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Football hooligans 'getting more violent'

2012-01-11T18:55:00.001-08:00

Football hooligans 'getting more violent'

Violence at football matches in Germany’s top leagues has reached record highs, leaving police struggling to control it, the Interior Ministry said this week.READ (2 COMMENTS) »

07/01 Football tournament scrapped after fans riot »

21/12 Officials investigate more football violence »

Football hooligans 'getting more violent'

2012-01-11T18:44:00.001-08:00

Football hooligans 'getting more violent'

Violence at football matches in Germany’s top leagues has reached record highs, leaving police struggling to control it, the Interior Ministry said this week.READ (2 COMMENTS) »

07/01 Football tournament scrapped after fans riot »

21/12 Officials investigate more football violence »

In Germany, Leisure Is an Active Pursuit | Facts about Germany | Deutsche Welle | 05.02.2009

2010-09-15T05:17:00.001-07:00

In Germany, Leisure Is an Active Pursuit

Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Nordic Walking is a trendy sport that's easy on the joints

For Germans, recreation doesn’t necessarily mean lounging around. In its free time, the nation likes to take part in strenuous athletic activities -- most of them very well organized.

“Get up and get out” has always been a key saying for Germans looking to fill their free time. But while tending a small patch of community garden used to represent the epitome of German life, that image changed long ago.

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Germans are world-class travelers

Today, Germans love to travel. In 2007, some 65 percent of them went away for at least five days of vacation, according to tourism analysts. City getaways, sports trips, and wellness weekends are gaining in popularity.

Leisure gives economy a boost

When they’re not traveling, many Germans spend the rest of the year getting fit for vacation through one kind of fitness training or another. Germans work out at least once a week, statistics show. Jogging, Nordic Walking, skating, and cycling are all popular, but Germans also enjoy unusual sports such as bungee jumping, deep sea fishing, and boxing.

All this leisure activity is a boon for the economy. Every private home invests around 250 euros ($330) each month in leisure, according to official statistics. That’s nearly 12 percent of annual income. Many businesses have decided to capitalize on this, starting with amusement parks and other leisure attractions.

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: In Brandenburg, a tropical beach is housed under a huge dome

Amusement parks and attractions have become increasingly specialized in recent years. An indoor ski run is built inside a run-down industrial center; tropical beaches are developed on farmland in Brandenburg; an old warehouse becomes an alpine climbing landscape. Germans can play golf in the middle of the city, visit enormous aquariums, attend musical events and dine at theme restaurants.

A different kind of club scene

Civic clubs are also very popular in Germany. Local soccer clubs, a bowling group, a singing club, a public-safety group; club life here is well developed and well organized. Attending one club or another always was, and still is, the most common leisure time activity in Germany. Twenty-three million Germans are members of one club or another.

However, all this may be drawing to an end. Sociologists are predicting a strong decrease in active and outdoor leisure activities, as home-based leisure grows in importance. Modern-day work hours mean families have increasingly less free time to spend together, so the little free time that exists will be spent at home, they predict.

If they are right, it may be that Germans will continue to love their free time -- but will simply spend less of it active and outdoors.

Peter Wozny (jen)

In Germany, Leisure Is an Active Pursuit | Facts about Germany | Deutsche Welle | 05.02.2009

Conscription in Germany set to be consigned to history | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 14.09.2010

2010-09-14T06:39:00.001-07:00

Conscription in Germany set to be consigned to history

Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: The Bundeswehr will be "smaller but more efficient"

After more than 50 years of conscription, Germany's Bundeswehr is on the brink of turning into an all-volunteer army. Leading government officials have signalled their approval of the reform plans.

The executive committee of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Party (CDU) appears prepared to support Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg's plans to reform the German army, the Bundeswehr. The proposals could see the Bundeswehr turned into a volunteer army, after 50 years of conscription.

Under the defence minister's proposals, Germany would suspend conscription, but retain it in the Constitution. The army would then only accept some 7,500 volunteers for between 12 to 23 months. Young men would retain the status of conscripts, but they would not be drafted.

Guttenberg said that despite the plans, the CDU would remain the "Party of the Bundeswehr and of security," adding that the move was not a shift away from Party’s traditional, conservative values.

CDU Secretary General Hermann Groehe said the party's executive committee had not taken a decision yet, but had shown a "great openness" for Guttenberg's plans.

The Chancellor's coalition partner in the government, the Free Democrats welcomed the CDU committee's decision at a meeting late on Monday.

A revolutionary reform

Previously opposed to the minister's reform plans, the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party to the CDU, has also signalled its agreement. A difference of opinion remains, however, as CSU leader Horst Seehofer demands that conscription should be completely abolished, not just discontinued.

In addition Guttenberg wants to slash troop levels from about 245,000 today to about 164,000 troops in the future. The result would be what he has termed a "smaller but better army, more effectively equipped for operations." Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Conscription could be history in less than a year

The armed forces are controlled by parliament

The reform is needed to meet savings the government wants to impose on the military over the next four years.

Guttenberg made a renewed appeal for his reform plans in the Würzburger Tagespost newspaper Monday edition.

Conscription has a grand tradition, he said. "But it has shriveled and is now only a shadow of its former self."

Twenty years ago, West Germans served 18 months in the army or in social services if they were conscientious objectors. Today, the length of military service has dropped to six months and only about 16 percent of those of military age actually serve.

Should party members at the CDU and CSU annual conventions later this year go along with the proposals, conscription in the German Bundeswehr could be discontinued as early as July 2011.

Author: Dagmar Breitenbach (dpa,AFP)
Editor: Rob Turner

Conscription in Germany set to be consigned to history | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 14.09.2010

Munich's answer to Lent: stronger beer - The Local

2010-03-03T14:00:00.001-08:00

Munich's answer to Lent: stronger beer

Published: 26 Feb 10 09:56 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/lifestyle/20100226-25519.html

Lent might be a period of abstinence, but Bavarian monks decided centuries ago that drinking highly alcoholic beer helped their fasting. Thomas Barkley explains Munich's Starkbierzeit tradition.

Munich's answer to Lent: stronger beer - The Local

Guttenberg promises inquiry amid more reports of hazing in German military | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 23.02.2010

2010-02-24T06:15:00.001-08:00

Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Dozens of soldiers have come forward to report degrading treatment
The extent of humiliating treatment of soldiers going through initiation rituals in the German military seems to be bigger than originally thought. Soldiers tell of rituals with names like "fire dance" and the "Jukebox".
Germany's parliamentary commissioner for the armed forces, Reinhold Robbe, said he had received 54 written accounts of abuse and degrading treatment since he submitted a report about hazing in the military.
Several of the letters he received from soldiers corroborated previous allegations that mountain infantry troops at a camp in Bavaria had been forced to drink alcohol and eat raw pork liver until they threw up.
Robbe, a member of the Social Democratic party, demanded that the training curriculum be changed and said that the "dangerous, tasteless rituals must stop."
Fire dances and jukeboxes
The new letters also bring to light other forms of hazing. One former member of the Marines said that new sailors were often subjected to harsh rituals during their first nights at sea. He described the "fire dance," in which a man was forced to strip off his pants and have a lighted wick placed in his anus; another in which a floor polishing machine with rough bristles was held against a recruit's naked bottom until the skin turned red.
A volunteer soldier stationed in southern Germany between 1996 and 1998 told of soldiers being forced to play "Jukebox," during which they were shut into a locker, which was then stood upside down, and the occupant forced to sing certain songs.
Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg renewed his promise of a complete investigation. He did not rule out the possibility of disciplinary action for those involved, although he warned against making an across-the-board judgment.
"Every case must be pursued judiciously and emphatically," Guttenberg told fellow Christian Democrat politicians in Berlin on Tuesday.
svs/dpa/apn
Editor: Andreas Illmer

Guttenberg promises inquiry amid more reports of hazing in German military | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 23.02.2010

Once upon a time in Goslar - The Local

2010-02-24T06:10:00.001-08:00

Once upon a time in Goslar
Published: 23 Feb 10 16:46 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/travel/20100223-25453.html
The fairytale town of Goslar makes a great base for exploring northern Germany’s Harz region. Campbell Jefferys visits the popular UNESCO World Heritage site in Lower Saxony.

Once upon a time in Goslar - The Local

Giving English the big kiss-off - The Local

2010-02-22T08:23:00.001-08:00

My Dear Krauts
Giving English the big kiss-off
Published: 22 Feb 10 15:02 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/opinion/20100222-25425.html
Roger Boyes, the Berlin correspondent for British daily The Times, doesn’t lament the end of Deutsche Bahn’s troubled romance with the English language.

Giving English the big kiss-off - The Local

Thirteen injured in military base accident - The Local

2010-02-22T06:02:00.001-08:00

Thirteen injured in military base accident
Published: 2 Nov 09 10:31 CET
Updated: 2 Nov 09 12:15 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20091102-22969.html
A German soldier accidentally rammed his car into a troop of other soldiers in the early morning darkness, injuring 13 military personnel, seven seriously, a defence ministry spokesman said Monday.

Thirteen injured in military base accident - The Local

Three dead in US military helicopter crash - The Local

2010-02-22T05:59:00.001-08:00

Three soldiers were killed when a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crashed northeast of Mannheim, Germany on Wednesday evening, the US Army confirmed on Thursday.

Three dead in US military helicopter crash - The Local

Karlsruher S-Bahn am Hauptbahnhof

2010-02-20T09:37:00.001-08:00

Europaplatz Karlsruhe

2010-02-20T09:18:00.001-08:00

Neu Ulm Germany 1990

2010-02-19T03:58:00.001-08:00

USAREUR

2010-02-19T03:54:00.001-08:00

Police gird for May 1 marches and protests - The Local

2010-02-18T11:01:00.001-08:00

Police and demonstrators are gathering in Hamburg and Nürnberg Thursday as preparations are made for marches planned by right-wing extremists – and the protests against them.

Dresden forms human chain against neo-Nazis - National (13 Feb 10)
Berlin forges deal over WWII expellee centre - National (11 Feb 10)
Neo-Nazi party given green light to target school children - National (6 Feb 10)
Nürnberg has been chosen by the neo-Nazi NPD party as the site for their central demonstration, sparking the deployment of at least 3,000 policemen, and an expected 10,000 protestors, including a number of mainstream politicians.
The march has been given permission for a route which the German Jewish Council said goes past a Jewish old people’s home and the town’s Jewish cultural centre.
But the decision was defended by Nürnberg’s Jewish cultural association, which said it had carefully agreed the route with the city and it was far enough away from Jewish establishments.
Hamburg is more likely to turn violent, with a strong left-wing scene determined to give the far-right demonstrators a hard time. They are expected to be joined by many protestors from Berlin, which is just a couple of hours’ drive away.
The NPD and other extremists have registered their march to go through Barmbek, a traditionally left-wing, working class area. The scene's left-wingers are expected to be joined by a mix of trade unionists, politicians and church-goers in their protest.
Wednesday night, often a time for fights with the police in many of Germany’s larger cities in the run up to May 1, was largely peaceful in Berlin, but several people were arrested in central Hamburg.
A barricade was set alight in the Schanzenviertel of the city, and a stand-off between a number of punks and policemen ended with a handful of arrests.
DPA/The Local (news@thelocal.de)

Police gird for May 1 marches and protests - The Local

1 dead in Germany school shooting - CNN.com

2010-02-18T05:30:00.001-08:00

Berlin, Germany (CNN) -- One man was dead and another man was in custody Thursday after a shooting at a vocational school in southern Germany, police said.

The school was in lockdown, surrounded by police as officers searched the building, a spokesman for the Ludwigshafen police told CNN. The hundreds of students at the school were evactuated to a nearby building, the spokesman said.
The suspected shooter, a 23-year-old, was in custody, the spokesman said.

1 dead in Germany school shooting - CNN.com

German Olympic Commercial

2010-02-16T19:05:00.001-08:00

2010-02-05T09:28:00.000-08:00

This is the Schwarzer Adler, the guesthouse of the Eichhorn Brewery in Dörfleins, Germany. Just across the river from Hallstadt, which is a suburb of Bamberg. Great place to eat, relax and drink some wonderful beer. I had my 60th birthday party here. Great time. My wife's family on her mother's side comes from this town. Been there many times over the years visiting her relatives and friends of ours.

2010-01-27T04:52:00.000-08:00

Plaün, Germany

Plaün, Germany is where my wife's family is from on her fathers side. She still has an aunt and some cousins living there. We visit them whenever we're in Germany. We were there last September. This photo is around Christmas time in Plaün at the Marktplatz downtown. Lot of snow this winter.