(8 April 2024) The Irenaut is a new magazine with a bold mission: to explore the human genius for peace and chart the violence that stifles it. In its second issue, it focusses on anthropodicy - the question of whether humans are fundamentally good and, by extension, whether our existence as a species can be justified.
In an essay I've contributed on this theme, I approach the concept by looking at the human geography of Germany, a country on which, especially in the north, we as a species have left a particularly indelible mark, and about the landscapes of which we have spilled no shortage of ink.
What do Germany's literary (and not-so-literary) landscapes and places say about the human relationship to the natural environment? What, in turn, does this say about us? And what do we say about ourselves? Read my essay: 'Navigating human landscapes: From Rungholt to Miniaturwunderland'.
(1 April 2024) Every country which legalizes cannabis goes about it in its own characteristic way - so in Germany, that means endless angst-y debates, federal-state media-grandstanding, and a hellishly complex end result. As such, it will, as of today, be legal to own up to three cannabis plants and possess 50g of dried weed at home (25g on your person when you're out) and you will be able to buy it, but only through registered cannabis associations which will have to conform to eingetragener Verein standards...
You get the picture. Yet the law is, while typically tricky, broadly sensible, in the spirit of public health and harm prevention, and a boon to everyone who just wants a puff every now and then. Put my opinion on it for The Local in your pipe and smoke it!
(25 January 2024) Two weeks on from the Correctiv exclusive about right-wing extremists meeting in Potsdam to discuss mass deportations from Germany (including of German citizens) it's all had some time to sink in. In my analysis (for The Local), there is no immediate danger either of the far-right AfD getting into power or of this party enacting the kind of plans discussed; there is, however, a serious medium-term risk of a political spectrum weighted ever more towards the right in which UK/US-style 'hostile environment' policies leave foreign-born German citizens vulnerable. Those of us who could be sent 'back' somewhere need contingency plans.
(4 January 2024) No-one likes being the purveyor of terrible news, but the outlook for Germany in 2024 is... well, terrible. Our government has now irrevocably disappointed even those few of us who still saw some potential in it - and is facing a drubbing in a range of elections which will be read as plebiscites (and may lead to its premature end). Meanwhile, everyone from train drivers from farmers is on strike and the economy is still anaemic. Fun times, as I explain for The Local.
(28 September 2023) As anyone who has had me on the phone in the last couple of days will have heard, I've been at the Oktoberfest. *croak* In my capacity as regular of around 15 years standing and frequent visitor to Germany's self-proclaimed Promised Land, Bavaria, it's my pleasure to unpick for The Local what is at stakes in the state's upcoming regional elections - due the weekend after this year's bumper 17-day Fest ends and guaranteed to make Munich's lingering collective hangover worse.
(5 September 2024) It seems I'm now getting to that age where revivals start to concern styles I remember well the first time round: the current trend for cargo trousers and crop-tops in female fashion is straight out of the "Y2G" years, for instance, when I was in my mid-teens. Around that time, Germany was, according to The Economist, 'The Sick Man of Europe', its industry outdated and services sector sclerotic, with low growth and high unemployment as the inevitable consequence.
Back then, this description - Der kranke Mann Europas - sent shockwaves through the country, giving Schröder the political momentum to push through the highly unpopular Hartz IV reforms in an effort to give Germany an economic reboot. From 2005 onwards, growth duly picked up, unemployment went into rapid decline, and then we weathered the Financial Crisis better than most other major economies. What many see as a correlation may well have been more of a coincidence - how setting up a low-wage sector in an economy dependent on premium exports was responsible for our golden 2010s is beyond my comprehension - but one lesson was learned: when the gloom descends and the vultures start circling, eye-catching reforms can change the economic discourse and improve the mood. In economics, it's often a question of psychology.
Now we have once again been named The Economist's 'Sick Man of Europe' and indeed our economy is in the doldrums. Here's me in The Local on how to deal with this less enjoyably nostalgic part of the current turn-of-the-Millennium revival. Sneak preview: yes, we need an ambitious package of reforms to revivify business confidence and kick-start the economy; no, we don't need fiscal austerity and lower wages.
(26 January 2023) In the mid-2000s, one of the most attractive things about Germany was the ease of finding a flat - and the cheap rents that went with it. Germans themselves were (not so) blissfully unaware of how good a deal they had.
Since then, things have changed. New-contract rents in Germany's major cities now equal those of neighbouring countries and good lettings are scarce. Yet this is not, as some think it is, a housing market in crisis. Germany retains admirable rental protections from which existing tenants benefit. Owners and landlords, too, are in a strong position. It's just not that great anymore if you're looking for a flat... Here's my analysis of the German housing market in The Local.
(25 January 2023) New year, same old Downing Street lies: and, as ever, it's good to have Annette Dittert on hand to skewer them with such verve. In this column for the New Statesman, she uses the metaphor of the Emperor's new clothes - apt both to sharp-suited Sunak and to her own role pointing out what should be the blindingly obvious! As ever, a pleasure to translate.
(15 November 2022) Germany's planned €49 ticket for local and regional public transport is genuinely transformative policy which will make using busses, trams, and trains easier and smoother than ever before while helping hard-pressed citizens as living costs soar - and if we’d never had the ill-thought-out €9 ticket bonanza this summer, it would be hailed as such. As it is, though, this important moment seems like an anti-climax. Read my take on the new ticket for The Local.
(14 November 2022) It's been a while since Annette Dittert's last column about British politics in the New Statesman. After all, as bureau chief for ARD in London, she'd had enough to be doing with her day job: Tory Leadership Drama No. 1, death of the Queen, the explosive Truss-Kwarteng Intermezzo, Tory Leadership Drama No. 2... So her examination of Rishi Sunak's current position is a welcome return to the written word - one which, as ever, I had the pleasure of translating.
(21 October 2022) Confession intime: the photos of me on this website are around 10 years old now. Whenever I mull over possible replacements, I'm shocked by how old I now look. In that, I'm very much like the current German government, whose fresh-faced 2021 look has - after eight months of continuous firefighting - deteriorated into a decidedly washed-out, haggard countenance.
Yet our tri-partite coalition, while no longer particularly photogenic and based on an agreement which Russia's actions have torn up, is doing better than many (including itself) think. With any luck, its participants will remember that and keep the show on the road. Read my thoughts on Germany's government one year in The Local.
(25 August 2022) If every one of Germany's beloved observers of our national neuroses, from the legendary Loriot right down to today's Jan Böhmermann, were to come together to parody our love of excessive complexity and petty busy-body rules through the medium of Covid legislation, they would probably have trouble coming up with something as absurd as what is proposed from 1st October onwards. Read my take in The Local.
(05 August 2022) Germany's energy crisis is the result of our decades' long failure to examine our strategic position and take action accordingly. Every government since Schröder's first administration in 1998 - and by extension the German electorate - is complicit, and now we must learn to live with the consequences until we finally sit ourselves down and (as our patronising turn of phrase has it) "do our homework". In The Local, I look at what went wrong, where and how, and ask why we still aren't doing enough to become energy-independent.
(16 June 2022) It's that time of year again: the sun is out, and so the city streets and country roads of Germany are full with cyclists - and with their most bitter enemy, motorists. There's something particularly poisonous about the car-vs-bike debate here, and The Local asked me to look at why.
Older news here.