The history of the economic crisis in Germany before the Second World War began with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. The WWI winners deprived the country of a part of its territories with three-quarters of iron ore reserves. German was supposed to pay $33 billion of reparations. Germany plunged into the chaos of inflation. One US dollar cost 4.2 trillion Deutsche Marks. People were... 

Booklets from a subsidiary of the German government’s Ministry for Family Affairs encourage parents to sexually massage their children as young as 1 to 3 years of age. Two 40-page booklets entitled “Love, Body and Playing Doctor” by the German Federal Health Education Center (Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung – BZgA) are aimed at parents – the first addressing... 

How well is Europe coping with the integration of its foreign residents? A two-day EU conference in Berlin will discuss methods to monitor migratory trends within Europe. For decades the nations of the expanded European Union, now comprising 27 countries, have wrangled over the integration of the EU’s 30 million foreign residents. The question: how to deal with those who try to enter what human rights... 

The Frontex EU agency combats illegal immigration across the bloc. It is the first time that the European Union agency for external border security, Frontex, is financing a group deportation. One hundred and three women and men as well as one child were put on a plane to Hanoi on Monday evening. Around 200 demonstrators had gathered beforehand at Berlin’s Schoenefeld Airport to protests... 

Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court has warned that the extraordinary powers contained in the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty overrides all national laws in Europe. The German court will shortly call for an ‘emergency brake’ provision to be included into the German constitution to prevent an EU dictatorship. The development is all the more shocking because till now, Germany has been one of... 

General Motors Corp. has pulled together many of the pieces needed to complete government-ordered restructuring, but its board still is likely to decide Saturday to head into bankruptcy protection because there’s too much left to do. Word of the board’s decision, which would be made during two days of meetings, may not be known until Monday, when GM is expected to actually file for bankruptcy... 

Some 50 Romanian gypsies illegally occupied a Church in Berlin, German daily Berliner Umschau reads. They demand jobs, hourses and the possibility to enrol their children in German schools. The gypsies arrived in Berlin initially as tourists and lived for several weeks in a park. Bethania charity offered them a shelter in the meanwhile. Finally, authorities offered them the possibility to move in... 

Fears over GM corn's effects on the food chain have led to the ban. Germany has decided to ban genetically modified corn, Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner announced Tuesday, amid concerns over its environmental and economical impact. Aigner announced a ban on the cultivation of US biotech giant Monsanto’s genetically modified corn strain MON 810 after considering a number of studies. The... 

Palestinian supporters demonstrating in Berlin Thousands of protesters marched in cities across Europe Saturday to demand an end to Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip, a day before Israeli troops launched a ground offensive into the densely populated territory. Hundreds of Turks demonstrated outside the Israeli and United Nations missions in Istanbul and Ankara overnight in protest at Israel’s... 

Germany’s Jewish representative body has filed suite against YouTube and its parent company Google, demanding a court order for the website to be permanently purged of anti-Semitic videos. “The radical right-wing scene is using YouTube massively as a platform,” said Stephan Kramer, secretary general of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, the umbrella body of Germany’s Jewish communities. “We... 

Hitler was confident of winning World War II and planned to give Berlin a monumental makeover by 1950. A group in Berlin has collected records about his ‘Germania’ vision — and plans to lead tours through what’s left of the old construction site. Hitler never liked Berlin. He saw it as a dirty, liberal-minded place and was disdainful of its leftist political leanings. But he... 

Despite growing hostility toward homosexuality in Germany, where 78.9% of young Turks and 47.7% of Germans react negatively on a public poll, where they were asked what was their reaction when they see a male homosexual couple kiss in public. On February First, in Berlin some large size posters with the words “Familly is where children are” (Familie ist, wo Kinder sind) have been posted... 

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party has rejected charges by Germany’s Jewish community that it was flirting with the extreme-right with hardline proposals against crime by young non-White immigrants. The general secretary of Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), Ronald Pofalla, said the accusations by a Jewish leader that the party was whipping up xenophobia “could not be topped... 

A vast archive of German war records opened its doors to the public Wednesday, giving historians and [Europe’s WWII] survivors who have waited more than 60 years access to concentration camp records… The 11 countries that oversee the archive of the International Tracing Service have finished ratifying an accord unsealing some 50 million pages kept in the German town of Bad Arolsen, ITS director...