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Capital city karaoke

A quirky outdoor music event leaves Berlin’s multi-million euro city campaign looking tired – By Anne Hansen

The costly “be Berlin” campaign pitches the German capital across the globe as a young, creative and unconventional metropolis. A karaoke party in the city’s Mauerpark is all this and more – and doesn’t cost anyone a cent.

Meschugge nights

Young Israeli musicians and artists have discovered Berlin as a cool place to live and work – By Robert Rigney

They are used to neighborhoods in which different cultures mix. But what young Israelis aren’t used to is cheap living and an anything-goes mentality. That is why they love Berlin.

Shaped by wind and wave

The Fischland-Darss-Zingst peninsula has been attracting Germany’s elite for years – By Michael Winckler

Only 185 miles away from Berlin, the endless interplay of wind and water has created a unique landscape on the coast of the Baltic Sea.

Partying on the Autobahn

With “Still Life on the Ruhr Expressway,” the people of the Ruhr celebrated themselves for a day – By Jan Kepp

People having picnics on the highway, bicycles and inline-skaters skimming over the asphalt – not just a few people either but millions. The party marking the halfway point of Ruhr 2010 was a nod to the everyday culture of the region.

From Potsdam to Honolulu

The “father of Hawaiian Music” was a Prussian military bandleader – By Uwe Siemon-Netto

What did Germans export before Mercedes-Benz cars were invented? Well, princesses, an old adage will have you believe. Actually, Germans enriched the world with another product too: musicians. One of these left a lasting impact on Hawaiian culture.
Some Anglo-Saxon linguists claim that there is something oddly Germanic about certain Hawaiian words. The consonant “w” is often pronounced like a “v”. According to George Kanahele, author of “Hawaiian Music and Musicians,” this seems to be the “fault” of one Heinrich August Wilhelm Berger (1844-1929) who taught folks in Honolulu to sing their songs that way. He was a Prussian, hand-picked by Kaiser Wilhelm I to whip the Royal Hawaiian Band into shape. Berger did this so well that his friend, Queen Lili’uokalani (1838-1917), later proclaimed him the “father of Hawaiian Music.”

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‘Do something with your life’

The 88-year-old German Jew Margot Friedländer returns to Berlin after more than 60 years in exile – By Philipp Gessler

Margot Friedländer plans to spend her twilight years in Germany – the country of her persecutors. After more than 60 years, the German-born Jewish woman has returned to share her own particular story with young Germans.

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Retracing history

The Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Strasse is getting a facelift – By Klaus Grimberg

Where exactly was the Berlin Wall? How did it work? What happened along it? Since 1989, visitors to Berlin have endlessly posed such questions. And the newly designed memorial on Bernauer Strasse is intended to exhaustively answer them.

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