It's easy to see why Erick Kastner's 1936 novel is being reissued now: his focus on a pre-Nazi Germany, in the grip of recession, where over-educated white-collar workers are struggling not to return to the impoverished states of their working-class parents, has something to say about our present times.

'It's about the long route from A to B. The sense of the detour is important to me'

As cynical voters scorn politics, this epic survey reminds us why its ideals still matter so much

Berlin’s much vaunted love affair with David Bowie has been given a new lease of life with the release of the singer’s first album in a decade, featuring a track dedicated to his time in the once-divided Cold War city at the end of the 1970s.

She may be a conservative Christian Democrat, but Angela Merkel enjoys being described as the “greenest” Chancellor the Germans have ever had. The reputation does not stem entirely from her post-Fukushima policy U-turn which prompted her to announce an abrupt end to German nuclear power.

Stéphane Hessel, the French resistance hero, diplomat and writer who became an icon of anti-capitalist protests, died today in Paris.

The first time John Kerry was in Berlin, he was a boisterous boy of 10 risking his father’s diplomatic standing with clandestine bicycle rides into the Russian sector of the Cold War city.

While Europe is engulfed by its horse-meat scandal, Lebanon is battling its own food crisis: wood shavings in its beloved zaatar manakeesh.

Alleged offences committed at base in Germany

There's a moment, early on in “Ein Schwert verhiess mir der Vater”, the opening selection of this superb collection of Wagner arias and lieder, when Jonas Kaufmann, as Siegmund, lets out the huge, long cries of “Wälse!” with extraordinary power.

Weeks after Bowie released a nostalgic single about his time in 1970s  Germany plans for a film about that time have been announced

Kurt Schwitters, the German one-man avant-garde, was neglected in his adopted Britain but did the spadework for generations of artists