Latest news with #GDR
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Bunker Talk: Memorial Day Weekend Edition Part 1
Welcome to Bunker Talk, Memorial Day Weekend Edition Part 1. For all our American readers/commenters, I hope you have a great Memorial Day weekend. And, of course, I want to give a huge thanks to all of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our country. No words are enough. No debt of gratitude can ever be paid off. We are going to break up the long Memorial Day weekend Bunker into two parts so we don't end up with 6,000 comments on a single post. The caption to this week's top shot reads: 06 April 2019, Brandenburg, Prötzel Ot Harnekop: A general's jacket hangs in the Harnekop bunker in the army command room. On three floors 30 meters below the ground, the GDR defense minister and his high-ranking commanders wanted to entrench themselves in the event of war. The current owner has assigned the site and the bunker to various leaseholders who are in dispute over the rights of use. Photo: Bernd Settnik/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa (Photo by Bernd Settnik/picture alliance via Getty Images) Also, a reminder: If you want to talk politics, do so respectfully and know that there's always somebody that isn't going to agree with you. If you have political differences, hash it out respectfully, stick to the facts, and no childish name-calling or personal attacks of any kind. If you can't handle yourself in that manner, then please, discuss virtually anything else. No drive-by garbage political memes. No conspiracy theory rants. Links to crackpot sites will be axed, too. Trolling and shitposting will not be tolerated. No obsessive behavior about other users. Just don't interact with folks you don't like. Do not be a sucker and feed trolls! That's as much on you as on them. Use the mute button if you don't like what you see. So unless you have something of quality to say, know how to treat people with respect, understand that everyone isn't going to subscribe to your exact same worldview, and have come to terms with the reality that there is no perfect solution when it comes to moderation of a community like this, it's probably best to just move on. Finally, as always, report offenders, please. This doesn't mean reporting people who don't share your political views, but we really need your help in this regard. The Bunker is open! Contact the editor: tyler@
New European
20-05-2025
- General
- New European
Germansplaining: The House of Hohenzollern, a dynasty fit for a Netflix drama
This near-century-long dispute could be a Netflix series featuring imperial palaces, royal corpses, Spanish snuff, a Prussian prince, the Nazis and commies, and a few plot twists. Some conflicts last for ever. One has just been wrapped up after only 99 years: German authorities and the noble House of Hohenzollern have buried the hatchet, though not in each other, which is progress. Previously on Hohenzollern Unrestored: from the 18th century, the dynasty supplied Prussia with monarchs, and from 1871 it also provided the new Reich with a few Kaisers. That all came to a screeching halt when the Weimar Republic was declared, and Wilhelm II flounced off into exile in the Netherlands. Family assets were confiscated. A 1926 law settled who got what, but legal ambiguities remained. They wrangled through the Third Reich, then through the GDR, and even persisted in reunified Germany, long after Prussia itself had been officially dissolved by the allies in 1947. Prussia, which had made up two-thirds of German territory before the war, remained a historical problem area. At last, this month the federal culture secretary and Prinz Georg Friedrich von Preussen, great-great-grandson of the last emperor Wilhelm II, announced an agreement. The saga, it seems, has a finale. Georg Friedrich had inherited the legal headache in 1994, aged just 18, when he became head of the once-royal house. By that point, the family had spent decades trying to claw back property and compensation. They even asked the GDR for the right to reside in Potsdam's Cecilienhof Palace (as if the Berlin Wall was just a garden fence). And communist-in-chief Erich Honecker offered 'His Imperial Highness' a proper burial for the Prussian kings Frederick William I and his son, Frederick II 'The Great', at Schloss Sanssouci. The royal coffins had been taken from Potsdam in 1943, stored in a potash mine in Thuringia, then transferred to Marburg in Hesse (West Germany) and finally to Hechingen near Stuttgart, to the ancestral castle of the Hohenzollern. For the corpses, considering the bumpy journey, RIP must have stood for 'rest in one piece'. In the end, it was chancellor Helmut Kohl (and not Honecker) who attended the final burial of 'Old Fritz', aka Friedrich II, on the terrace of Sanssouci Palace. The public authorities refused to pay compensation for Hohenzollern palaces expropriated under Soviet rule – as this is legally denied to anyone who 'significantly aided and abetted' the Nazis. And, well, Kaiser Wilhelm II's oldest son, another Wilhelm, wasn't exactly resistance material. To bolster their claim, the Hohenzollern family commissioned an expert report from Cambridge historian Christopher Clark. According to Clark, Wilhelm Jr had expressed admiration for Hitler and the Nazis. The ex-crown prince was, however, too insignificant to have 'significantly supported' them. 'As if!', thought the Bundesrepublik, and provided two counter-experts. Both added incriminating facts to Clark's list, emphasizing Wilhelm's enthusiasm for Italian fascism and his PR for the regime. A fourth historian – Team Prussia again – came up with the creative twist that supporting the Nazis may have just been a ruse to restore the monarchy. A draw. And in 2023, the Hohenzollern finally dropped the lawsuits and returned to negotiations, focusing on movable goods – 27,000 of them, to be precise – including memorabilia, furniture, textiles, paintings, library and archive collections, some of considerable value and historical significance. Most have been in public museums in Berlin and Brandenburg. And thanks to the new deal, the majority will stay there. Highlights include a Lucas Cranach the Elder portrait of Joachim I of Brandenburg, baroque ivory furniture and the table service for the Breslau City Palace, acquired by Frederick II in 1750. A newly created non-profit, Hohenzollern Art Foundation, will oversee the collection. The family gets three board seats, but the public sector has a majority say. Some disputed pieces are returned to Hohenzollern property, however, including seven tabatiers – fancy tobacco tins Frederick the Great used for Spanish snuff. One of them, legend has it, saved his life in the seven years' war by deflecting an enemy bullet. Two tabatiers will remain in museums on permanent loan, but the other five may soon appear at auctions. So if you've got a few million pounds lying around and a taste for fancy antiques, you're in luck.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Sound of Falling' Review: A Haunting Meditation on Womanhood and Rural Strife That Heralds the Arrival of a Bold New Talent
It's not every day you see a movie that resembles nothing you've quite seen before, making you question the very notion of what a movie can be. And yet German director Mascha Schilinski's bold second feature, Sound of Falling (In Die Sonne Schauen), is just that: a transfixing chronicle in which the lives of four girls are fused into one long cinematic tone poem, hopping between different epochs without warning, painting a portrait of budding womanhood and rural strife through the ages. The closest thing that comes to mind is probably Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life, although this is Malick by way of Jane Campion and Michael Haneke, shifting between fleeting coming-of-age moments and scenes of resolute darkness and human cruelty. At two and a half hours, and without an easily discernible narrative throughline, Sound of Falling is arthouse filmmaking with a capital A that will best appeal to patient audiences. They will be rewarded by a work that reminds us how the cinema can still reinvent itself, as long as there are directors like Schilinski audacious enough to try. More from The Hollywood Reporter Lynne Ramsay, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson Toast 'Die, My Love' at Cannes Dinner Hosted by The Hollywood Reporter and Longines Can Cannes Help California Get Its Groove Back? Cannes: 'The Creep' Remake Sells for U.K. (Exclusive) Co-written with Louise Peter, the movie's collage-like structure tells four simultaneous stories though a series of fragments or snaphots (cameras of all types are depicted and used on screen), spanning a timeframe from the early 20th century all the way to the present. Set in the same massive farmhouse that passes down from one family to another, the film never strays too far from its main location, venturing out to wander the nearby fields or dip into a picturesque river separating East and West Germany. Characters come and go over the years, as cinematographer Fabian Gamper (shooting in the box-like 1:1.37 format) creeps around the house like a ghost discreetly recording events as they happen, catching moments of torment and flashes of occasional humor. Scenes become memories in other scenes, passed on from the living to the dead and back again, cut together by editor Evelyn Rack so that they resonate more as time goes by. The effect can be disorienting at first, and Sound of Falling is a film whose power slowly accumulates as it progresses. The quartet of girls we follow — Alma (Hanna Heckt) after the turn of the last century, Erika (Lea Drinda) after WWII, Angelika (Lena Urzendowsky) in the GDR of the 1980s and Lenka (Laeni Geiseler) in the present — are not all related, though they share a common history that hangs over the house as both a blessing and a curse. There is trauma in their lives — sometimes deep unforgettable trauma that never seems to leave the Altmark region where their farm is located. But there is also beauty and self-discovery. Schilinski has essentially made four bildungsroman movies at once, each of them about young women awakening to the possibilities, as well as to the limits, that life has to offer them. The scenes involving Alma and Erika, both of whom grow up in worlds dominated by a solemn patriarchy and plagued by hardship, feel like they were drawn from period horror movies. The pale blonde Alma is obsessed by a dead sibling whose portrait rests on a mantle honoring the family dead. In the picture, the girl's corpse is propped up on a sofa alongside some of her favorite toys, in a style of post-mortem photography popular at the time. Decades later, Erika bears a carnal attraction to her Uncle Fritz (Martin Rother), an amputee who lies withering in pain in his bedroom. Much later we learn how he lost his leg as a teenager, in a startling scene of parental savagery. At first blush, the stories of Angelika and Lenka seem altogether more pleasant, revealing how life in their agricultural community did grow somewhat easier over time. This doesn't mean the girls don't have their own demons to face, whether it's Angelika's burgeoning sexuality and disturbing relationship with her uncle (Konstantin Lindhorst), or the melancholic Lenka's friendship with a neighboring girl (Zoë Baier) trying to get over the death of her mother. Schilinski finds powerful visual hooks to connect the characters across the decades. They make the same gestures, witness the same things — many scenes are shot from their POVs, through windows, doorways and keyholes — and sometimes live out parallel stories, as if their bodies were marked by the wounds and revelations of earlier times. With its epic scope and precisely drawn figures in the countryside, the film has the weight of a hefty 19th century agrarian novel. But it's told as a pure work of stream of consciousness, as if Virginia Woolf had decided to rewrite a book by Thomas Hardy. This could prove frustrating for viewers looking to latch on to a single plotline, or even multiple plotlines that merge together seamlessly as an ensemble piece. Sound of Falling (whose German title translates to Looking into the Sun) offers up an altogether different kind of storytelling, made up of momentary sensations, images, emotions and sounds that gradually form a bigger picture. That picture depicts a world where young women face untold obstacles from one epoch to another, including rape, the death of loved ones, forced sterilization, incest, and a form of rural slavery and prostitution, yet eventually emerge as arbiters of their own fates. Schilinski doesn't spare us all their pain and suffering, nor does she hide the joy and wonder they sometimes experience. Her brave girls carry their forebearers within them from one generation to the next, surging toward the future both damaged and victorious. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Small rallies as Russians mark 80th anniversary of WWII end in Berlin
Russia's ambassador to Germany, Sergei Nechayev, on Friday laid wreaths at Soviet memorials in Berlin to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, while pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian groupings held rallies. Nechayev visited both the huge Soviet memorial in Treptower Park, in the former East Berlin, and the site in Tiergarten near the Brandenburg Gate, which was part of the city's western sector. In Russia, the anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany is commemorated on May 9, while in Europe the war's end is celebrated on May 8. The Russian ambassador was accompanied by representatives of other states that were once Soviet republics, as well as bodyguards. He later hosted a reception at the Russian embassy. Among the attendees were several current and former lawmakers from Germany including former GDR head of state Egon Krenz, former Left Party chairman Klaus Ernst who is now part of the new BSW party, and Sevim Dagdelen, also formerly of the Left Party. The diplomat wore a St George's ribbon on his lapel, which is considered a symbol of Russian nationalism. The Berlin police had banned the wearing of the ribbon, as well as the display of other pro-Russian flags and symbols, near the Soviet memorials but diplomats and veterans of the Allied powers of World War II are exempt from these restrictions. The ambassador's actions came as Russian President Vladimir Putin marked the anniversary of the war's end with a massive military parade in Moscow. Pro-Russian biker group present Some members of the pro-Russian Night Wolves biker gang were also seen at the Treptow memorial. A small group laid a wreath there in the morning. Following police instructions, they removed their vests with insignia, according to a police spokeswoman. They were due to gather at the other memorial, in Tiergarten, later in the day, but later, most cancelled their plans after speaking with the police. The Night Wolves, seen as extreme nationalists, are considered supporters of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. Only some 50 headed to the city centre and laid wreaths at the memorial. They then planned to go to the Treptower Park memorial, a police spokeswoman said. She noted the police would be there through until the evening to prevent any disturbances. Isolated protests over war Ukrainian supporters protested against Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in front of the embassy on Unter den Linden, at Treptower Park and at the Soviet memorial near the Brandenburg Gate. Meanwhile around 1,200 people took part in a pro-Russian demonstration at the memorial in Tiergarten, police said. Split up into smaller groups, the demonstrators laid flowers at the memorial. A police cordon prevented clashes with a small group of Ukrainian demonstrators, according to the police, who noted the pro-Russian demonstrators mostly complied with the ban on flags, symbols and slogans.
New European
08-05-2025
- Politics
- New European
This is what VE Day means to Germans
Flashback to 1945. The allies themselves didn't put an emphasis on freeing Germany. To America, Russia, Britain and France, May 8 marked victory over Hitler, the defeat of the Reich and its people, the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht. It took Germans some time to see May 8, 1945, for what it was: a liberation. And yet, that hard-won consensus is under fire again today. In April, Washington DC had issued a directive to the commander of the US forces that stated: 'Germany is not being occupied for the purpose of its liberation, but as a defeated enemy state.' In other words: The Nazis hadn't invaded the country, they were the country. To Germans, the day was – at best – complicated. In the East, the self-declared anti-fascist GDR, socialism celebrated itself, its heroes and the Red Army. In West Germany, Theodor Heuss, a liberal who would later become Bundespräsident, pointed out the ambivalence: 'We were redeemed and destroyed in one,' he said in 1949. In 1965, on the 20th anniversary of what he called 'the German capitulation', chancellor Ludwig Erhard of the CDU did not want to speak of a day of liberation in a broadcast address. In 1970, the SPD chancellor Willy Brandt, an anti-Nazi exile, called it a 'total defeat' of a 'total war'. When he used the term liberation, he meant others had been freed, from German rule, 'from terror and fear'. It wasn't until 1975 that President Walter Scheel, again a liberal, dared to give the 'contradictory' date its full dimension. In Bonn's Schlosskirche, he said: 'We were liberated from a terrible yoke, from war, murder, servitude and barbarism… But we do not forget that this liberation came from outside, that we, the Germans, were not able to shake off this yoke ourselves.' The trouble was: No one was ready to hear it. It took Marvin J Chomsky's 1978 TV mini-series Holocaust to jolt the post-war German public awake. And it was the younger generations who fully embraced Richard von Weizsäcker's now iconic speech to the Bundestag on May 8, 1985 – probably the most celebrated (and controversial) in the last 80 years. 'Most Germans had believed that they were fighting and suffering for the good cause of their own country,' the Bundespräsident said. 'And now it was to turn out: Not only was it all in vain and pointless, but it had also served the inhuman aims of a criminal leadership.' The abyss was history, but the future was dark and uncertain. And still, he insisted, 'What we all need to say together today: May 8 was a day of liberation. It liberated us all from the inhuman system of National Socialist tyranny.' He also expressed sympathy for Germans who had lost loved ones, were victims of expulsion or rape. But he made one thing very clear: the cause of 'flight, expulsion and lack of freedom' for many Germans, particularly in the East, hadn't been the end of the war – but the tyranny that led to the beginning of the war. 'We must not separate May 8, 1945 from January 30, 1933,' he said, reminding everyone that Hitler had never concealed his hatred of the Jews, that everyone knew or could have learnt about the deportations, that people chose to look away. 'Who could remain unsuspecting after the burning of the synagogue… the incessant desecration of human dignity?' he asked. Weizsäcker's conclusion: 'We certainly have no reason to take part in victory celebrations on this day, but we have every reason to recognise May 8, 1945 as the end of an aberration in German history that held the seeds of hope for a better future.' Today, this sounds self-evident, blindingly obvious – but back then, it really stirred things up. The applause was mixed with massive outrage. Criticism didn't just come from people who remembered the nights of bombing, the loss of their homeland, hunger and helplessness but especially from the far right and from within Weizsäcker's own party. More than 30 MPs from the CDU and CSU boycotted his speech. A defeat, it was said, could not be celebrated and wasn't it time to stop the endless self-flagellation – the notorious Aufarbeitung? That sort of view had nearly vanished from public life. But now, it's back – courtesy of the far right. Only recently, Brandenburg's AfD state parliamentary group whinged that calling May 8 a liberation was 'inappropriate and historically ignorant', demanding the state government to drop the term. The motion flopped, but it's part of a bigger pattern: the AfD railing against the 'left-Green unpatriotic' narrative that – in their eyes – robs Germans of pride in their 'glorious' past. 'Hitler and the Nazis are just a flyspeck in our 1000-year history,' as then-chairman Alexander Gauland said back in 2018. Another complaint: not enough focus on German suffering. The AfD wants to put local victims front and centre. In Berlin, where May 8 is a public holiday this year, the local AfD fumed that it didn't 'do justice to the victims of Soviet oppression in Eastern Europe'. At best, they said, it was a 'half liberation'. In Thuringia, they accused the left of 'walking over dead bodies' just to get a holiday out of it. One problem for the AfD, though: their Russophilia doesn't quite gel with their remembrance agenda. You can't snuggle up to Putin while erasing WWII and the Red Army from memory – Russia, after all, treats its war dead as sacred. Pick a lane. Meanwhile, the Bundestag didn't invite Russia's ambassador to this year's commemorations. He kicked up a fuss about being left out – but tough luck. When your country justifies war crimes by falsely claiming it's 'fighting fascism', you don't get a front-row seat at memorials. 'The Red Army liberated Auschwitz, we will not forget that,' said President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. But today's Kremlin is pushing a 'manipulative historical narrative' around Ukraine. And Germany has its hands full already – keeping its own history from being reframed.
