Politik:Perspektive Vol. 8

POLITIK PERSPEKTIVE

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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FROM THE EDITOR CONTRIBUTORS

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QUEER AESTHETICS IN THE GDR: DIE ANDERE LIEBE (1988) AND COMING OUT (1989)

GERMAN UNITY 33 YEARS ON FROM THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL

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AFD: HOW HAS AN EXTREME RIGHT-WING PARTY MANAGED TO BECOME SO SUCCESSFUL IN THE FORMER SOCIALIST EAST GERMANY?

ARENDT’S PUZZLE: CAN ONE DO EVIL WITHOUT BEING EVIL?

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WWII IN WMII

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A SACK, FILLED WITH LITTLE SCRAPS OF PAPER- WHAT URFAUST TEACHES US ABOUT THE BEAUTY OF IMPERFECTION

SACHER-MASOCH: THE PEN THE ‘M’ IN S&M

TSCH - A FADING SLICE OF MERICAN HERITAGE

N FOR GLOBAL BILITY: GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP N IN GERMAN-SPEAKING S

E GERMANY AND AUSTRIA ENCOURAGE SUSTAINABLE AND COULD THEY BE DOING

AND: UNDERSTANDING THE

UKRAINIAN CONFLICT: ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES MANY

IONAL BURDEN OF HISTORY: L MEMORY OF THE SECOND AR IN BRITAIN AND GERMANY

HICAL MAGIC GRACING

: A QUESTION OF NATIONAL D PERCEPTION.

FROM THE EDITOR

Editor: Holly

Perril

Hallo allerseits,

It is a pleasure to have you all back for the 8th edition of Politik Perspektive. Whether you are new to PP or have been eagerly awaiting the new edition since last spring, herzlich willkommen We are delighted to have you join us on our quest to analyse, explore and celebrate the Germanspeaking world

Within these pages, you will find the fascinating insights of our contributors this year. Spanning queer aesthetics in the GDR, Texas German and the new exhibition at the Wien Museum, we would like to congratulate our writers on the breadth of their thought-provoking research Each article helps us to answer the question: what is ‘Germanness’? And how can we understand contemporary Germanspeaking society?

‘the richness of German culture goes beyond the borders of the nation itself’

University of Leeds

Publication Date 25th February 2024

This is not an easy feat, as the richness of German culture goes beyond the borders of the nation itself. We are therefore delighted to have an issue of PP that not only acknowledges these complexities, but also celebrates the diversity of German-speaking culture(s)

As the editor of PP this year, it has been an absolute delight to continue the work of previous editors. I am thankful for the opportunity to contribute to the legacy of PP, a student-journal that shines a light on the fascinating issues within German Studies, whilst providing a platform for the young talent entering the field I have thoroughly enjoyed the process of nurturing our contributors’ ideas and helping them to hone their research to reach the final product.

With the editorship role comes the additional opportunity to design the new look of the journal This year, I have taken inspiration from Dada, an international artistic movement which is closely intertwined with German history and politics throughout the 20th Century. Thus, all the photos you see throughout this edition belong to the contributors themselves. This includes the cover, which is inspired by Hoch’s famous collage ‘Schnitt mit dem Küchenmesser Dada durch die letzte Weimarer Bierbauhkulturepoche Deutschlands’ This style echoes the mission of PP to critically analyse German-speaking society

Although a nod to my personal research interests, I hope you also enjoy the new ‘schick’ take on the journal, which marks its 8th year anniversary

To mark this special occasion, we have 14 insightful articles that are sure to spark your interest. Starting with an in-depth analysis of the two GDR films Die andere Liebe (1988) and Coming Out (1989), the journal seeks to explore the history of queer identities within Germany. The second stage of the journal addresses the complex relationship of the German-speaking world to right wing extremism and Vergangenheitsbewältigung, critically exploring the rise of the AfD, Arendt’s analysis of the Nuremburg trials and the new permanent exhibition at the Wien Museum, which is dedicated to remembering WWII.

The next section of the journal develops an understanding of the diversity of Germanspeaking cultures. We enter this section with a study on global citizenship in a German-speaking context, which is later enriched by an exploration of German and Austrian approaches towards sustainable fashion

Finally, the journal shifts to analysing Germanspeaking countries within an international context, from Texas Deutsch to the perception of Switzerland abroad and untangling the complexities of British-German relations

With such a fascinating array of topics, it is simply time to get reading. Los geht’s!

Liebe Grüße, Holly Perril

CONTRIBUTORS

LYLE POWER, UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW

QUEER AESTHETICS IN THE GDR: DIE ANDERE LIEBE (1988) AND COMING OUT (1989)

Lyle is a fifth year MA German/Italian student at the University of Glasgow. He spent his year abroad in Mainz, Germany and a further three months in Bologna, Italy By participating in two summer schools run by the Scotland Hub at the Johannes Gutenberg Universität, Mainz, he has worked to help improve cultural relations between Scotland and Germany through presenting work at their annual 'Scott Fest' He is also an alumni of the National Youth Choir of Scotland and is interested in both German and Italian vocal works such as Lieder and opera. Currently, for his undergraduate dissertation, his research focuses on the socio-cultural representation of homosexuality in East Germany between 1985-1990

ELLA DAVIDSON, UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD

AFD: HOW HAS AN EXTREME RIGHTWING PARTY MANAGED TO BECOME SO SUCCESSFUL IN THE FORMER SOCIALIST EAST GERMANY?

Ella is a fourth year German, Spanish and Politics student at the University of Sheffield. During her year abroad Ella worked at a secondary school in Germany, planning and delivering engaging English lessons to the pupils She has since been fascinated by the differences in the German and English education systems In her free time, Ella loves to listen to watch classic German TV shows such as ‘Tatort’ to improve her cultural understanding as well as language skills.

SUSANNA WAGSTAFF, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

GERMAN UNITY 33 YEARS ON FROM THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL

Susanna is a fourth year German and Italian student at the University of Cambridge. She spent half of her year abroad in Leipzig, Germany, and has since been particularly interested in the politics of East and West Germany In her free time, Susanna enjoys recreating Italian recipes and exploring Cambridge's coffee shop scene

FIONA BESTROVA, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

ARENDT’S PUZZLE: CAN ONE DO EVIL WITHOUT BEING EVIL?

Fiona is a third-year German and Philosophy student at the University of Oxford. During her year abroad in Hamburg, Fiona enjoyed savouring cinnamon-laden Franzbrötchen, taking in scenic views along the River Elbe, and exploring the enchanting world of the Miniatur Wunderland A true philosopher at heart, Fiona finds joy in the intricate musings of Kant and the lyrical poeticism of Schiller. Outside of her academic pursuits, Fiona can generally be found on stage, either captivating audiences with her acting prowess or having a little boogie to 2000s pop tunes.

PAUL-LOUP BOISTELLE, FELLOW, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

WWII IN WMII

Überdozent Paul-Loup Boistelle is a Lecturer for the Fashion Studies and French Sections in the MMLL Faculty and at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Originally trained in German Studies and Human Sciences (École Normale Supérieure/Heidelberg University), he started teaching at the latter at the age of just 19

A key player in luxury archival and fashion circles, he has traveled all over the globe. In spite of his weekly journeys, he remains strongly attached to the fairytale-like villages and idyllic landscapes of Austria, his true Heimat.

FLORENCE THOMAS, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

A SACK, FILLED WITH LITTLE SCRAPS OF PAPER- WHAT URFAUST TEACHES US ABOUT THE BEAUTY OF IMPERFECTION

Florence is a second year Modern and Medieval Languages student at Trinity College Cambridge. She is interested in representations of feminine desire in twentieth century German literature and film, with a particular focus on female homoeroticism might be deconstructed and understood within the moral codes of literary and cultural tradition In her free time, she also writes for the Cambridge Language Collective

TABITHA BULLEN, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON

LEOPOLD SACHER-MASOCH: THE PEN THAT PUT THE ‘M’ IN S&M

Tabitha is an MA student of Comparative Literature at the University of College London. Her research interests revolve around the topos of nineteenth-century literature, particularly their relation to classical and biblical mythology. In her free time, Tabitha enjoys trekking and pursuing her musical interests

THOMAS DE LA FUENTE, UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW

TEXASDEUTSCH - A FADING SLICE OF GERMAN-AMERICAN HERITAGE

Thomas de la Fuente is a second year International Relations student at the University of Glasgow He grew up in Austin, Texas, where he began studying German, and has spent extended periods of time learning German in Berlin and Koblenz Thomas is deeply interested in the dynamics and relations between nations and cultures, and hopes to use the German language to advance his studies in International politics and gain new perspectives on global relations. He enjoys cooking Mexican food, playing baseball, and learning and exploring the fascinating history and intricacies of the wider world

JANA MORITZ, FREIE UNIVERSITÄT BERLIN

EDUCATION FOR GLOBAL RESPONSIBILITY: GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION IN GERMAN-SPEAKING COUNTRIES

Jana is in her final year of a Master's program in Education, specializing in German and Politics at the Free University of Berlin Through several study-related stays abroad, she has developed a big interest in interculturality and international relations and aims to work in this field in the long term. Since January 2024 she has been doing an internship in Brussels to learn about European cooperation. Sharing ideas between countries is very important for her and she is dedicated to promote the German language and culture in other countries, making it appealing to others

ANNABELLE FINNAN, UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD

WHAT ARE GERMANY AND AUSTRIA DOING TO ENCOURAGE SUSTAINABLE FASHION, AND COULD THEY BE DOING MORE?

Annabelle is a second-year Economics and German student at the University of Sheffield. Currently, she is planning her year abroad in Germany, where she plans to spend a semester studying at the Humboldt Universität Berlin and a semester doing a work placement In her spare time, Annabelle enjoys reading and has started reading books in German to improve her language skills.

AMY MCARTHUR, UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW

SWITZERLAND: UNDERSTANDING THE ENIGMA

Amy is a third year German and English Linguistics student at the University of Glasgow. She works as an English Language Teacher and spent her year abroad in Switzerland improving her teaching skills as a Language Assistant In her free time, she enjoys boxing, weightlifting and making her own Kefir, Kombucha and yoghurt

INGA KULIABINA, UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD

RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN CONFLICT: POSSIBLE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES FOR GERMANY

Inga is an international first-year Economics and Modern Languages (German and French) and Cultures student at the University of Sheffield Inga’s great, great grandfather was German, which makes Inga about 10% German Inga is originally Russian, but her family lives now in Slovenia As Inga studies Economics, she is interested in economic models of different countries across the world She is especially interested in German economics and decided to explore more and combine Politics and Economics in her article.

HOLLY PERRIL, UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS

THE EMOTIONAL BURDEN OF HISTORY: CULTURAL MEMORY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN BRITAIN AND GERMANY

Holly is a third year German and English Literature student at the University of Leeds currently undertaking her year abroad in Hamburg This summer, Holly performed the research project ‘Unsere geteilte Geschichte: Kriegsopfer aus dem Commonwealth (un)vergessen’ on behalf of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge, Landesverband Berlin. The aim of the project was to search archives in Berlin for the biographies of Commonwealth war personnel lost in the Second World War. These biographies are intended for use in tours of war cemetaries throughout Berlin to humanise the fallen and prevent war personnel from being reduced to statistics

KYLE BLYTHE, UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS

MONARCHICAL MAGIC GRACING

GERMANY: A QUESTION OF NATIONAL PRIDE AND PERCEPTION.

After his time abroad in Bordeaux and Hamburg, Kyle is now wrapping up his undergraduate studies in French and German at the University of Leeds. Upon his return to academia, he is focusing his dissertation research on satirical portrayals of the Third Reich in both English and German cinema. Away from his laptop, he is an avid reader and hopes to conquer both Kafka and Camus’ complete works one day.

QUEER AESTHETICS IN THE GDR: DIE ANDERE LIEBE & COMING OUT

CONTRIBUTOR: LYLE POWER

Life for many citizens of the former GDR was restricted under the constant surveillance of the Stasi, making freedom of expression largely nonexistent Despite this, many feminist, environmentalist, and LGBT protest groups appeared in the 70s whose willingness to speak out against the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, SED) made the government fear possible opposition. Consequently, it became party policy to help the LGBT community, particularly homosexuals, to better integrate into socialist society. While the government itself was ambivalent to tackle the issue, they allowed external organisations such as the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden to commission a short documentary film titled Die andere Liebe (1988) for the state-run film studio, DEFA (Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft) Through avoiding the film's publication within an underground scene, the target demographic could consist primarily of heterosexuals, mitigating any reference to political counterculture.

The documentary focused primarily on showing gay and lesbian individuals through the lens of heteronormativity, demonstrating that men who love men and women who love women are of no threat to the rest of society and should be respected for their need to ‘come out’ While it was the first step in creating a space in which gay and lesbian individuals could lead an open life, any semblances to queer aesthetics were heavily sanitised to minimise the differences of the ‘other’.

‘it was the first step in creating a space in which gay and lesbian individuals could lead an open life’

As Kyle Frackman states in his 2018 article ‘Shame and Love: East German Homosexuality Goes to the Movies’, ‘the filmmakers walked a tightrope between enlightened respect and indoctrinated prejudice’. This suggests that the primary aim of the documentary was to elicit feelings of empathy and to some extent pity in the viewers who see that homosexuals have to deal with this ‘indoctrinated prejudice’ both in private and public spheres However, in order to satisfy the need for conformity, individuality within society became ever more dissolved

The perceptions of homosexual life portrayed in the interviews follow a general pattern to provoke certain emotions in the audience:

One finds out one is homosexual

1. One succeeds in fighting an internal and external homophobic war to reach acceptance of oneself

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2. One wants to be in a monogamous relationship thereafter

‘in order to satisfy the need for conformity, individuality within society became ever more dissolved’

Any struggles outside of this two-dimensional model of emancipation are not touched upon While the stories are indeed to the best of the filmmaker’s knowledge accurate, they discount other factors which are widely associated with homosexuality, particularly gay men

Coming Out (1989), a film by Heiner Carow, was the next step in dismantling ‘indoctrinated prejudices’ within GDR society. The film centres around Phillip Klarmann, a teacher who had sexual relations with men in the past, however is now engaged to Tanja, a colleague with whom he could develop a traditional heterosexual relationship to appease societal pressures and gain acceptance from his mother

Battling with his sexuality, he sees Matthias in a gay bar, the only place where any sort of queer aesthetic can be displayed. Phillip thereafter meets with Matthias and falls in love.

Thus commences a brief trope on the love triangle until Phillip is discovered at a concert which all three men are attending The ambiguous ending suggests that Phillip gains acceptance of his sexuality but at the cost of his job; after learning of his sexuality, the head teacher undertakes an inspection of one of Phillip’s classes, which is presumed to be largely unsuccessful.

Queer aesthetics are equally subtly repressed in the film through the scenes where Phillip frequents the gay bar, despite the appearance of the space as a sanctuary for many gay men. The juxtaposition of clothing and style between him and the other clientele highlight his longing to be normal and his rejection of any attribute that does not conform to the heteronormative vision of masculinity For example, wearing beige colours while the rest of the clientele are dressed up for carnival season On the one hand, I believe this image of heteronormative masculinity against the background of the gay bar provokes empathy in the heterosexual viewer as they acknowledge Phillip’s conflicted identity.

On the other hand, showing abnormality (effeminacy in this case) as a by-product of gay sub-culture only serves to perpetuate the stereotype that this aesthetic is a phase and not intrinsically linked to one’s mannerisms and sexuality. While being careful not to suggest that showing effeminacy is a prerequisite of gay identity, it is equally important to normalize it – whether that be through further camp stereotypes displayed in the film such as the carnival night in the gay bar. In this sense, I applaud the film on portraying effeminacy within the limitations of the heteronormative society in which it was made However, given the lackluster drive of the SED to implement pro-LGBT policies, whether it would have contributedtothelong-termemancipationofalltypes of homosexuals in the GDR - should the wall have remained- isstillwidelydebated

These films have without a doubt created a time capsulethroughwhichweviewhowgaymeninthe GDR were portrayed (or wanted to be portrayed in mainstream media) - above all, hoping to be integrated into society and perceived as ‘normal’ Whilst the presentation of the gay man is far more rounded than the negative and even grotesque stereotypes which can be seen in many American and western films from the 1950s-80s, the tendency in socialist ideology to focus on the collective above the individual means that a spectrum of other equally validgaymaleidentitiesisnotrepresentedinthefilm

For example, an individual’s fear of the HIV/AIDS epidemic or the portrayal of effeminacy I would thoroughly recommend finding a copy of them to watchandinterpretthemforyourselves

‘ These films have without a doubt created a time capsule through which we view how gay men in the GDR were portrayed’

GERMAN UNITY 33 YEARS ON FROM THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL

On the “Reunification is completed, even if it is not perfect”, declared Carsten Schneider, the Minister of State for East Germany Thirty-three years after German reunification, however, it is questionable whether unity, both on a social and economic level,hasbeenachieved

Former East German states lag behind their Western in many areas Economically speaking, there is a higher unemployment rate in the East, wages are lower, and only 143% of East Germans are in managerial positions If Berlin is not taken into account, the percentage drops to 73%

Although the former East is much smaller, with a population of around 16 million in comparison to 67 million in the former West, the annual Unity Report shows productivity in the Eastern states is still lower overall than in the West but is gradually rising The rural communities in the Eastern parts of Germany are also in danger of low population as the focus remains on building up big cities suchasLeipzigandDresden

‘inequality can be seen in everyday life in the East and West’

The disparity seen in the economy and the workplace comes as a result of lower birth rates in Eastern states since the fall of the Wall, and a general trend in young people to move to the West. Western states are still considered to offer a greater number of opportunities and a better quality of life, which is evidenced in the Unity Report, where Western prosperity is comparatively higher This inequality can be seen in everyday life in the East and West, even in the supermarkets, where the West boasts more UK and American brands Walking through Bonn, for example, is much more like walking through London, with branches of Western brands like Five Guys never too far from sight A city like Leipzig or Dresden, however, still bears huge witness to its GDR past withbig,grey,socialistblocksofflatsandoffices

This is not to say, however, that the success of the former East is non-existent or incomparable with the prosperity of the West Popular attitudes towards the East are much more positive thirtythree years later, and with good cause Unemployment rates are now nearing the statistics of the West, declining from 10% 15 years ago to 1.7% in 2022. There are also more women inhigherworkpositionsintheEastthantheWest, and in general women from Eastern states comprise just under 50% of Germany’s entire workforce The Unity Report also suggests that childcare is more easily accessible in Eastern states, with 533% of children under 3 in kindergarten, compared to 318% in Western states, while 491% of all parents with children under 3 are still seeking a place for their child in kindergarten A stock take of economic and domestic trends across Germany shows that the former East is ‘catching up’ effectively, if still slowly

‘inequality can be seen in everyday life in the East and West’

A particularly concerning trend, however, is the rise in support across Germany, although particularly in the East, for the right-wing populist party Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany). The AfD hinders unity by openly opposing the European Union, immigration, and religious tolerance The AfD aresupportinganendtosanctionsinRussiaandthe removal of green taxes on fuel and gas, alongside a full exploitation of domestic energy resources As a resultofGermany’scostoflivingcrisis,particularlyin the East, more citizens are turning to the AfD In 2022, 27% of Germans living in the East voted in support of the AfD, in comparison to 12% in the West, and in the most recent election in October 2023, the AfD came second behind the Christian Democratic Union(CDU)

The economic rubble left by the GDR leadership is perhaps one reason why AfD support is growing so quicklyinpreviouslyEasternstates.Thosestatesalso have less long-standing loyalty to a particular party, resulting in greater openness to political change and more radical ideas Growing far-right support in the East suggests there are still large political and ideologicalgapsbetweentheformerEastandWest

However,gapsinunityshouldnotonlybeattributed to the East. The Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier recognises that many citizens in the West do not see any need to change The strive towards unity is generally considered the East’s duty to catch up to the West Eastern Germans are seen as having lived ‘on the wrong side of history’ and are still considered inferior Many Germans in Eastern states report being affected by the condescendingattitudesoftheWest.

One perhaps more trivial example of this is the stereotype that the Saxony accent is by the far the ugliest, as it is strongly believed to be representative of the East It is commonly considered ‘cartoonish’, a patronising comment even today The derogatory term ‘Ossie’ is also still often used in the West. This language demonstrates traces of East-West prejudices thatstillremainvisibleinpopulardiscourse

‘Unity, ultimately, is a goal which the states can only reach together.’

Carsten Schneider, the Minister of State for East Germany, believes “Reunification is completed, even if it is not perfect”, which is perhaps reflected in the debate surrounding the continued need for an Eastern representative in the government Historian Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk disagrees, arguing that the East is no longer a homogeneous space with identical issues in each state Kowalczuk considers Schneider “eine Katastrophe!”(adisaster!)andcallsinsteadfora representative to dedicate their politics to achieving equal living conditions across the country, rather than projecting these issues onto the East This challenges the popular conception of the East as inferior and promotes unity more generallybyworkingtowardsmorehomogenous goals which do not seek to further isolate East andWest

The continuation of such debates, as well as clear economic, social, and political disparities, suggests reunification cannot be regarded as ‘complete’ East Germans are still underrepresented in government, underpaid in the workforce and underacknowledged in wider Western circles As Germany steps into another year of reunification, the two states must look at thepersistinggoalofunityandcontinuetostrive towards it with shared social politics and a breakdown of state stereotypes Unity, ultimately, is a goal which the states can only reach together

AFD: HOW HAS AN EXTREME RIGHTWING PARTY MANAGED TO BECOME SO SUCCESSFUL IN THE FORMER SOCIALIST EAST GERMANY?

CONTRIBUTOR: ELLA DAVIDSON

Alternative für Deutschland is a right-wing populist party, founded in Germany in 2013 by the economist Bernd Lucke The primary basis of the party was formerly Euroscepticism, with Lucke believing that being part of the Eurozone was damaging the German economy According to him, Germany was being made to bear the economic costs arising from membership of countries with weaker economies, such as Greece He supported a return to the Deutschmark and a national economy which would trade with the world In the AfD’s original manifesto there was mention of ‘limiting immigration into the German welfare-state’ but above all the party was founded on a Eurosceptic, ratherthananti-immigrant,basis.

‘the party challenges democratic values and advocates an ‘anticonstitutional ethnic concept’

However, after the 2015 refugee crisis, which saw the arrival of over 1 million refugees to Germany, mainly from Muslim countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan, the AfD transformed into an anti-immigrant, nativist party Many adversaries argue that the party challenges democratic values and advocates an ‘anti-constitutional ethnic concept’. In order to impedetheever-increasingsuccessofthisparty,itis essential that we understand the factors that are contributingtoitssuccess

In the 2021 German Federal Elections, the AfD won 103% of the overall vote and 83 seats in the Bundestag The results appear more shocking, however, when the statistics in the former East German states are analysed In both Saxony and Thuringia, Alternative für Deutschland was the most popular party, gaining more votes than the traditional CDU and SPD parties AfD received 246% and 24% of all votes cast in these regions respectively InEastGermanyasawhole,theAfDwas thesecondmostpopularpartyaftertheSPD,gaining 189%ofoverallvotes Itseemsimportant,then,toask ourselves why this phenomenon is occurring, and whatwecandotostopit

Firstly, it is key to analyse the issue of immigration

After the 2015 refugee crisis, xenophobic street protests began to grow, especially in Eastern Germany (the former communist GDR) The AfD spreads an outwardly anti-immigrant rhetoric, claiming,amongstotherthings,thatimmigrantstake jobs and prosperity away from the German population We can clearly see how this may resonate with residents of East German states, as they are still significantly lagging behind the West economically For example, unemployment is persistently higher in the former East Germany than in the former West In 2018, the average unemployment rate was 69% in the former East German states, compared with 4.8% of the former West German states When the AfD are spreading anti-immigrant rhetoric, it becomes clear why East Germans are more likely to believe that immigrants are taking their jobs from them and will therefore support the AfD It is also important to note that the AfD promises an ‘alternative’, whatever this may be Individuals in East Germany may feel that mainstream parties have not adequately addressed theseeconomicdisparities,andthereforearelooking forsomethingmoreradicaltosolvetheirproblems

Many East Germans can be said to be suffering from an identity crisis and this can also explain their increased support for the AfD The rapid transformation of the former East Germany from a socialist system to a market-oriented economy is likelytohavelefttheformerEastGermancommunity feeling disenfranchised A key part of the AfD’s manifesto is addressing the perceived negative threats of globalisation, and they therefore resonate with those who feel left behind by economic and socialchanges

TheAfDisalsoananti-feministparty,whichcangoa far way to explaining why 80% of its members are men The ‘traditional family’, comprising of a heterosexual married couple with biological children and a gendered division of labour, is the ‘guiding principle’ of the AfD’s gender policy Within this framework it becomes obvious that women are seen as second-class citizens in the eyes of the party, and therefore their lower support levels amongst women are explained However, this issue becomes particularly interesting when analysing the support provided by the AfD to former East German regions, as the GDR promoted the idea of gender equality in the workplace and within families Up until 1989, womenwereencouragedtoparticipateinthelabour force, and the state provided extensive childcare support to enable women to work outside the home

In this respect, then, it seems curious that women in these regions would support an outwardly antifeminist party Perhaps their economic woes and promises from the AfD to solve these overrides the genderedaspectofthedebate

The causes of the AfD’s success are complex and of course differ between individuals What is for certain, though, is that there is a clear correlation between being an East German citizen and supporting the party. This article has analysed some of the possible causes of this trend German politicians from mainstream parties should focus more on solving lingering economic problems in the East. This way, support for the AfD in these regions should hopefully decrease, as citizens will feel they are being listened to, and will not feel obliged to turn to a radical ‘alternative’

ARENDT’S PUZZLE: CAN ONE DO EVIL WITHOUT BEING EVIL?

CONTRIBUTOR: FIONA BESTROVA

Can evil deeds ever be detached from evil motives? For many, the preferred, and seemingly more logical response would be ‘no’ – evil, by its nature, necessitates an identifiable malevolent root Evil simply cannot be plucked out of thin air However, for those who answer ‘yes’, evil becomes an increasingly volatile force with its rootlessness wreaking havoc on all walks of society, extending its impact to the most ordinary of people Hannah Arendt, the German-American philosopher and political scientist, dared to agree with the latter and famously coined the phrase ‘the banality of evil’.

Yet, the belief that evil deeds could be detached from evil motives wasn’t Arendt’s lifelong conviction When Arendt wrote The Origins of Totalitarianismin1951,shehadferventlysubscribed to the idea that Nazis were ‘radically evil’ people, using a phrase coined by Immanuel Kant, meaning that they had some underlying malevolent motive driving their actions But this all changed when, in 1961, Arendt bore witness to the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, one of the main Nazi operatives responsible for the Holocaust. The trial wasofmarkedhistoricalsignificance.

It made international headlines for fourteen weeks and the Israeli prosecution brought in one hundred witnesses to testify, many of whom were survivors of Nazi concentration camps As a Jewish intellectual, Arendt reported her trial observations to the New Yorker; these transcripts later formed the basis of her book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, which was published in 1963 At this stage, the Eichmann trial’s impact on Arendt was palpable; she left Jerusalem with an entirely new theoryofevil

‘She was shocked to discover that his motives weren’t driven by lust for power or revenge; rather, they were entirely banal’

From the witness stand, Arendt assiduously observed Eichmann behind his glass box and was immediately struck by the banality of his motives Arendt found Eichmann a typical, uninteresting bureaucrat, who in her words, was “neither perverted nor sadistic”, but “terriblyandterrifyinglynormal”.

She was shocked to discover that his motives weren’t driven by lust for power or revenge; rather, they were entirely banal In her book, Eichmann in Jerusalem, she remarks that “except for an extraordinary diligence in looking out for his personal advancement, he had no motives at all” Arendt depicted Eichmann as a man who was solely interested in moving up the ranks within Nazi bureaucracy, proving himself as a dedicated civil servant and carrying out the programmes of mass extermination with utmost efficiency Eichmann made it seem as if he was carrying out an order as trivial as fetching a cup of coffee,ratherthantheeradicationofmillionsofJews

Not only was Arendt shocked by the banality of his motives, but also the banality of his mind Fundamentally, she was surprised byhisinabilitytothinkforhimself;shenoticedthathewasvulgar, he had difficulties following his own trains of thought, he refused to question things and his language was confined to well-worn linguistic clichés It was Eichmann’s thoughtlessness that facilitated the execution of heinous actions without a shred of moral reflection or remorse In this way, Eichmann himself was not an amoral monster, he was simply disengaged from the reality of his evil acts due to an inability to think from another perspective. Thus, Arendt coined the term ‘the banality of evil’ to describe the collective characteristics of Eichmann He was not inherently evil, but a mindless ‘cog in a machine’ who joined the Nazi Party, in search of guidance and direction, not out of deepseated ideological belief Arendt used the analogy of fungus to furtherexplainthe‘banalityofevil’:sheexplainedthatevilislikea fungus that gets inside you, grows, and turns you into something elseentirely Fungusdoesn’thavearootinthesamewaythatevil doesn’t have a root, it just appears on the surface when the conditionsareright Primarily,evilfindsitsfoundationinanotable deficiency–specifically,adeficitincognitiveengagement

Arendt bolstered her argument by demonstrating that Eichmann was not inherently evil She detailed how Eichmann overcame his ‘innate repugnance to crimes’ and that it involved a process which she claimed took four weeks According to Arendt, when EichmannwenttoseethepreliminarykillingoperationsinPoland, he was repulsed However, something occurred that enabled him to overcome this repugnance, compelling him to enlist as an Obersturmbannführer in the SS Arendt was fascinated by how suchatransitioncouldpossiblytakeplacewithinaman Through Eichmann’s example, she highlights how ordinary individuals, enmeshed in bureaucratic systems, can thoughtlessly commit actsofevil

Nevertheless, Arendt’s thesis on the banality of evil did not manage to remain unscathed; she still faced much critique and controversy The Jewish community, in particular, were outraged by her work, Eichmann in Jerusalem, because, at face value, she seemed to be downplaying the atrocities committed against Jewishpeople

On top of this, her treatment of the trial stylistically caused further complications: although Arendt’s style of writing is often beautiful and complex, it is also ironic, and it is her irony that caused discomfortamongstotherJewishintellectuals Ata timewheresurvivorswerefinallyabletovoicetheir experiences and trauma, Arendt’s approach was deemed less than appropriate Arendt’s hallmark irony, meant to convey the dual voices in her mind – the quasi-Socratic dialogues inspired by ancient Greek philosophers – resonates throughout her writing But this irony was duly misinterpreted, and so Arendt spent much of the 1960s trying to clarify whatshemeant.

Many of Arendt’s critics found it hard to understand how Eichmann, a key figure in the Nazi genocide, could have no evil intentions Her analysis failed to consider the extent to which Eichmann relished doing his work Eichmann had not suffered a brain disorder or memory loss when he was sanctioning those deaths, he was perfectly aware of what he was doing and what was going on, he even celebrated it The only regret he expressed before his death was that he had not been more successful in his projects, so this was not someone who was just a faceless bureaucrat anddefinitelynotsomeonewhowasbanal

A novelist and close friend of Arendt, Mary McCarthy, shares in this view and responds to her work accordingly:“[I]tseemstomethatwhatyouaresaying is that Eichmann lacks an inherent human quality: the capacity for thought, consciousness – conscience. But thenisn’theamonstersimply?”

The controversy of Arendt’s thesis continues to rear its head even in contemporary discourse Some historians suggest that Arendt missed the true evil of Eichmann because she did not attend the full fourteen weeks of trial, and so did not get to experience his radically evil side.

Numerous efforts have been made to psychopathologise Eichmann and reveal him as a dedicated Nazi ideologue Bettina Stangneth, a critic, sought to expose Eichmann’s purposeful allegiance to Nazi ideology by analysing audiotapes of interviews with Nazi journalist William Sassen Stangneth then concluded that Eichmann was genuinely committed to Nazi beliefs, displaying neither robotic nor mindless adherence She even went as far as to claim that Eichmann was something of a master manipulator, arguing that “he was always very good at telling [people]whattheywantedtohear[ ]”

Arendt struggled to reconcile how Eichmann’s mundane existence could peacefully coexist with the profound evil he perpetrated Yet despite the intense criticism endured, she consistently acknowledged Eichmann’s atrocities, labelling him a ‘war criminal’, and supporting his death sentence While she viewed his motives as obscure and thoughtless, she did not perceive his genocidal acts as banal or ordinary She made a sharp and robust distinction between the doer and the deed. But Arendt’s most valuable lesson to us is to pay attention to Eichmann’s story because it is a story like his which sheds light on how ordinary people canbemadetocommitgreatactsofevil

WWII IN WMII

CONTRIBUTOR: PAUL-LOUP BOISTELLE

Having long cast itself as a victim after having been annexed by Nazi Germany, Austria, the birthplace of Adolf Hitler, has begun over the past three decades to seriously examine its role in the Holocaust and is now confronting its complex wartime legacy in the Wien Museum2.0.

The new display is regarded as a step further in Austria’s Vergangenheitsbewältigung. Since the end of the war, the country has tried to airbrush its part in Nazi history, concocting the myth that it was Hitler’s first victim. The shift in the telling of history, more preciselyintheformofmuseologicaldisplay,ispartof a broader trend of reconciling the citizens with a dark chapteroftheirpast.

Official websites such as https://www.wienmuseum.at/en or https://wwwvisitingviennacom/entertainment/decem ber/ promote the significant transformation of the refurbished museum which spans all three of its floors documenting Vienna’s history from Roman times to the present day By contrast, newspapers focus on Austria’s willingness to confront its past by overcomingitsmanichaeismandsilence Butdoesthe WienMuseumreallyliveuptoexpectations?

The original Wien Museum, opened in 1959 on Karlsplatz, was clearly underrated, having been overlooked by almost every tourist and local due to the old-fashioned presentation of its former permanent exhibition The Haerdtl-designed building reopened to the public on 7th December 2023, after nearlyfouryearsofextensiverenovations.

The multi-million-euro modernization has opened the building up with a glazed glass entrance space and outdoor terraces to make it much lighter and more welcoming Gigantic black steel cantilevers cutting through the structure allow the new floors to appear asiftheywerefloatingwithnosupportcolumns

‘The new display is regarded as a step further in Austria’s Vergangenheitsbewältigung.’

The initial purpose – besides expanding the museum and elevating its appearance through state-of-theart design – was to incorporate the surrounding area and anchor the building in the local environment The result is supposed to stand out as a beacon of both modernity and historical preservation In fact, it could be argued that the museum’s stunning architecture overshadows the primary aim of the project and embellishes the reality that Austria is finally willing to takeresponsibilityfor.

Indeed, the curators have put together a thoughtprovoking display: the new permanent exhibition allows the visitor to walk through the history of ViennafromtheBronzeAgesettlementstothefallof the Iron curtain, including Vienna’s Imperial heyday as the capital of the great Hapsburg Empire. For those unfamiliar with the nazification and denazification of the capital and country, the exhibition explores the complex bureaucracy behind the extremist nationalist ideology. Over three thousand artists officially belonged to the Reich’s artistic association after the Anschluss While political dissidents, persons with Jewish backgrounds and artists considered too ‘avantgarde’ were barred, persecuted, forced to emigrate or murdered, we learn that not every artist was denied membership to the Viennese Reichskammer (‘Reich Chamber of Fine Art’) As long as the Nazi regime could steer their work in accordance with its ideological vision, there was the opportunity to avoidpersecution

Furthermore, not every artist involved in the politics of the National Socialist regime had to pay the price for their complicity in post-war Austria Until now, there was almost no mention of the rejected communities, groups and the ‘approved’ artists anywhere For decades, most of their artworks were keptinstoragebythecityofVienna

‘ handwritten notes [...] encourage the visitors to challenge the coherence of the extremist ideology’

Offering a long overdue examination of the topic, the Nazi era – as part of a larger historical panorama – is tackled in some detail under the heading ‘Laboratory of Cruelty’, which seeks to question the Nazi narrative. Where items from that time are exhibited, handwritten notes read ‘What’s missing?’ or ‘Blank spot!’ to encourage the visitors to challenge the coherence of the extremist ideology. Now on display is also a large photographic print showing the citizens of Vienna welcoming the Nazis into their city with open arms in March 1938, recognizing Austria’s need for public reckoning with itswartimepast.

However, many seem to have forgotten that a previous exhibition entitled ‘Vienna Falls in Line’ already examined Austria’s WWII legacy by addressing Nazi influence on art and artists from October 2021 to April 2022 in an Ausweichquartier of the museum For instance, in an article dated December 6, 2023 by Kirsty Lang for British media The Art Newspaper, the journalist wrongly stresses that there was no mention of the ‘Nazi past’ in the museum’spreviousincarnation

In fact, the files of the Viennese Reichskammer were examined for the first time two years ago, leading to the creation of a critical 300-page catalogue Along with it, the organized retrospection came about after four years of research by historian of arts Ingrid Holzschuh and fellow curator Sabine PlakolmForsthuber, who combed through the membership files of those who officially belonged to the Reich’s artisticassociationaftertheNaziannexation

A comparison between the previous (while temporary) exhibition and the new (permanent) one sheds light on how the architecture of the renovated Wien museum may prevent the showcase from gaining glimpses of an alternative, dystopian cityscapescarredbyNaziideologythroughproposed designs for reconstructed city areas This was certainly the case for ‘Auf Linie’, a design that featured decorative Nazi pillars, or the startling painting of Heldenplatz by Robin Christian Andersen in which the square was adorned with Nazi flags However, the curation of the exhibition had its own logic: instead of being displayed on the museum’s large walls, the works were packed into just two rooms, as if in a warehouse At that time, curator Ingrid Holzschuh explained such a topic couldn’t be displayed like other exhibitions in the classical sense: it had to be broken up in order to prevent a glorification of National Socialism and a dangerous alternaterealitywhichcouldinfluencethevisitors

‘ how can one explain the media polarizing its emphasis on either the historical or architectural aspect of the project instead of analyzing it as a whole?’

Additionally, how can one explain the media polarizing its emphasis on either the historical or architectural aspect of the project instead of analyzing it as a whole? This is especially intriguing considering the other historical institutions, such as House of Austrian History, which dedicate entire ctions to covering those years. Why is it that the dia is drawn to scrutinizing the absence of cond World War history in these institutions, when ch exhibitions can be easily found in the same aofthecapital?

e renovation of the museum clearly meets two ategic objectives not only for the cultural center, alsoforthecityandthecountry.

t of all, the capital’s decision to follow the British del of not charging for museum admission is a hly political one that can be inferred from the -leaning policy of the city hall Director Matti nzl, who spent more than twenty years working in American museum sector, explained in an erview given to the Austrian daily newspaper Der ndard that the Wien Museum was planned to come Austria’s first free museum, following the ishmodel,asawaytomakeitsculturaltreasures cessible to a wider audience Indeed, this proachalignswithamuseum’smissiontoprovide ucation to people from around the world reover, since the modern construction does not emble a national history museum anymore and condary zones like the museum cafe were turned meeting points at the municipal level, the nature the visits has changed Visitors are invited to me more often, for a shorter period of time This ows them to delve deeper into parts of the e hibitioninamoretargetedwayratherthanplough througheverythinginonego

In parallel, the layout of the museum as a SymposiummatchestheZeitgeist.Rememberingthe atrocities of what happened from the mid-1930s to 1945, seeking to address the complicated war era and having a permanent trace to shed new light on the politics of art under the Third Reich are particularly important now with Austria’s far-right on the rise and predicted to become the largest party innextyear’sgeneralelection

Therefore, much thought has gone into the presentation of the displayed pieces so as not to iconize them For instance, a painting of Hitler giving his infamous Hofburg speech on 15th March 1938 is leaning against a reflective stand The portrayal is not particularly well maintained It was deliberately not restored nor mounted so that sightseers can look over it at themselves in the reflective surface and ask themselves to what extent they might have beeninvolved

‘ the museum questions history and those who write it’

The room dedicated to WWII serves as a historical laboratory, says Head of Communication & Marketing Florian Pollack, in so far as the museum questionshistoryandthosewhowriteit.

The heritage-listed museum hereby challenges Hannah Arendt’s statement that the ‘conflict between art and politics... cannot and must not be solved’ (The Crisis in Culture), by underlining the Wien Museum not as an art museum, but as a history museum And after all, as can be read on the plaque inviting visitors to help the curation team locate other hidden gems: ‘The stories a museum cantellarealwaysincomplete’

ASACK,FILLEDWITHLITTLE SCRAPSOFPAPER-WHAT URFAUSTTEACHESUSABOUT THEBEAUTYOFIMPERFECTION

CONTRIBUTOR: FLORENCE THOMAS

My favourite description of Urfaust, is that offered to us by Goethe: namely, that the play is ‘a sack, filled with little scraps of paper.’ The other quotation which proved an endless source of amusement to my friends when I was writing an essay on Urfaust was one critic’s assertion that it was one of the greatest works of literature of all time ‘second only to the Bible’ As of now, I can find neither the critic nor the essay to cite this Urfaust aficionado with due diligence, but I remember the quote verbatim, so effusive was its proclamation Whilst I am not sure that I would concur that Urfaust is dwarfed only by the Bible in literary stature, there is much we can learn from this earlier draft of Goethe’s later works, Faust I and Faust II. The play is unapologetically fragmented in its structuring, introducing episodes and characters which have seemingly no correlation to each other, only to relate them thematically within an overarching synthesis of themesoflife,death,powerandweakness

‘Whilst final literary works offer us an insight into the author's mind, earlier drafts are, in many ways, a window into the author's soul.’

However, there is much beauty in this unabashed fragmentation; the structure of Urfaust can offer us, perhaps, an insight into Goethe’s psyche In observing the changes made between Urfaust and Faust I, we can observe shifts in character agency and alterations to the moral parameters in which they operate It is through this that we come to an understanding of the importance of the first draft Whilst final literary works offer us an insight into the author's mind, earlier drafts are,inmanyways,awindowintotheauthor'ssoul

Whetherliteratureisbirthedinthesoul,orcraftedin the echelons of the mind, is a question which continues to permeate scholarly discourse One of my favourite quotes about the creation of literature comes from Wordsworth, who, writing eight years before the publication of Urfaust, in the preface to his 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads, describes poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings," and asserts that "it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity" Are we to surmise then, that the narrative (disparate as it is) in Urfaust, is closer in sentiment to Goethe’s own powerful feelings by virtue of being more spontaneous and less the product of extensive redrafting? Are the ideas less concealed by artifice? Perhaps The presence of the German prefix “-Ur” in the work’s title, which can be seen to mean "original, earliest, primitive"wouldcertainlysuggestso

What differences then, can one observe between Urfaust and Faust I? The most prominent, perhaps, can be seen at the very beginning of the play Whereas the beginning of Faust I depicts God making a wager with Mephistopheles as to the corruptibility of the soul, the opening scene of Urfaust takes place in Faust’s study, where he laments that after extensive perusal of ‘ die Philosophey,/MedizinundJuristerey’hehascometo theconclusion‘ daßwirnichtswissenkönnen,’ Thus, inFaust I,Faust’sactions-reprehensibleastheyareare framed within the parameters of transcendental scheming, which arguably detracts from his agency as an individual By contrast, in Urfaust it is Faust’s criticism of the constraints of human knowledge which seems to precipitate his encounter with Mephistopheles and herald the subsequent quagmire in which he finds himself ensnared. Therefore,onecouldsuggestthatinUrfaust,moreof an emphasis is put on the flaws of man, rather than the influence of divine forces The ending of both plays is similarly noticeable for its shift in moral parameters

Whilst Urfaust ends with Mephistopheles declaring of Gretchen that “Sie ist gerichtet!”, Faust I sees a voice from heaven announce her salvation One could, perhaps, suggest that the author shifts the moral trajectory of Gretchen significantly with this change in ending Goethe, in Urfaust, seems to leave it up to audiences to determine whether Gretchen’s repentance for her sins- particularly infanticide- is enough to warrant her salvation The final words that we hear her utter are “Heinrich!”, as she calls out for her lover, Faust. Thus, our lasting impression of her is, perhaps, that of a distraught woman rather than of a soul who will transcend to the heavenly realm. One couldsuggest,perhaps,thattheelementsoftheplay which Goethe edits can be seen as significant in his literary narrative, as they warranted further contemplation This is not to say, however, that contemplation and revision necessarily improve a literary work It should be noted that not all scholars choose to view Urfaust as the mere draft of Faust I which necessarily pales in comparison to the later version of the work Martin Schiitze for example, dubs the play " a complete drama." and Schütze deems it "poetically far superior to the final Faust" . Hence, there is, perhaps, a raw potency to earlier draft versionswhichprecludestheirdismissal

vol 1

‘The ending of both plays is similarly noticeable for its shift in moral parameters. ’

This disagreement as to whether earlier versions of plays should be seen as standalone works, or mere predecessors to final more polished literary works is not limited to the German literary sphere Shakespearean scholars have debated extensively the difference in relative literary significance betweenQuartoandFolioeditionsofhisplays

To take another play of the tragic ilk: the revisions to which King Lear was subject between the Quarto and the Folio edition of the text have been the subject of much scholarly debate Whilst some critics, namely, Michael Warren, Steven Urkowitz, and Gary Taylor have asserted that the Quarto and the Folio text should be viewed as two separate literary works in their own right, what Hornback dubs ‘revisionist critics’ argue that the Folio is merely an improved version of the Quarto, implying that the former lacks, perhaps, the same literary merit Whether revision of a text is conducive to improvement is a question which is difficult to answer, and the very notion of a literary text being ‘good’or‘bad’perhaps,reducesittobinarieswhich are unhelpful in themselves However, there is much joy to be found in the fragmentation of Urfaust, as the disparate episodic structure is conducivetoextensivecontemplation

“Now/ you are naked under your clothes all day,” I often think about this line from Carol Ann Duffy’s poem ‘Adultery’, because its paradoxical nature renders it memorable as a strange, quasitautological image Indeed, I do not doubt that Faust himself, with his penchant for destructive, albeit non-adulterous liaisons, might have found food for thought in this poem But, returning to the image which makes no effort to accommodate our understanding- surely it goes without saying that somebody is naked under their clothes all day? The potency of this image lies in its ability to make us work, as it were, to understand its purpose and meaning The same comment, perhaps, can be made about Urfaust Its structural fragmentation necessitates extensive contemplation of the text in ordertoreallyunderstandit

Wagner, for example, emerges at the beginning of the play in dialogue with Faust, and then never reappears; the surroundings of the play shift from Faust’s study to Auerbach’s cellar to Gretchen’s house, with Goethe never really outlining the narrative trajectory which audiences should follow, or how we ought to understand the development of characters on an individual level W It is also never made clear whether the “Geist” that addresses Faust at the beginning of the play is the same “Geist” whom Gretchen later encounters, or whether both are mere manifestations of a warped anddeterioratingpsyche

We are left to establish our own links between episodes, and this affords us considerable intellectualfreedom

Urfaust is a wonderful, if confusing, work of literature, and not only offers us an insight into Goethe’s psyche, through offering us a manifestation of his ideas which has not been subject to extensive revision, but also, the text can arguably be seen to illuminate his own shifting moral parameters as he edits the text to redistribute agency as he sees fit There is much beauty in the interpretative freedom that the fragmentation of the play affords us, and said fragmentation imbues the work, perhaps, with the dream-likequalityofintellectualmusings

‘There is much beauty in the interpretative freedom that the fragmentation of the play affords us ’

The scenery shifts are rapid and, at times, seemingly inexplicable but it is through the intellectuallabourofmakingsenseofthework,that we can come discover its literary value. So, though Urfaust might be “a sack, filled with little scraps of paper”, there is much that we can learn from leafing through the dog-eared pages, and we mightevendiscoverthatsewntogether,thescraps formamasterpiece

LEOPOLD SACHERMASOCH: THE PEN THAT PUT THE ‘M’ IN S&M

Leopold Sacher-Masoch was raised by a Roman CatholicfamilyinLemberg,aprovinceoftheAustrian Empire and the capital of Austrian Galicia SacherMasoch’s literary works were heavily influenced by the multiple nationalities and religious groups that inhabited Galicia at the time, as he drew inspiration from their various customs and tales of folklore Sacher-Masoch’s Roman Catholic heritage and interest in Jewish culture had a significant impact on his works, contributing to his exploration of JudaeoChristian mythology in Venus in Furs (1870) The novella was intended to be the first piece in his incomplete magnum opus, The Legacy of Cain It is clear that Sacher-Masoch’s representation of female cruelty and male masochism in the novella also evokesDecadentdepictionsofthefemmefataleand transgressivesexualdesire.

Elements of traditional Christian theology often inspired writers of the Decadent literary tradition as both literary canons revolve around ideas of sin and punishment, the eschatological belief in an imminent crisis, and interrogate the relationship between the corporeal and the spiritual

It is clear that Sacher-Masoch exploits various aspects of Judaeo-Christian mythology in Venus in Furs He performs a literary reincarnation of biblical female characters, reimaging them as female temptresses who enact scenes of sexual torture First, this article will discuss SacherMasoch’s allusion to biblical mythology (thus his perpetuation of gender-essentialist rhetoric) and consider how he establishes Venus in Furs within the Decadent tradition whilst operating within a Judaeo-Christianframework

In the postlapsarian world, women are homogenised bytheircruelty,whereasmenareportrayedastotems of the Christian order. I will examine the ways in which male characters appear to be invigorated by the cruelty of women, experiencing a parthenogenic rebirth in their descent into the depths of sin and violence

‘in the postlapsarian world, women are homogenised by their cruelty’

Venus in Furs alludes to various biblical and classical tales that each portray a man who is seduced, tempted, and ultimately betrayed by a female character The novella commences with a quote from the Book of Judith, immediately situating the text within a religious context The deuterocanonical Book of Judith tells the story of a young Jewish widow who seducesandmurdersanAssyriangeneral,Holofernes, in order to save Israel from oppression However, despite saving Israel from invaders, her sexuality is portrayed as deadly and wicked Notably, the nomenclature of Sacher-Masoch’s female character ‘Wanda’ is significant in relation to this particular story.

The name, of Polish origin, is associated with the legend of Princess Wanda, who allegedly led her troops out to meet an Alamann tyrant who was threatening her land Once the German invaders saw her beauty, they refused to fight, and their leader committed suicide Both Judith and Princess Wanda are generally considered to have possessed a fatal sexuality Thus, Sacher-Masoch interlinks the narratives between two disparate pieces of mythology, evoking ideas of the universal fatal sexuality of women and encouraging the reader to anticipate Wanda’s own duplicity (Albina I Kruszewska, and Marion M. Coleman, “The Wanda Theme in Polish Literature and Life,” American Slavic andEastEuropeanReview)

Another character of biblical mythology who is repeatedly referred to throughout the novel is Delilah from the parable of Samson and Delilah Delilah exhibits many of the same qualities as Judith; she seduces and betrays a man to benefit her people As Ann Tzeutschler Lurie claims, ‘The Old Testament is unsparing in its accounts of the wickedness of women, and man’s inherent weakness before their beauty…be their name Eve, Jahel, Judith, or Delilah’ (Ann Tzeutschler Lurie, ‘Gerard van Honthorst: Samson and Delilah,’ in The Bulletin of the Cleveland MuseumofArt)

Female biblical characters are viewed interchangeably; their cruelty is considered to be an archetypal quality of womanhood regardless of the context in which their cruelty is waged. The vast majority of liturgical texts perpetuate the notion that female sexuality is the expression of temptation far removed from religious virtue This ideology may be traced back to the fall narrative of Abrahamic religions, which dictates that Original Sin derives from the moment in which Eve tempted Adam into eating the forbidden fruit, and they were banished from the Garden of Eden Hermeneutic accounts of the Genesis narrative almost unequivocally state thatEveseducedAdamintoabandoningparadisein order to satiate her sexual desire, associated with notions of unnatural curiosity, effectually using her sexuality to lure him towards the eternal damnation of humanity Therefore, the concept of the fatal woman may be traced back to Eve 19th-century Decadent writers drew upon this concept of destructive sexuality, reimaging her as a femme fatale As Lucas Tromly asserts, ‘the femme fatale is perhaps the most iconic figure of fin de siècle decadence In the femme fatale, female agency is hypersexualised and invariably entails the downfall of the men she attracts’ (Lucas Tromley, ‘“Lady tiger in a Tea Gown’: Decadence, Kitsch, and Faulkner’s ‘Femme Fatale,’” in The Mississippi Quarterly). In this way, Eve may be described as the prototypical femme fatale, the figure on which characters like Judith,Delilah,andWandaarebased

Sacher-Masoch parallels the relationships between Severin and Wanda and other biblical figures, illuminating not only the archetypal female attribute of cruelty but also the male characters’ shared desire to pursue this cruelty Samson and Severin consistently seek out emotional and physical flagellationintheiractivepursuitofdespoticwomen. Severin dreams of a brutal lover, attesting that the ecstasy of ‘tormenting bliss’ (Leopold SacherMasoch) supersedes the delights of happiness Richard von Krafft-Ebing coined the term ‘masochism’ in his 1886 text Psychopathia Sexualis, inspired by the works of Sacher-Masoch He defined thetermasa:

‘peculiar perversion of the psychical vita sexualis in which the individual affected, in sexual thought, is controlled by the idea of being completelyandunconditionallysubjecttothewill of a person of the opposite sex; of being abused. This idea is coloured by the lustful feeling; the masochist lives in fancies, in which he creates situations of this kind and often attempts to realisethem.’

Although von Krafft-Ebing’s definition of masochism accurately describes Severin’s desire for a dominating lover, Sacher-Masoch rejected the term himself and generally denounced the Austrian psychiatrist’s theories on sexuality Severin proposes that his penchant for sexual torment is a symptom of his ‘supersensual’ (Leopold Sacher-Masoch) nature This Faustian term can be used to describe both an extremely strong sensorial response and also, paradoxically, an experience so strong that it is actually beyond the range of what is perceptible by the senses Thus, the term ‘supersensual’ can be used to describe an event that does not belong to the experienceable physical world and is an entirely spiritualsensation.

‘Eve may be described as the prototypical femme fatale’

Severin relates his passion for a cruel woman to the plight of a religious martyr He theorises that martyrs (generally practitioners of sexual asceticism) are subversively hypersexual and that their restraint is a form of self-flagellation which brings them an even greater sexual gratification Within Decadent poetry andprose,masochismisoftenemployedasastrategy to combine both the impulses towards the worldly and the unworldly. Severin and Wanda appear to fetishize this liminal space between life and death that they anticipate a martyr to occupy as he transcends from one spiritual plane to another They believe that through great suffering, one gains access to a type of spirituality that cannot be realised on earth The focal point is not the physical experience of being hurt but the supersensual experience that follows it Georges Bataille identifies the correlation between sex, death, and Christian theology in his ‘Eroticism, Death and Sensuality.’ He discusses the works of the Marquis de Sade, who is closely associated with Sacher-Masoch and considered to represent the literary inversion of Sacher-Masoch’s masochism Bataille interrogates Sade’ssadisticdeclarationthatmurderconstitutesthe height of erotic intensity, which may be related to Severin’sdesiretobekilledbyhislover

Sade dictates that ‘there is no better way to know death than to link it with some licentious image’ (George Bataille, Eroticism, Death and Sensuality) In death, erotic pleasure is independent of reproduction and thus becomes a domain of violence This violence may accompany the change of state between the discontinuous and the continuous, meaning that sexual union results in the eternal continuity between two previously discontinuous beings: ‘eroticism is assentingtolifeevenindeath’(GeorgeBataille)

Moreover,Christianpiety‘eschewedthedesiretouse violent means to probe the secrets of existence’ (George Bataille) because flesh is the ‘born enemy’ (George Bataille) of people haunted by Christian taboos In this way, to reveal the flesh in death signifies a return to spiritual freedom Severin wishes to descend into the depths of sin and violence and die at the feet of his lover, believing that this will constitute a ‘beautiful sanguinary end’ (Leopold Sacher-Masoch)fromwhichhecanthenriseagain

Giles Deleuze also examines this process, describing it as a ‘second, autonomous and parthenogenetic rebirth’ (Gilles Deleuze, ‘Coldness and Cruelty,’ in Masochism) He relates masochistic desire to ideas of maternity, suggesting that a female tormentor is necessary for a man to be ‘reborn from the woman alone’ (Deleuze) After Wanda abandons Severin, he claims that he is ‘cured’ of his previous desire to submit to a woman He says to his guest, ‘A woman’s power lies in man’s passion’ (Leopold SacherMasoch), and thus, one must remove one’s passion in order to remove the power In order for a man to gain strength and become ‘the hammer’ (Leopold Sacher-Masoch),hemustfirstfallunderthelashofa woman, which is why he craves it so compulsively According to Deleuze’s theories, Severin is ultimately reborn, removed from the weakness that first attached him to a woman’s nature. Therefore, female cruelty is an imperative component in the attainment of male strength and spiritual bliss It is clear that Venus in Furs operates within a JudaeoChristian framework, echoing and exploiting elements of biblical mythology Sacher-Masoch reimagines female biblical characters as 19thcentury daughters of Decadence in his construction of Wanda as the ultimate femme fatale Additionally, male characters are described as being sexually invigorated by this cruelty, yearning for tyrannical lovers in order to be cured of their passion for women and achieve spiritual fulfilment as separate from their sexual desire for degradation Venus in Furs is an innovative piece of Decadent literature in

TEXASDEUTSCH - A FADING SLICE OF GERMAN-AMERICAN HERITAGE

CONTRIBUTOR:

THOMAS DE LE FUENTE

Not far from Texas’ capital of Austin lay a few of what appear to be normal, unremarkable towns Fredericksburg, Greune, New Braunfels, and Schulenburg, all are typical Texan towns, filled with pickup trucks, blue jeans, and boots But tucked away in these towns and others across Texas are the fading remnants of an often overlooked unique cultural and linguistic community. The Texas Germans and their dialects ofTexasdeutsch

The prospects offered by Texas led to the creation of the Adelsverien in 1842 or “German Emigration Company”, by a group of German nobles in Biebrich, near Mainz. These nobles sought to create larger German colonies in Texas through purchasing further land grants and the large-scale settlement of German colonists, both as an economic venture and torelieveoverpopulationinruralGermany

‘tucked away in these towns and others across Texas are the fading remnants of an often overlooked unique cultural and linguistic community’

Johann Friedrich Ernst, from outside of Oldenburg, had immigrated to the United States in 1829, but upon hearing of the favorable conditions in the colonies of Texas, immigrated and received a land grant in 1831 in what was then known as MexicanTexas Heandhisfamily,alongwithfellow German and friend Charles Fordtran of Minden, became the first Germans in Texas Ernst wrote a gleaming letter to a friend back in Germany describingTexasinaverypositivelight,notingthe favourableclimate,abundantresourcesandland, and personal freedoms. This letter was then circulated around Germany The letter, along with other ‘America Letters’ led to a small steady stream of Germans arriving in Texas and creating rural settlements around Ernst’s land grant over thenextdecade

While this venture had been an economic failure and became defunct in 1853, it had succeeded in bringing a further 7,000 Germans to Texas between 1844 and 1847 and had firmly established Texas as a major site for German emigration. Some of the settlements created in this period, such as New Braunfels in 1844, and Fredericksburg in 1846, remain as some of the most significant towns with Texas Germanheritagetothisday

Though educated, these settlers found that their skill sets did not adequately prepare them for frontier and agricultural life, with many of them dispersing into other German colonies or cities like Houston and San Antonio. While some of these settlements faded into history, a few still exist such as Tusculum, which later became the modern town of Boerne with a population of over18,000

‘The immigration of the 1830s and 1840s had firmly established the “German Belt” in central Texas’

The immigration of the 1830s and 1840s had firmly established the “German Belt” in central Texas, and by the 1850s, there were as many as 20,000 German-born Texans The American Civil War put a brief halt to German immigration, as the Union Navy blockaded the ports of the rebelling southern states Texas, supporting the institution of slavery, had joined the rebellion in 1861, and issued the Confederate Act of Conscription, forcing Texans over 16 to join the Confederate army in 1862, which brought preexisting tensions between the liberal abolitionist German settlers, who were loyal to the Union, to aboilingpoint Thisculminatedinaviolentclash between German settlers attempting to flee Texas and the Confederate army in an event known as the Nueces Massacre, where thirty-six German settlers were killed or executed after a brief battle, commemorated in the Treue Der Unionmonumentin1866

Following the defeat of the rebellion and the reopening of Texan ports, German immigration once again exploded, bringing an estimated 40,000 more Germans between 1865 and the early 1890s, including Germans from the midwestern regions of the United States such as Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois Later German arrivals increasingly moved to cities, leading to a larger urban population of Germans, with San Antonio, the second largest city in Texas in 1880, beinguptoathirdGerman.Germancultureand language thrived throughout the late 19th century, with around 90,000 Texas German speakers,whospokeGermanathome

These German communities were fairly isolated, and functioned effectively autonomously, with German shops and churches German towns hostedsängerfestsandresidentswereeducated primarily in German German language newspapers were published, including the oldest, the Galveston Zeitung, dating back to 1847, and the Neu-Braunfelser Zeitung, which continues publication today as the New Braunfels HeraldZeitung,althoughitisinEnglish.

‘German communities were fairly isolated, and functioned effectively autonomously’

The beginning of the 20th century would see the Texas German community dramatically decline American opinions of Germans soured during the First World War and a 1918 law mandated English as the only language to be used in education, with limitations being placed on Germanlanguagenewspapersaswell.

Similar sentiments arose during the Second World War with German names and culture being seen as unpatriotic, resulting in few parents passing down German to their children While Texas had reached a peak of around 160,000 Texas German speakers in 1940, the number of new speakers dropped to near zero Overthenextdecades,TexasGermansbeganto assimilate,withtheexplosivepost-wargrowthin Texas bringing non-German-speaking Americans into German communities, as well as making it easier for German Texans to disperse German ceased to be a significant primary language across the United States, and the speakersofTexasdeutschdwindleddramatically throughout the latter half of the 20th century With no new speakers, the language was set for extinction Today, the population of Texas German speakers numbers only around 5000, with many being elderly, scattered around the state, in stark contrast to the flourishing culture of the previous century. Though critically threatened, efforts are being made to revive, or at least preserve the language that defines this uniquesliceoflocalcultureandhistory.

Texas German and the Final Era of a Dying Language

The German immigrants in Texas came from a wide range of areas within Germany, which during the mid-19th century still consisted of many smaller states, with dialects varying from region to region Hans Boas, a professor at the University of Texas and directoroftheTexasGermanDialectProjectbelieves five to six different dialects may have contributed to the development of Texas German, which itself is not a single dialect, but rather a collection of dialects with significant variation between speakers and regions Boas in an interview stated, "We've not been able to find any real regularities in Texas German We can take 25 speakers who are the same age, the same gender, and from the same place, and they all say things slightly differently” Texasdeutsch is as Boas describes it, a blend of multiple dialects of 19th century German with elements of anglicization 5-6% ofTexasGerman’svocabularyconsistsofloanwords from English, such as ‘die Fence’ (Standard German - Der Zaun), ‘Die Creek’ (Standard German - Der Bach), and ‘Das Car’ (Standard German - Das Auto) Words like ‘Mitaus’, a direct translation of the English ‘without’, or ‘Wasever’, taken from the English ‘whatever’, further reflect the influence of English on thedevelopmentoftheTexasGermanvocabulary

Texas German settlers also had to adjust to their newhomes,encounteringwildlifethatdidnotexistin Europe such as the Skunk, affectionately named ‘Stinkkatze’, literally translated as ‘Stink cat’ (Standard German - Stinktier), or the Armadillo, named the ‘Panzerschwein’ literally ‘Tank pig’ (Standard German - Gürteltier) The late 19th century also saw Texas German accommodate the technological developments of the time, such as the new airplane, known as a ‘Flugzeug’ in standard German,butasa‘Luftshiff’inTexasdeutsch

While Boas and the Texas German Dialect Project work tirelessly to preserve and understand the intricacies of Texas German, he recognizes the language is nearing its death A language only survives as long as those who know it choose to use it, and Texas German is on the path to extinction. Boasin2015statedthatoptimistically,TexasGerman may have 30 years left Pessimistically, only 15-20 The Texas German Dialect Project travels around Texas, interviewing and documenting the language of the remaining Texas German population, and for many of the speakers, it may be the first time they havespokenTexasdeutschindecades

Through these efforts, it is hoped that the mechanics and intricacies of dialect can be preserved for future study, but also it is hoped that the human side of Texas German can also be preserved. Boas’s research enquires about notjustthelanguage,butthespeakersandtheir lives Elderly speakers can recall their childhoods in their dialect, reopening a chapter of their lives many closed decades before and reconnecting Texasdeutsch to a fading era of the region's historyandculture

‘A language only survives as long as those who know it choose to use it’

Though Texasdeutsch may sadly be destined for extinction, the efforts of Boas and the documentation of its speakers keep not only a unique linguistic phenomenon alive but also the memory of the Texas German culture, and what itmeans,ormeanttobe,aTexasGerman

EDUCATIONFORGLOBAL RESPONSIBILITY:GLOBAL CITIZENSHIPEDUCATIONIN GERMAN-SPEAKINGCOUNTRIES

CONTRIBUTOR: JANA MORITZ

Due to globalization, the world is increasingly becoming a single interconnected city where distances and borders are less significant. This leadstolocaleventshavingaglobalimpact,asthe 2020 pandemic has clearly shown us The challenges we face are no longer merely on a national level but also have relevance on a global scale To ensure peace and stability in the 21st century, we must establish a greater network of collaboration to minimize global risks and utilize world resources such as our planet itself and the financialmarketswithanethicalconscience

This development calls for a new type of citizen: the global citizen It is crucial that people do not retreat into nationalism out of fear of major challenges. Such a retreat is often a means of avoiding confrontation, serving as a defensive mechanism when faced with unfamiliar and intimidating issues People are often drawn to nationalist parties when they feel economically or existentially insecure, as these parties provide a sense of belonging and security The education systemis key in shaping our worldview and is essentialforpromotingacosmopolitanmindset

Against this backdrop, this article examines how the German education system integrates and considerstheconceptoftheglobalcitizen.

EducationforGlobalResponsibility

A key task of education is to empower (young) people to understand and critically reflect on globalissuesintheircomplexity GlobalCitizenship Education is an international approach that aims to impart political education on a global scale The German UNESCO Commission describes the goalas:

‘ein Zugehörigkeitsgefühl zur Weltgemeinschaft zu entwickeln, sich zu engagieren und eine aktive Rolle in der Gesellschaft zu übernehmen, um einen Beitrag zu leisten zu einer friedlichen, gerechten Welt, in der ökologische Ressourcen bewahrt werden.’

-- (UNESCO Deutschland 2023)

Guide to Global Citizenship: Changing EducationalLandscape

In the English-speaking world, the concept has already been discussed for some time, while in German-speaking countries it is still a relatively new field Despite initial skepticism, the ideas that lie behind the theory have been discussed in various avenues of education, such as development policy education, global learning, and peace education In Germany, the approach is often expanded to includeother important societaltopics such as peace and human rights. However, this pushes the original concept to the background. These topics are important for a democratic understanding, but the actual goal is to convey the idea that we are all interconnected andformaglobalcommunity

Since the refugee crisis in 2015, society’s expectations for an 'immigrant society’ have grown On the other hand, we see in many European countries a growing tendency towards isolation and increased national thinking, including Germany and Austria The right-wing populist party AfD achieved 12.6% in the 2017 federal elections and was the party with the largest increase of 79% These ideological differences pose a significant challenge for a commonglobalvaluebase

In2017,theGermanUNESCOCommissiontookover the coordination of the platform Nationale Plattform Bildung für Nachhaltige Entwicklung to focus primarily on national sustainability goals In schools, promising approaches have been developed

The framework Globale Entwicklung serves schools as a stimulus to integrate sustainability into the everyday life of a student. The goal is to gradually realign the didactic approaches of individual subjects, simplify subject coordination, and enrich teaching through interdisciplinary and project-oriented methods The concept of sustainable development in education does not serve as a rigid guide, but rather as a signpost that supports students in learning, evaluating, andacting.

WHATAREGERMANYANDAUSTRIA DOINGTOENCOURAGE SUSTAINABLEFASHION,ANDCOULD THEYBEDOINGMORE?

Introducing German and Austrian fashion industries.

The fashion industry in Germany is currently one of the leading industries within Europe’s largest economy In 2023, the German apparel industry is estimated to have generated €717 billion in revenue The nation's strong economy sets an example for other countries, with a GDP of €387 trillion in 2022. It's no wonder Germany is known as the ‘Economic Powerhouse of Europe’, and it’s clear that the German fashion industry significantly impacts the fashion industry on an international scale. Not only should we consider Germany’s fashion industry but Austria’s too The GDP in Austria is much lower at €4471 billion in 2022, and consumer spending on clothing in Austriawas€928billion

Even though these figures are quite low comparedtoGermany,itisimportanttonotethat German-speaking countries such as Germany and Austria have closely linked consumer markets It is crucial to examine both of these nations together to gain a comprehensive understanding of sustainable fashion in Germanspeakingcountries

Backgroundoffastfashion

Fast fashion is very prevalent in Germany with the rise of big fast fashion companies such as Zara, H&M and Primark, which have very high brand awareness there. According to the BMUV (Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Naturschutz, nukleare Sicherheit und Verbraucherschutz), 40% of clothing bought in Germany is never or rarely worn This figure highlights Germany’s fastfashionattitudes

These companies encourage unsustainable production and consumption patterns within the fashion industry worldwide, not just in Germany Unsustainable production methods used in fast fashion significantly damage the environment and waste resources In 2020, an article ‘Fashion on Climate’, reported that the textile industry caused 21 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions annually For the fashion industry to meet the 15degree target set in the Paris Agreement by 2023, it must reduce its CO2 emissions by at least 50%, around 1.1 billion tons of CO2. This can be achieved through promoting sustainable fashion whilstatthesametimereducingfastfashion.

‘In 2020, an article ‘Fashion on Climate’, reported that the textile industry caused 2 1 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions annually.’

Thecurrentswitchtosustainablefashion

Even though there is a growing rise in fast fashion, there is also a growing public consciousness and awareness of buying more sustainably. According to a survey conducted in 2022, sustainable shopping options were deemed necessary by almost 70% of shoppers in Austria. In contrast, a 2023 survey conducted by YouGov found that only 48% of German consumers believe buying sustainable fashion is important. Overall, consumers are becoming more informed about the negative environmental impact of the fashion industry, which is pushing them to consider more sustainable clothing options Not only are consumers becoming more conscious, but clothing manufacturers are, too A study by the industry magazine ‘Textilwirtschaft’ where 73% of a total of 169 fashion manufacturers that were surveyed said that sustainability is ‘the most urgent project of our time’ However, these consumers can be susceptible to greenwashing by big brands such as Zara and H&M due to misleading information on clothing items In 2021, it was reported that 65% of German consumers would buy more sustainable clothing if it is clearly identifiable as such This shows the necessity for better labelling of sustainableclothinginGermany

What is currently being done to foster sustainable fashion?

Despite fast fashion and greenwashing being a significant issue in the fashion industry, efforts are being made by the EU to tackle it In March 2022, the EU Commission announced its Sustainable Products Initiative (SPI) and a proposal for an EU strategy for sustainable textiles This new proposal features stricter sustainable production requirements, which shouldencouragedurabilityandcircularityintextiles The current requirements only cover electronics and cars, whereas this new proposal would include textiles, furniture and building materials State Secretary Dr Christiane Rohleder supports the EU Commission’s new quality requirements and standards for textiles The current requirements only cover electronics and cars, whereas this new proposalwouldincludetextiles,furnitureandbuilding materials State Secretary Dr Christiane Rohleder supports the EU Commission’s new quality requirements and standards for textiles. These new proposed regulations would save money, energy and resources in production and forge more sustainable paths in the clothing industry. As a result, energy efficiency and resource protection requirements for moreproductswouldbebetterregulatedinGermany andtheEUasawhole.Anotheroneoftheaimsofthe SPI is to inform consumers in the EU about the true sustainability of products and protect them from greenwashing companies. The SPI and the EU Commission’s strategy would benefit the environment and improve global production conditions in the textile sector. Even though clothes manufacturers are attentive to sustainability, the EU Commission and the German and Austrian governments should encourage this This proposal

Ecotextiles

Another way that Germany and Austria are making the fashion industry more sustainable is through the use of eco-textiles. Eco-textiles have a certification indicating their production process meets social, ecological and sanitary criteria. Currently,lessthanonepercentoftextilematerials are reused to make new articles of clothing. This must change in order to keep up with the growing consumerdemandforsustainablefashion.

‘Currently, less than one per cent of textile materials are reused to make new articles of clothing’

In Austria, Eco Counselling Austria (die Umweltberatung) and a market research institute have created a consumer typology for socially and ecologicallyproducedtextiles Theyalsodeveloped communication and marketing strategies to promote eco-textiles This aims to broaden and strengthen the range of eco-textiles, still niche products in Austria To further expand the presence of eco-textiles beyond their niche, it is essential to raise public awareness to support the integration of eco-textiles into mainstream retail As a result, the project has led to extensive collaboration with Austrian suppliers of eco-friendly textiles In 2007, the first eco-textile trade fair in Austria, Ecotrend 07, was introduced as the first project of the ‘Network of Natural Textiles in Austria’ This event attracted over 3,000 visitors, providing them with a wide range of natural textile products However, critics have argued that there is a need for more availability of eco-textiles in standard retail chains as these eco-textiles are only available from naturaltextileretailers.

Despite eco-textiles being identified with ecotextile labels in Austria, this is not the case in Germany. Even though Eco-textiles are certified withcertainlabelslikeFairTradeandGOTS,thereis no official government labelling system referring to the eco-friendliness of textiles. It's clear that the German government needs to respond to the increase in demand for sustainable fashion by German consumers and ensure a solid framework tofosterthegrowthofsustainablefashion.

The growing use of cheap synthetic fibres creates a challenge for recycling textiles Additionally, the ministries also support mandatory requirements for incorporating recycled textile fibres into newly manufactured clothes. Currently, the EU lacks the large-scale infrastructure for ‘fibre to fibre’ recycling. To ensure high-quality collection and recycling of used textiles in the future, the BMUV is conducting research to explore how extended producer responsibility can be implemented. However, these proposed standards would build the framework for a carbon-neutral circular economy and help Germany meet the 1.5-degree targetsetintheParisAgreement.

Conclusion-istheremorethatcanbedone?

Despite the proposed initiatives and requirements by the EU Commission, I believe there still need to be more initiatives to promote sustainable fashion and reduce fast fashion Increased regulation should provide the legal framework where further environmental and resource protectionrequirementscanbeimposed German and Austrian companies and governments need to respond to the increase in demand for sustainable fashion by German and Austrian consumers, as well as the need to hit climate change targets Additionally, increased sustainability education plays a vital role in rethinking our consumer behaviours Overall, it is clear that approaches to fashion and textile production are continuing to change for the better Still, there needs to be an improved framework in the fashion industry to encourage this

SWITZERLAND: UNDERSTANDING THE ENIGMA

Upon my arrival in Switzerland, I was a fresh English language assistant and I could not possibly have predicted what kind of adventures I was going to have in my year away from university. Switzerland is a bit of an enigma. Prior to moving there, I had only spoken to a handful of people who had actually visited the country. Everyone else I spoke to usually responded with, "No, I've never been But I'd love to go!" I wondered what it was about Switzerland that made it less accessible to people It was only through living therethatIfinallyunderstood

The biggest obstacle I faced in Switzerland was the linguistic puzzle which is Swiss German had just spent two years at university learning High German (Hochdeutsch) Although I knew Swiss German was different and had seriously considered this before I took the job, I could not predict how much it would dominate my experiences But this was not just a language transition; it symbolised the broader journey of adaptation and growth I was about to embark uponinthisnewculturalandeducationalsetting

Switzerland has a rich linguistic tapestry, with its four official languages: German, French, Italian and Romansch English is the unofficial fifth language

The Swiss German dialects, varying from Basel Deutsch (Baseldütsch) to Zurich Deutsch (Züritüütsch), add another layer of complexity They do not teach Swiss German at school, as it is typically the student's mother tongue, and therefore does not have official language status I found that the students I taught were very motivated to learn and improve their English as they acknowledged its use in the business world, however most of them did not hold the same enthusiasm for learning French I know that this was a struggle for my colleagues in the French department and the French speakinglanguageassistant

I was lucky enough to secure a job in the Gymnasium Kantonsschule Wil, or ‘Kanti Wil’ as we often referred to it This was a cantonal school, where the students are generally aged between 14-19 years old With a daily schedule spanning from 7:20 am to 5:45 pm, this was, to me, a testament to the school's unwavering commitment to academic excellence However, this dedication wasn't confined to the timetable The hallways resonated with the amicable greetings of students,symbolisingarelationshipfoundedonmutual respect

‘ I wondered what it was about Switzerland that made it less accessible to people’

As I delved into the pedagogical experience, I met my colleagues from the English department Each teacher had their own set of goals for the upcoming school year and I was given criteria to fulfil in my classes I only taught half of each class at a time, which meant the students could not only receive much more devoted attention on their English language learning journeywithanativespeaker,butmycolleaguescould also utilise a smaller class size to their advantage In some classes we had discussions on contemporary issues, like the implications of drug misuse and the ethical considerations surrounding the death penalty, or the debate on the varied use of CCTV between the UK and Switzerland, which particularly stood out as it shed light on contrasting societal values and privacy concerns.

Meanwhile, literary exploration through reading The Hunger Games with some of my classes was not merely an exercise in reading. We analysed character arcs,culturalnuances,anddrewparallelstoreal-world socio-political dynamics, fostering a holistic understandingofliterature'sreflectiononsociety.Iwas pleasantly surprised to see that a book I had been obsessed with as a teenager was still popular for teenagers now. Reading in one’s target language is always an effective tool for language learning and the students were much more motivated to learn this way. Wealsohadtheaddedbenefitofthehugeblockbuster movies that came out years ago From guiding pronunciation drills to aiding reading comprehension, preparing students for Cambridge English exams and even overseeing entrance and the Matura exams – my responsibilitieswerediverseandrewarding

At Kanti Wil, every student has their sights set on one pinnacle: the Matura This is a significant academic milestone for students at any Gymnasium as it is a key to unlocking the next step in their academic journey: university MydescriptionofthestudentsofKantiWilas ‘ridiculously well-behaved’ became a fond phrase among my colleagues The enthusiasm of my students made way for innovative pedagogical techniques For instance,Mafia-agamewherestudentsdecipherwho amongst them is secretly a part of the Mafia This encouraged critical thinking, engaged communication, and fostered teamwork within an exhilarating narrative

The school's ethos was its most defining feature. It is a space that celebrates curiosity, asking questions and learning. And for me, the school was not just a workplace; it was a sanctuary. The serene atmosphere, fostered by supportive staff and driven students, meantthatIlookedforwardtogoingtoworkeachday. I felt like I was learning just as much as the students were.

My colleagues often reminded the students that having a language assistant and attending my class was a privilege I appreciated this as it meant that my students did not see me as a temporary teacher but rather showed me as much respect as they did their official class teachers That is not to say that I didn't have my difficult days or unruly students Every teacher does And this was important for me to learn as well Sometimes you can prepare the most engaging lesson, with games, activities, exciting videos to watch and there may still be one student who does not take part or want to speak at all I came to understand that students all have the same universal problems, regardless of what country they live in. Seemingly minor incidents like receiving a bad grade or being separated from their friends could really impact their mood and motivation.

But why is it that Switzerland is not as accessible as other countries? Despite the fact that I made many Swiss friends, which everyone told me would be impossible due to the stereotype of Swiss people being too closed and resistant to new friendships as they get older, I could see that without speaking Swiss German, it would be very difficult to ever fully integrate into Swiss culture. But not impossible. The country is of course also extremely expensive and many of my Swiss friends and colleagues complained about rising food and rent costs I believe that many people from other countries see Switzerland as mysterious They do not know about the array of languages that Swiss people speak, as well as the French and Italian speaking regions Perhaps the Swiss prefer to maintain a sense of mystery in order to preserve their cultures and traditions

‘for me, the school was not just a workplace; it was a sanctuary’

Reflecting on my time in Switzerland, it was much more than a job as a language assistant - it was transformative Beyond my role as a teacher, it was about assimilating a culture, understanding diverse perspectives and evolving as an educator Due to many memories of enthusiastic students, supportive colleagues, and enriching cultural experiences, I believe that it will remain one of the most defining periods of my life Switzerland's steadfast commitment to multilingualism is not just a testament to its cultural heritage but also to its egalitarian ethos The cantons cherish their independence and autonomy, ensuring that no single language be it German, French, or Italian overshadowstheothers.

This balanced coexistence reflects Switzerland's adaptability and its progressive stance, as it navigates the future while honouring each region's linguistic identity. English is still finding its feet there, butIhavenodoubtthattheSwisseducationsystem will continue to challenge their ways of teaching to make sure that future generations of students stay rootedintradition,whilecontinuingtoevolve.

RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN CONFLICT: POSSIBLE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES FOR GERMANY

CONTRIBUTOR: INGA KULIABINA

IIn this article, I will analyse the impact of the RussianUkrainian conflict on the German economy Germany, as one of Europe's leading economies, has significant economictieswithbothcountries

First, I would like to consider the tourism sector According to Destatis, (Germany's Federal Statistical Office), the number of Russian tourists in Germany fell sharply Wecanobservethisonthegraph

The number of Russian tourists coming to Germany fell from 2 million in 2019 to 268,000 in 2022. A primary cause for this decrease is the increased visa restrictions for Russian citizens According to the Schengenvisastatistics,only40,000visaswereissued to Russian citizens in 2022, contrasting the 7 million visas that were issued in 2019 A decrease in the number of tourists could have a negative impact on Germany's budget, as tourism is one of the country's mostimportantsourcesofincome

Another possible consequence is an increase in electricityandgasprices

Energy prices for German households fell markedly at the beginning of 2023 but have remained at a high levelsincethebeginningoftheenergycrisis Theprice comparison website Check24 concludes that prices for almost all types of energy consumption (including electricity, gas and transport fuels) continued to decline throughout January, thus maintaining the downwardtrendinenergypricessincethepeakofthe energy crisis in the autumn of the previous year However,pricesremainedhigherthaninJanuary2022, prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine Annual energy costs for the average household in January 2023 amounted to €6,270, down 13 percent from a month earlierbutup3percentyear-on-year,eventakinginto account Germany's subsidy package for heating and electricity bills. Heating prices were down 22 percent compared to December 2022, while spot market gas prices fell 44 percent. The cost of electricity fell by two percent compared to the previous month but remained eight percent above the price at the beginning of last year. However, the price of electricity on the wholesale market fell 52 percent from the previousmonth.

Germany is heavily reliant on Russian gas and oil. The conflict could disrupt supply or lead to increased prices, which would affect both consumers and businesses Germany may need to seek alternative energy sources, which could be more expensive or lessreliable

Supply bottlenecks and significant price increases in the previous stages of the economic process influenced the inflation rate Price increases were recorded primarily for energy, but also for other goods andservicesasaconsequenceofthecurrentcrisis

"In addition to the Covid-19 virus pandemic, Russia's war against Ukraine is now also having a marked impact on the rate of price increases in Germany, especiallyforheatingoil,motorfuelandnaturalgas, as well as for some foodstuffs," said Dr Georg Thiel, presidentoftheGermanFederalStatisticalOffice.

Energy prices rose 39.5 percent year-on-year. Between March 2021 and March 2022, commodity prices (as a whole) rose by 12.3 percent. Energy prices rose particularly dramatically: in March 2022 they were 39.5 percent higher than in the same month of the previous year (February 2022: +22.5 percent). Prices for heating oil more than doubled (+144.0 percent ). Prices for motor fuel (+47.4 percent) and natural gas (+418 percent) increased significantly Price increases for other energy carriers also significantly exceeded the general inflation rate, such as solid fuel (+193 percent) and electricity (+177 percent) Several factors contributed to the increase in energy prices: in addition to the crisis, the increase in CO₂ emission fees from 25 to 30 euros per tonne of CO2 had an impact (Destatis)

According to UNHCR data, as of 18 July 2023, Poland (1.6 million), Germany (1 million) and the Czech Republic (0.54 million) had the largest number of Ukrainians seeking asylum or other temporary protection. Currently, there are about 2 million refugees from Ukraine registered in Germany. The conflict could lead to an increase in the number of refugees from Ukraine, requiring a humanitarian response and possibly leading to long-term integration efforts, which will require huge investment fromthefinancialandsocialsector

‘Annual energy costs for the average household in January 2023 amounted to €6,270’

The graph (see top right) shows the inflation of some of the basic necessities, such as food and electricity

Another consequence is the immigration crisis The ongoing refugee crisis began in Europe at the end of February 2022 following Russia's invasion of Ukraine

Around 6 million refugees fleeing Ukraine are registered across Europe, and around 8 million more were internally displaced by the end of May 2022

About a quarter of the country's total population had left their homes in Ukraine by 20 March 90 percent of Ukrainian refugees are women and children By 24 March,morethanhalfofallchildreninUkrainehadleft their homes, of whom a quarter had fled the country

The invasion caused the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II and its aftermath, the first such crisis in Europe since the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, and the fourth largest refugee crisis in history and the largest refugee crisis in the 21st century, with thehighestrefugeeflightrateintheworld

The vast majority of refugees initially entered neighbouring countries to the west of Ukraine (Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Moldova). Around 3 million people then migrated further west to other Europeancountries.

In this article, I have presented only a few of the consequences of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict that couldaffecttheGermaneconomyaswellastheentire EU The consequences can also include geopolitical shifts, fiscal impacts, investment, economic sanctions and so on There are no less important aspects affecting the life of Germany The actual consequences for Germany will depend on the evolution of the conflict, the responses from the German government and international community, as well as the resilience of the German economy and societytothesechallenges

THE EMOTIONAL BURDEN OF HISTORY: CULTURAL MEMORY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN BRITAIN AND GERMANY

CONTRIBUTOR: HOLLY PERRIL

‘History is about cognition and knowledge, collective memory is about experience and feeling’, as Andrei Markowits and Simon Reich suggest. However, the distinction between the historical and emotional is not easy to define Whilst ‘knowledge’ may be seen as referring to objective fact, the details of a historical occurrence which cannot be disputed, it is important to remember that history does not occur within a vacuum It is felt, seen and heard Therefore, the writing of history is underpinned by subjective, emotional experience This ‘feeling’ only grows with time, becoming memory, which challenges a linear narrative of the pastthroughgeneratingmultipleperspectivesona given event These perspectives inform, and potentially alter, the way a past event is perceived History can thus be considered a human document which is continually reconstructed by the lens through which it is remembered If memory can shape the way we conceive of the past, it is valuable to consider the extent to which memory canhelpusnavigatethefuture

DuringmytimeworkingfortheVolksbundDeutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge eV, Landesverband Berlin, I was keen to put this theory into practice by looking at potentially the most traumatic event of the 20th Century, the Second World War. The Second World War touched, and in many cases destroyed, millionsoflives.Here,too,thememoryofthisglobal conflict is profoundly emotional, splintered across fault lines in culture and politics. However, in order to focus in-depth on the complicated emotions that continue to dictate how the Second World War is remembered, I narrowed my focus to Germany and Britain. As nations on the opposite sides of the conflict, I was keen to discover the different emotions they attached to the memory of the SecondWorldWar.

In doing so, my primary aim was to examine the extent to which the frameworks each country had developed for remembering the conflict contribute to a narrative of working towards peace and, potentially, what they couldlearnfromoneanother.

Before beginning this discussion, it is important to acknowledge that what lies between these cultures is more than land mass, but rather the huge, gaping black hole of the Holocaust, which caused the systematic murder of over six million Jews My aim in the project was not to overlook the horrific crimes perpetrated during this time, but to determine how each nation frames its memory of the Second World War and the extent to which this framework is conducivetoworkingtowardspeace

‘ifmemorycanshapethewaywe conceiveofthepast,itisvaluableto considertheextenttowhichmemory canhelpusnavigatethefuture.’

However, the first step was to establish a dialogue In order to achieve this, I set up interviews with academics, the relatives of families involved in conflict and various researchers to analyse how the Second World War is articulated from both a British and German perspective As Mona Baker suggests, a culture develops narratives which construct its understanding of self. Therefore, to break down the boundaries betweenthetwocultures,itwasnecessarytodemystify the boundary between Self and Other by decoding the ‘everyday stories we live by’ (Mona Baker, Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account). I had to develop an understanding of the stories these cultures tell about themselves and how they articulate their postwar identity. Through unlocking this vocabulary, I hoped to gain an understanding of the syntax needed for workingtowardspeace.

I began with analysing the interviews I performed with academics and researchers active in Germany.

Upon my first interview, I was struck by how Professor Helmut König’s assertion that contemporary discussions on how history is told and remembered are ‘nicht zu trennen’ (not to be separated) from the reconstruction of German identity following the Second World War. This suggeststhatthememoryoftheSecondWorldWar is a moral imperative that sets a precedent for a critical telling of history, one which acknowledges responsibility and wrongdoing The ethical impetus of this statement was furthered by Dr Anderson when he suggested that ‘die Anerkennung der Verbrechen’ (acknowledging crimes committed) and the motif ‘nie wieder’ (never again) are foundational to the Germany’s construction of self At first, this seemed to confirm my preconceptions that the German national narrative was tied to a profound sense of guilt, inflected by undertones of shame I began to hear echoes of Joachim Gauck’s famous speech in which he declared ‘es gibt keine deutsche Identität ohne Auschwitz’ (there is no GermanidentitywithoutAuschwitz),whichpresents a very emotional image of the memory of Second World War, and particularly the Holocaust, as an event that continues to haunt and overshadow Germany’spostwaridentity

Nevertheless, I soon learned that it was misleading toreduceGermany’sapproachtosolelyanarrative of shame or guilt. Throughout the interviews, I was struck by the critical self-reflection so present within each discussion, with each academic asking ‘wie wir damit umgehen sollten’ (how we should handle it) and what the consequences of each approach to remembering the Second World War could be. This self-reflection was not characterised by the passivity and silence often attributed to sombre contemplation, but rather very proactive and forward-facing, questioning the consequences of different frameworks for future discussions on conflict.DrAndersonsuggestedthatmemory‘sollte eine Orientierung geben’, emphasising that the framework for remembering the Second World War should be perceived as a strategy for working towards peace In this way, the memory of the Second World War was viewed as setting a precedent for the future, rather than solely making reparationsforthepast

Developing this narrative of critical self-reflection, I was intrigued by Dr Rachel O Sullivan’s suggestion that the concepts of ‘blame’ and ‘guilt’ are unhelpful in framing the memory of the Second WorldWar,astheyaretooemotionallycharged

Itwassuggestedthat‘responsibility’wasamorefitting adjective because it acknowledges the perpetrator of a crime whilst implying there is further work to be done, feeding into the German narrative of Vergangenheitsbewältigung (overcoming the past).

This implies that the rejection of the word ‘guilt’ not only encourages continual self-reflection but also prevents the dialogue on conflict from coming to an end.

‘thememoryoftheSecondWorldWar wasviewedassettingaprecedentfor thefuture,ratherthansolelymaking reparationsforthepast’

Acknowledging the forward-facing, proactive German approach to remembering the Second World War, I was intrigued to analyse how the British perspective complemented, or indeed disputed, this framework for remembering conflict To analyse the British perspective, I interviewed British researchers and relatives of war personnel from the Second World War Here, I was immediately taken aback by the silence, intentionalorunintentional,surroundingtheHolocaust There was coded phrasing referring to ‘unimaginable horrors’ and ‘other aspects of the war’ without the explicit naming of the genocide which took millions of innocent lives Perhaps this arose from the false perception of German reluctance to discuss the war, as I was interviewing on behalf of a German organisation, or pure discomfort in response to discussing such a distressing period of contemporary history. Reflecting upon this silence, I became concerned about how a reluctance to articulate the Holocaust could easily slip into cultural amnesia, burying this chapter of history and allowing for such humantragediestooccuragaininthefuture.

Thereafter, the presentation of the soldiers lost during the conflict was equally revealing. Within each discussion, war personnel were described as ‘heroes’ who had ‘nerves of steel’ and ‘paid the ultimate sacrifice’ Whilst I was moved by such passionate accounts of researchers on behalf of war personnel, I could not shake the feeling that many of these assertions could be unproductive in establishing a vocabulary for working towards peace The epic language used to describe soldiers as ‘heroes’ distanced the war personnel from the concept of the human by presenting them as invincible war machines By presenting war personnel as men and women made of ‘steel’, there is the danger of detracting from the human tragedy of the conflict whichtoremillionsoffamiliesapart

Furthermore, as the interviews went on, I was concerned by how the line between admiration and glorification was beginning to blur, as it became difficult to differentiate what was admiration for a given soldier and what was glorifying the conflict itself. Whilst there was reference to the future, as many interviewees repeated the Kohima Epitaph ‘For your tomorrow, we gave our today’, there was less critical reflection concerning how the memory of the war could be used in contemporary discourse on conflict. Instead, there was a sense of passivity, focusing on how the opportunity for peace had already been ‘given’, hard won by the war generation to be enjoyed by us in the present Whilst it is indeed true that achieving peace would have been very difficult without those who fought within the conflict, thepassivityofthisapproachcouldbedangerous,as it presents peace as a fixed destination, something that is ‘won’, rather than a process which continues in thepresent

Thus, the contrasting approaches of Germany and Britain to cultural memory surrounding the Second World War provide many practical insights into establishing a working dialogue for peace Whilst the British presentation of war personnel as heroes emphasises a sense of gratitude and admiration for those who were lost, there is a very narrow distinction between honouring war personnel and glorifying the conflict itself There were moments in each of the interviews where this narrative of admiration shifted towards glorification, namely when war personnel were described as almost superhuman This depiction not only romanticises the conflict, but also detractsfromthehumanityofthosewhoparticipated in the war, who were not invincible war machines, but rather men and women of flesh and blood. By heroizing the fallen, there is a risk of forgetting the human cost of war. This distance between the interviewees and the conflict was exacerbated by the passive discussion of the fallen ‘giving’ contemporary society peace, which has dangerous implications as itreferstopeaceasafixed,endpoint.

By contrast, the German approach of viewing peace as a process is more practical and forwardfacing as it encourages critical self-reflection concerning the origin of conflict. The more passive British approach has the potential to encourage a kind of nationalism which is unhelpful in working towards peace, as it emphasises the borders between cultures, encouraging a Self-Other dynamic which is a leading cause of conflict. In this way, the British perspective could learn from the German approach to remembering the Second World War through adopting a more futureoriented approach to working for peace through critically reflecting on the role of Britain in the conflict in addition to its human cost This highlights the interesting distinction established between ‘responsibility’ and ‘guilt’ ‘Guilt’ is too emotionally charged to be helpful when establishing a vocabulary for peace, as it centres on an ‘us’ and ‘them’ dichotomy which further draws cultures apart, highlighting their differences instead of unifying them in the interest of peace ‘Responsibility’ is therefore a far more helpful concept, as it acknowledges the need for mutual reflection on the nation’s role in the conflict and its consequences, whilst also suggesting peace is a process,ratherthanadestination

MONARCHICAL MAGIC GRACING GERMANY: A QUESTION OF NATIONAL PRIDE AND PERCEPTION

CONTRIBUTOR: KYLE BLYTHE

As Netflix’s über-popular series ’The Crown’ released its final season this year, I was reminded of my encounter with members of the British Royal Family in Hamburgandtheintriguingquestionsitstirred InApril 2022, I took a break from work to meet my soon-to-be Kingonhisstatevisitbeforehisimminentcoronation I stood before the iconic Rathaus for hours, eager to meet an elderly celebrity, whose late mother’s legacy remained, and whose image adorned both my own national memory and countless souvenirs that UK shops began to sell Why? Was I drawn there by the nostalgia of my British childhood, the excitement that surrounded schools in 2012 with the London Olympics and Diamond Jubilee of the Late Queen? Or was I drawn by more simple pleasures, such as the possibility of getting a photograph and taking the day off?

‘What can my Heimat feel like to someone else?’

As the anticipated hour for HRH and Camilla Parker Bowles’ arrival approached, hordes of Hamburg’s citizens gathered around until the square buzzed with Royalist fanatics NDR cameras and microphones swarmed, and a group of middle-aged Germans surrounded me. Despite their lack of known Anglophone heritage, the group became increasingly intrigued by the media attention and began to question me about the pride I must have felt. How proud was I indeed to meet such a wealthy and ceremonial figure amidst the continuing cost of living crisis that dominated headlines and the anxious chatterofhouseholdsbackonmyhomeisland?

The enthusiasts then probed me about my experiences and feelings about Her Late Majesty’s funeral and whether ‘The Crown’ accurately represented my culture What can my Heimat feel like to someone else? Under our umbrellas shielding us from Hamburg’s typical Shietwetter, they discussed how we should just ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ in the presence of the Royals to express steadfast enthusiasm for their presence One Hamburgerin, despite having no connection to British culture apart from her English husband, confessed her love for collecting such souvenirs mugs, tins, tea towels, and plates emblazoned with the Royals' grinning faces. How many households in Britain, or even Germany taken from the Hamburgerin’s example, treasure similar tat? And how did such bric-a-brac become cherished all the way across the North Sea in Germany. While the Windsor family has Hanoverian roots, their fondness for Germany, apart from their notable appreciation for German-style Christmas traditions, is not as prominently displayed as the Germans'willingnesstoembraceofBritishpageantry.

A key to answering some of these questions may lie in the Bundeskanzler Scholz’s remembrance speech about the Late Queen as he reminisced about how the two nations went from being enemies in war to becoming friends This is the leader of the same country where nationalism remains taboo due to their history as the former enemy Even 1,000 km away in North Germany, I found myself surrounded by the same enthusiasm and excitement I grew up with Royalistprideseemedtobridgethedistance,notleast across the EU borders, and showcased its universal appealbeyondbothphysicalandculturalboundaries

‘Scholz’s

remembrance speech about the Late Queen as he reminisced about how the two nations went from being enemies in war to becoming friends. ’

Returning this commentary to German politics, shortly after the fortunate front-row fans shook HRH’s hand, Steinmeier, the Bundespräsident, also made an appearance However, in comparison to Charles’ warm welcome, his open handshake was met with apathyandreluctancebythesameGermans Infact,I neither recognised him nor his significance This not only underscores the perception of Steinmeier’s role as practically ceremonial, but also highlights the subdued reception towards the German top-boss compared to Britain's What does this therefore suggest for the British Royal Family's presence in Germany's popular consciousness? Is it easier for pride to resonate with political figures (or arguably celebrities)fromoverseasthanwithGermany'sown?If education and discussions about the British monarchy's colonial role were as widespread as those concerning Germany's National Socialist past, for example,wouldsimilargroupsreactdifferently?*

The latter question is particularly intriguing as the British Royal Family's close relationship to Hitler has not remained a secret and even earned an entire episode in Netflix's first season of ’The Crown’, aptly titled‘Vergangenheit’forEnglish-speakingaudiences.

Eventually,theGermancrowd'sconversationturnedto the inevitable topic the elephant in the room, or at least in the tabloid press and royalist fanatics' discussions: Meghan Markle** The group recoiled similarly to those condemning Meghan's supposed influence on tarnishing both Prince Harry and the institution Moreover, they detested Harry's recently published memoir by branding it a compendium of malicious lies They followed the trend of avoiding criticismofPrinceAndrew'sscandalsinfavourofusing Markle as a convenient scapegoat From those whose pride in anything nationalist is scrutinised, it is interesting to reflect on how such biased sentiments have travelled from the UK across the North Sea, via ICE to the German Federal Republic and its people Gossip magazines, much like in Britain, are plastered throughout German kiosks and supermarkets that feature images of William & Kate or Harry & Meghan anddetailtheirdramaticappearancesinpublic

When we bring this all together it begs the question: are there any borders when it comes to monarchical magicandprejudice?

Upon delving into the intricacies of the British Royal Family's influence on German sentiments and the contrasts between the reception of foreign figures versus their own, a web of questions emerges Could the resonance of pride with overseas figures hint at a deeper cultural undercurrent? Could broader education about historical nuances reshape these reactions? Furthermore, the juxtaposition of historical narratives, while distinct, evokes vibrant discussions on memory and representation between the two cultures Ultimately, through questioning the allure of the Royals and their pageantry against the backdrop of Germany's nationalist taboos, this exploration can highlight the intricate tapestry of influences that can shape German public perceptions regardless of politicsandhistories.

AtleastweallgotacrackingphotoofCharles.

* It must be clear however that any comparison between Britain's colonial past and Germany's National Socialist past, particularly concerning the remembrance and dissemination of historical facts, presents nuanced questions in terms of national memory and historical representation. Nevertheless, they are fundamentally distinct and not directly comparable due to the unique nature of their historicalcontexts.

** This piece adopts a comparative approach and seeks to explore both the differences and similarities in the fanaticism surrounding the British Royal Family This helps with examining the contrasts and commonalities in attitudes and thus aims to avoid an‘usandthem’attitude