The Perfect Alarm

I mean storm. Germany doesn’t even need a wake-up call. But they are always appreciated anyway. The ink was hardly dry on the latest alarming expert IPCC report about “higher seas” (is ink even used anymore?) before German experts here were suddenly quite certain that investments of hundreds of millions of euros will be needed in this country for massive costal protection measures like “super dikes” and other cool stuff like that.

Unwetter

“It is extremely likely” that these investments will just be a meager beginning too, I’m sure. After all, as all Germans know, scary storm tides just keep getting worse and worse here, right?

And WE ALL KNOW that there will be even scarier storm tides crashing in over the German coast in the weeks and months to come because, well, this here IPCC report thingy needs some more handfest (tangible) confirmation. That Germany has always had a Sturmflutsaison (storm tide season) and monster storms throughout recorded history will be of no interest here.

Sound like Fukishima all over again? It should. This is Fukishma all over again. Only different, because the big storm tide hasn’t happened yet.

I think I’m going to go out and get my potable water and canned goods now.

“In der Regel waren die Deiche in den vergangenen Jahren in einem guten bis sehr guten Zustand. Damit das auch künftig so bleibt, werden im Land derzeit einige alte Deiche durch Superdeiche ersetzt.”

No Berlin Wall Here

Not unless you look at how Berliners vote, that is.

Berlin

There was no great cross-border migration in the city after 1989. People had security of tenure in their flats, and they stayed put. Berlin had a large concentration of members of the Socialist Unity Party (as the communist party in East Germany was called), as well as the civil servants and Stasi operatives who kept the communist state running, and they have remained in their areas and transferred their loyalty to Die Linke.

PS: Speaking of cross-border migration, whatever happened to Ray? You know, that Dutch dude who ripped off Berlin’s youth services for 30,000 euros while doing his memory loss show for months on end? Well, he just got slammed with all the Härte (severity) of German law and will now have to perform 150 hours of community work AND receive counseling. Yowie. Let me tell you what. The Germans do NOT mess around when it comes to dishing out draconic punishment.

Well You Can Buy Christmas Goodies Here In September, Too

Go to any ALDI or LIDL these days if you don’t believe me (I prefer the Spekulatius myself).

Oktoberfest

So why should it surprise anybody that’s it’s October in September again already, too. Or nearly so. Prepare or be square.

Tip number 1: Go get your Lederhose NOW. Or a Dirndl, if your prefer. The same applies to the girls. Only after having put on one of these will you be able to celebrate the Oktoberfest in a really zünftig (hearty) fashion. And only after having put down two or three liters of Bier too, of course. But that goes without saying.

Nr. 1 – Das richtige Outfit: In Dirndl und Lederhosen feiert es sich einfach am zünftigsten. Diverse Online-Shops bieten eine große Auswahl für „Madln“ (=Mädels) und „Buam“ (=Jungs). Da aber beides perfekt sitzen soll, empfiehlt es sich, das Outfit vor Ort zu kaufen. Ein Tipp für die Damen: wird die Schleife der Dirndl-Schürze rechts gebunden, gilt Frau als vergeben, links bedeutet: „Ich bin noch zu haben.“

1,700 Affordable Homes To Be Built At Tempelhof Airport?

Planned by Berlin’s city government? Shouldn’t they figure out how to build one affordable airport first?

Tempelhof

I dunno. I still like that Tempelhof mountain thingy plan the best.

Berg

Tempelhof, whose stone-clad terminal built by the Nazis in the 1930s, was closed to air traffic in 2008 and its main building is used for events including an annual beer festival. The airfield, which has two runways, has been turned into parkland where visitors jog, roller-blade on the tarmac and barbecue.

You Gotta Have Courage

68 years after Adolf Hitlers’s death, Left party town councillors in the German city of Goslar have decided it is now time for the city to show its colors and some backbone and fearlessly strip the unpopular Nazi leader of his honorary citizenship.

Hitler

It’s civil courage like this that made Germany what it is today. Or something.

Some 4,000 German towns made Hitler an honorary citizen, and many have since stripped him of the title, some right after the war, while others did it only recently, such as the southern town of Trier in 2010.

A Pissed Off Germany Will Now Close This Here Listening Station

Teufelsberg

Among others. So there, Amerika.

Who cares that these things have either already been closed down for years or no longer serve any practical purpose anymore? The German government is now going to demonstratively cancel a Cold War-era surveillance pact with the United States and Britain following concerns about their alleged electronic eavesdropping in Germany.

And who cares that this is clearly a symbolic gesture and therefore has no practical consequences for intelligence cooperation between these countries? It’s election time.

“This is a necessary and proper consequence of the recent debate about protecting personal privacy.”

The details of Anglo-American snooping on German citizens remain unclear and confusing, but many Germans have already bought the “utterly senseless narrative”, as Hans-Peter Friedrich, Germany’s interior minister, lamented this week, that “thousands of Americans are sitting down reading our e-mails and listening to our phone calls”.

Here’s How You Dress For Success

If you have ever dreamed of being a startlingly effective secret policeman in a paranoid German Communist dystopia, I mean.

Stasi

The Stasi fashion collection was extensive. The agency sent thousands of spies into West Germany and had access to vast amounts of cash to buy western goods to equip agents with.

“For me, the banality of some of these pictures makes them even more repulsive.”

We Looted The Loot First

The grand opening of a joint German-Russian art exhibition in St Petersburg was spoiled on Friday when Moscow objected to Angela Merkel’s plan to use her speech to refer to hundreds of looted German works of art looted by Red Army soldiers after the war.

Art

The Germans claim that some 1 million looted objects are still missing, including the Treasure of Priamos, objects looted by the Germans in Troy under the direction of Heinrich Schliemann way back in 1873.

Moscow appears to be open to compromise, but only when the Russian artworks destroyed by German troops during World War II – estimated to be more than 110m books and publications following the plundering of 427 Soviet museums and 4,000 libraries – be returned, as well.

“This is a very touchy question for the societies of both countries. We need to look for solutions, rather than inflating the problem.”