Disco and the Fall of the Wall

Remembering November 9th, 1989. “The most memorable night of my life began in a German disco” I know, this sounds like the beginning of a cheap romance novel, but this is the story of how I heard about the fall of the Berlin wall on November 9th, 1989. At the beginning of that night I [...]

The Fall of the Fall of the Wall

Remembering November 9, 1989 I had just turned 20 and was spending my junior year abroad in Heidelberg, Germany.  West Germany that is.  The wall in Berlin was still standing and the Germanies were divided by hundreds of miles of barbed-wire fence and watchtowers.  Heidelberg, nestled in the Neckar valley not far from Mannheim and [...]

Thillo Sarrazin’s Comments Spark Debate on Immigrants in Berlin/Germany

The controversial comments this week by Bundesbank (German Central Bank) executive member, Thillo Sarrazin, have sparked a debate in Germany which now must transcend the obvious charges of racism and xenophobia.  While Sarrazin’s comments absolutely betray his less than noble feelings towards Arabs and Turks living in Germany (they “constantly produce little girls in headscarves”), the issue of how German society [...]

Why German? Third Nobel Prize in the Last Ten Years for German-Speaking Author

The announcement of Herta Müller’s Nobel Prize for Literature to be presented in Stockholm this December brings the number of German-speaking authors having received the prestigious award to three in the last 10 years:  Günter Grass received the award in 1999 and the Austrian Elfriede Jelinek claimed the prize in 2004.   The Nobel Prize is [...]