DER SPIEGEL analyses whether the new business strategy recently presented by Daimler-Chrysler is correct, and whether the company’s CEO Jürgen Schrempp is likely to survive the current crisis.

On Saturday, November 25, the German media are expected to reveal the first case of BSE-related variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in Germany, predictably causing an uproar. DER SPIEGEL has come into possession of exclusive information showing that the Munich patient’s illness is, in fact, not Creutzfeldt-Jakob.

“I’m Not Just A Figurehead”

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with the head of Deutsche Telekom, Ron Sommer, on the sharp drop in the price of Telekom shares, staff problems at T-Online, and global competition:

“We aren’t working for speculators but for long-term investors … As early as in 1995 we developed a four-pillar strategy which was hardly understood at the time. Many people had already recognised the role of cellular networks, but we also backed the Internet and systems solutions. … I’m not asking for protection, I’m only calling for the same competitive conditions as elsewhere in the EU, at least, not to mention in America. Our stock rating would be dramatically higher if conditions were fair … The acquisition of Voicestream has made us the only company in the world that can cover almost the entire United States using the same technology that is widespread throughout Europe too. With that we can only win.”

“Highly-developed Partnership”

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with Russian prime minister Mikhail Kassyanov on economic relations with Germany and the Russian economic upswing:

“The programme that we are currently implementing means moving in several different directions at once. Once the macroeconomic situation has been stabilised, the conditions for fair competition and for increased competition will be created. For this purpose we need to address structural reforms. In order for economic growth to continue, a competitive environment needs to be created where until now unnatural monopolies have existed. … Today, everyone in our country realises that fundamental reforms are necessary. And everybody also sees that at last the political stability exists that is required in order to implement them effectively. … No reform can be carried out in Russia without democracy as it has developed in our country over the past ten years. Another thing is that there must be a level of order in the business sector. … Trade actually hardly depends on the authorities. But if governments promote trade, it grows more quickly. And co-operation in the field of investment can’t get going at all without state support. So if Germany, too, regards Russia as its strategic partner, mechanisms need to be put in place that will motivate strategically-minded investors in Germany to put their money into Russia.

“The United Nations Must Protect Us”

SPIEGEL interview with Palestinian president Yassir Arafat on the spiralling violence in the Middle East, the conditions for an end to the intifada and the future of the peace process:

“The Palestinian people are protesting peacefully against the never-ending occupation, and the Israeli army is shooting the protesters. The numbers speak for themselves: we have already suffered the loss of more than 300 Palestinian lives, and many thousands have been injured. … We must obtain international protection for our people from the United Nations. … Israel has got to recognise that it cannot do whatever it likes without being called to account in some form or another. … There is no alternative for any of us but peace.”

“Coming to Nothing”

Right-wing radicals: Investigators throughout the country are puzzled by soccer clubs set up by right-wing extremists. In the light of a possible ban on the NPD party, they suspect that the founding of clubs such as the FC Germania could indicate an attempt by neo-Nazi cadres to set up a new, legal underground structure – a non-political façade – long before the NPD is outlawed by the Federal Constitutional Court. The sport also offers a welcome side-effect – new opportunities for recruitment.

“The Law of the New Age”

Siberia: The little research town of Akademgorodok, founded by the Soviets as a science utopia, is barely able to survive. Thousands of experts are fleeing to the West. Those remaining behind are placing their hopes in the market economy and help from abroad – or a new Stalin.

“We’re on Our Last Legs”

Arms: Nuclear arms manufacturers for the superpower USA are facing recruitment problems. Only a handful of veterans are familiar with all the tricks of building atomic bombs. Rigid secrecy regulations are frightening away young researchers, who prefer to move to Silicon Valley instead. Now the former nuclear elite is being systematically questioned. With the help of notes or records the veterans are to remember all the technical tricks they have come up with in the course of their careers. This legacy could then form the basis for the three-year training course taken by new nuclear bomb builders. However, last year the laboratories only managed to fill half the positions vacated by people leaving for Silicon Valley or Wall Street.

“Life Is a Non-Returnable Gift”

SPIEGEL interview with moral philosopher Regine Kollek, on prenatal diagnostics, the fear of giving birth to a disabled child, and an unusual verdict handed down in France:

“The French judges viewed the life of this child as being a case of damage inflicted on the child itself. To me that’s a scandal. Anyone who ranks the fact of being alive as being a case of damage in an economic sense, is using a legal category that is inappropriate to the dignity of human life. … The further prenatal diagnostics progresses – in particular gene and chromosome diagnostics – the more doctors and parents will have to face the expectation of preventing identifiable deformities. The pregnant woman who stands at the end of the chain of decisions will be under pressure to carry out every possible kind of test – and in cases of doubt also to have an abortion. If she doesn’t take advantage of the tests and gives birth to a disabled child society will hold her responsible.”

“Operation Pushkin”

Part 1 of the SPIEGEL series about the hunt for the Amber Room: There is a new lead in the search for the legendary Amber Room. The billion-dollar work of art was carried off from Catherine’s Palace near St. Petersburg by the Germans and disappeared from Kaliningrad (formerly Königsberg) at the end of the war. Now an armada of treasure hunters is busy looking for it. This much seems certain: the Amber Room survived the great fire in Königsberg Castle following the bombardment by the Royal Air Force in 1944. It cannot be ruled out that it is currently being kept hidden by old Nazis and their heirs. Several dozen people have paid with their lives for attempting to discover its secret. A tip-off from Stasi circles put the SPIEGEL on the trail of a mosaic that was broken out of the Amber Room. It was returned to President Putin in April by Michael Naumann, minister of state for cultural affairs. But the mystery is far from being over.

“How Do You Do, Madam Egg?”

SPIEGEL interview with Carl Djerassi, inventor of the contraceptive pill, on artificial insemination:

“I believe all scientists were surprised at how quickly the pill was accepted by women. But something that is at least as important for the power balance between men and women is the fact that insemination is now moving from the bed to the microscope. … In future, more and more fertile couples are going to be using ICSI, because this way they can be more certain of giving birth to a healthy child than using traditional amniocentesis, for example. … Some idiots actually claim that the invention of the pill is to blame, also for all the divorces. But those are more the consequences of social change: the main reason is that women fought for equal rights and secured themselves perfectly reasonable rights at work. Nowadays most women get pregnant in their late 30s, and assisted reproductive techniques are going to make it possible to fulfil one’s desire for children at an even later age.”

“January Is Possible Too”

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with the cult French author Michel Houellebecq on the female sex, which remains the only reassuring answer to men’s anxieties. But love is degenerating into a commodity, professional experts are called for:

“Until recently, you still needed sex in order to reproduce. Sex was one of the most important duties people had to perform in their lives. The composition of future generations depended on it, and therefore also the course of world history. … I forecast that sex will soon only be available as a form of merchandise. Modern reproductive medicine doesn’t need it any more. Because we are unable to escape the ideal of beauty and youth in our hyper-sexualised world, our ideas about sex will soon be ruled by images that no longer have anything to do with reality.”

“Crime of Passion on Coney Island”

Theatre: In Copenhagen, Tom Waits and Robert Wilson have turned Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck into a musical hero – presenting a grand spectacle in the spirit of fairground entertainment. “Woyzeck” does indeed have what it takes to become a modern “Three-Penny Opera” – the music alone often reminds one of Kurt Weill, as Michael Skasa of Suddeutsche Zeitung notes. The songs and the entire murderous game are outrageously close to kitsch and yet wonderfully bold, the old material has been unhesitatingly twisted to fit the mellifluousness of present-day entertainment.