So many of the things Mike enjoyed are things that we here in Ohio enjoy I will never be able to begin to express my gratitude for the effect Chief German had on my life brother you were there for me and i appreciate the work you did Our deepest sympathies to you and your family GOD BLESS AND WRITE MY ANY TIME // daviddarr@q.com Angie and family Im so sorry to hear about Mike Please know that our family is thinking of all of you Mike was a great person who dedicated his life to make others safe © 2025 Hamilton's Funeral and After Life Services You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience We respect your privacy Mike German is a fellow in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program government respects human rights and fundamental freedoms in conducting the fight against terrorism his work focuses on law enforcement and intelligence oversight and reform German served as the policy counsel for national security and privacy for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington legislative office German’s latest book, Policing White Supremacy: The Enemy Within (The New Press issues a wake-up call about law enforcement’s dangerously lax approach to far-right violence The book shows how systemic racism persists within police forces and it urges more strategic and focused approaches to address the problems and Divide: How the New FBI Damages Democracy (The New Press The book chronicles how the FBI transformed itself after the 9/11 attacks from a law enforcement agency famous for prosecuting organized crime and corruption to arguably the most secretive domestic intelligence agency the country has ever seen He previously published Thinking Like a Terrorist: Insights of a Former FBI Undercover Agent (Potomac Books A 16-year veteran of federal law enforcement specializing in domestic terrorism and covert operations He left the FBI in 2004 after reporting continuing deficiencies in the bureau’s counterterrorism operations to Congress German served as an adjunct professor of law enforcement and terrorism at National Defense University.  Law enforcement and community groups have the tools to protect themselves Click here to view all of Michael German's work in our library Read Michael German's articles published by Just Security here Read Michael German's articles in Time here The bakery's German roots come from one man: Michael Bock a 62-year-old master baker from Hesse in Germany but he did not wish for his son to follow in his footsteps "Being a baker means working before dawn every day so he didn't want me to suffer the same," Bock told Beijing Review Bock still resolutely chose the road that was foretold to be hard one must undergo the dual system of vocational education and training which requires learning skills both at school and on the job "The baking apprenticeship normally lasts three years I spent one day in a vocational school studying profession-related theoretical knowledge the composition of different kinds of flour I would spend in a company learning practical knowledge and work-related regulations After completing the corresponding hours of work and training apprentices are required to take an examination before they can become a bakery worker," Bock said Yet a bakery worker does not equal a master baker It takes an additional five years of apprenticeship and advanced training and a four-day exam including aspects like bread making for an assistant baker to become a certified master baker Bock always takes great pride in his certification as a master baker and prominently displays it in his shop with a framed yellowed certificate hanging directly above it—his father's Bock was invited to make bread for the Beijing Olympic Summer Games an opportunity that deeply connected him with China and the culture of his Chinese wife Originally planning to stay only three months he did not feel satisfied with his situation "I could not guarantee the quality I wanted because the owner asked me to make the bread for the next day by 8 p.m customers should get fresh bread for their money," he explained The bakery's signature product is the traditional German brezel which is commonly found on German dining tables it still embodies his professionalism: He insists on using German flour and adhering to the original recipe "There is certainly no quality issue with Chinese flour but different batches may cause slight variations in the ratio of raw materials This would require adjusting the recipe accordingly which could compromise the standardization of my products," Bock explained Having lived in Beijing for more than a decade Bock had always felt a small regret at not being able to attend gatherings of the local German community "The Germans in Beijing convene once a month But I have never attended because the events typically commence around 7 or 8 p.m. which is inconveniently late for my schedule—That's my sleep time because I have to get up before 3 a.m Bock has now been a baker for almost 47 years he has stuck to a routine of getting up to work at 2 or 3 a.m he said he is happy as long as he sees the bread coming out beautifully and the shelves being emptied by late afternoon At a time when many bakeries are trying to stand out by introducing exotic flavors and joint branding Bock still sticks to tradition and only offers German bread insisting on handcrafted bread making is not merely about producing food; it represents an art form as well I just want to use my craft to present the authentic taste of the grain," Bock said he has not lost popularity due to this "stubbornness." Instead the bakery has attracted a lot of faithful European customers and also Chinese customers who have a preference for German bread "I frequently receive feedback from customers noting that our products bring back memories of their experiences in Germany It has made me more convinced about my choice," he said German tradition goes beyond a bite of bread in Bock's bakery The Munich Oktoberfest is known as a significant traditional festival in Germany Bock also holds a small celebration at his bakery calling it "the world's smallest Oktoberfest (an annual festival in Munich his bakery became a go-to for many Germans in Beijing Bock most looked forward to accompanying his mother on shopping trips to the butcher's and the bakery he could obtain a small sausage and when going to the bakery the children will get a small piece of bread for free," he said traditional artisanal bakeries have a custom of not letting children leave empty-handed Bock runs the bakery like a home and welcomes his guests like friends Speaking of some guests who visit the bakery to greet him after they return from Germany They and the shop give me a sense of belonging," he concluded (Print Edition Title: A Taste of Tradition) a pro-Communist network of student and young people’s organizations based in Prague a magazine gently trying to promote peaceful coexistence and socialist politics colorful new stamps for my collection prompted my decision to submit a pen pal request for correspondents I was living in New Orleans then as a graduate student at Tulane The magazine reprinted my ad several times and I suddenly became inundated with letters from strangers in Algeria but truthfully didn’t feel much connection and those correspondences quickly faded away One young man who answered my ad (on August 21 a student at the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University in Greifswald on the north coast of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) but he happily contributed to my collection as much as he could with most of the recent GDR releases tucked into his letters he said he was a member of the SED (Socialist Unity Party) of the GDR (the SED basically acted as the Communist Party there) Now I had a real party member to correspond with I wrote him an agitated Marxist critique of the Sidney Poitier film The Heat of the Night expressing surprise it had even been shown in the GDR He liked my Marxist approach to the opera in 19th-century Rio de Janeiro and replied that in his own work he studied the relationship of art and architecture had researched the Mexican muralists in that regard and would take a year of study in the USSR to further his knowledge I wrote to Michael in the spring of 1971 that to me the most promising sectors of activism now were the women’s movement and homosexuals That March our local movement demonstrated against the telephone company for hiring women only for operator jobs I told him that at my hotel job I would serve as operator during the night when the regular operator took her break and people who called always expressed their shock to hear a man’s voice After identifying feminism and the new gay movement as hopeful sources of new activism (the first Earth Day had also occurred in 1970) I got a raft of questions back from Michael in the GDR (I will use the contemporary term “gay” where today we would generally say “LGBTQ.”) Have they the possibility to speak and demonstrate public The most people scorn these people for their sexuality I know that the homosexuals in Scandinavia and other capitalist countries have many rights aside from blasting the Soviet-bloc custom of interdicting media from capitalist countries such as the monthly Midnight Special our collective published and preventing travel outside the bloc (I was something of an anarchist then) I returned to the subject of homosexuality I’m amazed today that by then I had even done this much research on the subject: There are laws in most states and cities against homosexuality but slowly now they are beginning to be challenged and within a few years I think a more enlightened view of the subject will become dominant and there are many pressures in society against it But there are complete legal rights to run bars and there are now quite a few “Gay Liberation” newspapers and groups of people “Gay” is the word for homosexual that most homosexuals prefer any society which represses the individual’s sexual preferences and scorns them is not a free society it is no business of anyone else or of society what people wish to do sexually with each other and there should be no laws or any kind of repression against anyone on this matter Many people in the political movement in this country see with some unhappiness that the Cuban government places homosexuals in work camps to “make men out of them,” which is ineffective anyway and furthermore the government only reveals its own attachment to the morals of capitalist society in that way After the Bolshevik Revolution there were positive steps to begin breaking down the family; all laws against homosexuality were abolished; and the liberation of women encouraged under the leadership of Alexandra Kollontai under Stalin…many of the old czarist ways were brought back and the old régime of authoritarianism was reinstated Despite the 1956 and later criticisms of Stalin these laws still remain; among other reasons this is one reason why I do not really see the USSR as a revolutionary society one which is constantly challenging the established ways of doing things and permitting its citizens to seek out and develop new ways One of the slogans of the gay movement here is “No Revolution Without Us” because they have seen so many times that a revolution is made which only later turns against homosexuals and restores the old bourgeois morality should a homosexual be active in a movement which only oppresses him My assessment of the current state of the gay movement was likely a rare statement reaching “behind the Iron Curtain.” Certainly but I also felt the need to share my perspective with him both out of a desire to express my own politics and to bring some enlightenment through my pen-palship to a rather benighted part of the world It’s a safe bet that he had never in his education stumbled on the sexually liberating aspects of the early Bolshevik years The growing intensity of my conversations about homosexuality at the same time revealed and overshadowed my personal concern over being accused of “being one” myself I went to Amsterdam in 1971 to further research on my doctoral dissertation and would have visited my friend in the GDR but Michael had already left for a year’s study in Leningrad Though censors blocked benign opera magazines as well as political publications they clearly did not recognize the significance of the “Gay May” poster I sent him intimate look at gay life in the GDR and the USSR in those years: I have read your last letter with great interest in the capitalist countries are more possibilities in the sexual live too more possibilities for homosexual men to meet (bars In the GDR are some restaurant for homosexuals too (but only in the great towns) There is the possibility to meet and become acquainted The majority of the people can’t understand the homosexuals and their problems where are the meeting-places of the homosexuals men many magazines only for men with photos of naked with advertisements and possibilities for becoming acquainted Unofficial in the GDR some men have these magazines too it is possible to have contacts with other men in our country are many homosexual men (I think 4-5%) they have some possibilities but their sexual life is unofficial I know some schoolboys of the two ballet-schools here in Leningrad All homosexuals here in USSR have many anxiety Here in Leningrad is only one inconspicuous place They feel discriminated and the most of them are against the socialist government They want also the same rights for their life Above all I love the beauty of the male body in the theatre I became acquainted with some nice boys send me please photos of naked fine young men or of homosexual love that you can get adresses of homosexuals who have interest to write homosexuals in USSR or in GDR It gives not other possibilities to get contacts I write so many about homosexuality and nothing about the heterosexual love That is here the same like in other countries Michael’s letter came like a carrier pigeon across a vast abyss of Cold War politics and culture So my East German pen pal and I came out to one another the high point of my far-flung correspondence would not feel moved by Michael’s openness and his so many unmet that he makes such a hard distinction between what is “official” and “unofficial,” what is illicit natural behavior that could bring a guy two years in a Soviet prison I am struck by the risk Michael took even to write me such a letter How could he imagine my sending him photos of handsome young men not to mention the trading of names and addresses of homosexual correspondents and not getting himself—and them—in unimaginable trouble He could easily have been expelled from the USSR and sent home No wonder gay people turned anti-socialist and anti-government we in the West also had our many horror stories—beatings Michael had completed his ten months of study in Leningrad He had written his thesis on the integration of art and architecture in recent Soviet construction mostly housing complexes and subway stations We stood at comparable points in our evolution Travel to East Germany presented its difficulties and you had to have reservations for each night with whom there were no diplomatic relations Most people would have been discouraged from visiting the country I spent the week of July 29-August 6 there I wrote a postcard home to my sister: “Well and everything seems quite similar to Western Europe although there is a certain absence of the freakiness we enjoy there A friend of mine is showing me around (a party member There is much less dogmatism here than PL [Progressive Labor Party] always had.” I had brought Michael some articles of men’s clothing a grade or two more fashionable than he could acquire in the GDR and some photo books of handsome young men hardly anything of a luxury nature for sale; it was a pleasant backwater of European life that had seemed to skip a generation Historic preservation and restoration from the war rated as high priorities in the GDR: They wanted to showcase the achievements of socialism by saving the best of the past and adding a collective policy overlay Restaurants and public facilities had a bland utilitarian cast but people are people everywhere—laughing and joking I used to wince when I’d hear Western descriptions of Eastern European life as grim and gray: In spy movies I don’t mean to gloss over intellectual and political repression even some very harsh measures the system practiced I would likely not have felt comfortable living there But through my visit of solidarity and friendship I wanted to do my small part in overcoming the mutual distrust and help to improve relations Michael spent four or five of those days with me He had committed himself to that and carried through most honorably Possibly I turned out not to be the person he expected When I saw him with close friends he was loose and jovial while he seemed formal and “correct” with me Perhaps I only observed the problem of two nationalities and two cultures and two well-intentioned people struggling to communicate in foreign languages Whatever fantasies I may have entertained about a torrid East-West affair with Michael never materialized He may have been too nervous about being caught at it or maybe I just didn’t interest him in that way Germans today have let go of some of their renowned “correctness,” but at that time and in the highly controlled society of the GDR I had embraced what I would refer to jocularly as “anarcho-Stalinism.” In other words but with enough authoritarianism thrown in to get things done I had known anarchists and liked their radical countercultural ideas but had scant tolerance for their generally meager accomplishments I sounded off to Michael about my disgust with the Soviets adding some prognostications about the future of Marxism in the two Germanies: I was shocked…that in our press it was reported that the Soviet press favored Nixon—that is I guess when it comes to politics the USSR is interested only in grain sales and cultural exchanges and not in encouraging the most progressive forces in the USA or in other countries McGovern promised—and I think he would have honored his commitment—to get out of Vietnam completely within three months after he became President And now the Soviets have to look on while Nixon continues and even expands the murder in Vietnam I know that there are a lot of reactionaries in the FRG I hope that if there are more West Germans who come to the GDR that you will talk with them and learn how Marxist thinking is developing in a society without controls on ideological thinking and research There are a lot of excellent Marxist critics and writers in the FRG and when your government warns its citizens not to fraternize too much with West Germans I think it is also…preventing you from talking with the leftists as well as the bourgeois people who will also be in the GDR more now I believe that this movement will take place anyway and within two or three years there will be in the GDR a number of young people who will be very critical of the government for being too conservative in a number of ways And Michael soon had his reasons to express his shock at the United States when Nixon executed his infamous Christmas bombing of North Vietnam against which the whole world exploded in protest at least the year 1972 was one of success for the GDR insofar as it established a large number of diplomatic relations with other countries In early 1973 Michael acquired an important assignment to prepare a scholarly interpretation and exhibition on the work of 19th-century German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich That year Michael took a quick crash course in Swedish because that July Berlin hosted the 10th International Youth and Student Festival Peace and Friendship,” and he had been placed in charge of hosting a Swedish delegation He wrote me a full account of his experience The political discussions in the streets were very interesting and everyone distribute their propaganda material Participants included extreme left Maoists Thus the discussions were always very interesting FDJ (Federation of German Youth) members conversed mostly with members of the reactionary CDU (Christian Democratic Union) from West Germany who always wanted to instigate provocation So in Berlin we had an atmosphere open to the world There was a very big solidarity movement with the peoples of Indochina and Latin America There were a huge number of meetings for Vietnam The Swedish youth had a meeting with the delegation from Vietnam That was a high point for the Swedish delegation because they have been conducting active solidarity work in Sweden for years Michael went on to describe an open-air performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony for 30,000 listeners a concert by South African performer Miriam Makeba all of which I can hardly remember.” It must have been truly remarkable for East Germans to celebrate with young people from all over the world and hear how they were thinking The spontaneity and candor of those days would not endure long beyond the festival I did a three-year stint at a community college in Connecticut but was still “ABD”: By 1975 I had completed the requirements for my doctorate in history I admit to a certain sense of competition with Michael who in April that year had achieved his doctorate and had begun signing articles with his new title of “Dr.” after I wrote to him announcing my breakup with a lover of one and a half years duration (also named Michael) GDR Michael wrote to me saying that he was still happily paired with his boyfriend Rolf: He seemed to be doing better in the romance department than I was But he had some exciting news to share: There existed now in the GDR the beginnings of a gay organization now mostly periodical discussion groups about questions of culture A few weeks back there had been a report on the gay movement in the USA there was nothing anti-state or anti-socialist about it just the desire to make life a little better for a country with a lot of difficult problems He and Rolf planned to attend the group’s New Year’s Eve party Socialism and gay liberation/sexual freedom just might not be 100% incompatible in actually existing socialist countries A few months later Michael sent me a document Auf Deutsch called “Five years gay-group in the G.D.R.,” by “Kurt Martin,” a pseudonym he used for this article (his initials reversed) with the help of some German-speaking friends of mine in Hartford It spoke of a country manor in the Berlin suburb of Mahlsdorf where every other week the only gay group in the GDR met just as Michael had described in his letter Toronto’s gay paper The Body Politic condensed this “Report from East Germany” into a news brief but the whole translation never got published I moved to New York City in 1979 and was a founding member of the Peoples’ Voice Café a radical Saturday-night coffeehouse for performers—which is still going strong we scheduled the singer Mara Goodman in a set of Hanns Eisler and Kurt Weill songs I offered a guest set of seven songs by Marc Blitzstein the leftist composer whose biography I was researching to honor what would have been his 75th birthday the following day That performance marked my official début as a solo singer with a voice that and gave me the confidence to use my singing voice for many years to come the leaflet for that night got reprinted in the April issue of Brecht-Notate newsletter of the Bertolt Brecht Center in East Germany “We Have a Choice!” curiously got mistranslated as “Wir haben eine Stimme” (We have a voice) The year 1979 marked the 30th anniversary of the German Democratic Republic Committee for Friendship with the GDR emerged Their unidiomatic Preamble of Purpose horrified me so I sent in my $3 membership with an offer to rewrite their statement into idiomatic English The Committee no doubt contained a number of CP members it served both Party and larger purposes—professional exchanges At one point the New York Times published my letter urging the U.S to finally face facts and grant diplomatic recognition to the GDR to prepare a huge celebration for the centennial of the Deutsches Theater a project in which Michael’s backgrounds in art and criticism would all come together in a large-scale public statement of national significance I felt pleased for him and terribly envious of the public support for his work his first excursion into a non-Soviet Bloc society to dig into the archives housed in that part of the divided city the authorities let him out to Austria and elsewhere in West Germany for further research as he was preparing his book with state funding I was applying for grant after grant to write my Blitzstein book Much of my correspondence with Michael in the 1980s reflected my rage at the damage Ronald Reagan was doing to the United States I felt a little self-conscious continuing to work so hard on the Blitzstein book when the country needed full-time activists against Reagan I did my best to balance my research (which I also considered my political work) and my activism “When November comes,” I wrote to Michael in the GDR “I will surely vote for anyone who is not Ronald Reagan but I feel offended that once again…we are reduced to the sorry position of voting for someone who is not as awful as the other guy no movement toward a qualitatively different life—of course not how could there be?” It now seems ironic that I complained to Michael about my voting choices—I simply had to vote for the Mondale/Ferraro ticket—when he couldn’t vote at all I worked as publicity manager for the historic music publishing house of G which represented the catalog of Soviet composers in the U.S The firm had also published some compositions by the Czech exile composer Bohuslav Martinu and we received a visit by a lawyer from the Czech Music Fund in Prague to sign some new contracts This fellow and I hit it off with some cordial conversations as a (quite insignificant) official of the international music publishing industry to attend the Prague Spring music festival in May 1987 so I had to inform the Czech lawyer that I wouldn’t be able to attend While in the neighborhood I wanted to visit Michael in the neighboring GDR again after 15 years We’d kept up our correspondence all this time as a kind of employee relations manager with the Berlin State Opera reporting directly to the company Intendant He had now traveled with the company to various other socialist countries I tried booking some nights in Dresden or Leipzig on the way to Berlin insisted on reservations only in the best hotels and I couldn’t afford that additional expense Maybe I should have bitten the bullet and paid but was unemployed then and decided instead on a train straight through from Prague to Berlin Through my own decade-long career with the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus and he offered to put me up in West Berlin passing through Checkpoint Charlie to visit with Michael on a few occasions—not every day because his work responsibilities kept him quite busy I saw his company’s working-class production of Carmen directed with singing actors in Brechtian style a sort of “Carmenhagonny”; and in the West a wonderful guest Boris Godunov brought by the Kiev State Opera I also attended a rehearsal of B.’s gay men’s chorus and it instantly brought me back to our first wobbly beginnings close to a decade earlier a book had just come out with positive recommendations for improved conditions for gay people East Berlin struck me as quite developed and clean Information about AIDS saturated West German TV; the GDR had seen only a few cases so far Michael finally received his copy of Mark the Music after it had languished in a Berlin post office for several weeks in 1989 without notice of its arrival He wrote to thank me and included an update both on his personal and professional life as well as on events and trends in the GDR In my translation: “The GDR presently has a lot of problems with people who are leaving the country there are probably some 100,000 fewer people in our country And in the year of the GDR’s 40th anniversary It’s not an easy time.” The signs of leakage were apparent to all but the outcome still cloudy: Just six weeks or so later and East Germans literally streamed across the border many of them stepping outside their borders for the first time Michael wrote to me in the dimming light of the German Democratic Republic on July 18 A few months earlier I had moved to Los Angeles my translation) because it is so telling a document as an authentic contemporary cry from the heart Michael’s insights informed my version of events in Eastern Europe for years Naturally there is much that is positive for the future of GDR citizens everyone can travel wherever they want (if they have the money for it) and now there are already 200,000 in a country of 16 million For two weeks now we’ve had the good West German money But people here receive three times less money for their work as in the West are as high as in the West (up to two weeks ago bread cost 0.80 [GDR] marks Social institutions are being lost to private business The State Opera has huge financial problems And then all of a sudden we see open neo-fascism I believe the countries surrounding Germany are very skeptical of future developments The fact is not that two states are uniting but rather the GDR is being annexed by West Germany: No more GDR identity will remain I have lived 40 years in a state that suddenly exists no more and unemployment right after the end of schooling recreation resorts for workers for little money Therefore no one knows how long he will remain as our chief executive and no one ever believed that [Erich] Honecker and others There are also more cases of suicide in the GDR but they do see many social and human problems Berlin is once again a city without a wall When you come to Berlin again you won’t recognize it It’s naturally wonderful that we have freedom throughout the city I’d rather return to the Ostsee [the northern coastal strip] Maybe you too left New York because you’re older and prefer more peacefulness and beautiful landscape in theory I could visit you now in California But it’s expensive and costs a lot of money neither in the old time nor in the new time But it’s my great wish sometime to travel to America and visit you I wonder how many more years that will take How nice it would be now to be in Venice and look out over the Pacific from your apartment I will never forget our friendship of some 25 years And not even if the mail doesn’t get any better he enclosed mint copies of the last postage stamps issued by the GDR the West Berlin gay singer I had stayed with in 1987 the assistance of the Intendant (Director) who leaved the opera house nearly a year ago he became Director of the Opera-Bibliothek but after a while he leave the house by night (!) that he worked with the Stasi (secret-service) that in this time here are big skandals about Stasi-Membership’s it’s like Ent-nazifizierung [de-Nazification] after 1945 and it’s for lot of people realy hard The specifics about Michael’s professional identity were accurate enough that B couldn’t be confusing him with anyone else Nor would he have had any reason to make wrongful accusations I had no way of contacting Michael at this point I just figured I would wait and see what happened I have to admit that it sounded consistent with the kind of position Michael occupied Here was someone with a high level of responsibility in a closed and repressive society He no doubt knew a great deal about the personal lives and opinions of many of the musical and theatre figures he dealt with on a regular basis He also had the opportunity to travel abroad although being homosexual was legal in the GDR that might have been held against him in any number of ways He had gay correspondents in foreign countries with whom he shared profound intimacies about his life and who sometimes sent him printed materials or photos that the postal censors confiscated And he was a Party member and a writer who published reviews it hardly seems implausible to me that he cooperated with the state authorities if only to preserve his own skin and his fragile status and certainly from my eye-opening trips to the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia—and events have confirmed this for me a thousand times since—I have concluded that just about all of us are “good Germans,” so to speak We all make our compromises with the systems we live in I have developed the habit of restraining my instinct to condemn not at all sure what I might have done in similar circumstances In Michael’s shoes I might well have believed that an offhand remark from a baritone in his opera chorus about the lack of “freedom” in the country constituted a signal that on a trip with the company to the West he might defect and give the GDR a bad name So I do not know the veracity of this report It’s something I never cared to discuss with Michael My personal need to ascertain the truth about his Stasi connections never outweighed my desire to spare my old friend embarrassment and shame And I do think he had a sizable portion of both: His letter of July 18 expressed his fears for the capitalist future but also reveals a degree of shock at his corrupt country and leaders we barely even know what we are looking at In a society as deeply compromised as the GDR was as thoroughly enmeshed in the system as just about everyone had to be few people could truly escape a charge of collaboration The masters of the new unified Germany made heavy use of the Stasi files to discredit not only the individuals found to have cooperated with it but indeed the whole East German historical experience but here I prefer to side with the ancient adage lest ye be judged—who among you will cast the first stone?” there were times in between jobs when I heard from him only perfunctorily But now he seemed pleased with his new work as the Number 2 guy at a regional theatre in Eisenach Eisenach sits in a beautiful region of Thüringen (Thuringia) in the southwest corner of what had been the GDR I thought maybe one day I’d visit him again We did some of the tourist things and enjoyed ourselves Our conversations had a peculiar edge politically speaking: He had made his adjustment to a capitalist society over the past 13 years and came across nostalgically resigned about the earlier years of his life in the GDR feeling some of the same enthusiasm for socialism that I had experienced in the GDR and the USSR wanting to appreciate the positive factors but knowing all too well that vast improvements could be made Michael moved on to the Grand Canyon and some of the other big national parks I had an invitation to give a lecture in Florence about Marc Blitzstein Rob and I rented a car and drove up to Eisenach From there we would fan out each day for side trips to Erfurt It amused us to discover little reminders of socialism still extant like the stained glass window-mural at the Eisenach train station showing the happy farmers and workers of the socialist imagination We were pleasantly shocked when Michael arranged our quite romantic room in the penthouse of the Galleria Frauenberger Hotel (located on Karl-Marx-Strasse!) for almost a week and refused to take any reimbursement for it He got us in to see a couple of performances at his theatre company facing the town square Eisenach is the birthplace of Johann Sebastian Bach and the town features a number of Bach-related points of interest It is also the home of the storied Wartburg Castle long a sought-after destination which Rob and I toured Its Hall of Minstrels is celebrated in Wagner’s opera Tannhäuser Martin Luther translated the Bible into German This part of Germany remained out of bounds for so many years to Western tourists simply out of ignorance of its storybook beauty I had the chance to ask him a question I’d wanted to for many years “All the time you were in the Party and going forward in life,” I said “what percentage of your commitment to the cause was out of genuine belief in the rightness of socialism and what percentage looking out for your own career advancement?” He didn’t hesitate long before answering (perhaps he’d already pondered this question himself): “Sixty/forty.” I felt satisfied with that response it occurred to me that anything less than the political 60% would have made him appear an opportunist: Better he should comfort himself (and me) with the idea that he felt fully invested in the success of this unique socialist experiment in the German Democratic Republic and at the same time did not overlook the advantages and opportunities available to educated everyone wants to earn the respect of others around them and enjoy a few of the finer things of life—mainly travel in his case as I don’t think he ever earned much money There is nothing about Michael and his life choices that I am in a position to criticize He managed as best he could under a system I know I would not have been content living in I would likely have made my peace with it as he did enjoyed his romantic affairs when he could and never exploited anyone personally so far as I know I stumbled on a book I had not seen before a collection of interviews conducted in the 1980s and edited by Jürgen Lemke My more than 40-year friendship with Michael made me curious to see how other gays (all male in this volume) handled their sexuality within the East German context I traveled with a friend to Scandinavia and emailed Michael more than once inviting him to come to Copenhagen and spend a few days with me there at my expense after my friend had left as he had previously told me of an open-heart operation he explained that at some point he had canceled his internet service so our easy means of communicating electronically were now gone He didn’t even care to set up an account at the local library or at the theatre where he was no longer working but could have had some access I think he just wanted to simplify his life and cut out the noise and aggravation as much as possible In recent years he has been helping Middle Eastern immigrants get settled in Germany And he has been a volunteer walker at a dog rescue center He sent me a clipping from the local paper about his work there I have gone back to writing snail mail letters to Michael but my informative narratives of the events and developments in my life have gone unreciprocated I think I just have to be grateful for the perfunctory greeting cards I receive each year “My Dear Eric,” he writes this year,” I hope you are safe May Santa arrive at your house with goodies for everyone… This year’s Christmas card had a striking photo of Eisenach’s wintry Wartburg Castle draped with snow wrote a biography of radical American composer Marc Blitzstein and co-authored composer Earl Robinson’s autobiography He has received numerous awards for his People's World writing from the International Labor Communications Association He has translated all nine books of fiction by Manuel Tiago (pseudonym for Álvaro Cunhal) from Portuguese available from International Publishers NY Vietnam, beacon of peace and freedom, marks 50 years of reunification Book review: ‘Blue Collar Empire—How Anti-Communism Undermined Workers Everywhere’ Amidst capitalist crisis and war, Russian Communists struggle against Putin and... ‘Sinners’ review: Horror, history, and Black American folklore combine for trailblazing cinema  Amidst capitalist crisis and war, Russian Communists struggle against Putin and the oligarchs U.S. imperialism’s new Cold War against China fosters anti-Asian racism at home Chickens coming home to roost: Remember what Malcolm said Video: Springsteen sings “Nueva Canción” as tribute to people of Argentina, Chile The continued presence of even a small number of far-right militants and other overt racists in law enforcement has an outsized impact on public safety and on public trust in the criminal justice system and cannot be ignored Leaving individual agencies to police themselves in a piecemeal fashion has not proven effective at restoring public confidence in law enforcement there should be a comprehensive plan — one that involves federal and local governments — to ensure that law enforcement agencies do not tolerate overtly racist conduct The final section of this paper proposes several recommendations to include in such a plan and local law enforcement agencies to aggressively respond to evidence of explicit racism among police officers undermines public confidence in fair and impartial law enforcement it signals to white supremacists and far-right militants that their illegal acts enjoy government approval and authorization making them all the more brazen and dangerous Winning back public trust requires transparent and equal enforcement of the law and public accountability that prioritizes targeted communities’ interests The most effective way for law enforcement agencies to restore public trust and prevent racism from influencing law enforcement actions is to prohibit individuals who are members of white supremacist groups or who have a history of explicitly racist conduct from becoming law enforcement officers in the first place or from remaining officers once bias is demonstrated All law enforcement agencies should do the following: Congress should direct the Justice Department to do the following: The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2019 includes a provision that requires the FBI to assess the threat posed by white supremacist and neo-Nazi infiltration of law enforcement and the military This assessment should be informed by data collected from FBI investigations and surveys of federal and from data collected for the law enforcement use of force database Congress should pass the End Racial and Religious Profiling Act of 2019 to ban all federal and local law enforcement agencies from profiling based on actual or perceived race Banning racial profiling would mark a significant step toward mitigating the potential harm caused by racist officers undetected within the ranks the FEC Can’t Enforce Campaign Finance Laws — and That’s Only One of Its Problems The Federal Election Commission needs its ability to function restored Trump Is Attempting to Use Wartime Powers in the United States St Louis CITY2 signed defender Michael Wentzel from German side Rot-Weiß Oberhausen on a free transfer Wentzel signed a two-year contract through the end of the 2024 MLS NEXT Pro season with an option in 2025 Louis as he continues to develop in his young career,” said Sporting Director Lutz Pfannenstiel and we look forward to helping him make the next step in our player pathway system.”   came through the pipeline at Borussia Mönchengladbach where he featured for the club’s academy teams before breaking through into the second team in 2021 Wentzel played 56 matches for Borussia Mönchengladbach II Wentzel played 16 matches for Rot-Weiß Oberhausen in the Regionalliga West Wentzel also represented and captained the U-17 and U-19 German youth national teams TRANSACTION: St Louis CITY2 signed defender Michael Wentzel from German side Rot-Weiß Oberhausen on January 25 Wentzel has signed a two-year contract through the end of the 2024 MLS NEXT Pro season with an option in 2025 E-edition PLUS unlimited articles & videos Personalized news alerts with our mobile app *Refers to the latest 2 years of stltoday.com stories Please subscribe to continue reading… who also was selected as the team’s captain runs onto the field before the team’s game with San Jose 2 on Aug Wentzel made his first start for City SC on Saturday City2 defender and captain Michael Wentzel passes the ball in a game against San Jose 2 on Aug But Wentzel was born in the United States while his father was teaching at Penn State And a trip to Chile to play for the United States team at the Pan American Games in October and November reinforced to him just how American he is “To sing the anthem before the game,” Wentzel said “wearing the United States crest on the chest was definitely a moment I will remember my whole life a defender who played almost every minute of every game for City2 this season he was in camps with some German youth national teams but never appeared in a game and is not bound to play for Germany The Pan Am Games experience doesn’t bind Wentzel but because he hasn’t been with Germany since an under-16 camp he is casting his lot with the United States “I would definitely look to be an American player in the future as well That’s what I’m trying to do next season as well If in the future another chance would open up to play for the U.S. It’s kind of a no-brainer for me to play for the United States.” It’s another step forward in a move to America that Wentzel hopes advances his soccer career “and I’m really looking forward to what’s ahead.” Wentzel’s father is an economics professor now at Pforzheim University in Germany who was teaching at Penn State when Michael was born in State College and the family moved back to Germany when he was an infant so he has no recollection of those years in America But his family would come to America every summer for vacation and to visit friends his soccer career was getting going in Germany coming up in the Karlsruhe and Borussia Moenchengladbach systems and getting as high as Gladbach’s second team before moving to Rot-Weiss Oberhausen on a free transfer and then after one season with the fourth division club Wentzel was called into a few German youth national camps but said he never played in an official game “I was playing a lot in Germany; I just felt like I needed something new to boost my career a little bit,” he said feels like something big is about to happen in terms of MLS overall When I first heard there was a new club in the U.S. I didn’t know there was such a German connection with the sporting director and so many players who used to play in Germany rallies his teammates before a game against San Jose 2 on Aug Wentzel had been captain on his teams in Germany and coach Bobby Murphy quickly made Wentzel captain of City2 Sometimes he knows he doesn’t have great days from a leadership perspective “He is a young guy,” said midfielder Wan Kuzain “but also a guy who’s had a lot of experience in Germany a guy we can count on to lead us on and off the field and be another role model for these young kids.” The Pan Am Games were limited to players younger than 22 so it could serve as a prelude to next summer’s Olympics for which the men’s competition is limited to players younger than 23 But with the Pan Am Games falling during the opening round of the MLS playoffs Wentzel originally was named as an alternate to the team coach Michael Nsien told him he’d be staying the whole time Wentzel started two games and came off the bench in another team advanced out of its group but faced host Chile in the semifinals and lost then lost to Mexico in the third-place game to come home without a medal “We had a clear goal to get a medal back home and we were fourth at the end,” Wentzel said My first USA camp and I met a lot of great guys seeing the passion of the Chilean people for the game of soccer was great as well City SC beat writer Tom Timmermann and Beth O’Malley kick off the postseason with talk of the finishes of Roman Burki Tim Parker and Eduard Lowen in MLS end of season awards and what is coming soon Email notifications are only sent once a day Nate Gatter: "Fans who are spending this much money on this team in America’s soccer capital deserve better than that." Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device Your independent source for Harvard news since 1898 their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camilla exit St Paul's Cathedral after the service.  |  photograph by Imageplotter/Alamy Live News a news story caught my eye: an old friend and Dunster classmate was elected the 695th Lord Mayor of London While we both graduated from Harvard in 1984 interrupting his undergraduate studies to work on the first fully digital map of the world which predated Google Earth by almost two decades Michael and his wife Elisabeth are among the most down-to-earth “May I call you Michael?” was my first question the Lord Mayor Alderman Professor Michael Mainelli—but you can just say My Lord Mayor.” I had to ask how much of this formality had gone to his head is the first graduate of an American college to serve as Lord Mayor (sorry I informed Michael that I was interested in writing a piece on his new gig With the same generosity of spirit I recalled from our Dunster House days “Why don’t you come up and shadow me for a day too!” That dinner happened to be the annual white-tie banquet of the Worshipful Company of Furniture Makers The post is among the oldest elected civic offices in the world the first Lord Mayor having been named in 1189 The Lord Mayor’s main role is to advocate for the commercial interests of the City of London which for most of the last millennium meant its guilds focus has shifted to London’s financial and other commercial sectors The Lord Mayor is not to be confused with the Mayor of London I used to think that Pooh-Bah in The Mikado was over-the-top satire (“Lord Chief Justice A sampling of his 90 or so official titles includes Admiral of the Port of London Since he serves as Chief Justice of the City of London a central chair is reserved in his honor in all courts of the Old Bailey Not that the office doesn’t keep up with the times; the list of defunct offices is equally impressive Michael is resurrecting some of these in an honorary capacity if only to have a Lord-Mayor-worthy tongue-twister (“she shifts salt by the seashore”) Michael’s cursus honorum began through the livery companies that have their roots in the medieval guild system Michael is a Past Master of the World Traders Craft-Owning Freeman of the Watermen & Lightermen and Honorary Liveryman of multiple liveries Many of these stay close to their origins (the Glovers Some are recent coinages (the Worshipful Company of Water Conservators Her company is active in training young stonemasons and also encourages ‘mature’ students eager to use their hands to ply one of Britain’s traditional crafts Some ancient liveries have modernized creatively: the Fan Makers are now into wind turbines; the Pattenmakers—who originally made an elevated shoe that avoided the muck of London’s streets—now promote the footwear industry Michael was elected Alderman in the City of London in 2013 the first of two prerequisites to being Lord Mayor The second was met by his election as Sheriff of the City of London in 2019 a feat not seen since 1228 (as the City Remembrancer—yes Michael’s exploits at Dunster House did not bode well for this role His Harvard roommate Brit Lundell ’81 recalls: “I fully credit Michael as originator of the schemes that led to us discovering that the steam tunnels under Harvard Yard did indeed allow access to the Widener Library basement or that the locks to our rooms and mailboxes were keyed the same as the locks to several doors in various buildings around Harvard (including the door to the roof of the William James building) or that if you wanted to prank Dunster House by changing the time on the clock of the House tower it would be best not to do it the evening before the start of daylight saving.” Maureen Morrison notes: “Let’s just say that were I to make a list of residents most likely to be Sheriff of London which is added to the “Shrieval Chain” (“shrieval” being the adjectival form of sheriff) Thus fortified by my advance reconnaissance I was informed that the Lord Mayor would meet me in 20 minutes Michael greeted me with his familiar smile and twinkling eye And off we went down Queen Victoria Street Michael’s assistant briefing him on the talk he was about to give to a group of Scandinavian bankers No sooner had we arrived than a lavalier microphone was pinned to his lapel speaking on his priorities as Lord Mayor in his mellifluous baritone Michael brings a decidedly scientific and analytical perspective to the Lord Mayoralty He is probably the first to enunciate his goals as measurable deliverables in PowerPoint slides One illustrates his overarching theme “Connect to Prosper” which unites leaders from London’s forty learned societies and 24,000 businesses to solve big global challenges Michael has also spearheaded an Ethical AI Initiative (over 5,000 professionals in 50 countries have taken the ISO standards course and over 30 nations have signed Michael’s Walbrook AI Accord) He touched further on his Space Protection Initiative which uses space-debris-retrieval insurance bonds to keep space clutter-free to help meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals he spoke about the Net Zero Delivery Summit where he will soon host world leaders As we walked back toward Mansion House in the shadow of St I couldn’t avoid thinking of how well Sir Christopher Wren’s epitaph fit Michael – si monumentum requiris circumspice (“if you seek my monument Inspired by London’s long tradition of coffee houses–in the 18th century the City hosted some 700 to 800 of them—Michael is sponsoring fifty in-person and virtual coffee houses on a range of cutting-edge themes “Michael has found a position where he can sparkle with ideas and there are enough people around him to pick them up and make them happen.” Michael treats the City as a sort of laboratory he demonstrated Einsteinian time dilation (that time travels faster at greater heights) by comparing two atomic clocks one at NPL (the home of time in the UK) the other on the 61st floor of 22 Bishopsgate The City is also Michael’s playground—in June he will host the Lord Mayor’s Appeal Abseil Challenge: “Take on the dizzying height of the Leadenhall Building and head up to the 47th floor where a team of abseiling experts will show you the ropes before descending an impressive 215m accompanied by an instructor.” The City’s signature event each year is the Lord Mayor’s Show which celebrates his or her election (mostly his but a few Lady Mayoresses are helping buck tradition) The Show dates back 800 years and claims to be the oldest continually televised live broadcast on the BBC The procession of 7,000 includes the livery companies and the swordbearer—all coordinated by the Pageantmaster The focal point is the Royal Coach (“the oldest ceremonial vehicle in regular use in the world” per the City Surveyor) which bears the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress the former wearing his coronation robe and bearing the jewel-encrusted Crystal Scepter (given to the City by Henry V) The formal highlight of the three-mile route is the Lord Mayor’s oath at the Royal Courts Michael will have visited some 25 countries and spent 100 of his 365 days abroad He will have spoken at some 880 formal events and hosted countless dignitaries Another classmate of Michael’s (May Pian-Smith ’81 now associate professor at Harvard Medical School) had just given a lecture in Birmingham and called to see if she might “crash” for the night Of course she could—and got an invitation to the Furniture Makers’ dinner to boot (the Lady Mayoress cheerily furnished a gown from her wardrobe) Off we all went for a personal tour of the famed plate collection Three people work almost full time polishing the gold and silver A centerpiece of the treasure house: three ceremonial swords one of which would be used two days later at a ceremony at St Next up was a glimpse at the Lord Mayor’s wardrobe with Gordon Harrold The caveat of Henry David Thoreau (class of 1837) “beware of all enterprises that require new clothes,” does not Words can hardly do it justice; let’s just say that Liberace's wardrobe couldn't hold a candelabra to the Lord Mayor’s and items with names that only his footman would know for sure The closet contains such treasures as the Scarlet Gown lined with musquash (“The cap on the back is added when you become Lord Mayor as is a short train,” explained Chief Attendant Mark Mojsak); and the Violet Gown normally adorned with American bear fur—Michael did not want to exploit “one of his North American brethren” and opted for fake fur Michael’s sense of self-irony is never far away just high socks with a drawstring.” From his acceptance speech as Lord Mayor: “Many of you will know Russell ‘Would Sir care for a little extra banqueting room?’—How brusque is that?” A graduate of the University of Cambridge in history He contextualized the role of ceremony which only accounts for about 10 percent of the position Ceremonial elements should fulfill one of two requirements Some embody a special concept: the service soon to take place at St and Swordbearer execute a meticulously choreographed exchange of the Pearl Sword symbolizes the relationship between the City and the Sovereign How he and the Lady Mayoress manage to keep up this pace all day (“How should I address you?” “Call me Sue.”) She touched on the role of women in these high offices—she is one of a handful of women sheriffs in a history dating back to the 7thcentury The shrieval coat of arms itself harbors unsavory elements—even today women’s coats of arms in England must display the bearer’s marital status (not so the men’s) and have other substantive restrictions She is striving to undo some of these anachronisms with the full support of the current Lord Mayor where the ornate ceiling felt almost as high as St and we all toasted “The Worshipful Company of Furniture Makers and good health to the Master.” Michael spoke punctuating his comments with jokes designed to elicit groans which hit their mark (one related to “turning the tables,” if I recall correctly after not a few glasses of Vieira de Sousa port) we retired for a “stirrup cup” in the salon where I re-encountered Gordon the Footman (“If we’re in luck the Lord Mayor just might make an appearance with his bagpipes.”) the Lord Mayor invited May and us upstairs for a nightcap in an old pair of shorts and regular socks (no garters) and instantly we were exchanging stories as if we were back in the Dunster dining hall and the march of time had barely advanced My visit had come at the precise midway point in the one-year Mayoral term The Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress enter a period of Purdah with no public appearances Will it be hard saying goodbye to “all the stuff” (to quote Bernadette Peters in The Jerk) Michael: “I will probably miss having two footmen.” Michael and Elisabeth were the perfect hosts even asking if I might extend my sojourn — Tuesday would feature a dinner with the Worshipful Company of Insurers it’s ‘My Lord Mayor,’” Michael couldn’t resist Michael Felsen speaks at the Luisengymnasium in Munich memorializing his deceased aunt Johanna (pictured at right) on Nov Johanna and nineteen of her classmates were murdered in the Holocaust my three sons and I examined the hefty criminal file on my deceased aunt Johanna that the city had maintained My family’s presence in Germany was thanks to the efforts of Barbara Hutzelmann the cultural historian of the city of Munich who was now browsing Johanna’s file with us as our guide and translator Hutzelmann had found me through an internet search and emailed me to share that her city would be hosting a ceremony honoring 20 Jewish young women all students who had attended the previously all-girls Luisengymnasium All 20 of these students had been murdered by the Nazis One of those young women was my aunt — my father’s older sister Johanna Each of the murdered students would have a metal plaque installed at the entrance to the school Johanna was the only woman slated to be recognized for whom a family member could be found Hutzelmann asked if I would speak at the ceremony and let her know that I would be honored to take this on Johanna’s crime was having a relationship with a non-Jewish Aryan man in violation of the 1935 Nuremberg Race Laws One of my sons noticed in her mugshot that there were tears in her eyes I looked carefully at the photo — he was right I had known since I was young that her deportation was ultimately a death sentence My father had searched for her after the war and was told by the International Red Cross that she had perished very likely in the Warsaw Ghetto in late 1942 or early 1943 I immediately wrote to my three adult sons and asked if any of them wanted to come and within minutes it was clear their partners and kids would come too 13 of us departed from four different cities and headed to Munich that Johanna would have so many members of her family there to witness this commemoration of her life and also saddened that none of the other 19 murdered Jewish women would have relatives there I have been to Germany a number of times over the past several decades and were teenagers when they escaped Nazi persecution My father especially would speak about how he was proud to be a German Jew before Hitler came to power But both his family and my mother’s were deeply traumatized by living under Hitler’s regime This visit would be a small window on how today’s Germany is facing that horrifying grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the Holocaust This would be an opportunity for family learning and The Luisengymnasium memorial event took place on Nov The ceremony itself had been conceived with great care and thoughtfulness Members of the high school staff and its student body hand in hand with city of Munich officials had spent years researching the lives of the 20 girls in preparation for the occasion Our family was greeted graciously by the school staff and shown to our reserved seats at the front of the columned the school principal brought over three of the more senior students and offered their child-sitting services Each member of my family was given a folder with English translations of all the speeches I spoke about the significance of this kind of remembering but also about the work still to be done to fight the persistent scourge of racism I also knew that I would choke up during my speech The ceremony concluded with several students reading short biographies of the 20 murdered young women who had walked the same school corridors decades ago: a teacher a lawyer who was companion to a Brazilian revolutionary and a clerk/stenographer (my aunt) We all then assembled at the front of the school for the installation of the last four of the 20 memorial plaques My family was deeply touched by the care and respect shown by the school to the memory of each of the 20 murdered young women and with photos of their faces looking out on the audience one of the students who’d been in the audience To contact the author, email [email protected] Michael Felsen is a workers’ and immigrants’ rights attorney in Boston having spent most of his career with the U.S Long an active member of Boston Workers Circle he served as president of its board from 2007-2013 He has also written opinion pieces on Israel/Palestine and Jewish culture matters for Haaretz The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward. Discover more perspectives in Opinion. To contact Opinion authors, email [email protected] I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward American Jews need independent news they can trust At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S rising antisemitism and polarized discourse This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up Copyright © 2025 The Forward Association the former director of Housing and Urban Development in Alabama has officially proposed this new mixed-use development along Lakeshore to Birmingham City Council According to the Birmingham Business Journal the city sounded its full support of the idea Keep reading for the timeline of this major project 1911 Tiger Walk is getting a new title. This new development off of Shannon Road near the completed Ross Bridge development fully functioning with its own town center grocery stores and retail entities and so much more this new development will accommodate most anyone with 80 single-family homes starting around $300,000 100 condominiums and multifamily housing units It’s truly a community that grows with you developers have had to pump the brakes before the fun can begin They’re still in the process of securing the land from the city of Birmingham “…there’s no real reason for them to have to leave their neighborhood we’ll share all of the details once we have them “This is an opportunity to tell the country that Birmingham can develop minority developers and support their efforts.” That’s all we’ve got today, Birmingham! Have the hottest news on the latest developments? Let us know by shooting us an email. All content on this site is Copyright ©  Rushing Waters Media LLC/Bham Now 2016-2025 Queen City News BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s foreign ministry hit back at U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio after he criticized the decision to classify the Alternative for Germany party as a “right-wing extremist” organization. The spat deepened Friday to embroil the foreign office, Rubio, U.S. Vice President JD Vance and tech billionaire Elon Musk. It also occurred at a complicated time for Germany — just days before the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and Nazi Germany’s unconditional capitulation. Plus, a coalition deal between the center-right and center-left parties was just approved, and now parliament is set to vote next week to elect conservative leader Friedrich Merz as the country’s new chancellor. Merz has not commented publicly on the intelligence service’s decision. Oleksii Makeiev, Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, told German news agency dpa that he’s concerned about AfD’s ties to Russia in light of the classification. AfD has long faced criticism for Russia-friendly positions, and opposes Germany’s stance toward the war in Ukraine. Berlin is Ukraine’s second-biggest weapons supplier after the United States. Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution described the party, known as AfD, as a threat to the country’s democratic order, saying it “disregards human dignity” — in particular by what it called “ongoing agitation” against refugees and migrants. The German domestic intelligence service’s move to classify the AfD, which placed second in national elections in February, as a right-wing extremist group means its officials can now use informants and other tools such as audio and video recordings to monitor its activities nationwide. But it also risks fueling the party’s claims of political persecution. Far-right parties have been gaining ground across Europe and the AfD attracts international attention, including support from Musk, who is a close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump. Party leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla on Friday condemned the move as “a severe blow to German democracy,” given that the party has grown into one of the country’s most popular political forces. They alleged that it was politically motivated, a claim the government denies. “The AfD will continue to legally defend itself against these democracy-endangering defamations,” they said. AfD’s second-place finish during the elections cemented the party’s status as a factor that other politicians can’t ignore, but the so-called “firewall,” which mainstream German political parties have against working with far-right parties, has held. In his post on Friday, Rubio called on Germany to undo the classification. “Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy — it’s tyranny in disguise,” he wrote. “What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD — which took second in the recent election — but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes. Germany should reverse course.” The foreign ministry wrote “this is democracy” in a post that replied directly to Rubio. “This decision is the result of a thorough & independent investigation to protect our Constitution & the rule of law,” the foreign office wrote late Friday. “It is independent courts that will have the final say. We have learnt from our history that rightwing extremism needs to be stopped.” Vance, meanwhile, referenced the Cold War in his post on X. “The AfD is the most popular party in Germany, and by far the most representative of East Germany. Now the bureaucrats try to destroy it,” Vance wrote. “The West tore down the Berlin Wall together. And it has been rebuilt — not by the Soviets or the Russians, but by the German establishment.” Musk, who owns X, re-posted Vance’s comments and added, “fate loves irony.” Vance met with Weidel in February, nine days before the national election, on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. He assailed the firewall in a speech to the conference. “To many of us on the other side of the Atlantic, it looks more and more like old entrenched interests hiding behind ugly Soviet-era words like misinformation and disinformation, who simply don’t like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion or, God forbid, vote a different way, or even worse, win an election,” he told the audience. Musk has supported the AfD for months, including a chat with Weidel that he livestreamed on X earlier this year to amplify the party’s message. Musk told Weidel that he was “strongly recommending that people vote for AfD.” The audience for the livestream peaked at more than 200,000 X accounts. Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker ShareIranians during a protests against the Islamic Republic in Berlin in October 2022German-Iranians blasted Freiburg’s municipal government in Germany for voting last week to retain a twin city partnership with the Iranian city of Esfahan. All rights reserved for Volant Media UK LimitedA majority of city council members from the left-wing parties rejected a motion from three small parties to end the controversial twin city partnership as protest to the Iranian regime’s gross human rights violations who has campaigned for over twenty years against the dual city partnership told Iran International that “It doesn’t matter to Mayor Martin Horn and his allies that independent civil society in Esfahan (Isfahan) is severely censored and brutally suppressed Kazem Moussavi during a protest against the Islamic Republic in Berlin Dissidents and artists such as rapper Toomaj Salehi and Heshmatollah Tabarzadi were recently sentenced to long prison terms in Esfahan’s notorious torture prison Several women have also been executed there in recent months.”  The Freiburg Mayor has faced criticism from Amnesty International for going to great lengths to retain a city partnership with the clerical regime in Esfahan and for belittling grave human rights violations carried out by the regime According to the German media outlet SWR said he “wants to keep foot in the door” for the citizens of Iran by not shutting down the partnership Horn refused to respond to numerous Iran International press queries who is the spokesman for the Green Party of Iran in Germany also criticized Horn and the city council members who voted to retain the partnership because they are ignoring that the morality police have been reactivated in Esfahan to ensure women wear the compulsory hijab The city council leader for the Free Voters issued a statement on behalf of his party and the JUPI (Young Polarizing and Inclusive) and FL (Make Freiburg worth living) parties and the number of executions is increasing.” He added that “This is also supported by the incumbent mayor of our partner city and the local leadership elite.”  the head of the Democratic Forum of Iranians in Mainz issued a public letter to Martin Horn ahead of the vote urging him to end the twin city partnership and “send a clear statement against torture and executions and for the release of all political prisoners especially with respect to the previously mentioned musician Toomaj Salehi.” Asadi told Iran International that the city of Freiburg “must end its contact with the regime and support the citizens.” He said his organization will send a letter to the parties in Freiburg who voted to retain the partnership He said the “morality police must be abolished” and termed the clerical regime a “terror regime and a murderous regime.”  Asadi’s open letter was published in Persian and sent in German to Horn which is in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg established its dual city partnership with Esfahan in 2000 Freiburg is the only city in Germany to have a municipal partnership with an Iranian regime-controlled city The German city of Weimar scrapped a partnership with Shiraz because regime officials on a trip to Germany refused to visit the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial The three parties opposed to the twin partnership in Freiburg said in their joint statement “The end of the twin city partnership should be a clear signal that Freiburg is committed to a world without oppression and human rights violations.” who serves as the Social Democratic Party’s cultural mayor in Freiburg told SWR that “We don’t want to terminate any partnership because those who are now rebelling against the regime will feel completely abandoned.”  said the declaration issued by Freiburg in January is “too weak to express our contempt for such a brutal regime.” In January Freiburg’s city government put the partnership on ice said “We increasingly must acknowledge that the persecution of people in Iran including in our partner city Esfahan…even if declared dormant Horn is widely known as the German mayor who continues to do the heavy lifting for Iran’s regime via his strident activism to retain the dual city partnership Critics argue Horn and the pro-Esfahan city council representatives have stained Freiburg’s reputation who fled the Islamic Republic of Iran to Germany to escape persecution told Iran International why a “German city prefers to turn a blind eye to all the human rights violations specifically in Esfahan.”  Hopefully the city council and the decision makers followed it closely that many of those innocent farmers lost their eyes.” who is an associate fellow for the Gold Institute for International Strategy “Each partnership with this regime is a stab in our people’s back and of course mocks all the lives sacrificed and are being sacrificed for justice and humanity Not condemnation but action proves that Germany truly cares for the human rights violations in Iran.” Moussavi took Horn and the city council members noting that Esfahan is a center for Iran’s construction of atomic weapons Horn and the pro-partnership city council members ostensibly claim to be against jingoism and nuclear weapons Moussavi also sharply criticized the commissioner tasked with fighting antisemitism in Baden-Württemberg for failing to urge Mayor Horn and the city council members to pull the plug on the twin city partnership Moussavi said “An antisemitism commissioner must not tolerate Freiburg’s relations with Esfahan where Jews and other religious minorities are massively discriminated against and persecuted.” Blume has faced massive criticism for lashing out at Iranian dissidents on Twitter as “corrupt exiled nationalists,” because they seek the toppling of the Islamic Republic and combat Iranian regime-sponsored Holocaust denial and antisemitism “Blume called people like me ‘corrupt exiled nationalists’ after I showed him leaked footage of Evin prison and told him that only criticism won’t help us and as a defender of human rights she should do more,” said Vojoudi he insulted and discriminated against Iranians in exile He called us corrupt but the rulers of their twin city [partnership] Blume has refused to comment on his attacks on Iranian dissidents Germany said statements made by Blume can be termed “antisemitic” and Blume’s critics can define him as “antisemitic.” The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s top Nazi hunter Blume refused to answer Iran International media queries The world-renowned human rights activist and former Soviet political prisoner told Iran International that Blume’s twitter activity is “antisemitic” because he stoked an anti-Jewish conspiracy theory The German maestro steps in as chorus director at the Metropolitan Opera this season Tilman Michael takes the reins of the mighty Met Chorus this season leading the best ensemble in the business into a new era. The German maestro arrives—with wife and four children in tow—after a 10-year tenure at the Frankfurt Opera where he developed the chorus into an award-winning group III Chorus Director spoke with the Met’s Jay Goodwin How did you end up dedicating your life to choral direction?Tilman Michael: I’m from Stuttgart in the south of Germany which they say is “the city with 1,000 choruses.” I don’t know if anyone has actually counted but every single little town in the area has a chorus And my father played oboe in the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra I started to play the cello when I was seven and we did 50 concerts a year and went on performance tours abroad What was your experience with the Met before our search for a new choral director?It’s hard to believe but this year marked my first visit to the U.S I’ve traveled with various choruses all over the world—throughout Europe I was singing with Helmuth Rilling’s Bach-Collegium Stuttgart and we were scheduled to perform in Washington And somehow I hadn’t ever made it to the States But of course anyone working in opera is aware of what the Met is doing I understand that part of the process was that you came last spring to lead some chorus rehearsals.Yes [Met Director of Music Administration] Thomas Lausmann came to Frankfurt to hear my chorus the Met invited me to come for a few days to meet with everyone and take part in two days of rehearsals What is your goal for the Met Chorus?Beauty of sound—and for me that means a rich sound warm and very blended—is the start of everything so we need to have a wide range of character and of emotion and we need to be very flexible with how we sing Being chorus director at the Met is a grueling What drives you?I’ve been doing this for 22 years I love to rehearse and to create music with these great choruses I am confronted with new questions about the music Gail Kriegel's new play follows a family affected by mental illness The Tony-winning Best Musical continues at the Walter Kerr Theatre Noah Himmelstein will direct Matthew Puckett's original musical Neumann is the Tony nominated choreographer behind Hadestown and Swept Away one Tony winner is playing the trumpet while the other is channeling Madame Rose Due to the expansive nature of Off-Broadway Thank You!You have now been added to the list Blocking belongson the stage,not on websites Our website is made possible bydisplaying online advertisements to our visitors Please consider supporting us bywhitelisting playbill.com with your ad blocker.Thank you making his fortune in part by transporting looted Jewish property during World War II.Illustration by Mike McQuade Source Images: ULLSTEIN BILD/GETTY IMAGES; HAMBURG STATE ARCHIVE PUBLIC DOMAIN.Save this storySaveSave this storySaveI A DIRTY BUSINESSOn a Thursday afternoon in mid-November 2023 an elderly man was walking through Hamburg’s Ohlsdorf Cemetery to visit the burial place of his favorite soccer player when he noticed something very wrong Someone had sprayed “Nazi Kapital” (“Nazi fortune”) on the Kuehne family’s tombstone while the cryptic term “M-Aktion” was tagged on Alfred Kuehne’s tombstone These weren’t just any family tombs: The Kuehne dynasty is industrial royalty in Germany the only child of Alfred and Mercedes Kuehne according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index The 87-year-old billionaire owes his fortune to Kuehne + Nagel founded by Kuehne’s grandfather and Friedrich Nagel in 1890 Kuehne has used his wealth to build up a global transportation empire He is also the largest shareholder of the German airline Lufthansa and the company that owns North America’s Greyhound bus lines he stood to pocket $4.5 billion in dividends from his empire In the context of Germany’s discreet but clubby old money where aristocratic and industrialist heirs mingle at hunting parties or go skiing in the Alps he remains outside Germany’s power circles and is only spotted occasionally at financier and merchant hangouts such as Hamburg’s Übersee-Club a century-old private members establishment founded by the city’s Warburg banking dynasty either at his estate and office near Lake Zurich Despite having been based in Switzerland for almost 50 years Kuehne has said his roots remain in his hometown Nazi graffiti on the Kuehne family gravestone at Ohlsdorf cemetery in 2023.PICTURE ALLIANCE/GETTY IMAGES.Kuehne is so devoted to Hamburg that he has become its largest private investor and philanthropist in recent years even though he spends most of his time outside the city of 1.8 million residents The billionaire has invested more than 100 million euros in HSV and another 100 million euros in the development of The Fontenay (He also owns the five-star hotel Castell Son Claret on Mallorca.) He has donated more than 70 million euros to the Kuehne Logistics University and gave millions to help build Hamburg’s philharmonic which resides in a Herzog & de Meuron–designed concert hall Kuehne is negotiating with Hamburg’s senate to finance the building of a new opera house and told the city’s largest newspaper in 2023 that his charitable foundation is willing to contribute up to 300 million euros for the construction Kuehne’s public appearance has remained virtually the same over the years he has ice-gray hair that looks like it’s been parted with a ruler; his eyes look straight ahead; his facial features are strong They married in December 1989 when he was 52 and she was 51 Kuehne writes poems by hand to her for their wedding anniversary and her birthday She sometimes spontaneously serenades him with arias by Puccini Which is why a captain of their Benetti-built 130-foot yacht Chrimi III (which stands for Christine and Michael) The only person he reveres more than his wife is his late father whom he succeeded as Kuehne + Nagel CEO when he was 29 In 1975 Klaus-Michael and his father moved Kuehne + Nagel’s corporate seat and headquarters from Germany to Schindellegi The only decoration on the wall of the Kuehne + Nagel boardroom is a portrait of Alfred “I learned the most from him,” Kuehne has said about his father “Companies have to be managed individually—like a family business.” The thing about Alfred is that he built part of the family business profiting from the Nazi regime’s persecution and genocide of European Jews After Adolf Hitler seized power in Germany ousted their Jewish shareholder from Kuehne + Nagel from occupied Western Europe to Nazi Germany as part of the so-called “M-Aktion,” an abbreviation of “Möbelaktion,” which translates to “furniture operation.” Over two years almost 70,000 homes belonging to Jews in the Netherlands and Luxembourg were systematically looted after their inhabitants had been deported by train to ghettos and death camps The task force overseeing the operation was part of a Nazi organization dedicated to appropriating property during the war the Kuehne brothers may have escaped punishment for their activities during the Third Reich because of their ties to American Kuehne + Nagel had a quasi-monopoly on the furniture operation head of the Center for Holocaust Studies at the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich the company doing the furniture transports was always Kuehne + Nagel,” says Bajohr “Kuehne + Nagel is in the same category of firms like the ones that sold Zyklon B for use in the gas chambers or that built the crematoria in the extermination camps Transporting the stolen goods of people after they were deported,” he adds “is a kind of dirty business far beyond anything I can comprehend.” Yet the role of Klaus-Michael Kuehne’s firm and family in the Third Reich is little known to the outside world and Bertelsmann opened their archives years ago to allow historians to examine their own lucrative Nazi collaborations The commissioned studies unearthed that Deutsche Bank aided the expropriation of hundreds of Jewish-owned businesses and helped finance the construction of Auschwitz; that tens of thousands of men and women were used as forced and slave laborers to mass-produce weapons at the Volkswagen factory; and that Bertelsmann published antisemitic literature and exploited Jewish slave labor In 2000 the three firms joined more than 6,500 German companies in agreeing to pay about $2.5 billion to a reparations fund that provided financial compensation to surviving forced and slave laborers But Kuehne + Nagel has never opened its archives In 2022 Kuehne told the Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung that no company documents from the Nazi era were available claiming that the company archives in Hamburg and Bremen were destroyed by Allied bombings in World War II An index of German company archives from the 1990s shows that at least 10 meters (30 feet) of archival files should be present at Kuehne + Nagel This most likely includes material from before and during World War II “Use only possible with management approval,” it says on the page “Kuehne’s stance places him in the ranks of those who want to ‘exonerate’ German history from its Nazi past.” Kuehne also said in the SonntagsZeitung interview that he finds commissioning independent historians to investigate his company history akin to blackmail “We were approached by some who would have liked to do this and they asked for several hundred thousand euros I found that almost a bit extortionate,” Kuehne told the Swiss newspaper What Kuehne has not explained is why he won’t release the study that sources say he commissioned In early 2014 Kuehne commissioned Handelsblatt Research Institute the independent research arm of German newspaper Handelsblatt to conduct a study of his family firm’s entire history for Kuehne + Nagel’s 125th anniversary in July 2015 Researchers were even given access to the company archive in Hamburg and a guarantee of academic freedom and independence according to people familiar with the matter But when the final result was sent to Kuehne in early 2015 including a chapter on the activities of his father Kuehne rejected the study by saying “my father wasn’t a Nazi” during a phone conference according to people familiar with the conversation When the researchers refused to change the chapter Kuehne said the study wouldn’t be published and ended the call the managing director of Handelsblatt Research Institute would neither confirm nor deny Kuehne’s commissioning and shelving of the study Kuehne declined to be interviewed for this article declined to answer detailed questions sent by VF Kuehne was seven years old at the end of World War II and therefore had nothing to do with the war,” Nadelhofer wrote in an emailed statement these historical events are beyond his control.” For decades Germany’s political leaders have accepted moral responsibility and acknowledged the sins of the Nazi past centering remembrance as a component of German society But recently the country has seemed to regress As the last witnesses to the Nazi era die and the cultural memory of the Third Reich fades the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) polled as the largest party hitting an all-time high of 23 percent in the polls in December In June 2024 the AfD won a record number of votes in the European parliament elections The party captured 16 percent of the German vote and came in second in the elections as concerns about immigration and the economy fanned voter discontent “If Klaus-Michael Kuehne doesn’t want to do something “Hitler and the Nazis are just a speck of bird shit in over a thousand years of successful German history,” the AfD’s then coleader Alexander Gauland said in a 2018 speech The AfD’s extremist wing is associated with antisemitism including the downplaying of Nazi crimes and denigration of the Holocaust a leading AfD politician and founder of its extremist wing was fined twice by a German court for using the banned Nazi slogan “Everything for Germany!” in his campaign speeches Höcke has lamented the construction of a Holocaust memorial in central Berlin Calling Germans “the only people in the world who planted a memorial of shame in the heart of their capital,” he has demanded a “180-degree turn” in the country’s “politics of memory.” Kuehne’s politics could be described as free-market conservative “I believe that support for the AfD will dwindle again,” he told German newspaper Welt in 2017 “Right-wing movements have no foothold in Germany.” Since 2021 he has donated about 200,000 euros ($220,000) to the Christian conservative CDU the establishment party for German business and of former chancellor Angela Merkel Kuehne even once said he could envision himself voting for the left-wing Green Party But Kuehne’s refusal to more publicly reckon with his family and firm’s Nazi past plays into the hands of the revisionist movement director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Bremen a think tank affiliated with the German Green Party He has been investigating Kuehne + Nagel’s wartime activities since 2015 These revisionist narratives of Germany’s past are prominently embodied by the AfD and many other European countries use historical revisionism to manipulate the narrative around the Nazi era and World War II to advance their political agenda it was unacceptable that Kuehne refused to deal honestly with his family’s actions during the Nazi era,” said Bleyl in an interview on the roof terrace above his office in Bremen Kuehne’s stance places him in the ranks of those who want to ‘exonerate’ German history from its Nazi past.” Interviews and newly unearthed archival material by VF in Amsterdam detail the extent of Nazi profiteering by the Kuehne brothers and firm Alfred and Werner Kuehne began profiting from the persecution of Jews much earlier than is known: years before World War II and mere months after Hitler seized power in Germany on January 30 the Kuehne brothers ousted their Jewish partner and co-owner Adolf Maass after he’d spent more than 30 years at the firm owned 45 percent of the Hamburg branch of Kuehne + Nagel which he had founded in 1902 and which was the largest and most profitable part of the firm When Friedrich Nagel died heirless in 1907 According to a signed and dated contract in the Maass family archive in the Montreal Holocaust museum Maass signed over his shares and claims to the Kuehne brothers on April 22 An alleged inability “to fulfill his capital obligations” to the Kuehnes and the company Such accusations became a common method in Nazi Germany to oust Jewish shareholders from their own firms “This wasn’t a free and regular business contract,” says Frank Bajohr “The Kuehnes used the political situation for their own benefit It’s no accident that this contract was formulated in spring 1933 Maass wouldn’t have signed this contract in the years before Hitler took power “The constitutional element of an Aryanization contract was that Jewish ownership was completely eliminated and that the company was handed over in its entirety to non-Jewish owners,” says Bajohr the Kuehne brothers became Nazi Party members according to their denazification files in the Bremen state archive In the following years the Kuehnes developed their firm into a “national-socialist model company,” an honorary title that the Nazi regime awarded to Kuehne + Nagel in 1937 The Kuehne brothers would declare in their denazification proceedings that Maass’s “Jewish origin caused serious trouble” for the firm and themselves The siblings claimed that Maass left voluntarily and that they “derived no personal economic advantage from dissolving the partnership.” In 1938 Kuehne + Nagel acquired the Hamburg subsidiary of the Czech transport company Alfred Deutsch a Jewish entrepreneur forced to sell his firm by the Nazi authorities in tandem with the Kuehne brothers In 180 pages of correspondence during the acquisition discovered by VF in the Hamburg state archive Kuehne + Nagel managers wrote matter-of-factly that the takeover was an Aryanization The start of World War II offered the Kuehne brothers the first opportunity for foreign expansion In the footsteps of the Wehrmacht’s military conquest of Europe Kuehne + Nagel grew rapidly: The transportation firm went from seven branches in Germany in early 1939 to 26 branches across Nazi-occupied Europe by late 1944 according to a comparison by VF of company letterhead from the years before and during the war listing all the offices The company says it delivered supplies to the German army Another driver of growth for Kuehne + Nagel was an agreement with Nazi authorities to ship looted Jewish-owned property from Western Europe to Germany as part of the furniture operation which took place from spring 1942 through July 1944 As Allied bombing raids on Germany destroyed homes and offices the demand for household items and furniture soared In January 1942 Hitler decided that all movable property owned by Jews slated for deportation in Western Europe was to be brought to Germany and distributed discovered by VF in the archive of the Netherlands Institute for War provides a glimpse of the enormous size of the operation The ledger lists 360 ships commissioned by Kuehne + Nagel’s Amsterdam office between June 1942 and August 1943 on behalf of the Nazi authorities which transported furniture across Germany stolen from Jews according to a handwritten note accompanying the ledger and 2 baby carriages being shipped from Amsterdam to Bremen in December 1942 “The management at Kuehne & Nagel was well informed about the ongoing dispossession of the Jews It is possible that the managers did not know that the owners of the property they were transporting were to be murdered But they nevertheless facilitated the economic destruction of European Jewry,” writes historian Johannes Beermann-Schön of Frankfurt’s Goethe University who was Jewish and forced out of Kuehne + Nagel The company was awarded for conforming to Nazi ideology in the workplace.Public Domain.Kuehne + Nagel also transported looted art It didn’t always arrive at its destination discovered months after the war ended that Kuehne + Nagel had lost a 1944 shipment of 14 paintings en route from Paris to Germany a German art dealer in Paris who acquired looted art during the war had bought the paintings from the Nazi task force in charge of the furniture operation seven paintings by Matisse and one each by Picasso according to an OSS document from August 1945 found by VF in the National Archives in Washington Public auction records suggest that if all of these works were genuine they would be worth tens if not hundreds of millions in today’s art market The Third Reich and the transport of looted property during World War II made the Kuehne brothers very rich Alfred and Werner began earning on average around 175,000 reichsmarks annually according to their denazification files—about $3.4 million today the brothers had hit their peak earnings: the equivalent of about $4.6 million each Even though the Kuehne brothers were considered “high-ranking Nazi industrialists” by American investigators and “big time Nazis” by the British authorities after the war both ended up being judged as mere “fellow travelers”—Nazi followers who weren’t involved in the regime’s crimes—in denazification proceedings in 1948 Their denazification files in the Bremen state archive contain no mention of the furniture operation Kuehne + Nagel fronted a CIA-backed precursor of West Germany’s foreign intelligence agency the German newspaper Welt reported in 2015 The German spy agency used some of the transport firm’s offices as cover for key operatives Alfred Kuehne’s denazification file includes a letter from British intelligence to the American denazification committee in Bremen “It is considered vital for operations which are already in hand that Mr Alfred Kuehne be denazified in such a category so that he is able to retain his business,” wrote a chief of British intelligence “We would be very grateful to you if you could aid us in this matter since it concerns the security of the British and American zones.” which had been frozen as part of their denazification proceedings were returned to them and they were reinstated in their executive positions at Kuehne + Nagel Alfred became the company’s major shareholder in 1952 after Werner Alfred’s only child and anointed successor Klaus-Michael has built Kuehne + Nagel into a global logistics behemoth in the six decades since relocating the company seat and headquarters to Switzerland selling a stake to shore up liquidity and save the firm before buying back the shares to retake control In 2023 the firm had about $30 billion in revenue and 1,300 offices across about 100 countries “I have worked far too much in my life,” the billionaire told Swiss magazine Bilanz He has also spoken about neglecting his private life including not having any children with Christine That they have remained childless is “sad of course,” Kuehne told SonntagsZeitung “The third generation is the last in the family I think it’s a shame that I can’t pass on the business personally.” the octogenarian is busy focusing on his legacy—in particular how he will be remembered in Hamburg the country’s largest port and main gateway to the world Kuehne was the main sponsor of Hamburg’s Harbour Front Literature Festival when two nominees for the prize withdrew because of Kuehne’s refusal to deal with his firm and family’s Nazi past Kuehne’s foundation felt it was “treated extremely unfairly in the matter,” a spokesperson told the German newspaper Taz at the time It didn’t take place this year because the festival wasn’t able to find a major sponsor to replace the foundation Author Sven Pfizenmaier was the first of the two nominees to withdraw from the prize “I’m no fan of billionaires in general and billionaires who profited from Nazism and whitewash themselves by funding art seems very bad so that’s why I did it,” Pfizenmaier says by phone from Berlin and transparent in everything we do will build trust with our stakeholders,” reads the opening sentence on Kuehne + Nagel’s investor relations page When it comes to the company’s dark history Kuehne is anything but open and transparent In April 2015 a regional TV channel in Germany broadcast a short documentary about Kuehne + Nagel’s role in the furniture operation asking that the outlet reconsider broadcasting the 22-minute documentary came only months after he had shelved the Handelsblatt Research Institute study sources say he had commissioned for Kuehne + Nagel’s 125th anniversary the transportation firm published a defensive statement on its website “Like other companies that already existed before 1945 Kuehne + Nagel was involved in the war economy and had to maintain its existence in dark and difficult times,” wrote the company in the German-only statement “Kuehne + Nagel is aware of the shameful events during the Third Reich and deeply regrets that it carried out some of its activities on behalf of the Nazi regime The conditions under the dictatorship at the time and the fact that Kuehne + Nagel survived the turmoil of war with all its strength and secured the company’s existence must be taken into account.” It remains the sole acknowledgment to date by the firm about its Nazi activities Kuehne + Nagel’s website doesn’t mention the past While the firm has stayed silent on its past since 2015 Kuehne has since responded to the criticism that he and his company have not sufficiently addressed the company’s past involvement in Nazi crimes “I would have understood if people had questioned these things 10 or 20 years after the war Everything was still fresh in people’s minds then The people who were responsible at the time were still alive I find that strange,” Kuehne said in the SonntagsZeitung interview from January 2022 It’s important to learn lessons from what happened back then.” On a sweltering Sunday morning in early September 2023 about 300 people gathered on the waterfront in Bremen’s historical city center The crowd was there for the inauguration of a monument commemorating the systematic looting of European Jews by Nazi Germany through the practice of Aryanization The memorial’s chosen location was no accident towered the German headquarters of Kuehne + Nagel memorializes her family story to a crowd gathered in Bremen in 2023.PICTURE ALLIANCE/GETTY IMAGES.Down below The granddaughter of Adolf and Käthe Maass had come from Montreal for the memorial’s inauguration After Adolf Maass was ousted from Kuehne + Nagel in 1933 the couple sent their three children abroad: their eldest son to England Adolf and Käthe weren’t able to escape Nazi Germany in time They were murdered in Auschwitz in May 1944 who also lost his firm to the Kuehne brothers did survive the Holocaust and immigrated to Israel Barbara Maass disagrees with Klaus-Michael Kuehne’s notion that it’s time to move on “I believe perhaps naively that we can learn from the past but to do so means knowing what actually happened in the past,” Maass said in an interview at her home in Montreal “Crimes against humanity are always relevant There are moral decisions to be made today I’m profoundly convinced that the truth needs to be told.” spent eight years persuading the city of Bremen to get the Aryanization monument built It’s important that Kuehne reckons with his firm and family’s Nazi past before he dies would set a strong example by coming clean about the past,” said Bleyl in Bremen He can use that for the good and gain inner peace by freeing himself from a sense of obligation to his firm and family.” Thomas Sorg worked at Kuehne + Nagel Germany for 45 years and spent years battling with the billionaire as chairman of the firm’s workers council Sorg doesn’t believe Kuehne will reckon with his firm’s Nazi past before he dies Period,” said Sorg at a reception in Bremen after the ceremony “Kuehne will do everything he can to protect the memory of his father including the majority of Kuehne + Nagel shares The Kuehne foundation will become one of the world’s largest private charities by endowment size He has reserved a place at Hamburg’s Ohlsdorf cemetery How Miriam Adelson Went From Big MAGA Winner to Casino Loser in Trump’s First 100 Days Trump’s Lies Are Finally Catching Up to Him The UK Has Found Another Reason to Be Mad at Meghan Markle “It’s About Him”: How Trump Is Perverting the Presidential Photo Stream The Ballad of Bill Belichick and Jordon Hudson The Truth Underlying Pete Hegseth’s Job Security Why Are Americans So Obsessed With Protein How Sebastian Stan Became Hollywood’s Most Daring Shape-Shifter Every Quentin Tarantino Movie Meet Elon Musk’s 14 Children and Their Mothers (Whom We Know of) From the Archive: Sinatra and the Mob while centering almost exclusively on urban hubs in Asia Brussels Forum Session: NATO at 75: Defending Today US Congressman Mike Turner was elected to the House of Representatives in 2002 He is a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee and previously served as the lead Republican on the Tactical Air and Land Forces subcommittee and the Strategic Forces subcommittee The subcommittees oversee Army and Air Force acquisition programs all Navy and Marine Corps aviation programs on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) and was appointed its chairman in 2023 HPSCI has oversight of the US’s 17 intelligence agencies he was selected to join the Oversight and Accountability Committee effectiveness and accountability of the federal government and all its agencies Turner was appointed chairman of the US Delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and He now serves as vice-chairman of the assembly’s Defense and Security Committee Turner served as mayor of the city of Dayton for eight years he prioritized neighborhood revitalization and economic development a private-public partnership to rehabilitate neglected housing in the city’s historic neighborhoods He also established a development fund for grants for housing projects while maintaining a balanced budget Turner practiced law in Dayton for more than 17 years during which time he opened his own private legal practice specializing in real estate and corporate law with a focus on urban economic development a law degree from Case Western University School of Law and a bachelor’s degree from Ohio Northern University Don’t forget to subscribe to our ideas on transatlantic issues via: View our Privacy Policy From Japanese commuters pressed against train windows to the high-rise hutches of Hong Kong the German photographer caught the effects of global capitalism on humans Michael Wolf, who has died suddenly, aged 64, was perhaps best known for his 2013-14 series, Architecture of Density in which the facades of Hong Kong’s massive tower blocks appear as dramatic geometric abstractions of light and colour Hong Kong’s population density is around 6,987 people per square kilometre and many of them live in tiny flats in these massive buildings their presence is evident everywhere – in the coloured curtains a response to the question he was most often asked about Architecture of Density: “How do people live in there?” The title referred to the number of images he selected but also to the measurement (10 x 10 feet) of each of the 100 identical designed rooms in the vast Shek Kip Mei public housing complex it was the tiny decorative details of each makeshift living space that lent the work its humanity which he exhibited by attaching each one individually to the walls of a gallery with magnets he showcased his portraits of the Chinese conveyor-belt workers who mass-produced the cheap toys for the western market Architecture of Density #119, 2009, by Michael Wolf. Photograph: courtesy Flowers GalleryMichael Wolf's best photograph: four plucked ducks in Hong KongRead moreThough seldom commented on by art critics there was a political undertone to Wolf’s work even the ones where people were an invisible presence his striking images point to the human cost and extraordinary resilience of contemporary city dwellers caught up in the Darwinian thrust of global capitalism For every epic project like Architecture of Density there were intimately observed series’ created during his various trawls through Hong Kong’s back alleys he caught telling glimpses of the city’s makeshift character: customised chairs surreal arrangements of kitchen mops and wire coat hangers all the mundane everyday objects that speak of the relentless resourcefulness of its residents and of Wolf’s eye for accidental sculptural beauty amid the seemingly mundane but an expressively tender one all the same '#' : location.hash;window._cf_chl_opt.cOgUQuery = location.search === '' && location.href.slice(0 location.href.length - window._cf_chl_opt.cOgUHash.length).indexOf('?') !== -1 '?' : location.search;if (window.history && window.history.replaceState) {var ogU = location.pathname + window._cf_chl_opt.cOgUQuery + window._cf_chl_opt.cOgUHash;history.replaceState(null "\/news\/mens\/first-impressions-michael-tarnat-manchester-city-63722544?__cf_chl_rt_tk=Qs6M4r_GxWW0CUTR8b1ckuQhIWBlLMWmEBXNLCFdERU-1746519837-1.0.1.1-KwcQs14aUDavCMOUwwTaedGfckuv1JqIY.j4K9yLU8o" + window._cf_chl_opt.cOgUHash);cpo.onload = function() {history.replaceState(null ogU);}}document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(cpo);}()); The proposal for a $100M mixed-use development along Lakeshore has been approved by Mayor Randall Woodfin and the Birmingham City Council. Green Meadow Apartments, LLC, led by former director of Housing and Urban Development in Alabama, Michael German, made the official proposal last week This approval comes after the city reportedly sounded their full support of the idea housing and revitalization to the unused space This approval marks the largest transaction led by African Americans in Birmingham history “This is a great day for the city of Birmingham but because of the history that is being made.” Green Meadow Apartments, LLC, bought approximately 222 acres of land from the City in the vicinity of Lakeshore Parkway at 1911 Tiger Walk for $1.5M This multi-phased project will include the development of single-family a commercial town center and can accomodate around 900 residents It’s been compared to Ross Bridge a stunning community that’s nearby to the upcoming development The development has been described as its own ecosystem All you can possibly need in a neighborhood will be right there Along with providing a thriving living space for the community Green Meadows’ preliminary studies suggest the development will create 240 permanent jobs and another 2,000 construction jobs “We want to thank the mayor and council for their support in this transformational project This sends a message to the entire country that African American and minority developers have a place in Birmingham and we are aggressive and intentional about supporting their efforts.” The name of the development is still a secret—we’ll let you know all the exciting details as they become available Want more buzzy news like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for our free daily newsletter Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article Kristallnacht, the night of November 9–10, 1938, when German Nazis attacked Jewish persons and property. The name Kristallnacht refers ironically to the litter of broken glass left in the streets after these pogroms The violence continued during the day of November 10 and in some places acts of violence continued for several more days After the pogrom ended it was given an oddly poetic name: Kristallnacht—meaning “crystal night” or “night of broken glass.” This name symbolized the final shattering of Jewish existence in Germany the Nazi regime made Jewish survival in Germany impossible The Nazi government barred Jews from schools on November 15 and authorized local authorities to impose curfews in late November Jews were banned from most public places in Germany Connecting decision makers to a dynamic network of information Bloomberg quickly and accurately delivers business and financial information The Elbe river floods the fish market in Hamburg Low-lying parts of the city are built to survive frequent inundation.  Photographer: Bodo Marks/DPA/AFP via Getty Images The German city relies on an innovative mix of new and ancient techniques to keep new waterfront development dry amid rising sea levels and more frequent storms.  XLinkedInEmailLinkGiftFacebookXLinkedInEmailLinkGiftBy Peter YeungDecember 18, 2021 at 1:00 AM ESTBookmarkSaveMichael Schaper, head of Hamburg’s storm surge security team, gestures to a road that passes over a nearby bridge and across the harborside HafenCity district “Do you see how it gradually rises?” he says “The fact that the street level is just a few meters higher over there means it will be flood-protected for the next century.” Essential digital access to quality FT journalism on any device Complete digital access to quality FT journalism with expert analysis from industry leaders Complete digital access to quality analysis and expert insights complemented with our award-winning Weekend Print edition Terms & Conditions apply Discover all the plans currently available in your country See why over a million readers pay to read the Financial Times the city of freedom and democracy: Tbilisi - Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the German Parliament (Bundestag) "May 13-15 I will visit the true capital of Europe Distinguished colleagues from other EU member states will accompany me opposition and brave civil society activists," Roth said