Die Welt, 06.12.2005

Mariam Lau interviews Iranian architect Kanan Makiya, who shot to fame with his book "Repubic of Fear", an indictment of Saddam Hussein's regime. Asked how Germany could help Iraq, he answers: "Together with my friends from the Iraq Memory Foundation, I've gathered together two million documents from the Saddam era, because luckily the regime was very keen on writing everything down: interrogation protocols, letters of denunciation, deployment orders. If we Iraqis want to live together, the structure of this republic of fear has to made transparent to all. In trying to deal with all the documents, we looked around and discovered Germany's former Gauck Authority (whose objective was to preserve the records of the former East German secret police, and to make them accessible to the public). What we need most now is not soldiers or nurses, but a new tone: an understanding that we are more than a colony, that the fight against terror – which also concerns Germany – must be won in Iraq."

Thirty-five years ago, on a trip to Poland on December 7, 1970, German Chancellor Willy Brandt went down on his knees before the monument commemorating those who died in the Warsaw Ghetto. Michael Wolffsohn writes that the famous "Kniefall" was in fact not received with enthusiasm, even in Poland: "The Polish national, non-communist perspective saw 'the' Poles as the true victims of the Nazi aggression in their country. True 'the' Jews were also mentioned, but only reluctantly. Both nationalist and communist Poles were united in traditional fervid anti-Semitism. Just two years before Brandt went down on his knees, in March 1968, the governing communist party had started up a popular anti-Semitic campaign."


Frankfurter Rundschau, 06.12.2005

Michael Kohler was obviously anxious about what was in store for him at the "Escape, Expulsion, Integration" exhibition at Bonn's Haus der Geschichte or history museum. The exhibition focusses on the first half of the 20th century, when between 60 and 80 million people became refugees and displaced persons in Europe under the Nazis, among them 14 million Germans. His fears were allayed by a sign at the entrance: "The exhibition does not follow a special German path of remembrance, instead it attempts to connect individual experience with a shared European history." The show stands by its word. "Anyone who hopes or worries that they will find the pathos of victims or Heimat romanticism here will be quickly disappointed by the modest presentation. There are no Silesian panorama landscapes evoking irretrievable loss; instead written documents, personal memories and souvenirs dominate the exhibition architecture, together with small format images."


Der Tagesspiegel, 06.12.2005

Kai Müller and Jörg Wunder report on the cultural war being fought against French Hip Hop musicians, who are being charged with sedition. "Conservative politicians vehemently contest that rappers are the social conscience they purport to be. 'This music does not target an audience capable of discriminating between abstraction and literalness' warns politician Francois Grosdidier, who has brought charges against groups such as Lunatic, 113, Ministere Amer as well as musicians like Smala, Fabe, Salif and Monsier R, claiming that they are directly responsible for the escalation of violence. Many of them have been out of the business for years. It seems that words like these are finally giving confirmation of the arrogance that brands immigrant children as second class French citizens. And let's not forget, as Le Monde newspaper commented recently, the most brutal French song dates back to the 1793: the Marseillaise.


Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 06.12.2005

Derek Weber is keenly awaiting the new season at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. After several years of infighting, the theatre is now under the artistic direction of Stephane Lissner, from France. Lissner has already announced that the 2006 opening premiere will be Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" directed by Patrice Chereau and conducted by Daniel Barenboim. "But the 'most Italian' idea is certainly to invite every year an Italian opera house for a guest performance in the Scala, starting in 2007 with the San Carlo from Naples (and Verdi's 'Luisa Miller'). This will be followed in 2008 by Venice's La Fenice with 'Il crociato in Egitto' by Giacomo Meyerbeer, which had its world premiere in La Scala in 1824."


Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 06.12.2005

Russian author Viktor Erofeyev has visited the North-Siberiean city Norilsk, where tens of thousands of Gulag inmates died in forced labour: "In 1935, the first load of prisoners arrived in the newly founded settlement Norilsk, with 1,200 men. They all died like flies apparently. Until 1953, the town was under the control of the NKVD, or Soviet secret police. The most important building in the old city, which otherwise consisted primarily of prisoners' barracks, was the so-called Cruel House, the police headquarters. Even today the building makes a dignified, welcoming, almost coquettish impression."

See our feature "Russian dichotomies" by Viktor Erofeyev.