Hardly any other German myth has been cited and celebrated as consistently as that of the German forest. In Jacob Grimm’s 1835 publication Deutsche Mythologie (Teutonic Mythology), the author singled out the forest as the specific primordial site of popular belief and Germanic pagan ritual. That the myth of the forest has held firm through the irrevocable dissolution of most German myths during the apocalypse that was the Third Reich …

At the turn of the millennium, the wolves returned to Germany. On a military training ground in the Lausitz region east of Berlin, a wolf pair was spotted raising pups for the first time in 150 years. In other words, the 21st century began with the reemergence of wild predators. It was not generally understood as a sign of the times, but rather a curiosity, an historical misunderstanding, something to …

The contemporary being must begin anew, to rejuvenate himself, to achieve a new humanity, a universal lifeform of the people,” wrote architect Walter Gropius emphatically back in 1919. The sentence reveals the brutal disillusionment felt by an entire generation after the horrors of World War I. Their confidence in the blessings of technology had been deeply shaken by the mechanized killing and industrial annihilation of millions of young people.

But …

Laura, age 19, studies theater at a dramatic arts academy in Berlin. Elektra is her greatest role. She stands at the front of the stage: “Hate is nothing. It eats itself up and it’s gone,” she says, directly to the audience. She hears their breathing. They hear hers. It’s one of the moments you go to the theater for. Laura stares at the people sitting in the dark and they …

THE NEGOTIATOR
There is a whiff of Cold War nostalgia permeating Horst
Teltschik’s book on the geopolitical state of play. But its profound historical underpinnings form the sturdy foundation of Russisches Roulette. Vom Kalten Krieg zum Kalten Frieden (Russian Roulette. From Cold War to Cold Peace).
Teltschik spent his formative political years in the 1980s serving as then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s senior foreign policy advisor. In the 2000s, Teltschik was head …

A new biography of Claus von Stauffenberg, the man who tried to kill Hitler, has reignited a long-running historical debate. It says a lot about the German state of mind

At midnight on July 20, 1944, four men are escorted to the inner yard of the Bendlerblock, the headquarters of German Army in Berlin. The glaring headlights of military vehicles cast the scene in a ghostly atmosphere. The firing squad …

This story begins and ends with betrayal – or perhaps redemption, depending on whose perspective you take. For years, the literary legacy of one of the world’s most celebrated writers was stored in a three-room apartment in Tel Aviv and in two bank safety deposit boxes, one in Israel, the other in Switzerland. All the while, archivists worried about the condition of the papers, fearing the damage that could be …

Joachim Loew got his act together just in time. After balking and bristling at calls for change, he’s finally put the German national soccer team on a different track. Whether this proves effective has yet to be seen, but at least they got off to a good start with a convincing 3:2 win at the European Championship qualifier. That win was all the more satisfying as it came in Amsterdam …

A typical German residential neighborhood at night, cars neatly parked in driveways, all the lights are out, everyone’s asleep, yet in front of one of the houses is a hoop attached to the garage. A very tall and lanky man with a ball in his hands is standing 23 feet-nine inches away. He calmly launches one three-point shot after the next, and all you can hear is the soothing sound …

For the chancellor to grace the title page of Germany’s daily newspapers is nothing out of the ordinary. But the cover of the April 5 edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) managed to raise a few eyebrows: Angela Merkel has two paintings by the famed German Expressionist Emil Nolde removed from her office. A government spokesperson asserted that Merkel, at the behest of the lender, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, …