“Intellectual Orientation”

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with the new head of the Springer group, Mathias Döpfner, on the financial disaster at Europe’s largest newspaper publisher’s, his own relationship with the major shareholders Friede Springer and Leo Kirch, and the role of the daily tabloid “Bild” in the run-up to the general elections:

“This publishing house needs a clear profile in terms of content. Also, providing clear values will allow us to motivate our staff much better in the long run than we ever could with a share option scheme, no matter how clever … After the numerous changes in leadership and strategy, I think the middle management and the workforce have simply turned away from the company. In addition there have, admittedly, also been certain unsuccessful investments into subsidiary areas. … We don’t want to become global players, we want to increase our corporate value. … The ailing German local newspapers are just waiting for foreign companies to pounce on them. … However, I’m sure that in the second phase such a large foreign publishing house will try to expand its market share by starting a brutal price war. This will bring even more smaller publishing companies and newspapers into trouble, and there will be a major wave of newspapers closures.”

“Warner with Faults”

US lobby: Four years ago, Zalmay Khalilzad, then an advisor to an American oil company, was sitting together with representatives of Afghanistan’s Taliban government over dinner in Washington’s Hilton hotel, sharing in the small group’s enthusiasm for a billion-dollar deal involving oil and gas pipelines in Central Asia. Today, that peaceable meeting is rather an unpleasant memory for Khalilzad. Last year the man who has switched rapidly to and fro between university and civil service, between think tank and oil company, gained enormous influence in the Bush administration. Recently he has even been made the US-President’s special ambassador to Afghanistan. The anecdote from the year 1997 does not fit the impeccable image of the bold man who was always aware of the mortal danger emanating from the Taliban: yet that is how Khalilzad likes to portray himself, and this is the nimbus that surrounds him in Washington – an incorruptible, knowledgeable intellectual who refuses to abandon his home country.

“The Cheated Victims of La Plata”

Argentina: Five presidents in 13 days – the political-style farce amidst state bankruptcy has culminated in a “government of national rescue”. But the brutalisation of society and the looming loss of people’s savings justifies a fear of renewed anarchy. On the one hand there are the looters in the poor districts who could have a highly destabilising effect – on the other hand the middle-class which is articulating itself deafeningly with kitchen utensils and driving distraught presidents to resign. The well-known sociologist Juan José Sebreli views these as being highly dubious “unpredictable forces which could rise up against the political classes of Argentina in their entirety.”

“Reading Has to Be Trained”

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with the successful author and professor of law Bernhard Schlink on the Pisa study, the poor level of German-language teaching in schools and his students’ weaknesses when it comes to writing:

“There are many who don’t read at all beyond what is absolutely necessary for their courses, neither fiction nor specialist literature. … The students’ spelling has improved thanks to the spell-checkers available on computers. But their line of argument lacks clarity. Their sentences don’t intermesh but are simply strung together. … There’s a theory about illiteracy which states that illiterate people have much more difficulty remembering and understanding their personal history than people who are able to read and write. If you are unable to keep the past present in your mind with the help of written texts you become a being without history.”

“Escape from the Mark”

Currency: The biggest currency change-over of all time was completed with hardly any upsets – and with some surprises. Prices dropped, the euro’s exchange rate increased. Whether the new currency will be successful in the long run depends on the determination and the discipline of European politicians. Psychologists will now be looking into why Europeans welcomed their new currency so joyfully. Does this really show that they are open for reforms? Or was it more the fun of something new – the introduction of the euro as a Europe-wide happening? In spite of all the risks, most critics of the euro have also accepted the new currency. So far, certainly, things have gone better than expected.

“I Sense A New Departure”

SPIEGEL interview with legendary pianist Maurizio Pollini on the difficult beauty of contemporary works, his perfectionism and the generation change in concert-goers:

“Many new works are indeed particularly difficult to play and to learn by heart. But it’s nonetheless very important for our musical life that those pieces of music that are close to us should be included in the repertoire too. That should be an obvious fact. Unfortunately there’s a gulf between contemporary compositions and audiences nowadays, which nips even future creativity in the bud. That’s sad … Music has to be able to stand up for its new values, it has to be appreciated for its own sake. Anything else would be nonsense. Only if someone is willing to get involved in a piece, particularly a difficult one, can they really benefit from it. Classical music is often complex; that challenge cannot be avoided. But believe me, it’s worth the effort. … I record things I have been playing for a long time, as a kind of document so to speak. Ideally the record would bundle together everything one has experienced and thought about in connection with the piece. But one only very rarely succeeds in that.”

“Semen Stolen in the Savannah”

Animals: Two Berlin vets have specialised in the artificial reproduction of wild animals, making a name for themselves world-wide. Particularly elephants are helped by the veterinary surgeons to have offspring, since they only rarely reproduce in zoos and circuses. The services offered by the German pioneers range from semen removal from bull elephants using electrical stimulation to the vaginal introduction of the sperm by means of a meter-long hose-pipe.

“The Rebirth of the Cosmos”

SPIEGEL cover story: When will the last stars be extinguished? And will life still be possible in space afterwards? Will the flow of time come to an end? Astrophysicists have now discovered what will become of suns and galaxies in the distant future. Many of them even believe that the universe may eventually reproduce itself.

“The Planned Child”

Family planning: Is it permissible for children to be made to measure? A British family wants to tailor-make a test-tube baby whose stem cells could save its son’s life. The baby’s tissue is to be perfectly matched to that of its ill brother. The blood from its umbilical cord, and the stem cells that are abundant in this, are to ensure the survival of the older brother. In the UK, there has been an outcry since the general public learnt of the family’s plans in July.

“Sherpas of the Circuit”

Formula One: Having being banned from driving for almost three months, the Grand Prix circuit begins again this week with test runs for the forthcoming season. By the opening race in early March, the newly-developed racing cars must be made fast and reliable – a materiel battle that takes physics to the limit. For some time, the racing teams have been in the habit of maintaining separate test crews – with their own cars, their own mechanics and their own drivers. While the racing teams are participating in a Formula One race every 14 days from March until October, the 30 to 50 strong test departments move from one course to the next at their own pace: a parallel universe, always slightly ahead of the famous show troupe.