1. How helpful are humanities?
What day was today?
A look in Outlook says: March 18th, another Monday made, now please just finish work.
A look at the history book, on the other hand, shows: we just got away with it.
Because in terms of human history, March 18th is like looking at the scales.
Full of horror at the current situation, improvement is praised, and then it remains the same.
On March 18, 1793, for example, the first republic on German soil was proclaimed in Mainz, on March 18 (1813) Hamburg temporarily became Russian, the Paris Commune rose in 1871 and briefly dreamed of freedom and took place in the GDR (1990). the first free elections took place.
On March 18, the revolutionary sailors rebelled in Kronstadt (1921) and were massacred by the real revolutionaries as punishment.
And in 1848, democrats and imperial forces fired at each other in Berlin.
All on March 18th.
It is therefore surprising that there was no change of power in the capital today, not even a cabinet reshuffle or a new traffic light switch.
So the Chancellor can appear calmly at the 50th birthday of his parliamentary group's "Seeheimer Kreis" tomorrow and doesn't have to sit with his back against the wall.
As a boomer, he has learned (more on that later) that catastrophes generally do not occur in this country.
In any case, according to literary scholar Julia Grimm, it can't hurt to have learned a little intellectual history.
Read more here: “A need for experts can arise overnight”
2. When will there be a bang in the Ministry of Transport?
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Department head Wissing: Dangerous terrain
Photo:
Hannes Jung / manager magazine
Unless, of course, you are responsible for traffic and infrastructure.
For Volker Wissing, this was not a feel-good day, but rather a day that he would have preferred to skip.
My colleagues Serafin Reiber and Gerald Traufetter, who are, as usual, well informed, are to blame for this.
They describe how Wissing himself comes under pressure in the “hydrogen affair” and how “his ministry threatens to slip away.”
We remember.
Hydrogen was the molecule with two atoms, the minimum in the periodic table.
In chemistry class there was the oxyhydrogen test, and it made a quiet “pop” sound when everything went well.
But sometimes there was a huge bang.
And that's what it looks like.
There is funding from the state for the development of promising hydrogen technology.
Top government officials are the first to know this, and some people might even like to share their knowledge with friends.
A department head had to leave and all hydrogen production was stopped with immediate effect.
According to SPIEGEL research, the man is said to have helped his friend Werner Diwald from the German Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association get millions in funding.
A male and female officer were forcibly transferred.
Reiber and Traufetter write that there is talk of “pawn sacrifice” in the ministry, and the mood is one of optimism – what is it called at the railway?
– came to an unpredictable stop.
We passengers wait patiently to see how and whether things will continue.
Read the whole story here: “Volker Wissing is in danger of losing his ministry”
3. How do you live in the afterlife?
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The returnees Shar Shnurman and Ayelet Khon in front of their house in Kfar Aza
Photo:
Amit Shabi / DER SPIEGEL
My colleague Juliane von Mittelstaedt wrote in her very carefully prepared multimedia report from Kibbutz Kfar Aza how life continues after actual disasters: »Do they want to return?
Is it even possible to return to a place where so many people were murdered?”
Juliane reports on Shar Shnurmann, who had the date October 7th tattooed on his arm like a concentration camp number.
He misses the noise of children.
And he says: "We cannot forgive what Hamas did to us.
But what she is doing to her own people is much worse. He tells how Elon Musk suddenly appeared in the bedroom and how he, Shar Shnurmann, tried to feed the homeless dogs that came over from Gaza and were roaming through the kibbutz.
In vain: they were afraid of people.
It is a text that puts a number of things back into perspective when people write about Israel's "campaign of annihilation" and "genocide" in a way that has forgotten history.
Read the whole story here: “The new life in the place of horror”
What else is important today?
"I stared into the hole and hoped it wouldn't tear any further":
He was sitting right next to the torn side of a Boeing aircraft in the climb, his shoes and socks were torn from his body: The Californian Cuong Tran reported for the first time about the horror trip above the clouds .
He demands reparations.
Austrian government does not want to agree to Signa's restructuring plans:
The Signa Group is threatened with being broken up.
As one of the creditors, the Austrian state has obviously lost faith in the future viability of the real estate group.
Long-distance trains will not serve the western Ruhr area for two weeks:
The railway is once again stopping almost all traffic between the Ruhr area and the Rhineland for construction work.
Hardly any trains run around Duisburg from Friday evening onwards.
And this time there is also an alternative route.
Reinhold Messner receives his dead brother's second shoe:
Günther Messner's body in the Himalayas was never found - only a bone and so far one of his shoes.
Now Brother Reinhold Messner is reporting on a special broadcast from Pakistan.
What we recommend today at SPIEGEL+
If we want peace, we must prepare for war:
Russia will not stop in Ukraine.
To address the threat, Europe needs a new spirit of security and defense.
Renaissance in Mosul:
After the war against the IS terrorists, Mosul lay in ruins.
Now the Iraqi city is slowly blossoming.
And in defiance of the jihadists, they are rediscovering their rich cultural heritage.
Is Taiwan's young generation tired of constantly talking about China, Lin Fei-fan?
In 2014, students in Taipei occupied parliament to stop the creeping integration into China's system.
Lin Fei-fan led the “Sunflower Movement.”
On the legacy of protest and the relationship with the USA.
Farewell to the man with the creative stubbornness:
Christian Streich led the small SC Freiburg to new heights.
But the coach also became an institution that transcended sport.
There is no one like him in German football anymore.
Which is less important today
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Peter Kraus at a performance in Stuttgart
Photo: Marijan Murat / dpa
Elvis lives:
At least in his German edition.
Peter Kraus
turns 85 today and is celebrating the occasion with a performance in Munich's Isarphilharmonie.
After 30 films and 65 years on stage.
It's just as easy to gossip about old rockers as it is cheap and cheap.
But we congratulate and promise not to listen to "Sugar Baby" on a continuous loop this evening, but to one of Kraus's birthday guests this evening, the gifted gypsy guitarist Joscho Stephan.
Mini concave mirror
You can find the entire concave mirror here.
Cartoon of the day
And tonight?
Let's get smarter.
We – by that I mean us: the majority.
The gray mass.
The Boomers!
There have never been so many in one generation, there will never be so many again, and one of us, the sociologist Heinz Bude, gave a lecture at the Humboldt University on February 29th that was well worth hearing: available free of charge as a “lecture hall”. DLF podcast.
Bude manages to think Karl-Heinz Kulenkampff, the “Group of International Marxists” and Carl Schmitt together.
We Boomers, says Bude, were vaguely aware of a catastrophe that our parents narrowly escaped.
And we knew it could end badly because there were simply too many of us on this planet.
Influenced by the two basic principles of the Federal Republic, communicative silence and the absence of catastrophe for the time being, the baby boomers developed sobriety as a form of existence: “The will to have an impact without ultimate justification,” is how the sociologist (now retired) sums it up.
We, the majority, listen to Heinz Bude's lecture and recognize ourselves. Those born later listen with indulgence and polite amazement about what the world once meant to us.
The last generation that still knows who Vivi Bach was and what “basic unemployment” means, that knows “strength in the plate – Knorr on the table,” rubber twist and auto quartet – and will irrevocably take this knowledge with them into retirement: Bye -Bye, Boomer.
And I also wish you a relaxing evening
Yours, Alexander Smoltczyk, reporter