Natural gas and oil are a shout-out from a distant past. Several hundred millions of years passed before dead biomass at the bottom of primordial oceans formed the energy sources that run today’s motors, comprise our industrial products and heat our homes.

But things have since considerably accelerated, as gas and oil can now also be created artificially, from hydrogen and carbon combined in a refinery to create various combustibles …

Elon Musk is standing on the construction site of his European Gigafactory. Behind him in the distance, a dense arrangement of concrete pillars rises up from the ground. A traditional German “topping-out” garland swings in the wind as it hangs from a building crane. “Deutschland rocks!” exclaims Musk.

This is the first time the Tesla boss has visited his forthcoming Gigafactory in Grünheide, located just across the city limits of …

Rarely do the results of political choices become so visible so fast. After COVID-19 turned from a China-centered tragedy into a global threat some six months ago, all advanced economies faced a similar set of challenges. But they reacted differently. Countries such as the US and the UK, whose overconfident leaders put too much trust in their own political instincts, paid a heavy price for their choices. Conversely, countries like …

Eastern and western Germany continue to drift apart in political terms, despite economic achievements (i.e., growth, employment, wages, pensions, etc.) in the former states of the GDR. While voters in the West are increasingly going green, voters in the East are leaning toward blue: the right-wing terrorist group NSU was based in the eastern city of Jena, the anti-immigration movement Pegida with its militant marches and unabashedly racist slogans has …

Over the past several years, there’s one question that has dumbfounded western Germans as they gaze eastward: How is it possible that the whole “growing together” thing hasn’t worked out, even more than 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall? Or, rather: Why are Germany’s eastern states – the ones that once formed the GDR – still so different?

In 2020, the fact that much continues to distinguish …

Non-German friends of mine like to think we Germans celebrate German Unity Day by throwing a big party. I personally don’t know anyone who actually celebrates the national holiday on Oct. 3. It’s just a day off work, a day to relax, take a mini vacation, do some gardening or binge-watch TV.

Still, I was invited to a German Unity Day party once. It was organized by the German Embassy …

In the beginning, there was a promise: “Through our joint efforts,” said Chancellor Helmut Kohl in summer 1990, “we will soon succeed in transforming the former states of the GDR into blooming landscapes where it is worthwhile to live and work.”

The GDR’s Ministry of Economics was also cautiously optimistic at the time; according to its own assessment, 40 percent of all East German enterprises would be capable of generating …

In Berlin, no one is surprised when they have to get up at five in the morning and head to the department of motor vehicles in order to register a car before noon. Or when they notice that a construction site blocking part of a major road has been devoid of even a single worker for months. Or when it takes days to get a particular city administrative employee on …

I still have my paper invitation to the BER opening gala scheduled for spring 2012. “Don’t forget!” it reads, front and center, in striking red letters with an exclamation mark. And also, just in case the message wasn’t clear enough: “Berlin Brandenburg Airport is opening soon.” Don’t forget! Soon! And, of course, BER was going to be “the most modern airport in Europe,” indeed, “a cathedral of air traffic” – …

EU officials worked meticulously on the development of the climate crisis package, even though the official language of the program was noticeably stilted: “A major element of the new development model will be to decouple future economic prosperity from environmental pollution.”

The idea was to help the economy, all the while guided by a clear goal. In order to achieve this goal, however, the Commission in Brussels needed money, its …