berlin brief

US General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, believed it was worth spending 14 hours on a bus to make it from Paris to Berlin last week. Europe was stuck in an ash cloud that stopped most of its air traffic.

McChrystal’s visit on 21 April 2010 came at a crucial moment of Germany’s engagament in Afghanistan. Within a couple of weeks, seven German soldiers have lost their lives there. On 9 April 2010, Chancellor Merkel for the first time attended a funeral for German soldiers that died in the ISAF mission in Afghanistan. On 24 April 2010, another one followed.

The German public is increasingly confronted with the realities of the war in Afghanistan. McChrystal’s visit was another reminder of what it means to be part of the ISAF mission’s new “partnering” strategy. (more…)

Both the Federal Chancellery and the Foreign Office in official statements welcomed the United States’ announcement that Washington will no longer be ready to react with a nuclear strike if attacked by conventional weapons.

Chancellor Merkel will travel to Washington next week to attend the Nuclear Summit.

For Spiegel Online International, Eric Kelsey and Candice Novak compiled reactions to the US’s strategic shift in the German print media: (more…)

In the fall of 2009, just after Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle came into office, Judy Dempsey commented on his rather sudden claim to remove American nuclear weapons from German soil in the International Herald Tribune.

At the time, I thought this was just an attempt of Westerwelle to come up with a genuine foreign policy proposal against the overall dominance of Chancellor Merkel and Defence Minister zu Guttenberg. Then, the issue did not create much of a reaction.

Recently, however, it popped up again. Westerwelle’s remark has prompted a reaction on the other side of the Atlantic. (more…)

With the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen starting on Monday 7 December 2009 I want to draw your attention to some news here in Germany.

Take a look at the website of the Federal Ministry of the Environment under its new Minister Norbert Röttgen and the website of the Swedish EU Presidency currently representing the 27 member states of the European Union.

The Berlin-based think tank Ecologic has been very active on environmental questions over the last years and will continue to be in the Copenhagen talks: Camilla Bausch and Ralph Czarnecki of Ecologic will support the German and European negotiation team during the two-weeks conference. (more…)

I found two pieces on German foreign policy in the international media yesterday that I want to draw your attention to.

The first one was in the FT by Bertrand Benoit and Daniel Dombey, entitled “German concerns threaten 9/11 trial evidence”. The authors write:

“Berlin will seek to block evidence collected by German investigators about the September 11 attacks from being used to secure the death penalty in the trial of five alleged conspirators in New York.

The stance could strain relations between chancellor Angela Merkel’s government and the Obama administration.”

Read the full text here (FT, 25 November 2009).

The second piece is by Benjamin Weinthal on Germany and Iran and was published in the Weekly Standard. Weinthal writes:

“Merkel’s new governing coalition with the pro-business Free Democratic party (FDP) might very well bring us Act II of Germany’s impotent Iran foreign policy. The FDP, the party of Germany’s new foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, vehemently rejects curtailing German-Iranian trade, and during the 2002 federal election Westerwelle tolerated the late Jürgen Möllemann’s (a top FDP politician) mass-mailing of election flyers bashing former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon. Möllemann’s campaign strategy was widely viewed as the first public use of anti-Semitism to win over voters since the Hitler movement. (more…)

Most German newspapers come up with positive reactions to Angela Merkel’s speech in the US Congress this morning. Some commentators however make the point that the German Chancellor avoided to touch upon subjects of German-US controversy.

Angela Merkel was the first German Chancellor since Konrad Adenauer in 1957 to be invited to give a speech in Congress. Her visit in Washington marked the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Read Chancellor Merkel’s speech here.

Take a look at international media reactions:

“Merkel Marks Wall Anniversary”: Brian Knowlton in the IHT (3 November, 2009)

“Merkel Meets Obama, Then Speaks to US Congress”: Desmond Butler in The Guardian (3 November, 2009)

“Merkel Urges Congress to Act on Climate”: Juliet Eilperin in The Washington Post (4 November, 2009)

Stephen Szabo, the executive director of the Transatlantic Academy, has just published an analysis in the Washington Quartely that I recommend reading: “Can Berlin and Washington agree on Russia?”

Szabo writes:

“Both Russia and Germany are back on the U.S. agenda. Russia will be a key element of a wide array of policies to the Obama administration, including dealing with Iran and the construction of a broader nonproliferation regime, energy security, nuclear arms reductions, and Afghanistan. Russia policy will also be central to U.S. designs for NATO, including how to deal with Georgia and Ukraine, and the viability of a pan-European security structure. (more…)

I bet you do. We are doing pretty well at international sports events. But do you know that the Germans have an ambivalent relationship with their anthem? On the occasion of the German national holiday on 3 October I want to share a few thoughts.

The German national anthem consists of the third verse of the Deutschlandlied (”The Song of Germany”). August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben wrote the lyrics in 1841 to the melody composed by Joseph Haydn in 1797. In the mid-19th century, the German territories were still a patchwork of states and fiefdoms. The revolutionaries of that time, the so-called “Vormärz” movement, aspired to create a unified German state. It was in this spirit of longing that they sang the first verse of Fallersleben’s Deutschlandlied: “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles” (”Germany above all”). (more…)

Americans love Berlin. Walk Berlin’s Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg districts in the summer time and it will take less than five minutes until you bump into one. You find them in cafés, galleries, museums, restaurants, yoga studios and organic shops. Or on their bicycles, exploring Berlin by bike, err…or beach cruisers.

Berlin’s tourist infrastucture is undoubtedly very americanized…with a z! And there is a large number of local Americans catering for visiting Americans. Just today I was struggling to find a German lunch menu  in a place probably recommended by the latest plethora of travel guides. Even when the American tourists leave Berlin before what I am told by everyone here is a dark cold depressing winter, Berlin’s American residents stick around. Actually the only friends I have that witnessed the Wall coming down here in 1989 are – two Americans. Both from California. How do they survive Berlin’s winter I wonder?

(more…)

Walking the streets of Berlin you can feel the many layers of German history.

Berlin is a city that lives with its past. The crimes of the Nazi dictatorship and the GDR regime, the Holocaust, WWII, the division of the city by a wall and its insulation within the GDR territory, the fall of the short-lived Weimarer Republik, kings and emperors. Sometimes I wonder how much history a city can endure?

Berlin has many places of remembrance, places of commemoration and mourning, reminders of the past that are given a place in modern Berlin. (more…)