Sieg für die Schönheit

Given my total obsession with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung it will come as no surprise that my favourite advertising installation is the massive logotype for the world’s greatest newspaper which spans the railway tracks at the Frankfurter Hauptbahnhof.

In glorious Teutonic blackletter, it proclaims the newspaper’s ownership of the city to all comers:

Photo: Erhard Bernstein

And while it looks great in daylight, as the evening descends it is illuminated in neon blue. Like the FAZ itself, old-fashioned and modern all in one.

Photo: Otzberg

THERE COMES A POINT in every young man’s life when his trust fund manager goes on holiday. It is fitting that what follows occurred during International Poverty & Homelessness Awareness Week and, certainly, I hope that my experience will raise awareness among the demographics concerned as to how they should conduct themselves.

ITALY

Let me tell you about poverty: there is poverty, there is urban poverty, and there is urbane poverty. The story of my rapid regression through these strata starts in the billionaire’s playground that is Forte dei Marmi. I had already accepted the invitation when I realised I had blown my last €30 on a bottle of Frescobaldi (I’m not a wine snob, but I only buy from friends). We had arrived in Vieri’s 1988 Posche 911 and being a Friday night in early August, Mina’s Bussola club was chocked to the gunnels with a vast array of Eurotrash. There were refugees from Biarritz, Ibiza clubbers who got rich, Moscow clubbers who fell out with Putin, abstract artists, Botox-pumped bankers wives and industrialists’ daughters from Munich and Frankfurt, all vamped up on HRT, champagne, and Prozac. It was as raucous as the bombing of Dresden, and nearly as fun. Imagine someone had pumped laughing gas into the celebrity arrivals gate at Heathrow, and you’ll get the picture. (more…)

The first time I met my friend Rafal, I noticed his necktie bedecked with a subtle heraldic pattern. “I gather you’re German,” says young Cusack, summoning his Sherlockian deductive genius. “What makes you say that?” “The coat of arms on your tie: it’s Danzig.” “Actually I am Polish, and it’s Gdańsk!”

Well, so much for my deductive powers, (and Rafal is a secret wannabe-German anyhow) but the arms and flag of the Baltic city — once German, now Polish — combine the usual strong characteristics of any design: simplicity and beauty.

(more…)

“Schönheit und Revolution: Klassizismus 1770-1820”

WHEN IT COMES to styles, I am an omnivore. There are die-hard partisans, like Pugin, but I find the Baroque, the Gothic, the Classical — all are welcome to me. There is always some tiresome bore who, upon hearing any particular style of art or architecture praised, will immediately launch into a tirade against the more negative connotations commonly associated with that style. Gothic is close-minded! Mannerism is affected! The Biedermeier is bourgeois!

Well… ok… to an extent. But, in truth, we brush aside these pedants and appreciate whatever is beautiful wherever it is to be found. Art in its many forms is a giant sponge to squeeze and collect, savor, what comes out of it. (more…)

The Metropolitan Museum is hosting an exhibition, Extravagant Inventions: The Princely Furniture of the Roentgens, that continues for just a few days more. The show looks at the work of Abraham Röntgen and his son David, whose workshop created the most extraordinary pieces of furniture. A few of them are presented here in videos: above, a secretary cabinet, and below, a writing desk, dressing table, and automaton of Marie Antoinette. (more…)

The unbuilt Imperial Russian Embassy in Vienna

Otto Wagner was an exceptionally talented architect, though not, I think, the genius that many people would credit him with being. In the most emblematic work for which he is known, the Kirche am Steinhof in Vienna, there is too much angularity and not enough flow, curvature. For a free-standing structure it feels a bit stultified and uptight despite the brilliance of the individual elements of the design. I much prefer his Post Office Savings Bank and Stadtbahn stations.

Stumbling through the archives the other day, I came across this unexecuted Otto Wagner design for an Imperial Russian Embassy in Vienna: one now-vanished emperor’s embassy to another. From earlier in his career, it’s not as distinctively Ottowagnerian, but I admire the composition of the façade. The bulbous curved projections into the courtyard, however, are unfortunate, and too large for the space. (more…)

Bernhard Victor Christoph Carl von Bülow, one of Germany’s most highly regarded humorists, was born 12 November 1923 and left this world on 22 August 2011. He was better known by his nom de plume of Loriot, the French translation of his surname Bülow, which is German for the oriole bird. Vicco (as his Christian names were shortened to) von Bülow began drawing cartoons for Stern in the 1950s. From cartoons he moved into television in the 1970s and films the following decade. Loriot’s humour focussed on the peculiarities of German people including the awkwardness of everyday situations and miscommunication in human interaction.

Asked in 2007 to describe what his influences were, he said: “I remember that, when I started studying, I was living between a madhouse, a prison and a cemetery. The location alone explains everything, I think.” Lexicographically, he will be remembered for introducing into German the term ‘yodel diploma’ signifying a worthless degree — what in Britain is known as a ‘mickey mouse degree’.

Loriot fans will miss his knowing eyes peering out from behind those familiar reading glasses. R.I.P. (more…)

Loriot on Prussia and Prussianness

November 2003

The Viennese weekly Falter interviewed Vicco von Bülow — better known as Loriot — in November of 2003. In part of the dialogue, Loriot explored the Prussianness of his family and upbringing, musing upon some aspects of what it is to be Prussian, turning away from the simplistic categorisations. Via Günter Kaindlstorfer.

…

Loriot: I am committed to my Prussian roots. I was born a Prussian, I have Prussian, so to speak, in my blood. That this defines you for yourself is not new. One is born there, so one has to accept it.

Prussian vices have caused too much harm over the past 150 years.

Loriot: That’s right, I will not deny it at all. Nevertheless, I am proud of my native town of Brandenburg; I am also proud of my country of origin. Here I will not deny, however, that I have been occasionally affected by the disaster that this country has done throughout history, time and again. Only: Which country has, over the centuries, not caused many evils? I will not have the Prussian reduced only to its negative sides. (more…)

Accepting differences, not erasing them, is the path to civic harmony

DISCORDIA GERANT ALII, tu felix Namibia reconciliant! Peace and reconciliation are amongst the noblest of earthly aims, but the deluded establishment that rules most of what used to be called the Western world often seem convinced that peace among peoples can only be achieved by erasing the differences between them. Yet it is precisely those differences — the unique characteristics of tribe, clan, and platoon that separate us from some and unite us with others — that make us who we are: human beings, created by God in time and place and circumstance. Without them, we are rootless citizens of nowhere, easily abused and manipulated by the powerful. (How flimsy is even the thickest oak when its roots have been severed). It is the acknowledgement of differences, rather than the erasing of them, that leads to true respect and understanding between and among peoples. While the racial grievance industry thrives in America and Europe, an entirely different attitude exists in happy Namibia. (more…)

Der Speigel speaks with 88-year-old Ewald von Kleist

Ewald von Kleist is the last surviving member of the circle of Wehrmacht officers who participated in the July 20, 1944 plot to kill Hitler and overthrow the Nazi state. Der Spiegel has translated its interview with him into English, and all four pages feature interesting insights from this brave old man.

And if you read German (I don’t), you might be interested in this article on China & Carl Schmitt.

The photographs of “Manni” Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn

IT’S A CRACKING photo; the sort of thing guaranteed to irk the puritanical and bring a smile to the good-humoured. The thirteen-year-old Yvonne Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn takes a swig from a bottle while her brother Alexander, just twelve, sits with a half-smoked cigarette. Taken aboard the yacht of Bartholomé March off Majorca in 1955, the photographer was Marianne “Manni” Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn — the mother of Yvonne and Alexander — who’s known by her photographic soubriquet of “Mamarazza”. (more…)

In his latest column for the Mail on Sunday, the commentator and Orwell Prize winner Peter Hitchens shares his thoughts on the Blitz — the Luftwaffe’s bombing campaign over London that commenced sixty years ago this month. His comments have special relevance given the previous posts on andrewcusack.com regarding the immorality of the Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombings, and likewise of the intentional and deliberate targeting of civilian non-combatants. (more…)

The vanished lands and failed alliances of the Modern Olympiad

THE GAMES OF THE Modern Olympiad are events which are meant to bring the peoples of the world together in peace and harmony and all those good and heartening things, but from the very beginning they have gotten bogged down in the petty particularities of rival nations, which altogether makes them rather more fun and interesting, if perhaps a touch less high-minded. The story of the ancient gathering’s revival in 1896 through the efforts of Pierre Frédy, Baron de Coubertin is well-known. Athletes from at least fourteen countries participated in those first modern games in Athens over a century ago, though the concept of national teams was not introduced until the 1906 games (the Intercalated Games, which have since been de-recognised by the IOC). But since those first games towards the end of the nineteenth century, the fortunes of many lands have waxed and waned, and likewise the spirit of unity amongst various peoples vied with the spirit of distinctiveness. Here, then, are but a small sample of Olympic teams which once vied for gold but which can no longer be found among the Olympic competitors of today. (more…)

In reverse chronological order, from the most recently viewed backwards.

	Ne touchez pas la hache (2007, France) — Based on Balzac’s La Duchesse de Langeais. I think we need more films set in Restoration France, but this one often fell flat.
	Män som hatar kvinnor (2009, Sweden) — A journalist has six months to investigate the strange murder of a girl from the island estate of a prominent family. A very good mystery, though I had to fast-forward multiple times due to graphicness. Released in the U.S. as ‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ instead of ‘Men Who Hate Women’.
	The Night of the Generals (1967, Great Britain-France) — A quality production depicting the quest of a German officer to obtain justice in arresting a sociopathic general for the murder of a Polish prostitute. Omar Sharif, Peter O’Toole, Philippe Noiret, Christopher Plummer, Charles Gray, and Tom Courtenay.
	Three Days of the Condor (1975, U.S.A.) — A literary analyst at a CIA front organisation returns to the office from lunch to find all his colleagues shot dead. Robert Redford and Max von Sydow.
	Le combat dans l’île (1962, France) — A right-wing extremist thinks he’s assassinated a prominent left-wing extremist but soon finds not all is as it appears. Romy Schneider plays the woman caught between the would-be murderer and his typographer friend.
	À bout de souffle (1960, France) — A rather lame romanticisation of a cop-murderer and his exploits from Jean-Luc Godard. Paris in the 1950s looks great though.
	Defence of the Realm (1985, Great Britain) — A newspaper exposes a Member of Parliament as a potential spy, but it turns out the story is much more complicated than first appearances would have it. Starring Gabriel Byrne, Ian Bannen, Greta Scacchi, Denholm Elliott, Bill Paterson, and Robbie Coltrane.
	A Few Days in September (2006, France) — An intriguing spy drama set in the days leading up to September 11th, a French spy (Juliette Binoche) is minding the grown children of an old ex-C.I.A. agent (Nick Nolte) pursued by a psychotic assasin (John Torturro).
	50 Dead Men Walking (2008, Great Britain-U.S.A.-Canada) — Based on the story of terrorist-turned-informer Martin McGartland, with Ben Kingsley playing his RUC handler.
	The Red Baron (2008, Germany) — A very light handling of an interesting historical character man. Everyone dresses well, but Joseph Fiennes as Billy Bishop, the Red Baron’s nemesis, is the least convincing fighter ace in history.
	Ondskan (2003, Sweden) — A surprisingly good film in the boarding-school resistance-to-bullies category with a few twists, only slightly tinged by the socialism of the author of the novel on which it’s based.
	L’Heure d’été (2008, France) — Three siblings deal with their mother’s estate.
	Sink the Bismarck! (1960, Great Britain) — Cracking naval tale. A classic of the World War II genre.
	The Count of Monte Cristo (2002, U.S.A.) — Significant changes from the plot of the book besides the usual compression of the story line mar this film. Just not as worthwhile as the lavishly done 1998 French mini-series.
	On the Waterfront (1954, U.S.A.) — A priest tries to convince a mob lackey to testify against his bosses to challenge their murderous and abusive control of the waterfront. Particularly intriguing as the director was brave enough to challenge Hollywood communists in the 1950s.
	Paris (2008, France) — The interweaving lives of a handful of Parisians. I will see any film that has Juliette Binoche or Mélanie Laurent in it, and this film has both. Also with François Cluzet (of “Ne le dis à personne/Tell No One”) and Albert Dupontel.
	Mon Oncle (1958, France) — Jacques Tati’s first colour film, Monsieur Hulot continues to struggle with the postwar infatuation with modern architecture and consumerism. On its release it was condemned for its obviously reactionary world-view, but has since become a cult favourite.
	Le Petit Lieutenant (2005, France) — A young police recruit from the provinces joins a Parisian precinct and investigates a murder alongside his female unit commander, a recovering alcoholic.
	Les rivières pourpres (2000, France) — Jean Reno plays a police detective sent to a small university town in the Alps to investigate a brutal murder. Meanwhile, another detective (played by Vincent Kassel) looks into the desecration of the grave of a young girl. The plots soon become intertwined in an intriguing fashion. This film failed to live up to its potential (the university aspect could have been developed further) but is still a decent cop flick.
	Buongiorno, notte (2003, Italy) — The kidnapping of Aldo Moro by the Red Brigades.
	Flammen & Citronen (2008, Denmark) — Another good Scandinavian World-War-II resistance movie, alongside Norway’s “Max Manus” of the same year. (Previously covered here). Mads Mikkelsen (the Bond villain in “Casino Royale”) plays ‘Citronen’.
	Kontroll (2003, Hungary) — The ticket collectors of the Budapest Metro worry about a series of mysterious platform deaths. Varies between the comic, the thrilling, and the tiresome.
	L’homme du train (2002, France) — A man steps off a train planning to rob a bank, but strikes up a friendship with a retired poetry teacher. Jean Rochefort and Johnny Hallyday are a surprisingly good pairing.
	Advise and Consent (1962, U.S.A.) — The Senate must either approve or reject the President’s nomination for Secretary of State, but plots and intrigues are afoot. Otto Preminger does Washington, and does it well.
	The International (2009, U.S.A.-Germany-Great Britain) — A cracking conspiracy thriller staring Clive Owen as a stubborn Interpol investigator and Naomi Watts as a Manhattan Assistant D.A. Includes a fun shoot-out in the Guggenheim.
	Banlieue 13 (2004, France) — Parkour-heavy action film set in a Parisian crime ghetto of the near-future.
	Il divo (2008, Italy) — Biographical film of the seven-time Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti. Toni Servillo’s portrayal of the main character, however, crosses the line into caricature.
	Strajk – Die Heldin von Danzig (2006, Germany-Poland) — A German film in Polish about the hardest-working employee at the Gdansk shipyards who finally takes a stand against the horrendous working conditions under the Communist regime.

The controversial starchitect exacts Poland’s revenge on a German city

THE WAR WAS NOT kind to Dresden: the bombers of the Royal Air Force and the U.S. Army Air Force rained destruction on the Saxon capital, reducing much of the city to piles of rubble, and killing thousands upon thousands of innocent women and children in the process. One of the few buildings to survive the cataclysmic and morally reprehensible bombing campaign was the old garrison, which after the war was turned into a military museum.

Poland, whose unprovoked invasion by the Nazis sparked the Second World War, is exacting a curious revenge on neighbouring Germany, however. Daniel Libeskind, the controversial Polish starchitect, is building a monstrous addition to the Dresden Military History Museum that may not be a crime against humanity, but is undoubtedly a crime against architecture. (more…)

Hoeveel kere het ek dit hoor sê? München, die Beierse hoofstad, is die mees bewoonbare stad in die wêreld volgens baie lyste deur talle mense saamgestel. Die meeste kenmerk hierdie status aan die unieke kombinasie van tradisie en moderniteit in die stad. Beiere het ’n balans getref, en die Beierse mense is baie trots op hul land — en tereg! Müncher weißwurst — bedien met mosterd en ’n krakeling — is my gunsteling wors. (Jammer, boerewors! Jou Duitse neef is tops.)

In elk geval, op die webtuis van Monocle tydskrif, Tyler Brûlé het ‘n blik op München en ondersoek waarom en ondersoek waarom het dit so ‘n goeie reputasie. Kliek hier om te kyk.

It is scandalous that in all my travels I’ve never been to any part of Germany, let alone Bavaria, considering how everyone raves about it unceasingly. Once I finally get myself to the other side of the pond permanently, it’s high up on the list of places to visit pronto (alongside the Netherlands and Finland). All in good time, all in good time…

So claims Germany’s Catholic youth leader Dirk Tänzler, who is ‘reserved’ & ‘ambivalent’ about the Pope. Is Tänzler right?

AMIDST THE MEDIA’S attempts to sling mud at Pope Benedict XVI, one of the most prominent Catholic youth leaders in Germany has chimed in with lackluster words about the reigning pontiff. Dirk Tänzler, the head of the BDKJ, the umbrella group of German Catholic youth organizations, gave an interview to Der Spiegel, the prominent weekly news magazine with a circulation of over one million. Asked his verdict of the so-far five years of Pope Benedict’s reign, Tänzler responded with the word “ambivalent”. Contrasting Benedict XVI with John Paul II — a “showmaster” — the BDKJ head said that, despite some good points, “a lot of young people often simply don’t understand him”. “Most have a different idea of how to live their lives than the pope might imagine for them. There is no ‘Generation Benedict.'”

But are Tänzler’s thoughts an accurate reflection of the state of Catholic youth in Germany or elsewhere? Over a million young people travelled to Cologne to experience World Youth Day with the new pontiff in 2005. (The following WYD held in Sydney in 2008, unfortunately offers little comparison given the relative isolation of Australia). Everywhere the Pope has travelled, such as to the Czech Republic last year, or France and the United States in 2008, vast multitudes of youth have greeted him, often waiting hours for the privilege. (more…)

Nestled in rustic style buildings amidst the hills of the Odenwald mountains, Germany’s most prominent progressive boarding school has become embroiled in the latest revelation of abuse in German schools. Almost the entire governing board of the Odenwaldschule has resigned after it was revealed that a culture of permissive abuse of schoolchildren was tolerated from 1966 to 1991, involving at least thirty-three victims and eight teachers, and perhaps more. The details of the case are too lurid for reproduction here, but involve the abuse of students by teachers and even a headmaster, as well as tolerating and sometimes encouraging the abuse of students by other students.

The Odenwaldschule was founded in 1910 by Paul and Edith Geheeb as one of the first schools devoted to “progressive education” in Germany. Amongst other novelties of the school, students were divided into “families” that spanned age groups and were headed by a teacher known as the “mother” or “father” of the “family”. Shut down during the Nazi period, it reopened after the war, and became a UNESCO model school in the 1960s. Among its former students is the Green MEP & former student radical Daniel Cohn-Bendit, who admitted in the 1970s to inappropriate contact with kindergarten students before backtracking after his previous comments were brought to light last year. The school’s progressive “holistic” ethos, emphasizing freedom over discipline, continues to this day. For the current 225 students, the cost of a year’s education at the Odenwaldschule is over $27,000, or £17,000.

The revelations are only the latest among many surrounding Catholic, Protestant, secular schools, as well as the schools of Communist East Germany. Outside Germany, however, the mainstream media have only taken an interest in whichever scandals or stories they can link back to Pope Benedict XVI, or, failing that, his brother Fr. Georg Ratzinger. No English-language media from outside Germany have bothered to report on the Odenwaldschule affair, except for the tiniest of mentions in the Guardian on 17 March.

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