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The Week in Germany: Culture
March 20, 2008
Readings: Second Opinions Courtesy of 'The Week in Germany'
As you might imagine, the TWIG editors spend a lot of time sifting through
the mountain of information available on the Internet about Germany. For
those of you who are not quite as surflustig, we continue our
roving weekly selection of links to top-notch writing about Germany on
the Web. If you like TWIG, you might find these stories interesting as
well.
Happy Reading!
 Berlin
Airlift Legacy: A Last-Ditch Effort to Save Tempelhof
For years, Berlin has been wrangling over what to do with the Nazi-built
Tempelhof Airport in the heart of the city. The site, made famous during
the Berlin Airlift, is slated to be shut down. But an April referendum
may put a crimp in those plans. Patrick McGroarty reports for Spiegel
Online International in Berlin. (Home
of the Historic Berlin Airlift Set to Close in 2008, TWIG, Feb. 23, 2007)
Germans
in America: George Washington's Gardner Slept Here
According to this article from The Washington Post, one of
George Washington's gardners was a German, whose 1770's house has been
restored: "The first gardener to live in the house was a German,
John Christian Ehlers."
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Click above to find out more...
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On
March 23, 1933, A Walk to Remember
In another Washington Post piece, a march by Jewish-Americans that
drew some 6,000 people to New York's City Hall to protest Hitler's policies
towards Jews just three days after he took power in Germany in 1933 is
commemorated by Washington's National Museum of American Jewish Military
History.
Film
Production of Schlink's "The Reader" Resumes with Winslet
And The Post also recently noted that production has "quietly
resumed" on "The Reader" in Berlin after shutting down
last year when Nicole Kidman was forced to drop out because of her pregnancy.
Kate Winslet has stepped into her shoes. Also on board are Ralph Fiennes
and David Cross, as well as Bruno Ganz and Alexandra Maria Lara, who both
starred in the critically acclaimed "Downfall". (Click
here to read TWIG editor David Brown's recent interview with German
author Bernhard Schlink.)
Recurring
Nightmare
The New Yorker reviews a remake of Michael
Haneke's "Funny Games" starring Naomi Watts and Tim Roth.
As Watts herself said during a recent late-night TV appearance to plug
the film to Jay Leno: "It's not for everyone ... you think you are
going to go to a film like this to see people being tortured in some way
onscreen, but in fact you - the audience - will be tortured." In
the original production, the Munich-born Austrian director Haneke clearly
sought to challenge his audience, and this version is also not for the
very young or faint of heart. But the fact that it has attracted top Hollywood
performers and has been remade attests to the lasting interest in Haneke's
provocative work. (Click
here to find out more about the Goethe Institute Washington film series
on Haneke that runs through March 24.)
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