Exhibition at Bonn’s House of History documents ‘unrequited love’ of all things British
The strategy that Germany’s diplomatic corps proposed to keep Britain in the European community was unconventional and bold.
In November 1974, the then German chancellor Helmut Schmidt was desperately searching for the right words to convince British Eurosceptics to vote to remain a member of the European Economic Community.
Continue reading...Urban climber Alain Robert scales 153-metre Skyper building in Germany's financial capital before being detained by police. The 57-year-old, who climbed without a rope or safety equipment, has climbed many of the world's tallest buildings
Urban climber Alain Robert scales 153-metre Skyper building in financial capital
An urban climber known as the “French Spiderman” has been detained by German police after scaling a high-rise building in Frankfurt.
Alain Robert took 20 minutes to climb the 153-metre (502ft) Skyper building in the heart of Germany’s financial capital early on Saturday.
Continue reading...Picturesque Görlitz is offering free lodging and studio space in exchange for feedback on what potential residents want from a city
Last year Eva Bodenmüller read about a city in eastern Germany inviting people to live there for a month for free. She and her partner Carsten Borck, an artist, knew they had to leave their residence in Italy soon and weren’t looking forward to moving back to their native Berlin.
“I thought: ‘Why not Görlitz?’” said Bodenmüller, a freelance journalist .
Continue reading...On 15 September 1981, 10-year-old Ursula Herrmann headed home by bike from her cousin’s house. She never arrived. So began one of Germany’s most notorious postwar criminal cases, which remains contentious to this day
In the Alpine foothills in the far south of Germany is a vast lake called the Ammersee. Its shores are dotted with centuries-old villages where wealthy families from Munich buy large second homes and tourists drink beer at waterfront restaurants. At the north end of the lake is a pair of such villages, Eching am Ammersee and Schondorf, less than two miles apart. Separating them is a block of spruce forest that attracts hunters, joggers, mountain bikers and in the late summer 38 years ago, kidnappers preparing to commit what would become one of the country’s most notorious postwar crimes.
After class on Tuesday 15 September 1981, the first day of the new school year, a 10-year-old girl named Ursula Herrmann returned to her house in Eching. Ursula, the youngest of four siblings, practised piano with her oldest brother Michael, and then headed off to her late afternoon gymnastics lesson in Schondorf, cycling through the forest along the lakeside path. When the gym class was over, she went to her cousin’s house in Schondorf, where she ate dinner. At 7.20pm, Ursula’s mother phoned the aunt to say her daughter needed to come home. The shadows were lengthening but it was still light, and the cycle ride would only take 10 minutes.
Continue reading...Frankfurt court made ruling in relation to illegal claims by a company selling anti-hangover ‘shots’
A German court has ruled that hangovers are an “illness”, in a timely judgement days after the annual Oktoberfest beer festival began in Munich.
The case landed before judges in Frankfurt when plaintiffs claimed a firm offering anti-hangover “shots” and drink powders to mix with water was making illegal health claims.
Continue reading...UK reverses decision not to send minister to meeting, a snub that was seen as a fresh sign of how Brexit is shifting foreign policy
The UK has moved to douse claims that it was snubbing a major Franco-German initiative on multilateralism announcing it would after all send a minister to the launch of An Alliance for Multilateralism, due to be attended by as many as 40 ministers.
Following diplomatic claims that Downing Street was distancing itself from the Franco-German plan by not sending a high level representative to the launch in New York on Thursday, the foreign office announced late on Monday that Lord Ahmad would now attend.
Continue reading...PM says president could come up with better pact, in apparent shift from European position
Boris Johnson has sided with Donald Trump in calling the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran a “bad deal”, while praising the US president as a “very brilliant negotiator” capable of achieving a better one.
The prime minister’s remarks, made in a NBC interview, marked a sharp change in UK rhetoric. British leaders, including Johnson, had until now upheld the 2015 accord between six major powers and Iran as a major diplomatic achievement.
Continue reading...Martin Shields and Nick Diable are accused of tax fraud in ‘cum-ex’ scandal that exposes City’s pursuit of profit
They have been called “the men who plundered Europe”: a group of cowboy traders, seasoned tax lawyers and mathematical whizz kids who are alleged to have conspired in the heart of the City of London to siphon at least €60bn in taxpayers’ money from the state coffers of several EU countries.
In Britain, the so-called “cum-ex” scandal, named after the complex derivatives juggling act employed, gained little attention amid the frenzied debate around the UK’s departure from the European Union when the fraud scheme was discovered in 2017.
Continue reading...Hundreds of researchers will spend year on ship improving understanding of sea ice
Researchers from more than a dozen countries are preparing to launch the biggest and most complex expedition ever attempted in the central Arctic – a year-long journey through the ice they hope will improve the scientific models that underpin our understanding of climate change.
In the €140m (£123m) Mosaic expedition, 600 scientists from 19 countries including Germany, the US, Britain, France, Russia and China will work together in one of the most inhospitable regions of the planet.
Continue reading...Björn Höcke halts interview after German state broadcaster draws parallel to Nazi rhetoric
An Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) politician has walked out of an interview and threatened a journalist after he was confronted with parallels between his rhetoric and that of Adolf Hitler.
An interview with Björn Höcke by the state broadcaster ZDF, recorded last week but screened on Sunday, shows the AfD politician threatening “massive consequences” to a journalist who refused to restart an interview after a series of difficult questions.
Continue reading...Control panel was damaged during Condor flight after captain put cup on tray table
A pilot spilling coffee in the cockpit of a plane flying over the Atlantic Ocean forced it to turn back and land in Ireland.
The hot coffee damaged an audio control panel, which gave off an electrical burning smell and smoke, an accident report found. It created significant communication difficulty for the pilots flying the Airbus A330, the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said.
Continue reading...Joshua Wong called for Germany to stop the export of riot control weapons and equipment to Hong Kong police, as he embarked on a global tour to promote his pro-democracy message. He said Hong Kong police were using water cannon manufactured in Germany to suppress protests. Wong urged Germany to suspend trade negotiations with China until Beijing puts on the agenda human rights laws ‘that respect European standards’
Continue reading...Beijing criticises German foreign minister over meeting with Joshua Wong
The Chinese government has expressed its anger with Germany’s foreign minister over his meeting with the Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong, saying the encounter was “disrespectful” of Beijing’s sovereignty.
Wong tweeted a picture of himself and Heiko Maas following his arrival in Berlin, saying the two had discussed the “protest situation and our cause”.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of business, economics and markets as factories in Europe’s largest economy stutter
Eurozone growth came in unchanged on its third estimate: 0.2% growth in the second quarter of the year.
A minor beat on the headline year-on-year growth rate, remaining at 1.2% against 1.1% expectations, but otherwise no shocks.
Labour has confirmed that it will not vote for an election on Monday even if a bill intended to stop a no-deal Brexit passes before then.
If we vote to have a general election, then no matter what it is that Boris Johnson promises, it is up to him to advise the Queen when the general election should be. And given that he has shown himself to be a manifest liar, and someone who has said that he will die in a ditch rather than stop no deal, and indeed his adviser, [Dominic] Cummings, has been swearing and shouting at MPs saying they are leaving on 31 [October] no matter what, our first priority has to be that we must stop no deal and we must make sure that that is going to happen.
Related: Brexit: Labour confirms it will not vote on Monday for early election - live news
Continue reading...Visitor posted on Booking.com and Tripadvisor about disgust at pictures in Austria
A German man is being sued by the owners of a four-star hotel in Austria after posting online reviews in which he criticised them for decorating their lobby with a portrait of a “Nazi grandpa” in a uniform adorned with a swastika.
The man, named in court documents as Thomas K, and his wife visited the hotel in the village of Gerlos in the Tyrolean Alps last August. After check-in, they noticed two framed pictures on a wall near the hotel’s entrance, hung above a flower arrangement. One showed a young man wearing a uniform with an eagle and swastika badge, the other an older man.
Continue reading...Competition to name Meng Meng’s twins intensifies pressure on German government
They may have captured the public’s imagination, but the tiny, pink panda cubs born at Berlin zoo a few days ago have also spurred a national debate about whether panda diplomacy is blinding Germany to the Chinese government’s human rights record.
As visitors and journalists queue around the block to catch a glimpse of Meng Meng’s cubs, a competition to name them has increased pressure on the government of Angela Merkel, who kicked off a trip to Beijing with a large economic delegation on Thursday.
Continue reading...UK pair accused of defrauding German state through ‘cum-ex’ share trading scheme
Two British investment bankers have gone on trial in Bonn in what German media have called “the biggest financial fraud trial” in the country’s postwar history.
The two British citizens, Martin Shields, 41, and Nicholas Diable, 38, are accused of having defrauded the German state of €447.5m (£405m) from London’s banking district with so-called cum-ex trading schemes, a complex shell game of share transactions.
Continue reading...Jan Stroh built replica studio in his cellar, complete with palm trees and sound effects
A German lawyer who spent 15 years re-enacting episodes of the TV quizshow Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in his cellar, said his hobby had paid off as he walked away with the top prize this week.
Jan Stroh, 35, even crudely reconstructed the studio of the German version of the programme in the basement of his Hamburg home, complete with palm trees and exotic seascape backdrop, victory glitter and sound effects.
Continue reading...Saeid Mollaei was told to pull out of world championships to avoid possible fight with Israeli
An Iranian judo athlete could seek asylum in Germany after he ignored orders from his national federation to pull out of the world championships to avoid a potential final against an Israeli.
The International Judo Federation (IJF) said that Saeid Mollaei, the defending champion, was pressurised by Iranian authorities to drop out before his quarter-final at the world judo championships in Tokyo last week to avoid the prospect of fighting Israel’s Sagi Muki in the final.
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