Tag - germany

 
 

GERMANY

Japan Times
WORLD
May 2, 2014
Satan, Faust, Walpurga vie for human souls on German 'devil' peak
Pity St. Walpurga, an English nun from Devon. A night of "devil worship" atop a German mountain is not how she would have wanted to be remembered.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Apr 19, 2014
Dresden cashes in on German unification
American novelist Kurt Vonnegut, a prisoner of war in Dresden during World War II, has a scene in "Slaughterhouse Five" where time-traveling hero Billy Pilgrim sees the city's firebombing in reverse, with phosphorous bombs sucked back into warplanes.
Japan Times
WORLD
Mar 23, 2014
Germans finally start poking fun at the Fuhrer
If Hitler were alive today, would he become a standup comic? Incredible though that may sound to anyone who lived through World War II, that is the scenario sketched out in "Look Who's Back," a satirical novel by Timur Vermes, which topped the best-seller lists in Germany after its publication in 2012 and is now about to be published in English.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 7, 2014
Ukraine crisis tests Europe's foreign policy mettle
The international community must balance the need to ensure that Ukraine does not become the site of a proxy battle with the necessity of stopping Russian President Vladimir Putin's destructive ambitions.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 24, 2014
China, eyeing Japan, seeks WWII focus for Xi during Germany visit
China wants to make World War II a key part of a trip by President Xi Jinping to Germany next month, much to Berlin's discomfort, diplomatic sources said, as Beijing tries to use German atonement for its wartime past to embarrass Japan.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Feb 22, 2014
Noam Chomsky: Truth to power
Often dubbed one of the world's most important intellectuals and its leading public dissident, Noam Chomsky was for years among the top 10 most quoted academics on the planet, edged out only by William Shakespeare, Karl Marx, Aristotle.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 24, 2014
Abe's remarks on WWI parallels to be clarified
The government will make clear to other countries what Prime Minister Shinzo Abe meant earlier this week when he compared the rocky relations between Japan and China to those of Britain and Germany prior to World War I, officials say.
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 23, 2014
Abe not painting war with China scenario, Suga assures
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga on Thursday tried to play down the significance of overseas reports that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe compared the current tension between China and Japan to that of Britain and Germany right before World War I, saying Abe wasn't stressing that a war scenario is possible.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 11, 2014
History textbook wars cross borders
Japan is hardly alone in confronting shame about past events and whether to describe them in textbooks. Germany, the United States and China are undergoing similar debates.
JAPAN
Jan 10, 2014
German tourist may have caught first case of dengue fever in Japan in August
A German tourist may have contracted Japan's first case of dengue fever in more than 60 years, the health ministry said Friday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
Jan 8, 2014
Restore the shuttered-up New Year's of yore
First of all, I would like to wish a happy new year to all the readers of Labor Pains. While labor news has generally been a gloomy topic of late, it is my hope that this year will bring brighter things for me to write about.
Japan Times
WORLD
Nov 27, 2013
Leakers, activists find new homes in Berlin
During the Cold War, Berlin was one of the most spy-ridden cities in the world. Now it's the place where people go to escape government surveillance.
Japan Times
WORLD
Nov 19, 2013
Stasi legacy gives Germans different view on NSA spying
German officials have been quick to ascribe the fury of their citizens over U.S. spying to their own history with the excesses of the surveillance state. But victims of the fearsome communist East German secret police say: not so fast.
Japan Times
WORLD
Oct 30, 2013
U.S. spying on friends prompts look at 'adversarial' international system
A week now after the initial revelation that the United States may have monitored the cellphone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, there's little doubt that the story has been damaging for this country and for the National Security Agency, which earned the wrath of even longtime defender Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who oversees it as the Senate Intelligence Committee chair. At the same time, though, the initial anger appears to be giving way to debate: Is it, in fact, a bad idea for the United States to spy on friendly foreign leaders such as Merkel?
Japan Times
WORLD
Oct 30, 2013
NSA chief: European spy agencies gave us data
The director of the National Security Agency on Tuesday dismissed as "completely false" reports that his agency swept up millions of phone records of European citizens, and he revealed that data collected by NATO allies were shared with the United States.
Japan Times
WORLD
Oct 27, 2013
Hitler escape book's authors in plagiarism row
The notorious claim that Hitler escaped his Berlin bunker to live incognito in Argentina first gained popular currency in 1945, when Stalin spoke of it. Since then the idea has resurfaced occasionally, with alleged photographic and documentary evidence pored over by conspiracy theorists. Now the theory that the German dictator followed his fellow Nazis Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele to South America is at the center of a fresh row.
COMMENTARY
Oct 24, 2013
Chances of eurozone reform
How will Europeans strengthen motivations for generally unpopular economic structural reform in debtor eurozone countries, given the political constraints in democratic societies?
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 9, 2013
Angela Merkel's pyrrhic victory
Converting all outstanding European government bonds — with the exception of Greece's — into Eurobonds would be by far the best remedy for resolving the euro crisis.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Sep 18, 2013
Economic disparities center stage in German poll
Germany has near record-low unemployment and a locomotive-strong economy, which leaves Frieder Beckmann with a question: Why can he only get a job that pays $2 an hour?
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 15, 2013
Auschwitz boss' daughter lives secret life in U.S.
Brigitte Hoss lives quietly on a leafy side street in Northern Virginia. She is retired now, having worked in a Washington fashion salon for more than 30 years. She recently was diagnosed with cancer and spends much of her days dealing with the medical consequences.

Longform

When trying to trace your lineage in Japan, the "koseki" is the most important form of document you'll encounter.
Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree