1. The lateral thinker prince and his terror guard
The Federal Public Prosecutor and the Federal Criminal Police Office today arrested 25 suspected right-wing terrorists from the so-called Reichsbürger scene.
Among them was Henry XIII.
Prince Reuss, a 71-year-old nobleman, who the police led out of his Frankfurt apartment in handcuffs this morning.
Prince Reuss is said to be the ringleader of a group that wanted to storm the Bundestag, overthrow the system and form a new government with him as the new ruler.
Now, unfortunately, it is not uncommon for some lunatic to believe that he, as King Alfons the Quarter to Twelfth, must liberate »BRD GmbH« from a puppet regime.
In this case, however, the troops were actually in great danger.
Prince Reuss' terror guard apparently included several former soldiers and an active member of the Bundeswehr.
A police officer who had drifted into the "lateral thinker" camp and had been removed from the service is said to have belonged to the group.
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) spoke today of an "abyss of terrorist threat".
Enlarge image
Alleged ringleader Henry XIII.
Prince Reuss
Photo:
Boris Roessler / dpa
The group also had contacts in politics.
Former AfD member of the Bundestag Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, who has been working as a judge in Berlin again since March 2022, could have provided the subversives with insider knowledge of the Reichstag building, according to investigators.
Since the summer she is said to have been planning to gain access to parliament with an ex-paratrooper.
As a sports shooter, she legally has two pistols.
Malsack-Winkemann's lawyer initially did not want to comment on the allegations when asked.
Defense attorneys for the other suspects have not yet been available for comment.
We reported on the raid on SPIEGEL.de this morning.
The network is now whispering about how it was possible that editors knew about the action on Wednesday morning.
My colleague Jörg Diehl, our investigative coordinator, gives the answer: research, contacts, sources.
Jörg says: "When ministries in eleven states and the federal government, when dozens of constitutional protection authorities, state criminal investigation offices and judicial departments are involved, thousands of civil servants, reporters with good connections in internal security get it.
This is not unique to this case and not remarkable.
However, the question is always how to deal with it as a journalist.
We don't want to endanger anyone through haste or pomposity, because if access escalates, you risk human lives.
We report comprehensively, independently and without restrictions when we think the time is right.«
And so it was today.
Jörg says: "No suspect was warned, had left or was able to resist the police's surprising access."
Not more.
Read the full story here: The Prince's Terror Guard
2. Punctuality surcharge at the post office, dishwashing surcharge in the restaurant?
Delayed deliveries, lost consignments: Swiss Post is struggling with its service, especially now before Christmas.
A top manager of the group has now made a creative proposal as to how the problems could be solved.
She asks for a surcharge for fast delivery.
The fact that the postal service has to deliver 80 percent of all letters the next day is "no longer up to date," said Nikola Hagleitner, who is responsible for letters and parcels on the group board, of the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung".
“We should consider letting customers choose the transit times.
They could then decide whether extra fast delivery is worth a surcharge or whether the letters can take a little longer.«
Enlarge image
Postman in the snow flurry (February 2018): Leave the transit times to the customers
Photo: Thomas Warnack/dpa
In fact, I wonder why other state-affiliated companies haven't come up with a similar idea.
Take the train, for example: rail customers who want to arrive on time will in future pay a punctuality surcharge.
All others travel at the standard stroll rate with the usual delays, of course without heating and on-board restaurant.
Or in the Bundestag canteen, where I occasionally meet with informants.
The price for the meal remains the same, but if you also want a knife and fork, you pay an additional fee ("rinse surcharge").
Seriously: Perhaps the Post should be reminded that it owes its privileges to the fact that it can provide a basic service required by law.
Incidentally, this also includes delivering letters at least once a day and not constantly making excuses about a lack of staff or bad weather.
As Federal Network Agency head Klaus Müller rightly said recently: The situation with letter delivery is "an annoyance for ordinary citizens".
Read more here: Deutsche Post considers surcharge for fast delivery
3. Step, stop, hop, shoot.
If you want to be amazed at the World Cup, look at the penalties: Croatia's magic footballers are suddenly unable to hit the goal from the penalty spot, despite all sorts of contortions.
Poland's Robert Lewandowski performs a kind of Zumba step sequence: step, stop, hop, shot.
Unfortunately sometimes over.
What shoud that?
My colleague Henrik Bahlmann quotes from a study by the Cologne Sports University.
Accordingly, the hopping, the stopping, the supposed lookout of the goalkeeper often produces the opposite of what is intended to be achieved.
The goalie's chances increase as he adapts.
Enlarge image
The view of the goalkeeper, not the ball: Robert Lewandowski (left) against Hugo Lloris
Photo: KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP
In a spectacular penalty shootout, Morocco also threw the high favorites Spain out of the World Cup tournament in Qatar.
Serves the Spaniards right, you may have thought;
out of revenge, because the Spaniards, with their defeat by Japan, contributed to the elimination of the Germans.
However, my colleague Felix Dachsel takes a different view in his World Cup mini column:
“Spain should have reached the quarter-finals yesterday, not Morocco, that's my opinion. Please don't kick your home PC and listen to me for a moment.
Morocco ran a lot, fought a lot, saved all penalties, with the help of the post, Morocco was good. But Spain had the ball for three quarters of the game and let it circulate, Spain still has a football idea, a vision.
The reflex to be against the big ones and for the small ones, against those who have the ball, for those who don't have the ball, against the football empire, because as a latent anti-imperialist you are against empires, this reflex is an expression of a football sentiment that leads to a gloomy dead end .
In this cul-de-sac people kick, run, fight and sacrifice, but no longer play football. I hope those who create will win, not those who destroy. Long live beauty.«
Read more here: What are these weird penalties at the World Cup?
News and background to the war in Ukraine
Poland accuses the federal government of breach of trust:
Patriots for Poland – Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht made the headlines with this.
The problem: Warsaw said it had asked for secrecy.
Now there is criticism from the neighboring country.
»Our country has so much more to offer than war and suffering«:
Wild Cossacks, quirky carpenters, flower girls: in the Ukraine there was life without rocket terror.
A media project portrayed the country in the era before the Russian attack – with amazing photos.
Contested, bombed - but inhabited:
Bachmut in the east of the country is heavily contested: 70,000 people once lived in the city.
Those who remain hold out in ruins and cellars while deadly battles rage outside.
Find all the latest developments on the war in Ukraine here: The News Update
What else is important today
Majority of Germans dissatisfied with all traffic light ministers:
Chancellor Olaf Scholz gives his traffic light good marks after the first year.
But the majority of Germans have a lot to complain about in the work of the alliance - especially in one party.
China relaxes corona rules:
The protests in the country are apparently having an effect: China is turning its back on its strict zero-Covid policy.
People with mild symptoms, for example, can soon remain in home quarantine.
Relatives of dead police officers refuse to shake hands with top Republicans:
Brian Sicknick died after the attack on the US Capitol in Washington.
Now he has been honored posthumously - also by senior Republicans like Mitch McConnell.
The police officer's family made a clear statement at the ceremony.
My favorite story today: Will this save our bus?
While everyone assumes that the days of the combustion engine car are numbered, Andreas Deul firmly believes in the future of his 14-year-old off-road Mercedes.
Its powerful three-liter V6 engine no longer runs on conventional diesel, but on a fuel called HVO100 made from renewable raw materials.
Deul, managing director of a fuel trading company in Ratingen, told my colleague Haiko Prengel that his car only emits around 10 percent of its original CO₂ emissions.
Enlarge image
Burn fuel with no regrets?
Thanks to HVO fuel, even fuel guzzlers like the Mercedes G-Class can be moved in a much more environmentally friendly way, Andreas Deul is certain.
Photo:
robinnw5@me.com / Wirtz Energie + Mineralöl GmbH
Can you believe it?
Unlike the biofuel that has been customary up to now, HVO100 is not obtained from specially cultivated energy crops such as rapeseed.
Instead, according to Deul, vegetable waste such as cooking fats, but also green algae or even plastic waste are used.
The price is still about 20 percent higher than the diesel price.
But that could change in the future.
The disadvantages: Even with the new eco-fuel, the exhaust gases contain soot and toxic nitrogen oxides.
In addition, the basic problem of every combustion engine remains: The efficiency is comparatively poor because a lot of energy is lost as heat.
Nonetheless, I enjoyed reading the text.
Tinkerers like Deul show that it would be wrong to ban combustion engines across the board, as the Greens are demanding for new registrations.
And maybe I'll get the chance to continue driving our old bus without feeling too guilty.
Read the whole story here: Alleged miracle fuel gives fans of combustion engines hope again
What we recommend at SPIEGEL+ today
Why the nature summit in Montreal is so important:
Not only are individual species threatened with extinction, but entire habitats have long been acutely endangered - with serious consequences for humans.
The world community will meet in Canada on Wednesday to stop the shrinkage.
The overview .
Why the cell phone sounds the alarm on Thursday at 11:00 a.m.:
Millions of Germans will hear an unusual sound from their cell phones on Thursday, thanks to the new cell broadcast technology.
But the test alarm of the emergency system has gaps - many mobile phone users are left out.
In the spaceship Enterprise at warp speed in the direction of optimism:
half a year after the US premiere, "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" is finally coming to Germany with the new streaming service Paramount+.
The wait was worth it, it hasn't been this fun in space for a long time.
"It sucks that someone writes something like that":
A study by the World Athletics Federation shows that many athletes are victims of hate and malice on the Internet.
Pole vaulter Holly Bradshaw talks about a 'toxic' environment - and how it affects her everyday life.
Which is less important today
Comforting:
Chelsea Banning, librarian and up-and-coming writer from Ohio, received a lot of comfort from prominent colleagues after a botched reading.
"Only two people came to my book signing yesterday," Banning had tweeted, saying she was depressed and ashamed.
But with her tweet, she triggered a wave of sympathy.
Margaret Atwood ("The Handmaid's Report") wrote that she once had a book signing that nobody came to except for a guy who went to buy duct tape and thought she was the temp.
And Stephen King (»It«) replied that only one customer had come to one of his readings, »a fat kid«, who asked about Nazi books.
Banning's book, a fantasy novel called Of Crowns and Legends, is currently sold out.
Typo of the day
, now corrected: "If citizens are not sure whether a certain article is banned in Germany, they can contact the Federal Network Agency by e-mail at funkstoerung@bnetza.de or by telephone."
Cartoon of the day:
Reich citizens in uniform
And tonight?
Yesterday evening I asked you at this point when you were last at the theater.
The occasion was a SPIEGEL guest contribution by director Matthias Hartmann, who accuses many theater makers of being to blame for the decline in visitor numbers.
More than 50 readers replied to me last night.
Their reactions are of course not representative.
But they show that Hartmann's criticism is shared by many.
Here is a selection:
»The theater left me when no performance could do without senseless undressing and hysterical shouting.
Too bad.« (MK)
»It seems to me that German directors want to work their way through the plays.
As a spectator you have to do some preparatory work, otherwise you are out of place.« (AS)
»There can be no talk of theater fatigue in our family.
But perhaps we are also among the rare specimens of theater lovers who forgive our theater makers for some modern versions of a play.« (ED-S.)
»I follow a principle: go everywhere in Germany, just not to the straight theater – and you will not be tormented with productions that make you wonder what crimes you have committed.« (JH)
'My wife and I were at the theater just yesterday.
Agatha Christie, witness for the prosecution.
Performed by the Landesbühne Niedersachsen Nord in the Metropol Theater Vechta.
We enjoyed the performance and look forward to more evenings at the theatre.” (PH)
»One gets the impression that contemporary theater plays deal almost exclusively with gender issues in the broadest sense.« (H.-PM)
"I don't want to see bare bums or classics that have been screwed up beyond recognition." (MS)
»In the last few years we have repeatedly got up and left during the performance because what we have experienced was no longer bearable.
If there were a renaissance without unnecessary blood, puke or faeces, we would be there again.« (JP dH)
»Many stages have forgotten how to woo their audience.
Instead of offering events, they give society the middle finger with thought-out and stretched out productions.« (HB)
»I love the amateur theater in my hometown.
The program covers the entire spectrum.
And without incomprehensible directorial ideas.« (JS)
I myself have experienced great moments in the theater, with Maren Eggert, Martin Wuttke or Matthias Brandt.
I would hate it if that were the end of it.
But how do you win back the audience?
The relationship seems to be already broken for some.
My request: give the theater another chance, go again, you might like it better than you expected.
And if not: go to the break;
maybe your message will get through.
I wish you a nice evening.
Cordially
yours, Alexander Neubacher
