"[A]nti-queer' crimes more than tripled in [Berlin] between 2016 and 2025. Violent anti-queer crimes rose by half."

"Both violent and nonviolent offenses peaked in 2023 and have fallen since the city began its strategy, but both types of crimes remain historically elevated.  Much of that effort has focused on countering growing hostility from Germany’s far right; in Berlin, far-right ideology was the most frequently cited specific motivation for homophobic attacks in the city in 2025. But on Sunday, after the authorities said the perpetrator had attempted to join the Islamist terrorist group ISIS, community leaders said they were increasingly worried about threats from a wider range of political and religious motivations...."

From "Even Before Attack, Berlin’s Gay Community Felt ‘More and More Unsafe’/The killing of a woman in what officials called an act of Islamist terrorism rattled a community that has seen a surge in threats, including from the far right" (NYT gift link).

"Some people at the memorial on Sunday said German leaders had contributed to a sense of insecurity. They singled out the far-right Alternative for Germany party, which has climbed in national polls with a platform that defines a family as a man and a woman with children. Others criticized Friedrich Merz, the chancellor, who defended a decision not to fly a Pride flag over the federal parliament building last year by saying Parliament was 'not a circus tent.'..."

"The German economy, once known for its efficiency, orderliness and stability, is in a terrible mess."

"It’s not just that the numbers are dire.... No, the worst of it is that our dynamic economy gave postwar Germany a sense of identity. For all our flaws, we had a country that functioned better than others...."

I'm reading "Germany Has Lost What It Did Best," a guest essay by Konstantin Richter, in the NYT.

"In contrast to the refined intellectualism and impersonal aesthetic of artists like Sol LeWitt and Donald Judd, he offered an art that reveled in raw emotion, extroverted brushwork..."

"... and a fierce engagement with the complexities of 20th-century German history.... Mr. Baselitz’s 'Hero' series of 1965 and 1966 — blocky figures in thick impasto stumbling through tormented landscapes — plunged the viewer into a nightmare vision of postwar Germany. No less disturbing were the woodsmen, hunters and cows of the 'Fracture' series, disassembled into horizontal strips and merged with the landscape. In a break with convention, Mr. Baselitz began turning the central images in his canvases upside down in the late 1960s.... 'The hierarchy where the sky is at the top and the ground down below is in any case only an agreement, one we have all got used to, but one that we absolutely do not have to believe in,' Mr. Baselitz told the critic and historian Walter Grasskamp in 1984."

From "Georg Baselitz, German Neo-Expressionist Painter, Dies at 88/Along with contemporaries like Anselm Kiefer, he mounted a frontal attack on Minimalism and Conceptualism, the dominant 'cool' styles of the 1970s" (NYT).

Here's an example from the "Hero" series 

I wish Baselitz could have done the official portrait for... various political figures. But I will not say who because I'm chilled by the arrest of James Comey.

And here's an example from the "Fractures" series, totally inappropriate for an official portrait:

"Berliner here. Don't fool yourselves. The Nightclub scene in Berlin is dead. And it was destroyed by people like you who turned it into a tourist attraction."

Says somebody in the comments section of the Washington Post article, "Pants are optional: What I learned navigating Berlin’s famous club scene/Here’s what happened when our travel reporter attempted to infiltrate some of the city’s iconic clubs as a tourist."

The WaPo travel reporter is an attractive mid-30s white woman. She writes: "When I got to the door, the bouncer said I could come in if I took my pants off." She'd prepared by wearing a black one-piece swimsuit as a base layer. She "soon realized I would have been in good company in my underwear alone — or even fully bottomless."

This gets my rarely used "underpants" tag.

I agree with the Berliner in the comments. It's sad when something local gets co-opted by tourists... even if the damned tourists will take off their pants as the price of entry and even if the pants-off price of entry only works if you are decently attractive and somewhat young.

"Ow!"

🚨🇩🇪 Meanwhile in Cologne, Germany

German Streamer Kunshikitty sets out with the intention of showing that Women can walk safely through the streets that are occupied by new foreign Men

Ends up being attacked twice live on stream ‼️ pic.twitter.com/OU9uDmIXJD

— Concerned Citizen (@BGatesIsaPyscho) January 1, 2026

ADDED: To be fair to the men in this video: Their identity was appropriated for use in an influencer's video. Maybe they didn't want to be used like that. Even if the woman — Kunshikitty — thought she was doing them a favor by eliciting video showing how good these men are, they might not want her framing and characterizations and use for clicks. I have no idea how good or bad they are, but I can understand resentment of the intrusion of influencers. 

"I am ill, seriously ill — it is the end, but I am not afraid. You will continue the work, you know how, but you must be careful. You know how to behave; I don’t need to tell you anything more."

Wrote Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia, who died in 1937 and left a letter that was not to be opened until September 19, 2025, which was yesterday.

Quoted in "Masaryk’s 'last words' envelope opened: insights into a nation’s founding president" (Radio Prague International).

We talked about the great letter-opening yesterday, here. I had a bit of the text in that post, though I wasn't sure it was from the letter: "If people are uneducated and foolish, there is not much that can be done. People are glad to be foolish — do not make it easy for them, and argue with them." I see that is indeed from the letter.

The letter also says this about the Germans: "Give them what they deserve, but no more."

"Liebich has vigorously resisted suggestions of taking this step to satirise the authorities, rather than out of a wish to live as a woman."

Link to the London Times.

It should be noted that "Alexander Dobrindt, the interior minister, said Liebich had 'abused' the new gender self-identification law and it needed to be tightened up."

I always had a complicated relationship with the United States, which was far from perfect, but the U.S. was always the shining city on the hill."

"But now. we’ve lost not only the power that protected us, but also the guiding star in the sky."

Joschka Fischer, identified by the NYT as "a former foreign minister, radical leftist in his younger days and now a Green party stalwart."

He's quoted in "In Germany, ‘Orphaned’ by U.S., Shock Gives Way to Action/No country in Europe is as much a product of enlightened postwar American diplomacy. Now adrift, it has begun to reckon with a new world."

Who said "orphaned"? Who viewed Germany as America's child?

"My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA."

"I never thought I would have to say something like this on a television program. But after Donald Trump's statements last week at the latest, it is clear that the Americans, at least this part of the Americans, this administration, are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe."

Said Friedrich Merz* quoted in "Germany’s Merz vows ‘independence’ from Trump’s America, warning NATO may soon be dead/Election winner likens the Trump administration to Putin’s Russia as he bids to take Europe in a new direction" (Politico).

_____________________

* Suggested sobriquet: "The Landlord."

"The vice president singled out his German hosts, telling them to drop their objections to working with a party that has often reveled in banned Nazi slogans...."

"He did not mention the party, the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, by name, but directly referred to the longstanding agreement by mainstream German politicians to freeze out the group, parts of which have been formally classified as extremist by German intelligence. 'There is no room for firewalls,' Mr. Vance said, bringing some gasps in the hall.... The billionaire Elon Musk, a top adviser to Mr. Trump, endorsed the AfD late last year... [and] publicly interviewed [Alice Weidel, the AfD’s candidate for chancellor in this month’s election].... Mr. Vance’s remarks drew a furious response from German leaders across most party lines. They immediately rejected Mr. Vance’s suggestion that they should drop their firewall against the AfD, pointing to past comments by the party’s members in support of the National Socialists, or Nazis.... The AfD and its members have a history of use of Nazi language and antisemitic and racist comments, along with plots to overthrow the federal government. The party has surged to second in the polls with its call to crack down on immigration. Mr. Vance did not note that baggage...."

From "Vance Tells Europeans to Stop Shunning Parties Deemed Extreme/His comments shocked attendees at the Munich Security Conference and seemed to target efforts to sideline the hard-right party the Alternative for Germany" (NYT).

What is that "history of use of Nazi language"? The link on that phrase goes to another NYT article, from last May, "German Court Fines Far-Right Leader for Using Nazi Phrase/Björn Höcke, a state leader of the nationalist Alternative for Germany party, used the phrase 'Everything for Germany,' a slogan of the Nazi paramilitary wing, during a campaign stop." Excerpt:

"Some measures under discussion would give law enforcement and domestic intelligence agencies more latitude...."

"The interior ministry has proposed a 13-point plan that would, among other things, enable security forces to investigate the finances of anyone viewed as having 'threat potential,' as opposed to only those people being investigated for incitement or violence. Another would allow civil servants to be dismissed based on suspected ties to extremists, placing the burden of proof on employees rather than the state...."

From "Germany Looks to Stop the Far Right From Assuming Power/Mainstream parties are changing laws to protect government institutions. Critics say the changes risk undermining democracy" (NYT)(free access link).

"How far should a democracy go in restricting a party that many believe is bent on undermining it?... Today, German lawmakers are rewriting bylaws and pushing for constitutional amendments to ensure courts and state parliaments can provide checks against a future, more powerful AfD. Some have even launched a campaign to ban the AfD altogether...."

From the comments over there: "I'm alarmed by these proto-fascist movements but it's neither correct nor a winning strategy to reflexively label them 'threats to democracy.' Unfortunately they are products of democracy. They're reflections of society, and this is what democracy can and very often does look like."

"Mimi and Fluffy refused to use a litter box for weeks, but Tredwell couldn’t open the windows for fresh air, lest the cats escape."

"The cats threw up, shredded the furniture, and clawed her face while she slept. She was allowed to let them roam with expensive G.P.S. tracking collars, but the cats ran away from her when she tried to steer them away from lark territory. She gave Mimi and Fluffy to her mom, who lived outside the lockdown zone, but they disappeared and turned up at Tredwell’s door two days later. When she was finally allowed to let them out again, on September 1st, they disappeared for another three days. Many residents of Walldorf started to think that efforts to enforce the lockdown went too far. 'There were people running around taking pictures, trying to gather information about the cats'.... When I visited Tredwell at her home, she seemed exasperated. 'I’m vegetarian,' she said. 'I’m really trying to take care of my carbon footprint. And now I’m getting treated like I’m a bad person.'"

From "The Cat Lockdown That Divided a German Town/Cats in Walldorf, Germany, can’t go outside when crested larks are breeding. Is it cruelty or conservation?" (The New Yorker).

"For those that look at a gym as a selfie opportunity, a place solely dedicated to performance-oriented training or a workout that needs to be done, you can probably find a gym that’s more affordable..."

"... that can deliver those things. We are not looking to bring in people who keep to themselves and don’t see the value of mingling with like-minded people."

Said Sebastian Schoepe, an executive at a fitness outfit called Heimat, quoted in "Think Getting Into College Is Hard? Try Applying for These Gyms. A new crop of luxury gyms requires referrals, interviews and even, in some cases, medical evaluations. And that’s before paying a monthly fee of up to $2,750" (NYT). 

So... they discriminate fiercely, but against whom? Is it too subtle to puzzle out — too hard to identify as something known to be wrong, like the admissions process at an elite law school? 

I thought maybe the name was a signal. What's "heimat"? Sounds German. Oh! It's the German word for "homeland"! Here's the Wikipedia page, "Heimat":

"I spent the afternoon yesterday at Twitter HQ at the invitation of @elonmusk to find out more about the trend 'blacklist' that twitter placed on me & more."

Tweets Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.

Twitter 1.0 placed me on the blacklist on the first day I joined in August 2021. I think it was my pinned tweet linking to the @gbdeclaration that triggered the blacklist based on unspecified complaints Twitter received.

Twitter 1.0 rejected requests for verification by me and @MartinKulldorff . Each time the reasoning (never conveyed to us) was that we were not notable enough. They should have asked Francis Collins -- he would have vouched for our standing as "fringe epidemiologists."

It will take some time to find out more about what led Twitter 1.0 to act so imperiously, but I am grateful to @elonmusk, who has promised access to help find out. I will report the results on Twitter 2.0, where transparency and free speech rule.

It's a little melodramatic but I'll admit that the first thing that flashed into my head was the scene in "The Lives of Others" — spoiler alert — when the main character enters the Stasi Records Agency and is able to read his file. How exciting to enter the domain of the entity that has persecuted you, to be treated with respect and deference, and to be handed the written record of what they had been doing to you in secret!

Here's a news report on the Stasi Files (not from the movie): 

A monument to transparency.

"Attempts to find a gender-inclusive pronoun equivalent to 'they/them' are also complicated by the fact that the German equivalent to 'they' ('sie') sounds identical to..."

"... the formal form of 'you' ('Sie') and the word for 'she' ('sie'). Carolin Müller-Spitzer, a professor of linguistics the Leibniz Institute for the German Language, in Mannheim, said that adapting existing pronouns 'doesn’t work in German, so we need to create something new. And creating a new pronoun is difficult.' Müller-Spitzer added that since the end of the Third Reich, debates about inclusive language in Germany often become a forum for people to express views about gender or race."

From "Bending Gender’s Rules, in Life and in German Grammar/The victory of Kim de l’Horizon, a nonbinary writer, in a top literary prize stirred a debate about how the German language can accommodate people who don’t identify as male or female" (NYT).

The article drops that reference to the Third Reich then goes back to discussing this one writer, Kim de l'Horizon. I would really like some elaboration of the "difficult" problem!

In that context, this quote from de l'Horizon is unsettling: "Life is messy, it’s sweaty, it’s dirty, it’s playful and fun. And that’s what this whole process should be."

"We take a human-centered approach to design a future massively better for everyone."

I love this phrase, painted on the window of a design firm in Munich, Germany:

 

Massively better.

The photo was taken by my son Chris, who also made this video walking around the Marienplatz ("Mary's Square"):

"People are being prescribed how they should talk, how to write, and now how to party. This prudish nannying of the politically correct brigade must stop. We are heading for an anti-fun society."

That's a quote from Bild, "the powerful German tabloid," in "Schlager louts? Row erupts over ‘sexist’ pop hit in Germany/Town festival authorities refuse to play chart-topping Layla by DJ Robin & Schürze, prompting complaints of censorship" (The Guardian).

They are loud in volume, unsophisticated in tune and often offensively bawdy in content. With titles ranging from Sex With a Bavarian to Big Tits Potato Salad, the ballermann sub-genre of schlager pop is a big hit in German-dominated nightclubs on the Balearic island of Mallorca.... 

Layla, by DJ Robin & Schürze, which has sat atop the German singles charts for the last three weeks, is a song about a madam at a brothel who is “more beautiful, younger, foxier” than the other sex workers at her establishment....

I'm surprised anyone cares about sexy lyrics anymore. It's almost touching. I looked up the lyrics to "Layla" (which is obviously not the old Derek and the Dominoes number). Here's the English translation. It says "more beautiful, younger, hornier," by the way. I'm glad The Guardian protected me with "foxier," even as it went out of its way to say "Big Tits Potato Salad."

This is the second time today — and it's only 6:49 a.m. — that I've been smacked in the face by "tits" when I was just trying to read a stodgy old mainstream publication. I was looking up the word "slurp" in the OED, because I wanted to see if it did in fact originate in onomatopoeia, as implied by a crossword puzzle clue I'd just seen. Well, look at the the 1971 quote under the figurative use:

"You think we imprison people on a whim? No, if you think our humanistic system capable of such a thing, that alone would justify your arrest."

Says a Stasi interrogator in the 2006 film "The Lives of Others." The "humanistic system" was East Germany.

I just watched for the first time, on the urging of my son John, who warned me that it was about to leave the Criterion Channel. John chose that movie as the best movie of 2006, noted on his blog about the best movies from 1920 to 2020.

William F. Buckley Jr. said it was "the best movie I ever saw."

The director, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, got the idea for the movie from Maxim Gorky's description of a conversation he had with Lenin about music:

And screwing up his eyes and chuckling, he added without mirth: But I can't listen to music often, it affects my nerves, it makes me want to say sweet nothings and pat the heads of people who, living in a filthy hell, can create such beauty. But today we mustn't pat anyone on the head or we'll get our hand bitten off; we've got to hit them on the heads, hit them without mercy, though in the ideal we are against doing any violence to people. Hm-hm—it's a hellishly difficult office!

In the movie, a character quotes Lenin — about Beethoven's "Appassionata" —"If I keep listening to it, I won't finish the revolution."

"Lieutenant Halvorsen and his two crewmen joined with fellow American airmen to drop a total of 23 tons of candies, chocolate and chewing gum wrapped in tiny parachutes from their planes..."

"... while preparing to touch down at Tempelhof airfield with vast quantities of other supplies in an effort to break a Soviet land blockade of Berlin’s Allied-occupied western sectors.... A 9-year-old named Peter Zimmerman sent him a homemade parachute and a map providing directions to his home for a candy drop. Lieutenant Halvorsen searched for the house on his next flight but couldn’t find it. ... Peter sent another note reading: 'No chocolate yet.... You’re a pilot... I gave you a map.... How did you guys win the war anyway?' Lieutenant Halvorsen sent Peter a chocolate bar in the mail. 'Gail Halvorsen enchanted the children of Berlin,' recalled Ursula Yunger, who had been one of those children and later settled in the United States. 'It wasn’t the candy,' she told The Tucson Citizen in 2004. 'It was his profound gesture, showing us that somebody cared.' Ms. Yunger had met Mr. Halvorsen for the first time at a reunion of airlift veterans in Tucson in September 2003. 'I was just shaking,' she said. He hugged her and handed her a Hershey bar."

From "Gail Halvorsen, ‘Candy Bomber’ in Berlin Airlift, Dies at 101/Lieutenant Halvorsen came up with the idea to drop candies, chocolate and chewing gum for the children of West Berlin during a tense Cold War standoff" (NYT).

Urban dreams.

Well this is quite the proposalhttps://t.co/HMvZekXzzo pic.twitter.com/T1Ps2Od1YF

— Samantha Maldonado (@sssmaldo) January 14, 2022

Berlin is planning a car-free area larger than Manhattan. The citizen-driven plan would create the largest car-free area in a city anywhere in the world.

Leadership can come from many places when it comes to transforming cities. Via @FastCompany https://t.co/3xfDHrNv5q pic.twitter.com/1gNwMlaA3v

— Brent Toderian (@BrentToderian) January 15, 2022

ADDED: Click on the first image to see the full extent of the proposed add-on to the island of Manhattan. Why would you build vast new land vulnerable to the rising sea levels you've got to believe are coming? From the article: