Good evening,


The grass is always a bit greener on the other side.

A proverb that, especially in this dry summer, raises the suspicion that the neighbor is secretly watering his garden.

And this despite the fact that everyone was called upon to save water.

How fast the prejudice goes, why fewer and fewer young people want to do a voluntary social year and what is behind the conflict at the Wiesbaden State Theater - today in the Hauptwache.

Marie Lisa Kehler

Deputy head of the regional section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

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Golfing on green grass:

Sometimes you just want to get excited.

About the city of Frankfurt, for example, which still sprinkles completely withered green areas on the Main with water.

Or about the golfers in Kronberg, who appear to be strolling across lush, green lawns.

They water!

And that despite the fact that Kronberg has long been calling for water saving.

But whenever you want to get upset, someone comes along with an explanation.

So also in these two cases.

In Frankfurt, according to the Department for the Environment, Climate and Women, only very few lawn sprinklers are still in operation.

And these would be fed with water from the Main – there is even a pumping permit for this.

Well, that leaves twice as much trouble for the golfers.

But the same applies here: first ask, then judge.

On the golf course, too, everything is done properly.

Because the water

The water that the golf and country club uses to irrigate its lawn does not come from the water pipe, as Markus Erdmann, the club manager, explains.

And groundwater is not used either, as our editor Jan Schiefenhövel found out.

Instead, the gardeners obtain the water from a "dig" - a tapped spring.

The mining rights belong to the castle, in whose park the golf course is located.

What is art allowed to do?

A poster that has already been taken down, showing Richard Wagner in a swastika, is making waves at the Wiesbaden State Theater and far beyond.

Last week, the Bild newspaper reported for the first time on what it called the “swastika scandal”.

The director of the state theatre, Uwe Eric Laufenberg, and orchestra director Ilia Jossifov accuse the managing director Holger von Berg that Jossifov, himself a Jew, had to sit under exactly this poster in Berg's office.

An accusation that attracts a lot of attention and once again raises the question: What is art allowed to do?

Berg justifies himself.

The poster dates back to his time in Bayreuth and was created as part of the Nazi investigation to illustrate the involvement of the festival.

This is evidenced by the inscription "Diskurs Bayreuth".

The poster in question hasn't been hanging for a long time - but the debate about artistic freedom, the political attitude of the managing director and how to deal with such an accusation has sparked.

In the meantime, politicians, including Hesse's anti-Semitism commissioner, have also commented on the incident.

Our authors Guido Holze and Ewald Hetrodt have written down what is being discussed at the Staatstheater and what is being rumoured, what allegations are still being made and why there is probably no mediation talks.

Fewer applicants for voluntary service:

The number of applicants for voluntary services in Hesse is falling.

Many positions remain vacant - and thus the opportunity for many professional fields to introduce themselves and also advertise for potential employees in this way.

In Hesse, more than 30 organizations offer voluntary services - and they can all report a significant drop in applicants.

The search for reasons for the lack of interest has long begun.

One guess: After the pandemic, young people feel the need to compensate for the deprivation of the past few years.

In addition, the voluntary services must now exist alongside other offers.

They were particularly attractive to potential first-year students during the Corona period because online teaching at universities and the restricted student life deterred many.

Our author Rainer Schulze met a young man who used the past year to complete his voluntary social year.

He reports how Corona influenced his decision, what he learned about himself and life and why with only 330 euros per month this experience is not accessible to everyone who is interested.