten, dass? stopped after on-air accident

Published: 5 Dec 10 10:14 CET

One of Germany’s biggest television shows, Wetten, dass? was ended early on Saturday night, before global stars including Take That and Justin Bieber could perform, after a candidate seriously injured himself in a stunt.

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The 23-year-old student Samuel Koch was trying to jump over a series of moving cars while wearing spring stilts, but something caught on the fourth vehicle and he fell and lay motionless on the floor.

Hosts Thomas Gottschalk and Michelle Hunziker called for a doctor and the cameras panned away from the stage where the man was lying. The television feed was soon switched to repeats of musical acts which had previously appeared on the show, which regularly attracts millions of viewers across Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

After 25 minutes of musical repeats, Gottschalk announced that the show would not go on. Samuel Koch was being operated on in hospital and there was no detailed news on how he was.

“We will here and now break off the programme,” said Gottschalk. “Anything else would be wrong. We here at ZDF feel responsible to not make jolly when we are not.”

He said that Samuel Koch was conscious and could feel his legs, but that he was being operated on at the University Hospital in Dusseldorf.

Introducing the stunt, Gottschalk had told the audience that he had been very worried when watching rehearsals of Samuel Koch jumping over cars being driven towards him, according to Der Spiegel.

“I have never been so scared, that something would happen to this young man. I can only say, I hope all goes well,” he said.


The magazine speculated on Sunday that the stunts performed by members of the public on the show were becoming increasingly dangerous at least in part due to competition from Das Supertalent show which is scheduled at the same time on commercial station RTL.

Samuel Koch was jumping over successively bigger cars, and broke off the second jump, looking irritated and stressed, according to Der Spiegel. The third car he cleared, but the fourth, which was being driven by his father, was too much, he caught himself on it somehow and crashed to the floor.

It is the first time in 29 years that the show has been broken off. “It is the first time in my long, long career that such a thing has happened and we have carried out many dangerous stunts,” Gottschalk said later. “I have always said that would be the worst thing for me, if something happened to one of my candidates in a live show. I regret enormously that this has now happened.”

DAPD/The Local/AFP/hc

Neo-Nazis march with burning torches through central Berlin

Published: 5 Dec 10 11:48 CET

People living in the Tiergarten area of Berlin were shocked on Friday night to see a group of neo-Nazis marching through the neighbourhood holding burning torches and singing fascist songs.

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The group of about 25 neo-Nazis marched through the district until they reached Turmstrasse underground station where they extinguished their torches, according to a report in Sunday’s Berliner Morgenpost.

They then ran off in different directions, but by that time a number of plain-clothes police officers had arrived at the scene and arrested four suspects, confiscating leaflets. The four men aged between 20 and 26 years old are being investigated on suspicion of incitement.

It seems the group were members of the ‘National Liberation Front’, a particularly radical group of neo-Nazis. The motivation for the short march is not clear.

The Local/hc

Wahl-O-Mat blackout in Saxony-Anhalt ahead of March election

Published: 5 Dec 10 12:29 CET

The computer programme Wahl-O-Mat which helps voters decide how to cast their ballot by comparing answers to a range of questions to the manifestoes of political parties will not be available to people in Saxony-Anhalt ahead of the March 20 state election.

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The programme, which is produced and administered by state institutes, has to include small parties in the options available to users, according to a court ruling from two years ago.

But the State Centre for Political Education in Saxony-Anhalt’s state capital Magdeburg has refused to include the neo-Nazi NPD in its version, even though the party is running in the election.

A spokesman said its exclusion was to avoid shocking younger voters who might be upset if the programme suggested their attitudes matched the neo-Nazi party. He said it would be better not to run the programme at all rather than risk a court case.

The extremist parties standing in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate state elections on March 27, will be included in the local versions of the Wahl-O-Mat.

“If the NPD is licensed to stand for election, sadly it also has to be in the Wahl-O-Mat,” said Peter Malzkorn, spokesman for the Rhineland-Palatinate State Centre for Political Education.

Users of the programme in Baden-Württemberg will have the choice of deselecting specific parties from their options before they answer the dozens of questions which the Wahl-O-Mat poses to determine the best match of political party.

“We do not practice a protectionist education policy. One must deal offensively with the extreme parties,” said Karl-Ulrich Templ, deputy director of the centre for political education there.

Hamburg voters will also have the option of using the Wahl-O-Mat to help them decide ahead of the state election there, which will probably be held on February 20.

DPA/hc

Accused leftist extremists fight extradition from France

Published: 5 Dec 10 12:40 CET

Two German suspected extremists will go to the European Court of Human Rights to fight extradition from France to Germany, their lawyer said on Saturday.

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German investigators suspect Sonja Suder, 78, and Christian Gauger, 69, of having been members of the far-left Revolutionary Cells during the 1970s, and carrying out several attacks in German cities by means of explosives or arson.

France's highest administrative court on Friday rejected a bid by the two, who are French residents, not to be extradited to Germany.

Yet their lawyer Irene Terrel said the extradition of the two elderly and ailing people would be tantamount to ill-treatment under article three of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Suder and Gauger, who went to France in 1978, are also suspected of taking part in the recruitment of a commando led by Carlos the Jackal, which took hostages at an OPEC summit in Vienna in 1975.

A Paris court authorised their extradition in February last year and their appeal against that decision was rejected the following month.

French Prime Minister Francois Fillon and the then justice minister agreed to Germany's extradition request this July which prompted the pair to turn to the French administrative court.

A first German extradition request in 2001, the year after their arrest in France, had been rejected.

Terrel called the case "unbelievable".

"We have a new convention now, which is being applied retroactively and which turns back to a case already judged," said the lawyer. "In law, this is extremely shocking, a dual violation."

AFP/hc

Germany's image suffers in EU amid debt crisis

Published: 2 Dec 10 09:39 CET
Alarm bells are ringing in Berlin as Germany's image suffers across the European Union, where it has increasingly been seen as a bully imposing its views on its partners during the eurozone debt crisis. AFP's Patrick Rahir reports.

"The rest of Europe increasingly resents German policy and fears the emergence of a nationalist Germany," warned Ulrike Guérot of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), a think tank.

Tensions have worsened as the debt crisis threatens more eurozone countries, Portugal after Ireland with Spain appearing next in line.

And German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been blamed for spooking the bonds markets by insisting that private lenders contribute to future rescue packages.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the normally German-friendly premier of Luxembourg, has fretted publicly that Berlin is "slowly losing sight of the common European good."

In Spain, "the prevailing feeling is one of frustration with Germany," wrote the ECFR head of office in Madrid, Jose Ignacio Torreblanca, in the Financial Times.

Spain fears that "Ms Merkel's proposal to have investors, and not only citizens, suffer the consequences of their investment decisions" is driving up its borrowing costs and endangering its recovery plan.

The editor-in-chief of the German daily Handelsblatt, Gabor Steingart, has accused Merkel of "being strong against the weak. Her policies lead to insecurity and strife," he charged in a front-page editorial.

And Der Spiegel claimed in its edition this week that "Germany's reputation in the EU has deteriorated dramatically."

Berlin's minister for European affairs Werner Hoyer told the weekly magazine that he is frequently asked by his colleagues in Brussels: "Do you still stand by Europe?"

"Strategically, what we're doing is right, but we have a communication problem," Hoyer said.

Germany has not turned anti-European, Almut Möller of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) told news agency AFP, but "the government's communication strategy hasn't always been sensible and it has often reacted too late."

She wondered if Merkel and her advisers "are aware of the frustrations they create." And she deplored that when confronted with their partners' views, "the Germans react to every criticism without any tact, out of the moral conviction that they are in the right."

"Germans are not ready to question themselves," agreed Ulrike Guérot.

The Foreign Ministry has prepared a policy paper urging the government to remedy its image deficit and explain its policies.

"They have realised that the crisis has brought back old cliches," commented a diplomat who insisted on anonymity. "The spectre of an ever-more-demanding Germany is being raised in a number of countries."

"And that explains why Berlin is trying to coordinate its positions with France," which can provide some kind of cover, he said.

But for Guérot the problem goes deeper. She sees a Germany that has "fallen out of love with Europe," which has become more complicated, too tiresome and too expensive.

"Germany is now simply older and poorer, with social tensions that its neighbours do not see because it likes to celebrate itself as an export champion."

"For most of Europe, Germany is the big winner of the euro ... whereas many Germans today believe that they have always had to pay for the others and have always been cheated," she added.

Germany is no longer ready to pay for each and every compromise and "this is legitimate," she insisted.

But the rest of Europe has yet to get used it and Berlin's attitude isn't helping.

"The current German tone tends to be too sharp and is therefore inappropriate," she said.

AFP/mry

Snow wallops Germany

Published: 2 Dec 10 08:50 CET
Updated: 2 Dec 10 09:22 CET

Germans woke up to heavy blanket of snow and widespread traffic chaos on Thursday, with police reporting the most problems in the states of Saxony and Bavaria.
Up 15 centimetres of snow was reported in northern and eastern parts of the country, causing accidents and delaying rail and air traffic.

Overnight, authorities in both Saxony and Bavaria reported icy gridlock on several motorways. The A72 in Saxony was temporarily closed for the removal of truck that had jack-knifed, blocking traffic. Meanwhile the traffic warning service in the state capital Dresden reported numerous ice-related accidents, though there were no serious injuries.

Click here for photos of the winter weather chaos.

High winds also created problems with drifting on roads, they said.

Ongoing snowfall in the southern state of Bavaria caused major traffic snarls, with police reporting problems near Regensburg for several hours in the early morning. Many abandoned transport trucks blocked lanes near on-ramps, they said. And while winter road cleanup crews were out in full force, they were unable to keep up with the heavy snowfall in the region.

Deaths from traffic accidents were reported in Nuremberg and Aschaffenburg.

Meanwhile trains in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and northern Bavaria were also impeded by the snow storm. National rail provider Deutsche Bahn reported that drifting snow and felled trees caused numerous delays. Travel between Leipzig and Nuremberg, as well as between Gerstungen and Leipzig had to be cut off entirely during parts of the night, they said.

A train headed to Munich was stopped by the weather near Saalfeld in the state of Thuringia, where fire fighters and rescue workers provided its 165 passengers with wool blankets food and drinks.

Trains in Eisenach, Gotha, Erfurt, Leipzig and Dresden were also left standing by the snow, Deutsche Bahn said.

At the country’s largest airport in Frankfurt some 40 flights were cancelled, as were several flights in Munich.

High winds on the northern Baltic Sea coast are likely to bring more storm surges, according to the BSH federal maritime office.

But the German Weather Service (DWD) said the wind was likely to diminish soon, though it predicted more snow and chilly temperatures.

“The low temperatures will remain really extreme,” DWD meteorologist Martin Jonas said, adding that they could dip lower than -15 degrees Celsius in many parts of the country.

President Wulff makes first trip to Israel

Published: 28 Nov 10 09:57 CET

Christian Wulff, Germany's first head of state to be born after World War II, arrived on Saturday on his first official visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories, the German embassy in Tel Aviv said.

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During his three-day visit, Wulff who flew into Tel Aviv will meet his Israeli counterpart Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

Wulff, 51, was elected in June and is Germany's fifth president to pay an official visit to Israel.

His predecessor Horst Köhler in 2005 laid a wreath at Jerusalem's Yad Vashem memorial to the six million Jews killed in the Nazi Holocaust and also addressed the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.

Wulff will also visit the Holocaust memorial during his trip. "In this official visit, I see a sign of our responsibility towards the existence of Israel and the very relationship between our two countries," Wulff said in an official statement before leaving Germany.

He also linked responsibility towards Israel to "the fight against anti-Semitism."

A quarter of a century ago, Richard von Weizsaecker became the first German president to visit Israel in 1985.

In March 2008, German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited 60 years after the Jewish state was founded in the wake of the Holocaust, also laying a wreath at Yad Vashem.

"The Holocaust fills us Germans with shame," Merkel, the first German chancellor born after World War II, told the Knesset during her visit. "I bow before the victims, I bow before the survivors, and before all those who helped them so they could survive."

Several Israeli lawmakers stayed away from the chamber, however, in protest at the chancellor speaking in German. The two countries set up full diplomatic relations in 1965 and Germany is now one of Israel's closest partners in Europe.

AFP/bk

Germany's only CDU-Green coalition falls

Published: 28 Nov 10 12:58 CET

The government of the city state of Hamburg dramatically announced new elections Sunday after the Green party-affiliated group GAL tore up its coalition contract with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

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The Hamburg Green Alternative List (GAL), incorporated into the federal Green party, announced the decision barely three months after Christian Democrat Christoph Ahlhaus was chosen as the mayor of the city.

Inter-party relations in the government have been strained since Ole von Beust announced he was stepping down in July. The hugely popular von Beust – who had governed Hamburg since 2001 - was widely seen as the guarantor of the coalition.

The alliance, which has been in power since 2008, was also seen as an experimental partnership for two parties traditionally opposed to one another.

Many GAL members had wanted to leave the coalition following von Beust's exit, but in the summer the party narrowly voted to support the new mayor.

GAL party chairwoman Katharina Fegebank said Sunday she saw no chance of a new beginning, and that a new election was the only honest offer they could make to the people of Hamburg. Parliamentary faction head Jens Kerstan said there was no more trust and reliability in the coalition.

The city's Christian Democratic finance senator Carsten Frigge announced his resignation on Wednesday following allegations of misusing party funds in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

The Local