Internationally, Germany has often been lauded for its reckoning with the Holocaust – its so-called Erinnerungskultur, or culture of remembrance.1 Whether this at times gushing praise of Germany’s historical conscience is fully warranted is another matter.2 (The right-wing populist Alternative for Germany party has, for one, always demanded that the country stop banging on about…
Germany’s new Interior Minister has entered his office with a bang. Speaking to Germany’s leading tabloid, Bild, Horst Seehofer from the Christian Social Union (CSU) party triumphantly announced that Islam was “not part of Germany” or “did not belong to Germany” (Der Islam gehört nicht zu Deutschland), depending on the translation chosen.1 This quote made…
Mennel Ibtissem, a singer who became an internet sensation following her performance on France’s The Voice, has quit the TV show after being criticized for comments she had made on social media. French media reported that in a post about the attack in Nice, in which 86 people were killed on Bastille Day, she said: “It…
The death of a 15-year-old girl, stabbed to death by her ex-boyfriend in a drugstore in the German town of Kandel, has not only sparked a public outcry but also become a case of high political salience – because the suspected killer was an Afghan refugee. The case The girl’s death occurred on December 27,…
Germany has gone to the polls – and the results have thoroughly shaken the country’s political scene. The impression, prevailing at times in sections of the liberal international media, of Germany as a beacon of stability in a Western world marred by the rise of populism had for a long time been a faulty one….
