After the autumn migration passed with nary a dead bird landing in Germany, the bird flu hysteria simmered down. No more discussions on hoarding Tamiflu , the one effective medication. Free range chickens were allowed out of confinement again and people generally figured that Germany would be spared -- at least for several months.

But then two swans and a hawk were found dead from the H5N1virus, which causes the bird flu, on the island of Rügen on the German Baltic coastline, forcing public health authorities to reevaluate its assumptions about the disease. Rather than striking a migratory bird, the disease hit indigenous swans. And the swans died not during the autumn migration, but several months later.  

While the sight of dead swans and other birds is not unusual in winter, now the spotting of a cadaver creates a certain sense of panic, especially when there are large numbers of them turning up. Authorities collected over 100 dead swans on Rügen on Wednesday. In Hamburg, after dead ducks were found floating in a canal, preparations were made to quarantine the famous Alster Lake Swans in a special tent.  Dead swans and hawks have even turned up in Berlin, although no cases of avian flu have been confirmed yet.

Germany's Agriculture Minister, Horst Seehofer, announced that there was no reason for panic, but called for fowl to be confined to cages starting on Friday and lasting until late April, at least for now. He told the Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, on Thursday that he expects more cases of birds infected with the H5N1 virus to turn up. Germany's papers include extensive coverage of the situation and provide tips on precautions people should take around birds. On the editorial pages, a debate rages over whether the government is handling the situation correctly.  

The conservative newspaper Die Welt recalls those days when mad cow disease suddenly struck German cows, killing both the animals and the German illusion that such horrible foreign diseases would stop at the German border. Back then, sniffs the paper, "consumers were shocked and politics sank into activism." Now Minister Seehofer has the responsibility "to avoid panicking the population without downplaying the seriousness of the situation." Noting that the only way to hinder the spread of the avian flu is to improve hygiene and prevent contact between wild birds with domestic fowl, the newspaper observes that "almost all available means to do so have been exhausted, as Horst Seehofer had to conclude with a certain resignation. The only thing left is the demand for caution -- a measurement that was justified for dealing with the medieval plague."

Berlin's Der Tagesspiegel, even sees hope in the deaths of German swans from avian flu. Presumably, they were infected in the autumn by the migratory wild birds, yet they only just died. "A message left to us by the dead swans on Rügen is comforting. They were apparently capable of dealing with the bird flu virus for a longer period of time." The swans succumbed only late in the winter, when they were presumably weakened by hunger, cold or age. The paper concludes that the government is reacting the right way, not talking about catastrophic scenarios, but taking measured steps.

On the other hand, the center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung complains that the government has been too clumsy in dealing with the outbreak of H5N1. "The only uncertainty has been how the virus would reach Germany, not if it would come." After all, it has slowly creeped its way through Asia, Russia, Eastern Europe and, now, Western Europe. Nevertheless, the reaction now that the avian flu has been found leaves much to be desired. "In the face of the wafting threat, Agriculture Minister Seehofer appears alarmingly awkward." Simply calling for a 10 kilometer quarantine area around the site where the dead swan was found on Rügen and a requirement for farms to contain fowl in their cages now instead of in March is not enough. The paper calls for broad measure now, before it's too late. "Far beyond the borders of Europe, fowl should be kept in their cages and observed intensively so that at the first suspicion then can be killed." The consequences of not taking strong enough action are tremendous. "The authorities must do everything possible now so that we don't look back one day in anger at the moment when it was too late."

Meanwhile, the mass circulation Bild, includes a maudlin letter to dead swans of Rügen, in which columnist Franz Josef Wagner writes how saddened he is by their plight. "When I see the dead swans of Rügen, then it's like seeing Mozart as a water corpse, or Tschaikovsky. A swan is considerably more beautiful than all of us. No women has a more beautiful swan-like neck than a swan." He laments that this is just the beginning, that we're all doomed. First the sparrows, eventually the penguins and then "us, although we can't fly." 

-- Karen Nickel Anhalt
12:00 p.m. CET

In other news, Wednesday's announcement that a Chinese company has developed a high-speed magnetic levitation (maglev) train also came as a shock, and not as a surprise. In early 2003, the world's first commercially used maglev train, the Transrapid, went into operation in China between downtown Shanghai and its airport. It was build not by a Chinese company, but by a consortium of two German companies, Siemens and ThyssenKrupp, which are considered the leaders in the field.

Now the China Aviation Industry Corporation (CAC) says it has designed a superior maglev train, and will send it on a test drive in July. In the face of concerns that his company simply copied the German technology, CAC's chief engineer Zhen Qihui asserted that "the train that we built is completely different from the German one."

Not everyone buys that line, especially since there have been enough cases of Chinese companies suddenly developing technology that they had recently bought from abroad. At the International Automobile Show in Frankfurt last year, Chinese automaker Jiangling presented the Landwind, an SUV that looked just like the Opel Frontera. Volkswagen also had trouble with a company allegedly copying Jetta parts. Still, a spokesman for the Berlin Institute for Train Technology told the Berliner Zeitung that he didn't believe that German technology was used by the Chinese in a big way. Indeed, he believes that Germans and Chinese will work together in the further development of the technology.

Now critics are worried about the joint venture EADS announced in late 2005. The European airplane manufacturer Airbus plans to build the A320 in China with a local partner in order to increase Airbus sales in the country. Newspapers expressed their concern over the matter.

The Financial Times Deutschland concludes that "the eternal suspicion that the Chinese only buy foreign technology in order to copy it appears to be confirmed. And the old dilemma faced by foreign companies in China becomes more explicit: if you're not there, you lose out. But if you are there, then under certain circumstances you also lose." The FTD finds the speed at which the Chinese developed their technology as proof of how quickly companies must innovate. "No company that exports its technology to emerging markets can rest for long on its competitive edge." Going forward, German companies have only one chance to succeed: "They must be better and faster -- only then can they keep up."

"It's no wonder that Germany is the world leader in exports when its products are always a good bit ahead of the competition," observes Der Tagesspiegel. However, Germany's competitive edge is endangered every day. And there are more examples than the Transrapid. Siemens, for example, supplies turbines for a Chinese dam and has an agreement with a local company that allows it to copy a limited number. "For the next deal, Siemens will have to offer even better turbines," the Tageespiegel warns, adding that while China is a lucrative market, the profits can carry a heavy price. "The profits made there today could be paid for dearly in the future if the companies aren't careful.