Katja Hoyer

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A worker reassembles torn or shredded documents in the former headquarters of the Stasi in Berlin in 2019. (John MacDougall/AFP via Getty Images)

On average, it takes about nine hours to complete a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. At that rate, 600 million pieces take centuries. That is the task Germany is confronting as it launches a new attempt to piece together a dark chapter of its past.

A few weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the East German secret police, known as the Stasi, attempted to destroy the hoard of information it had collected on the country’s 16 million citizens. That effort created over 16,000 sacks of shredded paper. Now, more than three decades later, the German government is launching a new effort to restore the documents with the help of information technology.…  Seguir leyendo »

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock delivers a speech during the congress of the Green Party in Bonn, Germany, on Oct. 15. (Ina Fassbender/AFP/Getty Images)

On Tuesday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock made headlines with a surprise visit to the heavily damaged city of Kharkiv in northeast Ukraine. Though she didn’t address the controversy raging at home over whether to supply Kyiv with powerful German tanks, she did promise more weapons — which, she said, would help Ukraine “free its citizens who are still suffering under the terror of Russian occupation”. That was far more forceful than anything Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said in recent weeks. The war in Ukraine, it turns out, is Baerbock’s fight too — for the chance to become the next German chancellor.…  Seguir leyendo »

Cuando la conmoción inicial por la redada policial del pasado miércoles contra un presunto intento de golpe de Estado en Alemania se calmó, se produjo un extraño debate en los medios de comunicación alemanes. Aunque la mayoría de los medios coinciden con la ministra del Interior, Nancy Faeser, en que los sospechosos “no son chiflados inofensivos, sino sospechosos de terrorismo”, algunos periódicos han argumentado que se ha dado demasiada importancia a la detención de ″25 personas mayores y confundidas”.

Por supuesto, el complot para derrocar al Gobierno alemán tenía pocas posibilidades de éxito, pero reveló que existe una peligrosa minoría de alemanes tan descontentos con la política dominante que están dispuestos a recurrir a la violencia.…  Seguir leyendo »

Sahra Wagenknecht, a leader in the Die Linke party, at a September 2018 news conference in Berlin. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

The curious case of Sahra Wagenknecht can tell you a lot about the current state of German politics. Polls rank her as the country’s most popular female leader. An intensely charismatic woman, the 53-year-old Wagenknecht grew up in East Germany. She joined the ruling socialist party in 1989 and has served as a member of parliament for its successor organization, known today as Die Linke (“The Left”), since 2009. While her party is floundering, earning around 5 percent in the polls, Wagenknecht’s personal approval rating has soared.

She’s built her success by opposing covid-19 lockdowns, “woke” culture and support for Ukraine — all policies identified with a government seen as increasingly out of touch with ordinary people suffering from rising inflation and the economic effects of the pandemic.…  Seguir leyendo »

Passengers wait for a train in Berlin on Oct. 8 after a major disruption on the German railway network. (John MacDougall/AFP)

“We are at war with Putin”, declared German health minister Karl Lauterbach this month. His remark caused consternation among his colleagues in government. But he’s right. Spies, hackers and mysterious saboteurs are attacking critical infrastructure around the country — and the most likely culprits are the Russians. For the first time in decades, Germans are confronting a major challenge to their national security. How will they adapt?

This month, an act of sabotage forced state-owned rail giant Deutsche Bahn to suspend all train traffic for nearly three hours across the country’s north, leaving passengers stranded. The sophistication of the attack, in which assailants simultaneously cut two sets of fiber-optic cables about 340 miles apart from each other, prompted some officials to speculate that a foreign government might be involved.…  Seguir leyendo »

Kerstin Ade stands next to her camper during a semiannual trip for former East Germany residents in Leipzig, Germany. (Kerstin Sopke/AP)

Soup and sausages might not seem like the usual stuff of public controversy. In Germany, however, even such humble household staples can trigger deep-seated national anxieties. In the east of the country, several big supermarket chains have revived food products that hark back to the region’s socialist past during the Cold War. Now, they stand accused of “trivializing the injustice of communist dictatorship”.

The controversial items back on east German shelves include dishes such as solyanka. This thick, meat-based soup has its origins in Russia and Ukraine but became popular across the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War. In socialist East Germany, it was a regular item on restaurant menus and in school canteens.…  Seguir leyendo »

Pacifist protesters wear masks of (from left) German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht earlier this month. (Markus Schreiber/AP)

Ever since Adrian Hurtado decided to join the German army instead of going to university, he’s had to put with up with constant derision. “In Germany, soldiers are either murderers or idiots, Nazis or ridiculous”, the 21-year-old writes in a recent blog post. He relates how, arriving in uniform one night at a Berlin train station, he was trailed by a drunk thug shouting “soldiers are murderers”. “Every one of my comrades has experienced scenes like this”, Hurtado notes.

Can his country afford to leave it at that? Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is forcing Germans to reassess their long-held ambivalence toward military power.…  Seguir leyendo »

France's President Emmanuel Macron, right, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, left, Prime Minister of Italy Mario Draghi, center, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, second left, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Kyiv on June 16. The European Union leaders vowed to back Kyiv's bid to become an official candidate to join the bloc in a high-profile show of support for the country fending off a Russian invasion. (Ludovic Marin, Pool via AP)

It felt like a historic occasion when the leaders of Europe’s largest states, Germany, Italy and France, finally visited Kyiv on Thursday. Air raid sirens howled as their night train pulled into the Ukrainian capital. French President Emmanuel Macron spoke of “a message of European unity”. But behind the warm words, there was also plenty of cold calculation as Europe’s leaders push to end the war as soon as possible.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, none of the European Union heavyweights had seen fit to visit Ukraine. Macron, who boasted that he has spent “at least a hundred hours” on the phone with Vladimir Putin, declared that he would travel to Kyiv only if he felt it was “useful”.…  Seguir leyendo »

Air raid sirens were part of my childhood.

Every Wednesday at 1 p.m., their eerie howl permeated the East German town of Strausberg where I grew up. The purpose of these weekly drills was to keep us alert, to remind us that no matter how peaceful things appeared, nuclear war was always just one bad decision away. Germans — in the East and the West — knew that the fault line of the Cold War was right underneath their feet.

But with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, our collective tensions fizzled out, and most of the sirens were dismantled.…  Seguir leyendo »

“No to war!” declares an emotional online appeal signed by 600 German public figures, influential people spanning politics, culture, religion and science. They begin by stating their solidarity with Ukraine — and then go on to denounce the dramatic upgrade in Germany’s defense capabilities recently announced by Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Their protest illustrates the scale of the opposition that Scholz will confront as he attempts to reshape the country’s foreign policy.

Last month, when Scholz told parliament that the government was embarking on nothing less than the biggest and fastest rearmament program in the country’s postwar history, he received standing ovations.…  Seguir leyendo »

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin on Jan. 25. (Tobias Schwarz/AP)

"Has anyone seen Olaf Scholz?” That’s the question making the rounds on social media in Germany this week. While his Western allies work to curb Russian aggression against Ukraine, the German chancellor seems to have gone AWOL. As his administration comes under fire for its inaction, he stubbornly keeps his head down, avoiding questions. But he can’t hide from scrutiny forever. It’s not only the Twitterati who want to know: Where is Olaf?

Amid escalating tensions in Eastern Europe, NATO member states have been ramping up their efforts to avoid open conflict on the continent. This week alone, the prime ministers of Britain, the Netherlands and Poland all visited Kyiv.…  Seguir leyendo »

On Wednesday, President Biden gave a news conference — and admitted something he shouldn’t have: “There are differences in NATO as to what countries are willing to do, depending on what happens.” Though this was a serious diplomatic blunder that undermined efforts to deter his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, Biden was correct in his assessment — and especially in respect to one country. Germany cannot be depended upon when it comes to imposing sanctions on Russia.

While the United States and Britain have sent defensive weapons to Ukraine, neither has committed to direct military action to deter Putin from using the 100,000 soldiers he has amassed at the Ukrainian border.…  Seguir leyendo »

Germany shut down this nuclear power plant in Gundremmingen at the turn of the year as it phases out nuclear power. (Lukas Barth/Reuters)

A modest display of pyrotechnics at the Brandenburg Gate accompanied by the ill-fitting tune of “Auld Lang Syne” drifting through the empty streets of Berlin — New Year’s Eve in Germany was again a rather subdued affair because of rising coronavirus infections. But not in the small village of Grohnde in Lower Saxony, where loud cheers could be heard at midnight. A group of around 100 people had gathered there in front of the giant twin towers that could be seen from miles around. They had come to celebrate what they called a “historic moment”. One of Germany’s oldest nuclear power plants had just ceased operation.…  Seguir leyendo »

A police officer instructs men wearing QAnon conspiracy shirts to move along during protests on May 16, 2020, in Berlin. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

The international court of public opinion seems to have a soft spot for Germany these days. Outside observers are hailing us for our stable democracy, our acceptance of female politicians and our economic success.

In an age when much of the world seems to have gone crazy, I can understand why some commentators might see Germany as a bastion of reasonableness and good sense. Yet the reality is not quite as reassuring.

Take conspiracy theories. In Germany, they are no longer the prerogative of a handful of unhinged individuals. According to a recent study, nearly a third of Germans give credibility to them.…  Seguir leyendo »

Workers remove election campaign poster in Cologne, Germany, on Sept. 27. (Thilo Schmuelgen/Reuters)

Wafer-thin election victories are often a recipe for disaster. But things have remained pretty calm in Germany after Sunday’s election.

Germans know they’re in for a period of waiting and uncertainty. That’s because most main parties are still in the running, and indeed it is not even certain yet which of them will provide Chancellor Angela Merkel’s successor.

The Social Democrats (SPD) just edged ahead with 25.7 percent of the vote, marginally ahead of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union, which fell to 24 percent, a historic low for the party. In the German voting system, however, the winner does not take it all.…  Seguir leyendo »

From left, chancellor candidates Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party, Annalena Baerbock of the Green Party and Armin Laschet of the Christian Democratic Union before a debate in Berlin on Sept. 12. (Michael Kappeler/Pool/Reuters)

One of the biggest strengths of democracies is their capacity to provide for peaceful transitions of power. In Germany, where the 67-year-old Angela Merkel has reigned for 16 years, voters are about to decide who will come next.

Could the Sept. 26 general election be a chance for Germans to send a signal about long-overdue generational change? Merkel’s retirement from politics would seem to have taken the option of continuity off the ballot. Yet the fact that she is still by far Germany’s most popular politician is actually leading her would-be successors to emphasize business as usual rather than disruption. Merkel’s departure should have opened up a real opportunity for a new generation to come forward.…  Seguir leyendo »

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, center, speaks to then-President Donald Trump during the June 2018 Group of Seven summit in Quebec, Canada. (Jesco Denzel/AP)

When Angela Merkel first visited Washington in her role as German chancellor, she was warmly welcomed by President George W. Bush. They hit it off immediately. He gushed that he “got a glimpse into her soul” as she told him about her youth in communist East Germany. That was in 2006, and the two leaders were trying to heal the rifts between their nations after the open criticism of the United States’ war in Iraq by her predecessor as chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder.

On Thursday, Merkel is visiting the White House for the last time before she will retire after the German federal elections in September.…  Seguir leyendo »