peter fechter (14 january 1944 – 17 august 1962)
aged 18, one of the first victims of the berlin wall’s border guards while trying to cross over to what was then west berlin.

about 1 year after the construction of the wall, fechter attempted to flee from the gdr (german democratic republic) together with his friend helmut kulbeik. the plan was to hide in a carpenter’s workshop near the wall in zimmerstrasse and, after observing the border guards from there, to jump out of a window into the so-called death-strip (a strip running between the main wall and a parallel fence which they had recently started to construct), run across it, and climb over the 2 metre (6.5 ft) wall topped with barbed wire into the kreuzberg district of west berlin near checkpoint charlie.

when both reached the wall, guards fired at them. although kulbeik succeeded in crossing the wall, fechter, still on the wall, was shot in the pelvis in plain view of hundreds of witnesses. he fell back into the death-strip on the eastern side, where he remained in view of western onlookers, including journalists. despite his screams, he received no medical assistance either from the east or the west side. he bled to death after approximately 1 hour. as a result of his death, hundreds in west berlin formed a spontaneous demonstration, shouting “murderers!” at the border guards.

the lack of medical assistance for peter fechter was attributed to mutual fear: western bystanders were apparently prevented at gunpoint from assisting him, although according to a report in time magazine, a u.s. second-lieutenant on the scene received specific orders from the us commandant in west berlin to stand firm and do nothing. it also emerged during the trial that any aid attempt from the west had indeed been made impossible, but according to a report from forensic pathologist otto prokop, “fechter had no chance of survival. the shot in the right hip had caused severe internal injuries.” likewise the head of the gdr border platoon stated that he was afraid to intervene, because of an incident just 3 days earlier when a gdr soldier rudi arnstadt had probably been shot by a western federal policeman. nonetheless, the gdr border soldiers did retrieve peter fechter’s dead body an hour after he had fallen.

+: read more 

song: auswärtsspiel
album: mtv unplugged: nur zu besuch, unplugged im wiener burgtheater
band: die toten hosen
germany - 2005

ole ole ole ola, uns ist egal, wer heute siegt!
ole ole ole ola, weil es um was anderes geht!

ole ole ole ola, egal, wer heute siegt!
ole ole ole ola, es geht um mehr als nur ein spiel!

ole ole ole ola, wir scheissen auf den sieg!
ole ole ole ola, es ist nur ein auswärtsspiel!

sturm und drang

is the name of a movement in german literature and music taking place from the late 1760s through the early 1780s, in which individual subjectivity and, in particular, extremes of emotion were given free expression in reaction to the perceived constraints of rationalism imposed by the enlightenment and associated aesthetic movements.

+: watch the video here (vimeo)

(fiction, folklore, and popular culture)
is a tangible double of a living person that typically represents evil. in the vernacular, the word doppelgänger has come to refer (as in german “doppelt(e)”) to any double or look-alike of a person.

the word is also used to describe the sensation of having glimpsed oneself in peripheral vision, in a position where there is no chance that it could have been a reflection. doppelgängers are often perceived as a sinister form of bilocation and generally regarded as harbingers of bad luck. in some traditions, a doppelgänger seen by a person’s friends or relatives portends illness or danger, while seeing one’s own doppelgänger is an omen of death.

in norse mythology, a vardøger is a ghostly double who precedes a living person and is seen performing their actions in advance. in ancient egyptian mythology, a “ka” was a tangible “spirit double” having the same memories and feeling as the original person.

+: fetch, a doppelgänger or double in irish folklore.

tokyo
by german photographer steffi jung
+: her portfolio 

photography by andreas gursky
+: wikipedia

song: liebesspieler
album: unter falscher flagge
band: die toten hosen
germany - 1984

hey - heute ist unser tag - alles auf liebesspieler.
hey - heute ist unser tag - alles auf meinen sieger.

song: das manifest
album: das kommt vom küssen
band: herpes
germany -  2010

dispatchwork
by jan vormann
he patches damage to old buildings around the world with legos.

cities: new york, quito, berlin, tel aviv, amsterdam, nabeul, st. petersburg, bocchignano, belgrade, arnsberg, zuerich

+: click en la foto

cultfilms:

a high school teacher’s unusual experiment to demonstrate to his students what life is like under a dictatorship spins horribly out of control when he forms a social unit with a life of its own

drama / thriller 
dir.: dennis gansel
2008

jürgen vogel as rainer wenger
frederick lau as tim stoltefuss
jennifer ulrich as karo
max riemelt as marco
christiane paul as anke wenger 

some facts:

- based on the novel “the wave” by todd strasser (under the pen name morton rhue) a fictionalized account of the “third wave” teaching experiment by ron jones that took place in a cubberley high school history class in palo alto, california in april 1967.
- ron jones, the initiator of the original experiment, attended the film’s world premiere at sundance film festival.

+: the third wave experiment (wikipedia)

fascism is still possible and alive. 

the longest german word verified to be actually in (albeit very limited) use is Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz, which, literally translated, is “beef labelling supervision duty assignment law” [from Rind (cattle), Fleisch (meat), Etikettierung(s) (labelling), Überwachung(s) (supervision), Aufgaben (duties), Übertragung(s) (assignment), Gesetz (law)].