today we are dealing with the many celebrations around the 9th of November, the semantic subtleties on the subject of land rent and the lessons of professional football from a tragic loss.
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A day between joy, nostalgia and worry
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Issue 46/2019
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If a CDU politician and a linker work together peacefully, it must be a special day. Prime Ministers Volker Bouffier and Bodo Ramelow will today celebrate the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall together with their federal states of Hessen and Thuringia. The prelude is an ecumenical service. Yes, the left also comes to the service. The Protestant Ramelow is a self-confessed Christian, who at the thought of the "divine performance" ever tears in the eyes, and says, "I have nothing to lose, except my Bible." Ramelow and Bouffier will then take a commemorative train to the bridge over the Hessian-Thuringian river Werra.
JENS SCHLUETER / EPA-EFE / REX
Similar meetings, politically equally prominent, exist between Saxony-Anhalt and Lower Saxony, Saxony and Bavaria. In Berlin, the Federal President and the Federal Chancellor attend the commemoration of the Berlin Wall Foundation on Bernauer Strasse. And nationwide, the Germans will meet for the anniversary, sometimes solemnly, sometimes quarrelsome, but always in the memory of a successful, peaceful revolution.
But because the 9th of November is a fateful day of the Germans, which also stands for dark chapters, nationwide the victim of the Progromnacht of 1938 is thought. Many glances today are directed at the memorial service in Halle, whose Jewish community escaped an antisemitic mass murder just a hair's breadth a month ago. The anger of the perpetrator cost the lives of two other people. It is bitter that the pogrom night will get this news this year.
The basic pension counts every syllable
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Do you know the difference between the words need and need? He could decide on the future of the grand coalition. When the leaders of the Union and the SPD meet at the Chancellery on Sunday evening, it will be their last chance to negotiate a face-saving compromise on ground rent. So many rounds of negotiations have already been postponed or ended inconclusively - another postponement would be the bankruptcy of the coalition.
This is where the mentioned B-words come into play. If it goes to the SPD, then only a basic pension without means test is acceptable. If it comes to the Union, a billion dollar "confetti cannon" (A. Dobrindt) is out of the question, for every social benefit there must be a need.
Until a few days ago, I thought that the SPD was primarily to blame for the clutter. Why do not the Social Democrats just want to stick to the coalition agreement, in which the need test is explicitly stated? Then I read the report of my colleague Cornelia Schmergal, in my opinion, the only journalist in Berlin, not only knowledgeable pension policy, but also understandable and linguistically beautiful without the layman synapses in the brain as hopeless knot as the Groko negotiator at the pension.
In any case, Conny reconstructs in her text how the coalition compromise came about, why in fact both sides enforced clauses that could not function in their combination - and what the compromise that emerges for Sunday as the only politically possible solution looks like. Only so much is revealed: it is not the logical solution. In the end, you even understand the difference between need and need.
Learning from the case Enke
Stuart Franklin / Bongarts / Getty Images
You do not have to be a football fan to know the name Robert Enke. The suicide of the depression-plagued goalkeeper ten years ago has roused all of Germany, and has even triggered a rethinking in otherwise so hard-boiled and profit-driven professional football. The team psychologist of the national football team, Hans-Dieter Hermann, was in Enke's time in his capacity, and made himself at that time serious allegations. But he also considered what needs to change in the care of the players. He told this in an interview with my colleague Jörn Meyn. I liked Hermann's honesty: "A second case of Enke can not be completely prevented," he says. "It would be presumptuous to say so."
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Loser of the day ...
Rafa Alcaide / EPA-EFE / REX
... is Pedro Sánchez.
Anyone who thinks that Thuringia has a problem with forming a government should look to Spain. On Sunday, citizens vote there for the second time this year because April's election winner, Pedro Sánchez, failed to form an alliance in six months forge. Many of my colleagues here in Germany recently called for new elections, which is only too understandable given the desolate situation of Groko. I'm a little more cautious, free on the principle Forrest Gump: elections are like a box of chocolates. You never know what you get.
The compact news overview in the morning: current and opinionated. Every morning (weekdays) at 6 o'clock. Order directly here:
The latest news from the night
- SPD presidency: Ex-candidate duo supports Scholz and Geywitz
- Brazil: Ex-president Lula is free again
- Football: 1. FC Cologne separates from Armin Veh
- Italy: High prison sentences for ex-manager of Deutsche Bank
The SPIEGEL + recommendations for today
- Low interest rates and the consequences: When saving makes poor
- Ex-Soviet President Gorbachev on the fall of the Berlin Wall: "It was impossible to go on living as before"
- FC Bayern after the Hoeneß era: "Retreat: Uli can not do that"
- Tips from Paarberaterin Eva-Maria Zurhorst: "most important message: do not be too quick"
- The concept against old-age poverty: why the Union and the SPD got so involved in the basic pension
- Protesters in Chile: "When the projectile hit, I knew that's it"
- As Chancellor Kohl experienced the fall of the Berlin Wall: "See, what did I say"
- 30 years fall of the Berlin Wall: Germany has the ninth-November blues
- DER SPIEGEL Podcast: What the Chancellor dreamed about
I wish you a nice start to the day.
Your Melanie Amann
