Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 16.09.2005

Hubert Spiegel accompanied Nobel Prize winner Günter Grass on his tour across Germany, in which the author campaigned for the SPD in the current elections. "No one in Hamburg seemed to care that the campaign of the former workers' party took place in the Museum der Arbeit, or labour museum. But couldn't you take Günter Grass, the 'engagé' writer who never stops affirming his solidarity with the SPD and has proclaimed alliances with the working class, with the SPD, with the victims of the East German state police, with the victims of the current Hartz IV social security reforms, and last but not least with other authors, and stick him in the museum as well? Grass knows there is a considerable danger that he may come to symbolise the obsolete-model intellectual. That's why he puts such emphasis on young authors like Benjamin Lebert, Eva Menasse, Juli Zeh and Michael Kumpfmüller taking part in the campaign. And that is why he uses every opportunity to fulminate against the feuilleton press, which he accuses of intimidating younger colleagues and nipping their political engagement in the bud."


Süddeutsche Zeitung, 16.09.2005

On the literature page, author Georg Klein imagines how politicians might deal with the general defeat that would result should leftist and conservative parties form a "grand coalition" after Sunday's federal elections. "In fact, Messrs Stoiber, Wulff and Koch, premiers of Bavaria, Lower Saxony and Hessen respectively, wanted to play the naughty nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie after the elections and make life in the chancellery difficult for Aunty Angie. Now, however, none of them can see themselves sitting together at the cabinet table with the SPD, who unfortunately show notorious allegiance to the chancellor. The three state premiers have hooked elbows to make their staggering at least look a little bit like swaggering."
See our fiction feature "We're coming to bring you on home" by George Klein.


Die Welt, 16.09.2005

Manfred Quiring writes that Jewish groups and human rights organisations have protested against the flow of anti-Semitic publications on offer at the Moscow Book Fair, which is just coming to an end. "Apart from a host of anti-Semitic works like 'Jewish Nazism' or 'Dezionisation', the book 'Mysteries of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion' was also presented. In it, Oleg Platonov attempts to demonstrate the authenticity of the 'Protocols', although it has long been proven they were a hoax by the Russian secret police in Czarist times." A spokeswoman for the Russian Jewish Congress says the reason for the large number of anti-Semitic publications is simple: the huge demand.


Der Tagesspiegel, 16.09.2005

In a laboratory experiment at the Berlin Staatsoper called "Seven attempted escapes from silence", a group of composers and directors have staged seven mini operas to a libretto by young literary star Jonathan Safran Foer. Christiane Peitz was baffled by the results. "When it was all over, Foer refused to come onto the stage. Shyness? Disappointment? Irritation? ... Foer's opera episodes were unrecognisable in the hands of the seven composers and directors. Perhaps this explains why at the start of each one they played back a recording of Foer's stage directions, all of which were ignored. At a world premiere even fans of directorial theatre would wish to see some degree of faithfulness to the script."


Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 16.09.2005

China has the most extensive and sophisticated Internet filtering system in the world, Jürgen Kahl learns from a major study carried out by the Open Net Initiative. And it advertises publicly for new recruits for the already 50,000 strong censor team. "Like the job advertisment for so-called net commentators for the Bulletin Board System (BBS) of the University of Nanjing on the college online pin-board. 'The main task of student network commentators is to disseminate positive information about the BBS of the university. When answering online postings they are obliged to deflect negative entries or to eliminate them', it says, and adds that any irregularities should be reported to the university authorities."