BERLIN BRIEFING March 2005

News this month

A landmark victory

A Jewish family won a landmark victory in March, when a court in Berlin ruled that it was entitled to compensation from one of Europe’s largest retail groups. At issue is a piece of property in Potsdamer Platz—now one of Berlin’s smartest districts—on which the Wertheim family opened and operated what became Europe’s largest department store in the 1920s and 1930s.

The Nazis forced the Wertheims to relinquish their store in 1938, and by the mid-1940s most of the family had died in concentration camps or fled to America. Barbara Principe, a surviving granddaughter (who lives in New Jersey), filed a claim for €145m ($190m) in damages from Karstadt Quelle, the retail chain that owns the site today. The chain, already beset with financial troubles, plans to appeal the ruling. But the decision has created a precedent, with implications for thousands of similar cases. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, more than 2m people have filed restitution claims in the former East Germany.

Dishonourable events

A 23-year-old Turkish woman was shot by her brothers in February, in Berlin’s latest Muslim “honour killing”. Hatin Surucu, a Berlin-raised mother of one, was apparently punished for divorcing her Turkish husband and adopting a Western lifestyle. In the past four months, five other Turkish Muslim women (some born and raised in Berlin) have died at the hands of former husbands, boyfriends or brothers. Some fear that many other killings have gone unreported.

The shooting made national headlines only after a local schoolteacher took up the issue, sending an angry letter to parents and teachers across Germany. He was enraged by the flip way Turkish boys spoke about the crime in school. In response, teachers around the country have offered detailed accounts of their challenges with integrating second- and third-generation Turkish-Muslim students. At the end of February, Berlin’s largest Turkish association issued a ten-point plan to combat sexism, though it admitted it had little influence over devout Muslims. Meanwhile, women’s groups across Germany are calling for better integration of Turkish immigrants.

A worrying trend

Berlin's neo-Nazis seem to be getting bolder. Plans for a big demonstration in front of Berlin's famous Brandenburg Gate on May 8th (the 60th anniversary of the defeat of the Nazi party) sent politicians in the Bundestag scurrying to the statute book. The result is a new law banning far-right demonstrators from “sensitive sites”.

In early March, 12 young neo-Nazis from neighbouring Brandenburg were jailed after attempting to set fire to ten foreign-owned shops and snack bars in Havelland, north-west of Berlin. The court in Potsdam ruled that they were terrorists. On March 7th, pilots flying over Berlin’s Tegel airport reported seeing a large swastika carved into the surface of a frozen lake, perfectly visible to passengers landing in Berlin. Police were alerted and the eight-metre-wide symbol was removed (the swastika is banned in Germany), but not before images of it had appeared throughout the German press.

A muted welcome

Thousands of Berliners watched eagerly when Victor Yushchenko beat the odds to become the Ukraine's first democratically elected president last December. Many put oranges on their desks as a show of support for the “orange revolution” that paved his way to power. So a visit from Mr Yushchenko to Berlin in March should have been a happy event. Unfortunately, it coincided with a mounting visa scandal, which found that hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, many of them criminals, had been entering the country on tourist visas. The rules for these visas into Germany were relaxed in 2000. The scandal tarnished the reputation of Joschka Fischer, Germany's foreign minister, and forced the resignation of his deputy, Ludger Volmer. Instead of a hero's welcome, Mr Yushchenko got a debate about whether he should even speak in the German parliament (he did). Mr Fischer will try to make up for this diplomatic mishap by travelling to Kiev in late March.

The local Berliner Zeitung printed a telling cartoon, in which two gun-toting security officers are searching Mr Yushchenko in front of the Reichstag. The caption reads, “Not so fast Mr Yushchenko. You can't go in before you've explained to us where you got your visa.”

The end of an eyesore

Berlin's Palace of the Republic will finally be torn down. The dilapidated building, which some consider to be a historical treasure, was once the showpiece of the East German government. It opened in 1976 as a home for parliament and a social meeting point for the East German elite. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, city planners have struggled to decide the building's fate, and in the 1990s were forced to spend millions ridding it of asbestos.

A year ago, the building was turned into a temporary (and hugely popular) home for alternative theatre and music. But in March, city planners hired an engineering firm to tear it down. Destruction work will start by December, and is expected to take up to 18 months to complete. The city is controversially planning to rebuild the royal palace that once sat on the same site. Originally built in the 15th century, it was transformed into one of the nation's most magnificent baroque residences in the 18th and 19th centuries. The palace was badly damaged in the second world war, and then the communists blew up the ruins as a sign that the monarchy and elite ruling classes were finished. Critics complain that the bankrupt city is foolish to squander funds on a “Disneyland” palace, but supporters say it will return part of Berlin's former beauty.

Catch if you can

April 2005

Einstein’s Heirs

Until May 31st 2005

Fifty years after his death and 100 years after he developed the theory of relativity, Einstein is garnering a lot of attention lately. Germany is certainly not missing a chance to honour one of its most famous sons. Gerhard Schröder, Germany's chancellor, has unveiled an Einstein quote in bright red letters on the façade of his office (a series of huge quotations will appear on government ministries around Berlin over the next few months), and Gerald Uhlig, owner of the trendy Café Einstein, has commissioned this exhibition of those he dubs the “silent stars”.

It's an odd description, for among the displayed black-and-white images of Einstein's fellow Nobel Laureates are Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, John Nash, Gabriel García Márquez and the Dalai Lama (hardly figures who have toiled in the shadows). The photographs were taken by Peter Badge, a young photographer from Kreuzberg.

See article: Miraculous visions, December 29th 2004

Café Einstein, Unter den Linden 42, 10117 Berlin. Tel: +49 (30) 204 3632. The gallery is open daily, 10am-8pm.

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