"Death Trap -- Poor fire protection, missing emergency exits, stairs that are too high: The Stiftung Warentest results are devastating," writes the Süddeutsche Zeitung in the headline accompanying its main article on the issue. "Is our Olympic Stadium Really a Death Trap?" asks the Berlin edition of the tabloid Bild.


"The crass strategy of portraying critics as traitors daring to scratch at Germany's football shrines will not get the World Cup organizers very far," writes the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The paper says that organizer Beckenbauer and his colleagues are "understandably scared that typically German squabbling could perhaps cause Germany to lose the only title it has held for generations -- that of world champion organizer."

Business daily Handelsblatt also gives poor marks to the organizing committee for its angry denunciations of the report. "This study is not a case of panic-mongering," it writes. "The only place panic has arisen is on the World Cup organizing committee. How else can one explain Beckenbauer's loutish remark that Stiftung Warentest should stick to testing olive oil?" The group, it adds, knows what it is talking about -- it has experience with building inspections, it has tested stadiums in the past and its criticism should be taken seriously. The stadiums may fulfil legal requirements and panic is unnecessary, the paper writes, "But if things can be improved, why not use the time before the World Cup to do so?"

Though the tournament organizers stand almost entirely alone in defending the stadiums, one newspaper does jump to their defense: the Financial Times Deutschland, which portrays the Stiftung Warentest investigators as opportunists seeking to use the World Cup to raise their profile. Why are they testing inspecting soccer stadiums, anyway, the paper asks? "The suspicion arises that this time the watchdog just wants to make itself appear important," it opines. "Beckenbauer is right, it should stick to testing olive oil and face creams. Its warnings are likely to fuel a security hysteria which is already getting out of control."

Control is a jumping off point for Die Welt, which uses the opportunity to reflect on a number of concerns about the World Cup that have arisen in recent weeks: terror, hooligans and the threat of mass panic in stadiums. Mass events, it says, are "never safe."  It says the concerns are worth taking a closer look at. "In all four cases, massive walls or trenches have been criticized -- the very things that have been put in place to protect against rowdy fans." The paper then uses the report as a tool for promoting its editorialist's own position that troops from Germany's Bundeswehr army should be deployed during the World Cup in order to provide back-up security for the country's police force, which has actually shrunk since the 9/11 terror attacks. Such calls have generated major controversy in Germany, where domestic deployment of the army is only permitted in the event of a national emergency, like the 2002 flooding in eastern Germany. But, the paper argues, "Bundeswehr troops could be deployed for logistical tasks and protection."

-- Daryl Lindsey

11:30 a.m. CET

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Hats Off, Professor Fischer

Speculation in Berlin that Joschka Fischer, the country's former Foreign Minister, would take a job at Harvard began circulating before he ever left office. But on Tuesday, word leaked. The former street fighter and taxi driver, who barely completed high school and never finished college, will soon start teaching at America's top university. "Joschka Fischer is emigrating," exclaims the headline in Bild, which goes on to dedicate a full page of editorials and coverage of the Green politician's future career. The paper reminds us that Fischer began commenting about his future months ago. "I'm not going to be like the grandpa on the Muppet Show who just offers sardonic wit after he leaves the stage," he said. The paper describes Fischer's career as breathtaking: "From ex-revolutionary and stone-thrower to top German politician -- and now as a university professor in the United States. Hats off, Professor Fischer."

In a fantastically sardonic editorial, Bild's Franz Josef Wagner offers tips on which classes Fischer should teach at Harvard. For example: How to Beat the System 101! "This would be a fascinating course: How I, a failed college student, resisted the bourgeois pressure to get a college education and became vice-chancellor of the world's third largest industrial nation."

But the paper's lead editorial, "Goodbye Germany," laments the fact that Fischer and his colleague, former chancellor Gerhard Schröder, are both becoming part of Germany's massive brain drain by seeking opportunities abroad rather than at home. (Schröder is consulting for a Swiss publishing house and has joined the board of the Gazprom-linked company building a gas pipeline over the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany.) Why should American students and Russian industry, the paper asks, be the only ones to profit from the unique skills of a former chancellor or foreign minister? "The experience of (Germany's) top politicians is one of the resources we shouldn't sacrifice," the paper writes, noting that former US presidents are often given honorary jobs and posts by current administrations. "Industry, universities and politicians should be making more of an effort to keep the Schröders and Fischers here in Germany."

On Wednesday, Fischer denied the reports, saying he had an offer on the table from another university but that he hadn't made any decisions.

-- Daryl Lindsey
12:30 p.m. CET

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Prescriptions for an Unruly Ahmadinejad

Iran's decision early this week to resume nuclear research -- work it claims is part of a civilian nuclear program but most believe is part of an effort to develop a nuclear warhead -- continues to dominate the German editorial pages on Wednesday.

Tehran has begun its nuclear research again, "ignoring all warnings, admonitions, threats and offers for negotiation that have been exchanged in recent months," writes the Süddeutsche Zeitung. "It has also symbolically destroyed every last bit of trust that remained between Tehran and the Atomic energy authority." Iran, it argues, has now placed itself entirely outside the regulatory rules that control the world's nuclear economy. "And action must be taken." But what would the correct reaction be to this provocation? What would actually force Iran to move? Tehran won't do anything if the only threat it is given is the suspension of talks --"these negotiations are already effectively dead, anyway." But Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, best known of late for his verbal diarrhea against Israel, has one major vulnerability: "His country needs economic cooperation from the west in order to avert domestic crises. The only hope the pressure will increase or that possibly even Ahmadinejad will curb his radicalism is if reasonable forces within Iran recognize the danger of economic isolation. After all, words don't seem to be bringing him to reason."  

Though Iran's actions are making the international community increasingly anxious, that doesn't mean by any stretch that UN members are in lockstep agreement over how to respond. An editorial in Handelsblatt mentions that fact that China, one of the five Security Council members to send critical letters to Tehran earlier this week, insisted that the letters be written individually by each country. Could this give China more wiggle room for a veto later? Just before Christmas, a Chinese delegation visited Iran to negotiate a deal for Iran to supply it with oil and gas. If the up to $100 billion project comes to fruition, it could be the biggest deal Tehran has ever closed with a foreign partner. Then there's Russia. Whether it be selling nuclear or weapons technologies, Iran has always been an important customer for Moscow. "Thus, the front against Iran is in no way as decisive as it occasionally appears to be," the paper writes. "In some countries short-term economic interests outweigh mid-term political dangers. Other countries would rather grasp at any diplomatic straw hat available to them than to consider a military option."

-- Daryl Lindsey

6 p.m. CET