Help Me Man I’m Sick

Ever feel a clammy unease and growing sense of disorientation when living in a particular German city while unsure about what it is you are actually experiencing except that nervous, slippery hold on reality during what is in effect a captivity drama much too subtly disquieting to be called a life?

Yup. Then you’ve got Berlin Syndrome, too. Take two aspirin and call me in the morning. Or, better yet, don’t call me. Like, at all. I’m being held captive and can’t come to the phone.

Der beklemmende Hype.

Who’s Your Daddy?

The German birth rate is suddenly spiking or something. I knew you could do it, guys.

Pregnant

German officials say growing numbers of pregnant immigrant women are paying German men to pose as fathers so that they can qualify for residency.

German broadcaster RBB found up to 700 cases in Berlin alone. “There are many unreported cases,” said Ole Schröder, a top interior ministry official.

Some pregnant immigrant women are reported to have paid fake fathers and solicitors as much as €5,000 (£4,356; $5,628) to get paternity registered. Once that is done, the baby automatically becomes a German citizen and the mother has the right to stay.

“Wir haben teilweise Personen, die über zehn Vaterschaften annerkannt haben.”

Latest Anti-Terror Tributes Frighten Islamist Terrorists Into Submission

Or at least that’s the plan, I assume.

Terror

If Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate lit up in the colors of the Union Jack didn’t get them to change their evil ways last night than that One Love Manchester concert certainly must have done the trick. Talk about your one-two knockout punch.

I mean, what else could we possibly undertake to stop Islamist terrorism in Europe? I can’t think of anything, either. Other than singing Imagine by John Lennon, perhaps (in unison, holding hands, of course). A new hash tag (#TerrorismIsBadDon’tDoIt)?We’ve done what we could, people. Let’s get on with our lives now.

EUROPE UNITES Berlin and Paris stand in solidarity with London as Brandenburg Gate lights up in Union Flag colours while the Eiffel Tower goes dark 24 hours after terror atrocity.

 

Suspicious Object Found At SPD Headquarters

And it wasn’t the Schulz effect, either.

Stegner

German police gave an all-clear on Monday at the headquarters of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Berlin after it was evacuated due to a suspicious object found in the mail room.

The object, being the face and attached body of SPD federal chairman and state chairman of Schleswig-Holstein Ralf Stegner (aka “the face of defeat”), was found loitering around the mail room, mumbling incoherently (even though there were no microphones in sight), apparently having been looking for fan mail. For hours and hours and hours on end, I assume.

“There was nothing found on Stegner that could have been termed dangerous,” a police spokesman later said as his colleagues led Stegner back outside to put him on a FlixBus to Kiel. “Other than that face, I mean.”

City Of Berlin Files Criminal Complaint Against City of Berlin’s Police Department

Just another example of how Berlin works. Or doesn’t work, I should say.

Amri

German authorities are investigating explosive new allegations of a police cover-up over Anis Amri, the Berlin Christmas market attacker. The Berlin regional government has filed criminal charges against two of its own police officers alleging they falsified documents to cover up a missed opportunity to arrest Amri more than a month before the attack.

But seeing how absolutely nothing ever works here, there will be some legal technicality or something else along those lines that will screw up these criminal charges. But not to worry. Because seeing how absolutely nothing ever works here, the alleged cover-up will not have properly covered up what they were trying to cover up, either. The truth always raises its ugly little head. Even in Berlin.

“Es gibt keine Garantie, dass er auch in Haft gekommen wäre.”

Berlin May Day Protesters Too Bourgeois For This Anti-Bourgeois Nonsense

And too old, I guess. Everything is “relatively calm” yet again. Boring.

May

In 1987, far-left rioters battled with police for 12 hours, looting shops and burning cars. They were fighting against what they called a “bourgeois” celebration of the 750th anniversary of the founding of Berlin.

Rioting on May 1 then became a regular tradition in Berlin, starting in West Berlin and spreading to the East following reunification in 1990. In 1989 protests 364 police officers were injured. In 2000 the extent of the violence led to an attempted ban on protests the following year. In 2009 after a few years of relative calm, 273 police were injured with some rioters facing attempted murder charges for throwing Molotov cocktails.

Walpurgnisnacht und 1. Mai verliefen bisher weitgehend ruhig – trotz zahlreicher Demonstrationen. Tausende Menschen sind außerdem in Kreuzberg auf dem Myfest unterwegs.

German Of The Day: Vollverschleierungsverbot

That means full-face veil ban. Veil, what will they think of next?

Veil

That just became law in Germany, although it only applies for Richterinnen (judge ladies), Beamtinnen (civil servant ladies) and Soldatinnen (soldier ladies). All ten or twelve of them. How many women in those positions in Germany might want to wear such an awful thing, anyway? But hey, it’s a good start I guess.*

“Integration bedeutet auch, dass wir unsere Werte und die Grenzen unserer Toleranz gegenüber anderen Kulturen deutlich machen und vermitteln.”

* I don’t think men in those positions are allowed to wear them, either. But don’t quote me on that.

German Of The Day: Unmutsbekundungen

That means protest. In this particular case it means hissing, however.

Ivanka

But as far as I can tell, this has something to do with moving forward the cause for women or womanhood or femaleness or whatever. So it’s necessary or something.

Ivanka Trump defended her father at a women’s panel in Berlin Tuesday after attendees hissed and booed when she attempted to champion her father’s commitment to women’s issues.

„Einige Sichtweisen ihres Vaters über Frauen in der Vergangenheit lassen es fraglich erscheinen, wie er Frauen wirklich stärken will.”

Berlin Doesn’t Need A New Airport After All

You know, the new one that still hasn’t opened yet and perhaps never will? No. Berlin is already number one when it comes to airports. So let’s move on already, people.

Airports

1.  Berlin Schönefeld Airport (SXF) in Deutschland
2.  London Luton Airport (LTN) in Großbritannien
3.  New York LaGuardia Airport (LGA) in den USA
4.  New York J. F. Kennedy Airport (JFK) in den USA
5.  Brüssel Charleroi Airport (CRL) in Belgien
6.  Lima International Airport (LIM) in Peru
7.  Rom Ciampino Airport (CIA) in Italien
8.  Berlin Tegel Airport (TXL) in Deutschland
9.  Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport (CDG) in Frankreich
10. Paris Orly Airport (ORY) in Frankreich

Sure, this is a list of the world’s worst airports (according to a survey taken by eDreams), but still. Both of Berlin’s airports under the top ten. Nice try New York and Paris but toodaloo muddafrika…

Zwei deutsche Flughäfen unter den Top 10.

German Of The Day: Gegendert

That means gendered. You know, as in language-wise?

Gender

In Berlin, for instance, male words used on public forms and applications can be very disturbing. At least that’s what SPD politicians here think. So that is why they are seeing to it that more female vocabulary will be introduced in the future. I don’t know quite what that means (the ones with die instead of der or das?) but I’m sure they must know what they are doing, right?

“Only using male words gives the impression that the form only applies to the male population and this is not the case.”

Damn. Why didn’t anybody ever think of this before? No wonder I could never figure out how to fill out my maternity leave application.

„Nur männliche Wörter zu verwenden, erweckt den Anschein, als betreffe der Antrag nur die männliche Bevölkerung. Das stimmt aber nicht.“

PS: What will they think of next? Sending men and women to different bathrooms?