1. Your neighbor, the agent
Of course, it's not suspicious per se if you're into rustic German cuisine.
It may not be up-to-date anymore, health, animal welfare, you know.
If you add a preference for AfD, Reichsadler and booming war music - what kind of contemporary is that?
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Headquarters of the Federal Intelligence Service BND in Berlin: Only in a few cases it is possible to expose Putin's agents.
In the case of L. it worked
Photo: Christoph Hardt / Future Image / IMAGO
Shortly before Christmas, following tips from foreign secret services, a double agent was caught by the Federal Intelligence Service.
The federal prosecutor spoke of treason: The BND man Carsten L. is said to have supplied sensitive information to Russia – in times of war.
Politicians see the unmasking as an “important blow against Putin”.
A team of colleagues who look after internal security at SPIEGEL have researched L.'s environment in recent weeks.
What they have collected paints the picture of a man who could have been your neighbor: football coach, customer at the Mercedes car dealership, gravel front yard and, of course, lover of home cooking.
Only he didn't work as a department head at the local medium-sized company in Weilheim in Bavaria, but as a department head in the "Technical Intelligence" department of the BND and colonel in the Bundeswehr.
What prompted him to also work for the Russian secret service is not yet known.
But once again it is clear that Russia is pursuing the strategy of flooding the West with agents and double agents.
Tens of thousands of employees of the domestic service FSB, the foreign service SWR and the military secret service GRU are waging a shadow war against the West, in a struggle for power and influence, for raw materials and money.
This war has already lasted much longer than the open war in Ukraine.
And unlike on the battlefield, Putin is far more successful in psychological warfare.
He not only infiltrates secret services, but also institutions of everyday life in order to manipulate and influence moods.
Only in a few cases does it succeed in unmasking Putin's agents.
In the case of L. it worked, for him it was spied on.
But probably thousands continue.
Read the full story here: war songs, hunting trips and rustic food
2. Let me finish
When Anne Will took over the talk show of the same name on ARD, there was no iPhone in Germany.
(The journalistic time scale is often the iPhone generation, just as it is in the case of areas such as the soccer field and the Saarland).
In September 2007, Will, a trained sports reporter from Sender Freies Berlin and presenter of daily topics, took over the talk show from her predecessor Sabine Christiansen – and like Christiansen, Will was accused of not being up to the job.
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Moderator Will: Three times the size of Saarland
Photo: Wolfgang Borrs / NDR / picture alliance / dpa
At the end of the year, with an interruption after more than 16 years (in the meantime Günther Jauch took over this slot), Will gives up the moderation.
You do not want to extend the contract, to devote yourself to new projects.
The show will be discontinued, a successor is not yet known.
Although I'm not a big fan of these talk shows with always the same guests, always the same topics, always the expected course, I will miss them.
At times it was quite a ritual in our house to just hang in there after the Sunday detective story and see what she identified as the top topic of the week.
My colleague Arno Frank has probably reviewed hundreds of your shows.
If you haven't seen them the night before, he summarized the most important passages, usually not without his typical smugness.
These reviews were often among the most read texts on Monday morning, which shows that Will often contributed as much to the political debate as many a Bundestag exchange of blows.
"16 years, that's quite an era, see: Angela Merkel," says Arno.
»And 16 years are good sometimes, see: Angela Merkel.
Anne Will is too professional for a certain weariness as a moderator to be seen all too clearly.
A certain Ennui was recently quite noticeable to be the hostess in a media substitute parliament.
Perhaps the political debate is now shifting to another place.
Maybe even back to parliament?” Arno sums up.
For me, Anne Will was always the most knowledgeable, the most relaxed and also the most unpretentious of the moderators of political talk shows.
For me it was at least three times the size of Saarland.
Read more here: "Anne Will" talk will be discontinued at the end of the year
3. The burden of being a celebrity kid
Lisa Marie Presley, the only daughter of rock 'n' roll legend Elvis Presley (1935 – 1977), has died in California at the age of 54.
"It is with a heavy heart" that she had to announce the death of her "beautiful" daughter, quoted the US magazine "People" on Thursday evening from a statement by her mother Priscilla Presley, 77. A few hours earlier, the actress had written on her social media that Lisa Marie had been admitted to a hospital.
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Lisa Marie Presley in June 2022: Her most haunting song is called "Heartless"
Photo: Jordan Strauss / dpa
Lisa Marie and Priscilla Presley attended the Golden Globe Gala together in Los Angeles on Tuesday evening, where actor Austin Butler won the Globe for Best Actor in Drama for his leading role in the biopic »Elvis«.
Quadruple divorced singer Lisa Marie Presley has 14-year-old twin daughters and one adult daughter, actress Riley Keough, 33. Their son Benjamin Keough took his own life in 2020 at the age of 27.
My colleague Eva Thöne dedicated a moving obituary to her.
»She lived the almost classic life of a US star child between Scientology and drugs as a teenager.
She seemed to define her own celebrity primarily through relationships,” writes Eva.
Presley has been married four times, including to actor Nicolas Cage and the King of Pop Michael Jackson.
She never seemed to find happiness.
But, according to Eva, "does that even exist: the possibility of shaping one's own life when the father is not a human being but a myth - isn't it always shitty?"
Not only is celebrity a privilege, it can also be a burden.
Presley isn't the only child who suffered and possibly broke under his parents' cult of stardom.
Like many others, Lisa Marie Presley had a drug career behind her.
Bob Geldof's daughter Peaches Geldof was found dead at her home in 2014.
The cause of death was a heroin overdose.
rapper dr
Dre lost his son when he was only 20, who also died of an overdose.
Silvester Stallone's son Sage died in 2012 at the age of 36 after suffering a heart attack.
And in 2015, Bobbi Kristina Brown, Whitney Houston's only child, died at the age of just 22.
Lisa Marie Presley herself was also a singer.
In 2012 she released her last album »Storm & Grace«, in which she worked through her own anguish and followed the paths laid by her father in southern soul and country.
The most haunting song on the record is called "Heartless".
Lisa Marie Presley died of cardiac arrest.
Read more here: She continued to live his life
News and background to the war in Ukraine:
Leopard 2 demandsOlaf Scholz criticizes the "uncool" tank debate:
behind closed doors, the chancellor vehemently defended his cautious course on the tank question in front of SPD MPs.
But impatience is also growing in his party, according to SPIEGEL information.
In the video - This is how the Ukrainian troops train for combat use:
With real explosions, mines and lots of ammunition, soldiers prepare for maneuvers in case of an emergency.
At the same time there are dramatic images of the battle for Soledar - which according to President Zelenskyy is not over yet.
Kiev sends reinforcements to Soledar and Bakhmut:
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promises the Ukrainian troops "everything necessary" for the defense of two cities in the east of the country.
And: Poland wants to force allies to act with its Leopard push.
Find all the latest developments on the war in Ukraine here: The News Update
What else is important today
Ukrainian Defense Minister describes his country as a de facto member of NATO:
Defense Minister Oleksiy Resnikov is campaigning for more military aid to Ukraine.
His argument in an interview: The country is practically already a member of NATO.
Tesla cuts prices in the US and Germany:
Things are not going so well for the US electric car maker Tesla.
But the company has always been good at radically changing tack when the situation called for it - and this time it was.
Greenpeace criticizes the private jet hype about Davos:
The private flights of many participants in the economic summit in Davos are "ignorant and inconsiderate," says Greenpeace.
Some of the routes are less than 500 kilometers.
My favorite stories today...
...are all in the new SPIEGEL.
There is the current title about the desolate state of the Bundeswehr and the shattered relationship between the army command and its minister.
The research of my colleagues Kristin Haug, Armin Himmelrath, Miriam Olbrisch about alleged abuse in the gifted club Mensa is as interesting as it is shocking.
But I particularly recommend the text by my colleague Frauke Hunfeld.
She writes about a group of journalists in Berlin who, together with a lawyer, bought an apartment building on Oranienstrasse many years ago.
They collected millions in subsidies for the refurbishment, rented apartments on the quiet and are now offering the building for many millions on the real estate market.
Frauke's story teaches so much about double standards, greed and excess.
And it shows two things: that journalists are not better people.
From time to time, many of our readers assume that we believe that about ourselves.
And it shows that we don't spare ourselves just because it's about our own profession or even colleagues.
What is revealed is written down.
Read the full story here: How a group of left-wing journalists landed the big deal on a Berlin property
What we recommend at SPIEGEL+ today
"Oil and gas will be indispensable for decades to come":
The Norwegian oil and gas giant Equinor is currently making gigantic profits in the billions.
CEO Opedal explains how climate protection should also benefit from this – and how long fossil energy will still be needed.
"Twenty-year-olds are now considering whether they want to have children at all":
In the fight for Lützerath, the Greens are the bad guys for many.
How does Robert Habeck intend to convince young people that his party has a plan to combat climate change?
Here he also says why new Autobahns can make sense.
Biden's sloppiness becomes a political scandal:
Joe Biden's file affair is spreading.
Secret documents were also discovered at a second private location of the US President, and a special investigator is to clarify the case.
Did the White House cover up the finds?
Which is less important today
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Photo: Patrick Semansky / dpa
Biting the sour Apple:
So far, the amount of compensation for the CEO of Apple
Tim Cook
was around 100 million dollars a year.
This was mainly due to the lavish stock options.
In the current year, Cook will have to cut back a lot because his income will probably halve.
A compensation of only 49 million dollars is planned.
Some large shareholders had called for a change in this direction.
Personally, I wouldn't object to that direction.
Mini concave mirror
Here you can find the whole concave mirror.
cartoon of the day
And tonight?
The star pianist Igor Levit enthuses: »Johanna Summer is an outstanding jazz pianist.
She is so centered and with herself, handles the material confidently and freely, and yet always hits her own note.« And the piano virtuoso Joachim Kühn praises: »Her music is full of imagination and without category.
Coming from European classics, with a wonderful touch, she has created something perfect, her own.
Beautiful music from A to Z. A new star in the piano sky.«
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Pianist Summer: »Music full of imagination«
Photo: Sven Thielmann / IMAGO
I can only agree with this enthusiasm.
For me, Johanna Summer is a new discovery of the past year.
The young Vogtland native, who was born in Plauen in 1995, has so far released two albums on the ACT Music label.
If you just like beautiful music, you could give them a listen - while looking forward to their third album.
It's called "Resonanzen", it's about the improvisational narration of the music of classical composers and it will be released on January 27th.
It was a pleasure to accompany you through the week, I wish you a nice evening.
Heartfelt
Your Janko Tietz
