1. Right to left down
“What happened afterwards is history.” This sentence is in my colleague Peter Ahrens’ obituary for the footballer Andreas Brehme (here is the entire text). And it can be applied to many of Brehme's career stages:
With 1. FC Kaiserslautern he famously overran Real Madrid 5-0 in the European Cup in 1982.
He celebrated the championship with Bayern Munich in 1987.
At Inter Milan he was Italy's Footballer of the Year in 1989.
He became world champion with the German national team in 1990.
After being promoted back to the First Bundesliga, he won the German championship and the DFB Cup again with Kaiserslautern in 1998.
Brehme, who made West Germany world champions in 1990 with a penalty goal against Argentina, has died of cardiac arrest. As the first player of the 1990s national team, at just 63 years old, 44 days after team boss Franz Beckenbauer.
Unlike the team's stars, Brehme never wanted to be in the public eye. The man with the best right foot in Germany felt at home on the football field, “there he knew what to expect from him. He also knew what he could do there," writes Peter, who immediately started writing a text about PSV Eindhoven after honoring Brehme and who wrote about fan protests the previous night. That's how it is in the football business. It doesn't mean that the ball is at rest, but rather that the ball is rolling.
For Brehme, however, he has been resting in recent years. Fans could book him if they wanted a video message recorded for their birthday or wedding anniversary. On the pitch he was famous for his shots from beyond the edge of the penalty area, but in front of the camera he was rather clumsy. He made the headlines again about a year ago when he accidentally filmed his scantily clad girlfriend in the background while saying such a greeting to "dear Alfred" on his 80th birthday. Brehme later took it with humor. “Now the whole world knows what a great wife I have!”
What happened next is history.
Read Peter's obituary here: A penalty for eternity
2. Ten years of Maidan and no end
Ten years ago today, the protests on Maidan Square in the Ukrainian capital Kiev escalated. They marked the beginning of the confrontation between Russia and the West that continues to this day. In the previous weeks, tens of thousands of Ukrainians demonstrated against Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych. They wanted their country to turn away from Russia and become a member of the European Union.
Burning barricades on the Maidan, February 20, 2014
Photo:
Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
In the center of Kiev they set up a permanent protest camp for a good three months, in the middle of Independence Square (Maidan Nezaleschnosti). The Yanukovych regime had them taken away, arrested and later shot. At the height of the protests alone, around four dozen demonstrators were shot on what was then called Institutstrasse and the Maidan. My colleague Christian Esch watched the carnage from the hotel window. "For the Russian president, the Maidan was an armed coup, carried out by neo-Nazis in the pay of the West, a hybrid attack on Russia," he writes in a moving essay. And Putin's attack on Ukraine in 2022 "is revenge."
Seventeen police officers were also shot and dozens were shot during the protests. Yanukovych first left the capital and shortly afterwards went into exile in Russia. The overthrow of Yanukovych served as a pretext for Russia to then annex the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea. In eastern Ukraine, separatists supported by Moscow broke away from Kiev, and the years-long armed conflict in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions was used by the Kremlin as justification for launching the invasion of Ukraine that began two years ago.
On the tenth anniversary of the suppression of the Maidan protests, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj recalled the bloody climax. "It is a reminder that ten years ago the Ukrainians decided once and for all: We only want and will live in one European state," said Zelensky in a video message. He once described the Maidan uprising as the “first victory in today’s war.”
Christian sees this in a more nuanced way in his essay. »Putin's attack on Ukraine in 2022, this crime in its purest form, I see in black and white. When I remember the Maidan, however, I see shades of gray.«
Read the essay here: Soul and Body for Freedom
3. Murders as a pattern
Another victim of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which has now been going on for ten years, is probably Maxim Kuzminov. The Russian army helicopter pilot defected to Ukraine in August last year.
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The Russian pilot Maxim Kuzminov flew to Ukraine in August 2023 with a fully equipped Mi-8 army helicopter
Photo: Chubotin Kirill / Ukrinform / ABACAPRESS / IMAGO
The pilot had flown to Ukraine from Russia in a fully equipped Mi-8 army helicopter. After landing at a Ukrainian military airfield, the other two crew members were shot while trying to escape, according to Ukrainian sources. The Russian had apparently informed Kiev of his plans. He survived and received the equivalent of over 460,000 euros for the crime.
Kuzminov was found dead with multiple gunshot wounds last week in an underground car park in the southern Spanish town of Villajoyosa near Alicante. The suspicion is that he was tracked down and killed by the Russian secret service, even though he was traveling in Spain with false documents. State television in Moscow reported in the fall that the Russian secret service had received the order to kill the man who was considered a traitor.
Today there was something like a partial confession: the Russian pilot was a "moral corpse" when he planned his crime, said director of the SWR foreign intelligence service, Sergei Naryschkin. He didn't say anything more. But he didn't have to say anything more.
Read more here: Russia calls dead helicopter pilot a "moral corpse"
What else is important today?
UN experts accuse the Israeli army of mistreating Palestinian women:
UN experts make serious allegations against Israeli soldiers. It's about acts of sexual humiliation, including rape. Where the clues come from remains unclear at first.
Several politicians in Thuringia were targets of criminal actions:
Destroyed windows, swastika graffiti and an arson attack: There have been several incidents in Thuringia with a suspected right-wing extremist background. You should meet politicians from the SPD and the Left.
Putin gives Kim Jong Un a car
: While the West is increasingly turning away from Russia, Putin is strengthening his relations with North Korea. The country supplies him with weapons in the war of aggression against Ukraine - now there is a personal thank you.
Women have to train much less than men to achieve the same health benefits
: 400,000 people took part in the study over 20 years: A US-Chinese project examined the positive effects of sport, with a focus on life expectancy. The figures presented are impressive.
My favorite story today: Through the garden with license plates
I admit that this situation in the evening is not particularly uplifting so far. Death, more death and in point 3 death again. We remind ourselves every day not to appear too gloomy. And we actually have the items on offer that also provide amusement. This is the text of my colleague Alexander Preker. He reports on the traffic light government's plans to introduce compulsory insurance for ride-on lawnmowers, "a bastion of German masculinity," as Alexander writes. »Neither the state chamber nor the insurance industry understand what grievance the coalition wants to remedy with the law. Problems? There were none." The text is recommended solely because of the headline that appeared above the article in the printed SPIEGEL: "New foreign and security policy"
Read the full story here: Attack on the riding mower
What we recommend today at SPIEGEL+
“Putin is actually deeply risk-averse”:
Donald Trump encourages the Kremlin to attack NATO states. But can and does Putin even want to do that? Russia expert Mark Galeotti believes this scenario is almost impossible.
How Wissing's ministry is failing to deal with the hydrogen affair:
FDP Transport Minister Volker Wissing has to have more and more dubious processes checked. New emails and documents available to SPIEGEL show that his ministry's clarification was inadequate.
What's the use of smoking a little less?
Instead of quitting completely, some smokers decide on a compromise: just one cigarette a day instead of a pack. Does this reduce the health risk? Nope. But there is also good news.
His first mission:
The Defense Minister visits the crew of the frigate “Hessen” – during a stopover on the journey to the Red Sea. For Pistorius, it is the first military operation he has launched. It's a dangerous one for the Navy.
Which is less important today
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Minister Prien
Photo: IMAGO/M. Popov / IMAGO/Metodi Popow
Already from Prien-zip:
The deputy CDU chairwoman and Schleswig-Holstein's Minister of Education
Karin Prien, 58
, would like to ban cell phones in schools. Since August last year, schools in the north have been required to set rules for use. “Our decree was the right step and has proven successful,” she says. And Ms. Prien also has some unsolicited advice for you: “Parents’ discipline when using their cell phones in the presence of their children” is very important. So I hope you don't read this situation at the dinner table. Otherwise there may soon be a decree for cell phone use in the kitchen.
Mini concave mirror
You can find the entire concave mirror here.
Cartoon of the day
And tonight?
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Filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov
Photo: Jordan Strauss / Invision / AP
It's rare that I sit on the sofa in the evening and tear up while watching TV. Yesterday evening the time had come: I followed the recommendation of Tagesthemen presenter Jessy Wellmer and then watched the Oscar-nominated documentary “20 Days in Mariupol”. A Ukrainian team from the AP news agency documented the first 20 days of the siege of the port city on the Black Sea. They are brutal images, you can hardly bear them. The atrocities of the Russian invasion are merciless. (Here is the trailer.)
The reporters were the only ones on site to film the beginning of the battle for the strategically important city, including the suffering of the civilian population, mass graves and the bombing of a maternity hospital. You can see how the resuscitation attempts come too late for 18-month-old Kirill in the hospital. How a father cries for his 16-year-old son, whose legs were blown off after a grenade hit him while playing soccer. How a desperate pensioner flees to her house, assuming she will be safe there. Then it is shot at.
The film (here in full length in the ARD media library) by Mstyslav Chernov would have deserved to be shown at prime time instead of the same old quiz shows and crime thriller formats. Then perhaps more people would have seen him who still believe that Putin's Russia is actually okay and is only acting in self-defense.
I wish you a thoughtful evening. Heartfelt
Yours, Janko Tietz, Head of Germany/Panorama Department