"Fundamental Breach"

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with US diplomat Richard Holbrooke about the foreign political agendas of the presidential rivals Bush and Kerry, the position of the USA in Iraq, and the Vietnam syndrome:

"Multilateralism has been a crucial foundation for the United States, at least it was from Franklin Delano Roosevelt through to Bill Clinton. Every president, including Ronald Reagan, worked together with our friends and allies and in that way exercised America's role as a leader. As soon as the national security of the United States was at stake, every president was prepared to go ahead alone, but in most cases that was neither desirable nor effective - you only have to think of Vietnam. We can solve problems most effectively when transatlantic relations are strong. The Bush administration forms coalitions when it can, but it has no interest in strengthening long-lasting alliances. ...

Troops have been moved ever since reunification. Three quarters of the US troops stationed in Germany during the Cold War have been withdrawn. The remaining soldiers are in the country at Germany's request. Germany pays a billion dollars a year towards their upkeep. They no longer serve to protect your country but instead bolster the common German-American position if it comes to Nato operations to the east or south of Germany. America would have no objections if Germany were to desire a reduction in its troops. But the Bush administration announced the withdrawal without any prolonged reflection upon the consequences for German-American relations and for America's involvement in Central Europe. ...

John Kerry has experience of war, George Bush and Dick Cheney don't. The electorate will pass judgement on that. The facts are known, but at the moment Senator Kerry is being ferociously attacked by some former Vietnam veterans who have set up a supposedly independent political committee. But in reality this committee is financed by Texan Republicans, and their legal adviser was at the same time the legal advisor of the Bush campaign, which is why he had to step down."

"Cultural Battle behind the Woods"

Romania: Motorways, gold mines, Dracula Park - Transylvania's westward path is fringed by controversial large-scale projects. A growing host of opponents is resisting the plans of the governing ex-Communists - discretely supported by Prince Charles and London patrons.

"Memory Does Whatever It Wants"

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with Dutch author and psychologist Douwe Draaisma about the mystery of remembering, the speeding up of time with age, and strategies against forgetting:

"You cannot give your memory orders. Though you can memorise vocabulary or formulae, those end up in your semantic memory. Our faculty for remembering everyday things, autobiographical memory, does not listen to commands. Smells trigger memories all of a sudden; déjà-vu experiences occur out of the blue. ... The more memories you have of a particular period in your life, the more time seems to expand along the scale of your life. Identifying points, or milestones, have been created whose location in time is known. They trigger memories and also attract the broodings of old age. ... It could indeed be that we seek eventful hours because they make life seem longer."

"Child-Depleted Paradise"

Spain: The government is planning a drastic change in course in its policy towards foreigners. It wants to give papers to illegal immigrants who have jobs. The government of Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has announced an initiative for changing the aliens act at the beginning of September. All those who can demonstrate that "they are integrated into the labour market" are to be able to legalise their status. Trade unions estimate that up to 800,000 people currently working illicitly could be integrated into the social welfare system. Zapatero has now linked immigration policy to the job market and put it under the control of the labour ministry. To the delight of businesses: because despite an unemployment rate of more than eleven percent, hardly any Spaniards are to be found for the fruit and vegetable harvest, for construction work, looking after the aged and children, or for jobs in hotels and restaurants. With a birth rate that is the lowest in Europe, the economy of the child-depleted consumer paradise will be unable to flourish without newcomers.

"Daring to Be the Boldest"

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with the multifaceted artist André Heller, 57, about the presentation of the Olympic Games in Athens, his ambitious plans as the director of the cultural programme for the 2006 Soccer World Cup, and the orgies of shop-talk indulged in by sports-fanatical politicians:

"The Greek historic parade at the opening ceremony seemed to me an obvious idea, which undeniably, and to me unpleasantly, reminded one of certain living pictures in the processions of the fascists and Nazis. At 100 million dollars, the cost of the stage-managed programme, which actually lasted 40 minutes, was an obscenity. ... The events surrounding the World Cup must not become a showy, self-indulgent ego trip and relentless self-promotion, as has so far been the tedious rule. The cultural programme will try to permeate the various German lands with stimulating suggestions that appeal to the senses, with food for talk and with the so-called foreignness. ... That's why the motto is: The World Visiting Friends - and not Germany Home Alone. ... When [Beckenbauer], Schröder and the other grand princes indulge in their orgies of shop-talk, I sit completely off-side smiling contentedly as the official ignoramus. For a great many people, soccer has an almost mangy aura, or else they consider a match to be nothing more than a variation on a tribal feud."

"Criminal Ambition"

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with Hilde Schramm, the daughter of the Nazi architect Albert Speer, about the failings of Friedrich Christian Flick, her involvement on behaf of former slave workers, and her father:

"West Germany's post-war affluence is largely based on the fixed capital into which the profits from arms manufacturing flowed during the final years of the war. So there are lines which continue through from those days to the present. You don't inherit guilt, but if you accept a material inheritance that is tainted, then you become implicated because you are profiting through the injustice associated with the inheritance. ... Flick should have showed more clearly that he considered the questions that were put to him to be justified. But Mr. Flick is not in fact the problem. The problem is the people in politics who wanted to set up the collection in Berlin preferably without any fuss. You can't do that kind of thing without a discussion, and they've come to realise that too now. ... My own involvement in the slave worker issue has nothing to do with the Flick debate. I have been concerned with it for a long time, but I have only now assumed the chairmanship of the association. ... Donation campaigns are generally speaking not very pleasurable - no one really enjoys begging for money. But the people we are dealing with - former slave workers in Eastern Europe, who are unable to obtain any money from the official fund - are very old, they are in a bad way and we have to act now, or else it will be too late."

"The Soccer Peace"

Stars: Soccer used to be merely the greatest trivial pursuit in the world - until Brazilian UN generals used the world-class footballers Ronaldo and Ronaldinho in Haiti as wonder weapons. An international soccer match was to end the civil war at last.

"Flood in Mecklenburg-Pomerania"

Archaeology: Harpoons, flint axes, collapsed store rooms - archaeologists have discovered Stone Age settlements on the bed of the Baltic Sea. Submarine streams and the remains of drowned forests have also come to light. Was Northern Europe visited by a flood 8000 years ago? What scientists are examining at the bottom of the Baltic is the result of a Stone Age disaster. At the end of the ice age, the north was shaken by an environmental catastrophe. A colossal deluge occurred between Rügen, Lolland and Bornholm. The researchers working on the Sincos (sinking coasts) Project want to find out all about it. More than 40 experts have joined forces: archaeo-zoologists, geodesists, botanists and geophysicists from the Institute for Baltic Research in Warnemünde, IOW. In the front line, snorklers are pulling heavy sledges with video equipment, echo sounders and sonar devices along the ground off the coast of Mecklenburg.

"Kickdown in Paradise"

Tourism: To the Chinese it was for a long time no more than a dream: driving on Germany's motorways. Now TUI is organising the first hire car trips through the country of the automobile. The travel industry, suffering from the fear of terrorism and from thriftiness, is hoping that the Chinese could save it. For two years now, Chinese have been allowed to travel to Germany for private purposes too - though so far only as a collective. Last year, 20 million Chinese set out to visit other countries - outstripping the Japanese. And the Chinese are not stingy on holiday: at 170 dollars a day, they spend distinctly more than European visitors. In order to secure a large piece of the pie, TUI last year joined forces with the largest Chinese tour operator CTS to establish the subsidiary TUI China, hoping to lure the Chinese to Europe with package tour offers.

"The End of the Exorcists"

Education: The private Waldorf schools are in greater demand than ever this new school year, but most parents have no affinity for the anthroposophical ideals of the schools' controversial founder Rudolf Steiner. The dogmas of the pure doctrine are increasingly crumbling, all that parents still want is the alternative learning model. According to the school's national governors, at most ten in a hundred parents, and only one teacher in five, have affiliations with anthroposophy. The Waldorf school in Hamburg-Farmsen has responded to the demand for stronger achievement orientation. Managing director Farr refers to such infringements as "quality management". In truth they mark a paradigm shift in the Waldorf world: less classical Waldorf pedagogy and more teaching of recallable facts. Meanwhile, the national governors have a different dream: they want state recognition for their own Waldorf school diploma. They are going to court to get the diploma recognised as a qualification for attending university. They argue that in Sweden Waldorf graduates are not only allowed to study in their own country - a convention signed by most European countries in 1950 even forces German universities to accept Swedish Waldorf students. This, the inventive Waldorf backers suggest, contradicts the so-called prohibition of discrimination.