back from berlin!

We’re just back from Berlin, after this fantastic long week-end dedicated to the fall of the wall. Our digital camera is in ER, so let’s hope that our reflex did a good job…photos in a few days, like in 1989!

The domino fall was fantastic, we were at Elizabeth Lueders Haus, opposite the Reichstagufer.

Actually, in the morning we were interviewed by RTL “What does Berlin mean for you?” “Were you here in 1989?”. Unfortunately not…that’s why we didn’t want to miss this 20th anniversary! In spite of an easyjet flight cancellation, wir waren dabei!!

Festival of Freedom – Berlin, 9th november

From the mauerfall website:

The ‘Festival of Freedom’ will begin at 7 pm with an open-air concert at Pariser Platz by the Staatskapelle Berlin conducted by Daniel Barenboim. After the concert, the fall of the Berlin Wall will be symbolised by knocking over the designed dominos, which will be broadcast live in ZDF from 7.25 until ca. 8.15 pm. Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to attend this extraordinary event.

Under musical direction of Daniel Barenboim the Staatskapelle Berlin and the Staatsopernchor (choir study: Eberhard Friedrich) play the following programme:

• Richard Wagner: Lohengrin, Prelude to Act III
• Arnold Schönberg: A Survivor from Warsaw, op. 46 (Speaker: Klaus Maria Brandauer)
• Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 7 A major, op. 92, IV: Allegro con brio
• Friedrich Goldmann: Es ist, als habe einer die Fenster aufgestoßen (Fragment, 2009)

Ca. 7.25 pm Entrance of the guests of honour (heads of states and governments) through the Brandenburg Gate from East to West

Ca. 7.30 pm Greetings and speeches by Klaus Wowereit and Angela Merkel and representatives of the former Allies Nicolas Sarkozy, Dmitry Medvedev, Gordon Brown and Hillary Clinton. Speech by Marianne Birthler in the company of Katrin Hattenhauer and Roland Jahn.

Ca. 8 pm Statements by Lech Walesa and Miklós Németh in discussion with moderator Guido Knopp and fall of the first dominos at the Reichstagsufer, followed by music from ADORO. Appearance of Mikhail Gorbachev and Hans-Dietrich Genscher, brief discussion with moderator Thomas Gottschalk. Followed by Bon Jovi presenting the song “We Weren’t Born To Follow”

 

Ca. 8.25 pm Berlin pupils and Jerzy Buzek and José Manuel Barroso in discussion with moderator Klaas Heufer-Umlauf at the Potsdamer Platz. Fall of the longest row of dominos, almost all the way to the Brandenburg Gate, accompanied by the band Stamping Feet. Statements by Nobel Peace Laureate Muhammad Yunus and young artist Ahn Kyu-Chul from the divided Korea in discussion with moderator Thomas Gottschalk.

Ca. 8.40 pm Finale: Paul van Dyk presents the hymn “We are One”. Fall of the last domino in the presence of everyone involved and the guests of honour at the Brandenburg Gate.

your local politician

Yesterday we met our local deputy Mayor in our Bezirk (Municipio III) in Rome. It was about the local catacombs and bike sharing. We told her about the current light-saving technique used in Rome and also in our borough: during the week selected blocks go in complete street lamp blackout. Her answer: “Oh really? Let US know…”. Because she’s not a citizen. She’s something different from us simple citizen. As our friend Ramius said “un atteggiamento cardinalizio” (a bishop-like attitude).

Yesterday Jan-Marco (the man on the poster) was elected in Schoeneberg. We’ll see.

I’m not worried for Germany

Photo: tagesspiegel

Whoever will win today’s Elections or form in the new Koalition, will form a more than decent government!

If only Germans would give us part-time the loser of the Election.

no party-crashers in Berlin, bitte

Looking forward to November’s celebrations in Berlin, I hope the city will remain – as many Italian bars in the German capital already are – a “Berlusconi freie Zone”.

A party-crash by Berlusconi would be another source of embarasment for many Italians (and not only). He should already have other parties on his schedule anyway.

Berlin invites all EU leaders to Berlin Wall celebrations

The British, Russian and French leaders are among those expected in Berlin for the festivities, set to climax in a “freedom party” at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate.

Berlin — Germany has invited all European Union leaders to attend ceremonies in November to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday.

Speaking to reporters after an informal EU summit in Brussels on Thursday, Merkel said: “I invited all colleagues from the European Union to take part in our celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the Wall falling on November 9.”

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and French President Nicolas Sarkozy are among those expected in Berlin for the festivities, set to climax in a “freedom party” at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate.

The Soviet leader at the time, Mikhail Gorbachev, will also take part, as well as former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan.

One world leader not likely to attend is US President Barack Obama, who will be in Asia for a summit. Former president Bill Clinton will likely represent the United States instead.

AFP/Expatica

German elections: the A3 campaign

During the past Italian elections I took many pictures of the billboards on the streets. Slogans, faces. I thought that could be interesting in a few years’ time.

I took a few pictures too during the German elections campaign. Mainly in the city center of Berlin and Potsdam. On main roads there are big posters, but in the streets where people live the majority of them are in A3 size, and not as tall as a person and mounted on metal paravents on the pavements, making traffic for pedestrians even more difficult, like it happens on our streets for any election.

A few examples.

The Green’s Cem Ozdemir in Potsdam…Angela Merkel and Silvana Koch-Mehrin in Schoeneberg share the same place on the corner of Innsbruecker and Badensche Strasse…The DKP on Planufer, Kreuzberg…On the Landwehrkanal, in between Kreuzberg and Potsdamer Platz, die Linke:….and I uploaded this from the SPD’s website, since my picture was too dark:

On average election campaign Plakate and materials didn’t litter the city and were not pasted one on top of another.

serious people only please

In about one hour Merkel and Steinmaier will be face to face on tv. During my month in Berlin I sampled a bit the lukewarm temperature of the campaign. True, the Bundeswehr bavure in Afghanistan costing several civilian lives for sure has shocked the public and may change the landscape.

But it is quite refreshing to see two political leaders fighting against each other on a televised debate, on difficult themes such as the role in a war and the state of the economy. And the tv is just a “media”, a broadly neutral eye.

In Italy we’re used to the fact the the tv has a role in the fight, and actually takes sides. Takes the side of His Video Shortness. That’s why next Saturday we’ll have to hit the road again and join a protest against the limitations of freedom of the press and against journalists which are too prone to the power.

Germans may be unsatisfied, bored, unhappy with their politicians. But I think they don’t feel ashamed by their behavior on a daily basis, and don’t receive by their foreign friends the usual end-of-dinner question: “Tell me, can you explain me HOW he got elected AGAIN?”.

Many Italians think the German take themselves too seriously. And they also think of themselves as quintessentially simpatici.

It could be true that Germans take themselves too seriously. But if this means that their politicians don’t take the citizens for total idiots and don’t behave like jerks in international summits, I’d prefer a bit less Commedia and a bit more seriousness. Baci da Roma, aka Truman Show.

Photo: SpiegelOnline and  federicasgaggio.it

Marchionne’s auto-critique

Busy week in Rome this week. Many celebrities in town. All the bosses from the big corporates were in town for the industrialists’ meeting, and for the seismic waves emanated from it, conferences and the like.

So today at 5pm Mr Marchionne appeared magically (from Detroit? from Berlin? from some Ministero?) in steamy hot hot-house Rome, wearing his Linus-style blue jumper in an appropriately sub-zero air conditioned conference room. He sipped an espresso in religious silence at the speakers’ table in front of a couple of hundreds of eyes. I thought the moment was very Louis XIV.

Bits and pieces. He explained platforms and said that an Opel today has a 80% Fiat Punto skeleton. So the operation should make a lot of sense to the German government, if you know that I mean. (But we’ll see how that turns up over the weekend).

He also said that in the car industry top management either comes from the back  – the kitchen, ie the factory -  of from the glitzy front, the Geneva Car Show. But the car industry cannot look pretty and sassy in the front if it does not clean up its ugly kitchen. (For sure there were some greasy c(r)ooks at the helm, in those kitchens…)

He said that the car industry has been destroying value for too many decades. (That  makes a lot of sense. If the car industry were the IT one, we would still be running Lotus 123 and playing Pac Man, with advertising on TV boasting “green figures on a black background: cool!”).

He explained the negative Net Working Capital mechanism. You get paid for the sale of the car before you pay the metal that goes in it. Sort of magic. That magic stops  when you stop producing.

He said that the car industry did all sorts of monkey corporate behavior. Buy financial services. Sell them. Buy components manufacturers. Sell them. They tried all the tricks. Now it’s over. (Good auto-critique…or car-critique).

die deutsche vita

Today’s pictures in the Morgenpost show a nice spring light in Berlin, with tulips in Marzahn, bathers in Wannsee and people with their feet in the Sony Center fountain.

It must be the deutsche vita… ;D

ethics, c’est chic

The referendum in Berlin didn’t change the status quo. Ethics for everybody at school, as a common ground, and religion(s) on the side, only if you are interested. BerlinRomExpress celebrates with a post!

(source: Morgenpost)