Germany

They're the kind of citizens any cash-starved government would want: a group of wealthy Germans have launched a petition this week calling for higher taxes on wealthy Germans. The group claims that Germany could raise €100 billion if the richest people paid a five percent wealth tax for two years. 

Germany is not known as a low-tax country--tax revenues were 37% of GDP in 2007, in line with other EU countries, and above countries like South Korea (29%) and the United States (28%). The petitioners claim, though, that those who "made a fortune through inheritance, hard work, hard-working, successful entrepreneurship, or investment" should put their money into an economy that, while better off than some other EU counterparts, is still facing rising unemployment through next year.

But deficit hawks shouldn't start dreaming of a shift in worldwide tax perceptions: the petition has fewer than fifty signatures, and, after their most recent rally, one signatory told the AFP that it was "really strange that so few people came."

After German voters sent the Christian Democrats -- led by Chancellor Angela Merkel -- back to power with 13 more seats, it seemed appropriate to ask: In a secular country, what exactly makes it "Christian?" 

The Christian Democratic Union says its "policies are based on theChristian view of Man and his responsibilities before God." HoweverGermans shy away from being connected with other versions of politicalChristianity.

Christianity Today recently interviewed Merke's minister of state on this issue. "Germans don't want to be called evangelical because theyare labeled by an image dominated by American evangelicals," Grohe said. He does want to see more German Christians discussing their faith in public, mixing personal with civil life, citing the United Kingdom as an example where religion and politics mix well.

Fighting abortion rights is an important issue for German Christians, but Grohe said fighting poverty and climate change are also imperative.

Talking about the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification, Grohe said, "We are still struggling to put together two very different societies." This is especially evident looking at the electoral map from the recent election. (Sorry it is in French, scroll on the semi-circle to see how each party did in each region)

The former East Germany had the strongest support for The Left and the least support for the Christian Democrats. This is paralleled in East Berlin and West Berlin. The difference is more for political reasons than for religious reasons, but anti-religious feelings in Eastern Germany are prevalent.

"In East Germany, there's still a strong non-religious presence. Religion is for your grandma," Grohe said. "People say they forgot they forgot God."

Grohe said the pacifist aspects of the religion don't play much of a role in German politics, most people who want out of Afghanistan want out because they think it is unwinnable, not because of any feeling of religious necessity. However, a dislike for Islam is present in some German Christians.

"I'm very shocked when I see Christians talking hatefully about Muslims," he said. "When I talk about the need for freedom to build Islamic mosques, I receive shameful letters from Christians filled with hate." 

Update: The link to the Christianity Today interview is down, but should be working again soon. 

Andreas Rentz/Getty Images 

When it comes to using Holocaust metaphors, the power of suggestion is a loaded and delicate thing. Striking the right chord becomes ever more slippery when, for example, you use the most recognizable image of Holocaust evil, Adolf Hitler, to illustrate the recklessness of unprotected sex. But you just about lose any hope of keeping that line clean and clear when you make a Hitler sex video for an AIDS PSA. Which is what a small German AIDS awareness group called, Regenbogen e.V, did. 

While the Telegraph says the clip appears to be a "typical advert" at first glance, I imagine most American viewers won't agree. The act of intimacy being portrayed is basically soft-core porn. It shows two very naked hard-bodies engaged in some very steamy sex. (Warning: this video ain't for the kiddies and is probably not safe for work.) The commercial's obvious-to-the-point-of-insult message, that unprotected sex is very, very dangerous, is hammered home with a rather indelicate ... bang. As the couple reaches climax, the man's face is revealed -- it's Hitler. Scary, indeed.

Not surprisingly the ad, released in Britain to coincide with World AIDS day, has created a storm of controversy. A spokesman for the National AIDS Trust, the group that coordinates World AIDS Day in Britain, had this to say: 

Of course there are many HIV organisations that run their own campaigns, however I think the advert is incredibly stigmatising to people living with HIV who already face much stigma and discrimination due to ignorance about the virus.

"On top of this it fails to provide any kind of actual prevention message (e.g. use a condom) and may deter people to come forward for testing.

"The advert is also inaccurate because in the UK thanks to treatment HIV is a manageable condition that does not necessary lead to AIDS.

Hans Weishäupl, creative director of das comitee, the group that created the ad for Regenbogen e.V, defended the work:  

A lot of people are not aware that Aids is still murdering many people every day. They wanted a campaign which told young people that it is still a threat," he said. "In Germany, Hitler is the ugliest face you can use to show evil." 

Provocative it may be, but successful? I doubt it. Would it be a gross and malicious misinterpretation to use this ad to say that people who have unprotected sex, or people with HIV or AIDS, are as evil as Hitler? Absolutely. Is it a stretch to say there are folks out there who will do just that? Nope.

Using the evil führer's personage for good is a tricky business, one that should perhaps be left to the Charlie Chaplins of the world. 

Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück have been at the forefront of the international campaign to crack down on tax havens like Luxembourg and Switzerland. But they may be overlooking a problem much closer to home, according to Beat Balzli and Michaela Schiessl:

[T]he minister's rage against tax havens risks obscuring a much bigger problem: A completely legal tax avoidance industry is flourishing right at home in Germany. It is an industry that thrives on the mistakes made by ministries and the parliament in drawing up tax legislation. And hardly any other industry is as successful, irrespective of the current economic situation, or operates as efficiently.

While ordinary German workers are at the mercy of the tax authorities, millionaires and corporations use aggressive tax models to make themselves appear to be artificially poor -- and it's completely legal. In fact, seminars on "International Tax Structuring" are even tax-deductible in Germany as professional training.

What the national treasury loses in the process is far from insignificant. The German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) has calculated that there is a gap of €100 billion between the demonstrated profits of corporations and partnerships and the profits they have reported for purposes of taxation. "This points to tax breaks and structuring options with which companies can lower their taxable profits or shift them abroad," writes the DIW.

In fact, German corporations structure their international subsidiaries in such a way that the most profitable ones are located in the countries with the lowest tax rates. Corporate tax paid by corporations makes up only 2.8 percent of the government's total tax revenues of €561 billion. Germany's army of wage-earners contributes the largest share.

"Germany is a tax haven for large companies," says Wiesbaden-based economist Lorenz Jarass. "People with normal incomes are being robbed."

Spiegel reports:

This week, two of Germany's most important solar energy projects came online -- the second biggest solar power project in the world and one of the first solar thermal "power towers." The projects are part of the country's plan to provide 20 percent of its energy through renewable sources.

Officials flicked on the switch at two of Germany's most important new solar energy sites on Thursday. In the eastern state of Brandenburg, the world's second-largest solar energy project went online. And halfway across the country, in North Rhine-Westphalia, a smaller scale but perhaps equally important facility launched -- Germany's first solar-thermal power plant.

MICHAEL GOTTSCHALK/AFP/Getty Images

In a landmark decision Thursday, the Karlsruhe-based court ruled that using Nazi slogans translated into a language other than German would not, in general, be a punishable crime.

The ruling is linked to a case in which a neo-Nazi was prosecuted and fined €4,200 ($6,000) in 2005 for distributing clothing and merchandising bearing the slogan "Blood and Honour," written in English. With the ruling, the court overturned the verdict against the neo-Nazi, who was not named, but said it could still be possible to prosecute him under other laws relating to right-wing extremism.

Although "Blood and Honour," which is also the name of a banned far-right organization, alludes to the Hitler Youth motto "Blut und Ehre," the court ruled that translating the words represented a "fundamental change" in the slogan, meaning its use was no longer punishable under German law. The judges said that Nazi slogans were characterized not only by their actual meaning but also by the fact that they were in German.

This seems particularly ridiculous. The idea behind the ruling seems to be that it's the words themselves that are dangerous rather than the ideas they represent. There's similar thinking behind Bavarian authorities insistence on banning the publication of a critical, annotated edition of Mein Kampf, despite the fact that Jewish groups support its publication.

You can also not expect every neo-Nazi group in Germany to start printing signs in English, making a mockery of the original law.

AXEL SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images

If you got it, flaunt it. At least that's what my grandmother used to say, and I imagine if she could see the campaign ads coming out of Germany this week, she'd probably laugh. And Vera Lengsfeld, who is running for a parliament seat in Germany's upcoming September elections, is banking on the fact that constituents will have a sense of humor.

The ad (shown above) pairs pictures of Lengsfeld and none other than Chancellor Angela Merkel, shoulder to shoulder showcasing the bountiful assets bestowed upon them by Mother Nature -- two very ample bosoms barely contained by two seriously wide and plunging necklines. The line that runs across reads: "We have more to offer."

No doubt, where there's more chest, there's more attention. Lengsfeld, who did not clear the ads with Merkel, reports that traffic to her blog has increased, getting as many as 17,000 visitors since this campaign went public.

Her takeaway on all this? 

If only a tenth of them also look at the content of my policies, then I will have reached many more people than I could have done with classic street canvassing."

It's an interesting acknowledgement on Lengsfeld's part, she's clearly aware that the show-stopping photos aren't appealing to the thinking minds of men and women, though it sounds as though she's hoping the ad's wit will trump the old T&A approach.

Many of those not laughing are likely to be women who find the posters, and the ploy behind them, cheap and offensive. The glass ceiling runs far and wide, thicker over some places than others, and apparently the profiles of men cast long shadows, even over the most powerful women in global politics. Truthfully, I'd like to see a man foolish enough to market his campaign "package" in the same fashion ... Or has Berlusconi kind of done that already?

MICHAEL GOTTSCHALK/AFP/Getty Images

Five years before actually getting in trouble with the law for the first time, Michael Jackson was the most popular of a series of musicians doing gigs in and around Cold War Berlin. And as the most popular, and therefore most likely to turn East Germans on to "rock'n'roll and all the Western decadence it implied" (mostly amps that go to 11, I assume) the East German secret police decided they had no choice but to spy on Michael Jackson.

In a note from the Stasi, found in files revealed by German mass circulation newspaper Bild this week, the secret police were worried that the "youths will do anything they can to experience this concert, in the area around the Brandenburg Gate." And, they noted, "certain youths are planning to (use the occasion) to provoke a confrontation with police."

To be fair, the role of rock-and-roll in democratic movements was already well documented, such as after the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia. More recently, East German musicophiles had already clashed with police a year earlier while trying to hear the loudspeakers on the other side of the wall during concerts by David Bowie and Genesis. And when given the powers of the moonwalk, who knows what these youths could have done? Why, they might even tear down the Berlin Wa...oh, wait. 

Jackson, by the way, was not finished with Berlin: 14 years later, on a Berlin hotel balcony, Jackson confirmed once and for all that, yes, he was completely nuts. 

AFP/Getty Images