MetaFilter posts tagged with Germany and obituary

"Are we the baddies?"

Artw — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 13:51:07 -0800

Danish author Sven Hassel (Wikipedia, official site) has passed away at the age of 95. (Danish - Translation) Hassel fought for the Germans during WWII and became famous after publishing Legion of the Damned, a semi-autobiographical account of the war. He went on to write thirteen more books following the adventures of his convict battalion, incuding Wheels of Terror which in 1987 was made into the movie The Misfit Brigade staring Bruce Davison and David Patrick Kelly (clip). He will be remembered fondly by all who browsed the bookshelves of charity shops as young men.

Otto von Habsburg-Lothringen 1912-2011

dhens — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 16:40:15 -0800

Otto von Habsburg-Lothringen, son of Charles, last monarch of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, died on July 4 at the age of 98. Otto, seen here with his great-granduncle Franz Joseph (ruler of the Habsburg Domains 1848-1916), was hurried forward in the line of succession when his father's uncle, Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated by Serbian ationalists during a state visit to Bosnia-Herzegovina in the summer of 1914, starting World War I and ultimately ending the power of a dynasty which had ruled in Europe for 700 years, including, in the 1500s, large chunks of Europe (the vast overseas empires of Habsburg Spain [1516-1700] and Habsburg Portugal [1580-1640] are not on this map). While the Habsburg Empire is now seen as an "artificial" or "outdated" construction, which produced nationalist infighting (as recorded by Mark Twain in Harper's when he visited the "Austrian" parliament in the 1890s: Part I, Part II, Part III), more recent historians, such as Pieter Judson, are reconsidering the view of the Habsburg lands as a "prison of the peoples": listen to his podcast (49 minutes) on the subject. Some social science research has shown that Habsburg administration may have been more trustworthy, or at least perceived to be, than that of many of the surrounding polities: previously on the Blue. Otto himself lived an interesting life, not only as a witness to but as an actor in history. Near the end of World War I, his father "renounced participation" in the Austro-Hungarian government, and briefly tried to return to power in Hungary without much success, dying in exile when Otto was not yet 10. The Emperor-King Charles was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2004, for his attempts to broker peace in the Great War. Otto went on to live in exile around various parts of Western Europe, including Switzerland and Belgium (itself largely a former Habsburg domain), where he received a degree in law. He was bitterly opposed to Hitler and the annexation of Austria, leading the Nazis to name the potential (unnecessary) armed invasion of Austria "Case Otto." Otto, whose claim to the thrones of numerous lands occasionally made him persona non grata in same, later made a name for himself as a pan-Europeanist and member of the European Parliament from its founding in 1979 until 1999 (sitting as a member from the conservative Bavarian Christian Social Union). He was controversial, the Catholic prince apparently getting into fisticuffs with the ultra-Protestant Northern Irish MEP Ian Paisley in the chamber. He called for Europe to adopt mentions of God, while also calling for "interfaith" dialogue. The Habsburgs are still going strong, inspiring nostalgia, and Otto's nephew Lorenz is continuing the tradition of marrying well, in this case a woman who would be Queen.

RIP Hermann Scheer (1944-2010)

gompa — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 10:43:00 -0800

Hermann Scheer - long-serving German parliamentarian, "Europe's Al Gore," father of the feed-in tariff, and perhaps the most important green politician of our time - died yesterday at the age of 66. Though mostly unknown in North America, Hermann Scheer was among the most prominent European proponents of renewable energy. Scheer, a Social Democrat, and Hans-Josef Fell of the Greens, co-wrote and championed Germany's Renewable Energy Sources Act, passed by the Red-Green Coalition government in 2000. This feed-in tariff legislation set prices for electricity from renewable sources far above those for conventional power. It is credited with creating more than a quarter of a million jobs and vaulting Germany to the front ranks of the global green economy. It has since been copied in dozens of jurisdictions the world over, from Italy to the Canadian province of Ontario to Gainesville, Florida. Scheer was also instrumental in the establishment of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). He was given the Right Livelihood Award (aka the "alternative Nobel Prize") in 1999. He wrote several influential books on what he called "the techno-logic" of renewable energy. From a 2009 interview with German journalist Franz Alt:

The transition to renewable energy is a switch from imported energy to indigenous energies, from commercial fuels to non-commercial fuels, from large power plants to small and medium production facilities and to new conversion technologies – and not just the avoidance of emissions and nuclear waste. The totality of expenses for renewable energies – except for bio fuels – results from technology costs. This is a transition from fuel business to technology business, from energy dependence to energy autonomy. I call this the techno-logic of energy sources. That is why we need a global technology market for the deployment of local and regional renewable energy resources. Many have misunderstood this concept – even advocates of renewable energy. The manifold mental barriers result from this misconception.

Hermann Scheer 29 April 1944 - 14 October 2010. RIP.

She did not bear the shame

tizzie — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 08:39:33 -0800

Freya von Moltke died on New Year’s Day at age 98. She and her husband led the Kreisau Circle, an intellectual salon which became an important part of the German resistance in WWII. They planned a coup, one of over forty-two separate plots to kill Hitler and overthrow the Nazi regime. Freya von Molte was not portrayed in Valkyrie, the 2008 film that depicted the assassination attempt, but she, along with the other members of the resistance (Deutscher Widerstand), "did not bear the shame."