3 h. ago The Traitors Circle by Jonathan Freedland review – a propulsive story of German resistance

A thriller-like account of the influential men and women who opposed Hitler and paid a terrible priceOn 10 September 1943, a loose group of well-connected friends met in a small apartment in the Charlottenberg area of Berlin. The host was Elisabeth von Thadden and the nominal reason for the get-together was her younger sister’s 50th birthday. Really, though, this was a cover story for nine influential people meeting to discuss what should happen now that it was clear that Hitler was losing the war.Otto Kiep, a former diplomat, talked hopefully about how Mussolini’s recent toppling meant that Italy was ready to make peace with the allies, while political hostess Hanna Solf gleefully anticipated the moment when Hitler fell: “We’ll put him against a wall.” Meanwhile, Von Thadden herself, a devout Protestant and former headteacher of an elite girls’ school, warned of the humanitarian crisis that would follow the end of hostilities. For those who gathered on that late summer’s day f...

Politics

5 d. ago The US is on the brink of another era of political violence – and Donald Trump ‘couldn’t care less’ | Jonathan Freedland

In their humane responses to the killing of Charlie Kirk, Democrats are observing the old norms. Things are different now: anger and division ruleSign up for our new weekly newsletter Matters of Opinion, where our columnists and writers will reflect on what they’ve been debating, thinking about, reading and moreThe killing of Charlie Kirk has left the US and those who care about it on edge. The arrest of a suspect, Tyler Robinson, has hardly settled the nerves, not when the revelation of any supposed political allegiances could touch off a fresh round of recriminations. The fear is that the country is about to descend into a new era of political violence, becoming a place where differences are settled not with words and argument but by guns and blood. After all, it has plumbed those depths before.The US was born in violence, fought a civil war less than a century after its founding and in living memory seemed to be on the brink of another one – with a spate of assassinations in the ...

Politics

8 d. ago Fearless Rogers leads England to double act of silencing locals and their doubters | Barney Ronay

Thomas Tuchel had his big moment in a World Cup qualifier but home fans were more concerned with off-pitch issuesSport: it just keeps on trying to tell you things. On a gripping, clammy, oddly distracted night in Belgrade, England and Serbia produced what felt at times like a twin-track spectacle, a perfect embodiment of the idea of elite sport as a kind of theatre that takes while the world burns around it.There seemed to be two quite different things happening in the same timeline. In the first of these, the official spectacle, England produced an expertly controlled away performance, in the process all but sealing qualification for the World Cup. This was a Morgan Rogers story, a Thomas Tuchel finds his moment story, the transition from joyless wiry German death-football technocrat to fun wiry German tactical rainmaker. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago The astonishing story of the aristocrat who hid her Jewish lover in a sofa bed – and other German rebels who defied the Nazis

From a diplomat who embraced the exiled Albert Einstein to a schoolteacher who helped ‘non-Aryan’ students flee, these remarkable individuals refused to bend the knee to Hitler – only to be dramatically betrayed. What made them risk it all?I grew up in a house where nothing German was allowed. No Siemens dishwasher or Krups coffee machine in the kitchen, no Volkswagen, Audi or Mercedes in the driveway. The edict came from my mother. She was not a Holocaust survivor, though she had felt the breath of the Shoah on her neck. She was just eight years old on 27 March 1945, when her own mother was killed by the last German V-2 rocket of the war to fall on London, a bomb that flattened a corner of the East End, killing 134 people, almost all of them Jews. One way or another, the blast radius of that explosion would encompass the rest of my mother’s life and much of mine.Of course, she knew that the bomb that fell on Hughes Mansions had not picked out that particular building deliberat...

Politics

1 week ago Rayner’s exit is a bombshell. But the real crisis for Starmer may have only just begun | Jonathan Freedland

From the outset her role has been crucial, and her fall will exacerbate all the doubts about the PM and his ability to keep Labour in powerSign up for our new weekly newsletter Matters of Opinion, where our columnists and writers will reflect on what they’ve been debating, thinking about, reading and moreA government that was already reeling has sustained another massive blow. Elected in a landslide slightly more than a year ago, Labour hit the midterm blues within a few months, currently has the poll numbers of an administration in its dying days – and has now witnessed a scandal and resignation close to the apex of power.Perhaps the many New Labour veterans now installed in Downing Street will be reassuring Keir Starmer that the storm of Angela Rayner’s departure will pass, reminding him that the Blair cabinet saw the exit of one Peter Mandelson – also over his homeowning arrangements, as it happens – similarly early in the first term, but paid no electoral price. And yet, the pri...

Events

2 w. ago Step back and take it in: the US is entering full authoritarian mode | Jonathan Freedland

Trump’s dictator-like behaviour is so brazen, so blatant, that paradoxically, we discount it. But now it’s time to call it what it isIf this were happening somewhere else – in Latin America, say – how might it be reported? Having secured his grip on the capital, the president is now set to send troops to several rebel-held cities, claiming he is wanted there to restore order. The move follows raids on the homes of leading dissidents and comes as armed men seen as loyal to the president, many of them masked, continue to pluck people off the streets Except this is happening in the United States of America and so we don’t quite talk about it that way. That’s not the only reason. It’s also because Donald Trump’s march towards authoritarianism is so steady, taking another step or two every day, that it’s easy to become inured to it: you can’t be in a state of shock permanently. And, besides, sober-minded people are wary of sounding hyperbolic or hysterical: their instinct is to play down...

Culture

2 w. ago Opera tells story of German journalist who posed as migrant worker for two years

Docu-opera explores encounters and ethics of Günter Wallraff’s undercover work in 1980s, which he now describes as an existential necessityFew people have done more to change the way postwar Germany looks at itself than Levent “Ali” Sigirlioğlu. A 1985 bestselling book detailing the inhumane working conditions and everyday racism that the 26-year-old Turkish migrant worker endured at Ruhr valley steel plants, asbestos-infested building sites and fast-food restaurants was the first to expose the dark underbelly of a booming postwar economic revival.The only catch is that “Ali” was not a young Turk at all, but a then 43-year-old white German. Continue reading...

Events