Charlie Bertsch / 09 Feb 2022
German Labour Music
Songs of Gastarbeiter Vol. 2
To begin a compilation of decades-old tracks with a remix is a bold move. But Songs of Gastarbeiter Vol. 2 deploys it brilliantly. (...)
DDR
Joel Schalit / 03 Nov 2021
State and Antisemitism in Germany
The Problem With Police
The rhetoric is increasingly hollow. If only it weren’t that way.(...)
Joel Schalit / 11 Oct 2021
Civil Rights, Not Ethnicity
Germany’s Racism Crisis
It was a transparent failure. Irmgard Furchner, a 96-year-old ex-secretary at the Stutthof concentration camp, had disappeared the day her trial was to begin, having been accused of complicity in the deaths of over 10,000 Jews.(...)
Redux / 16 Jul 2021
History at a Standstill
Germany and the Roma
One of The Battleground's strongest areas of coverage is Germany. Not just any German topic, but that of the country's continuing problems with racism.(...)
Ernst Stetter / 29 May 2020
Beijing on the Brink
Xi Jinping’s Globalisation Gamble
The orchestration of Chinese politics by the Communist Party continues. But this year, the National People’s Party Congress was different.(...)
John Foster / 24 Jan 2020
Remembrance Culture
Hope Harrison’s After the Berlin Wall
Memory is one of the most important elements of modern societies. Nowhere has its centrality been so fully illustrated than in Germany.(...)
Charlie Bertsch / 05 Apr 2019
Exploding German Identity Politics
Rammstein’s Deutschland
The hysteria was predictable. Posing as both concentration camp inmates and their Nazi executioners, the video for Rammstein’s new song “Deutschland” was destined to infuriate one demographic, just as selecting a black actress, Ruby Commey, to personify Germania, was bound to piss off another.(...)