Germany

Angela Merkel’s power has taken a blow in the wake of the German election. Here Tony Paterson reports from Berlin on the new shape of German politics. Angela Merkel may have been responsible for the worst German conservative general election performance in almost 70 years but she is not showing much remorse about it. In […]

The myth of Friedrich Nietzsche as the godfather of Nazism was created by his sister Elizabeth – but is that the full story? SUNA ERDEM explores a century-old case of fake news Friedrich Nietzsche is widely considered one of the greatest and most interesting philosophers of all time. The 19th century German thinker challenged accepted […]

Germany is seen as Europe’s dull but stable backbone. But for how much longer, asks JASON WALSH? It should have been a resounding victory, and looked at through squinted eyes, perhaps it is. Angela Merkel will be re-appointed chancellor of Germany, leading the country for a fourth term – something that has only happened once […]

In recent decades, Germany has shied away from being too assertive in its foreign policy. But growing global uncertainties mean that – regardless of Sunday’s election result – that is changing. Policy expert EMILY MANSFIELD analyses exactly where the country (and by extension the EU) is heading German foreign policy is currently in a transitional […]

Angela Merkel may be on course for victory but her campaign for the German chancellorship is not the stately procession it might seem from afar. TONY PATERSON joins her on a decidedly bumpy election trail Earlier this year the twin political earthquakes of Brexit and Donald Trump prompted shaken Europeans to dub her the last […]

When Muslim feminist SEYRAN ATES opened a liberal mosque in Berlin this summer she was met with a barrage of death threats and fatwas. But she says she is undeterred in her campaign to use enlightenment values to defeat extremism – in all forms I have been beaten up in the street, received death threats […]

IAN WALKER looks at the complex legacy of Germany’s first post-war chancellor, a man who helped unify Europe and rebuild West Germany but who left a nation divided not only between East and West but also between the war generation and the baby boomers who came after In April 1933 Konrad Adenauer, the former mayor […]