Report on the conflict surrounding the position of IMF Managing Director

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer about Caio Koch-Weser, German candidate for the top post at the IMF, the EU conflict with the US about a European military force, and dealing with Jörg Haider

Report on the children of US soldiers who threw stones onto a road from a footbridge in Darmstadt

"In the Face of the Gallows"

SPIEGEL interview with Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer on the value of Adolf Eichmann’s memoires and the reasons for publishing them:

“I have found nothing that was not already heard in court during Eichmann’s trial in 1961. Maybe psychologists can glean some new findings from it; but the material is of no interest to historians. … There is a moral obligation to make everything to do with the Holocaust generally accessible.”

"A Recipe for Europe"

SPIEGEL interview with Spanish Prime Minister José Maria Aznar on his country’s economic miracle, on xenophobia and ETA’s separatism, as well as the need to defend the democratic system of values in the EU:

“The best form of social policy is creating new jobs. We have created 1500 jobs every day, even at weekends. That’s how we stocked up our social welfare funds. We reduced the tax burden on the people, on families, but first and foremost on small and medium-sized businesses. As a result they flourished and took on employees. … We are a state goverened by the rule of law. We – the civil society who wants peace – are in the majority. The terrorists will never achieve their goal. … That is certainly a recipe for Europe: stability, tax reforms, liberalisation of the labour market, those will create affluence for society at large … Europeans have shown that they are not indifferent to a dangerous political development in one of their countries. We have to be more than a currency, a market or a structural policy.

"Earn Your Position"

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with Baron David de Rothschild, head of the French branch of the family and in charge of investment banking, on his upbringing, the family and what distinguishes financial transactions with private bankers in a time of large-scale mergers:

“We don’t want to offer everything to everyone. We want to be among the best in those areas where we are able to compete, such as in mergers and acquisitions and some other lines of business … I think it is going to be difficult for the new Internet banks to get to know their clients and to ensure that they adhere to the rules which the banks are subject to. … Now you are asking whether we are going to collect all the companies together under the name of Rothschild one day. That could be. But it certainly won’t be happening this year … The Rothschild upbringing is: earn your position.”

" A Dozen Blows with a Cudgel"

SPIEGEL interview with Moscow radio journalist Andrey Babitski on his arrest by the Russian special unit Omon and his time in Chermokossovo prison:

“On January 16 I fled from Grosny, which was under constant bombardment, heading north-east. … I identified myself as a journalist … whereupon I was arrested by members of the Russian special unit Omon. … In Chermokossovo I experienced a proper concentration camp, similar to Dachau. …On a road somewhere in Chechnya I was handed over to people of whom I still don’t know to this day, what they were actually after … To my mind, Putin is a man from the beginning of the 20th century. … The Russians want a firm hand and don’t realise that they will only end up with a soft brain.”

"Fifteen Years Lost"

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with Russian Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn on Gorbachev, the Yeltsin era and the expectations towards Putin:

“Our reforms were a catastrophe, we’ve lost 15 years. It’s tragic. But at the end of the Stone Age, mankind realised: the Earth can feed us. That’s the point we’ve arrived at again today. Over half our people have been cast into penury. They don’t survive on a wage or a salary; they live off their small private plots of land. … The two power structures have got to control each other: the central authority has to ensure that laws are adhered to very strictly, while the self-governing bodies must control the openness and populism of all state decisions on every level – in the villages, in the district towns and in the provinces.”

"Fine Cloth Made of Weeds"

Natural fabrics: An ecological textile merchant in Germany wants to cultivate stinging nettles and set up a domestic textile production. If the nettle aficionado from Wendland has his way, the first environmentally-minded managers will already be snuggling in skin-friendly business shirts made of nettle by the year 2001 – a far cry from looking like a weed.

"Music Has to Be Honest"

SPIEGEL interview with Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer on tango-mania and the Vivaldi boom, genuine and false emotions in concerts and on wasted talents:

“The masses are not the measure of art. Very often we are seduced into acting, feeling and thinking cheaply. It’s just very convenient. It happens in our social lives, where it may be called small talk, and it happens in music too – dishonest performances. … Talent is a wonderful thing. Unfortunately talented artists often tend to work less than they could. If you sell your talent too quickly, it becomes weaker and weaker, because you don’t refuel. And the record industry is really very voracious.

"Lonely in Manhattan"

Soccer: Germany’s record-holding football player Lothar Matthäus is now finally to start working for the worst professional club in the USA. The darling of the German tabloids is entering a world full of peril. Matthäus doesn’t want to go, but he has to. If a fairy godmother came along he would spend all three wishes on the same thing: to stay in Munich, stay in Munich, stay in Munich. But he cannot. He has signed a contract which he can’t get out of.

"The Air Figures of the Belly Editors"

Book market: In the licensing poker with international best-sellers, media groups quite often end up holding the low cards. Faced with an acute sales crisis, the industry is focusing more and more on narrative non-fiction and novel-like “faction”. In the best-seller business, the classical publisher who sees himself as the first editor of his books is increasingly being replaced by the book manager racing around the licensing business, who reads less and less of what he wants to sell. As a medium, books need time in order to have an effect – but that is precisely what competing groups and chains of bookseller are granting less and less of. This paradox of the industry is becoming more and more acute the greater the commercial units that manufacture and sell books. Among the big players, the Bertelsmann media empire is best equipped to deal with the risk of having to write off as a loss millions in licensing fees year after year. Smaller publishing companies are unable to join in the international best-seller roulette anyway. However, they are run by reading publishers who have their own quality standards for books and who like to discover authors for themselves.

"Carefree in Every Way"

Formula 1: Nudged ahead by Mercedes, Nick Heidfeld is giving his Grand Prix debut in the French Prost-Peugeot team. The long-term aim is to produce a German world champion in a Silver Arrow. Heidfeld’s apprenticeship comes at a time when experts are few and far between. At the moment the ambitious teams have more cockpits than outstanding drivers. Since automobile manufacturers started to be become increasingly involved in Grand Prix racing, the standards and demands have risen. When major groups invest hundreds of millions, they don’t want their success to be thwarted by a pilot who is stretched beyond his limits.