Recently there have cries throughout Germany advocating elite education. There’s money available for it too, as it seems that both the rich and the poor are united in their conviction that building a new elite is a worthwhile goal. However for those of us who don’t belong to that elite the question remains: what makes a person part of the elite? And, what kind of education goes on in these institutes for future leaders once a person has actually managed to get in? Better math? Better leaders? Better at moving money to Lichtenstein?
Julia Friedrichs, a former student of journalism from Dortmand, took a closer look at a number of private schools and universities. She asked questions and she had doubts, also about her own skepticism, but she found answers. Her experiences and thoughts - as suspenseful to read as a crime novel – are preserved in a brilliant and easy to read book: “Gestatten: Elite, Auf den Spuren der Mächtigen von morgen” (Heyne Verlag, 7,95 € ). This book will surely become one of the non-fiction must reads. Continue Reading

What work? The unemployed number 6 million. How many jobs are available? One can look at it this way: being unemployed must be so brutally unacceptable that people take even the lowest paying jobs and the the poorest working conditions to avoid the worst. Minimum wage-type jobs are booming in Germany.
Keep in mind: of the Continue Reading

Of course the new Steinfest isn’t exactly bad. It’s a crime story that Steinfeld attempts to tell by way of association, convoluted observations and meditated reflections. But the story ends up being more interrupted than told by this device. Ok, that’s not exactly fair. But you could say that he succeeds in interrupting his own Continue Reading