Australia

Duerrenmatt

Credit phb Next to Max Frisch one of the authors I wish to recommend for young readers and Teachers and Learners of the German Language and Culture. Inspector Bärlach, dying of cancer and with only a year to live, investigates the murder of his colleague Schmied in a rural area near Bern. The case leads to the wealthy industrialist Gastmann, whom Bärlach has suspected of numerous crimes for forty years but never been able to prove guilty. The investigation reveals that Schmied was actually working undercover on Bärlach's orders to gather evidence against Gastmann. The ambitious young Lieutenant Tschanz becomes Bärlach's assistant, but the dying inspector gradually realizes that Tschanz himself murdered Schmied out of jealousy over a woman. Rather than arrest Tschanz through conventional means, Bärlach manipulates him into killing Gastmann, then allows Tschanz to believe he's gotten away with both murders - only to have him arrested at the novel's end. The title's meaning crystallizes: Tschanz becomes Bärlach's "hangman," the instrument of justice against Gastmann, even as he himself is guilty.Why It's So Masterfully WrittenDürrenmatt achieves something quite extraordinary here - he's written what appears to be a detective novel but is actually a profound meditation on justice, morality, and human nature. The crime plot becomes a vehicle for philosophical inquiry in the best Swiss tradition of skeptical humanism.The narrative structure is deceptively simple yet brilliantly constructed. Dürrenmatt inverts…

Peter Ludlow's "Moreton Bay History" – Eine Würdigung Peter Ludlow (Brisbane), Historiker und Freund, betrieb bis vor kurzem einen der bedeutendsten regionalen Geschichtsblogs Queenslands: "Moreton Bay History" (peterlud.wordpress.com). Altersbedingt wurde die Seite inzwischen eingestellt – ein Verlust für alle, die sich für die maritime, soziale und kulturelle Geschichte der Moreton Bay Region interessieren. Ein Lebenswerk der Lokalgeschichte Seit 1977 – dem Jahr, in dem ich meine Lehrtätigkeit in West-Berlin begann – widmete sich Peter Ludlow der Erforschung der Moreton Bay Geschichte. Sein besonderes Interesse galt Peel Island, jener kleinen Insel in der Moreton Bay, die als Quarantänestation und Leprakolonie diente. Aus dieser jahrzehntelangen Forschung entstanden grundlegende Werke: Peel Island: Paradise or Prison (1989) Exiles of Peel Island: Quarantine (1991) Exiles of Peel Island: Leprosy Queensland's German Connections Für meine eigene Arbeit als DaF-Berater (1998-2005) war besonders relevant: "Queensland's German Connections" (2012), das Ludlow zusammen mit Matthew Tesch und Robin Kleinschmidt verfasste. Dieses Werk dokumentiert die deutsche Einwanderungsgeschichte Queenslands – jene Siedler des 19. Jahrhunderts, deren Nachkommen die kulturelle Grundlage bildeten für die 1.000+ Deutschlehrer, die ich später unterstützen sollte. Ludlows historische Forschung zeigte, warum Deutsch in Queensland überhaupt eine Rolle spielte: Deutsche Siedlergemeinden, lutherische Kirchen, kulturelle Netzwerke, die sich über Generationen hielten. Maritime Geschichte und menschliche Geschichten Ludlows weitere Publikationen umfassten: The Port of Brisbane – Its People and its Personalities (2013) World War I Heroes of the Redlands (2015) Moreton…

About TSS

About me This Site is about Private and Public Schools in Queensland. The Author Peter H Bloecker worked from 1998-2005 for Education Queensland in the LOTE Centre in the function of the German Language Advisor funded by the Goethe-Institut Munich and the Foreign Office in Berlin (AA). Example only. Example Anglican Boys’ College TSS TSS Campus Southport | Credit phb Credit phb Credit phb The Southport School and the Persistence of Educational Privilege: A Comparative Critique of Elite Secondary Education in Britain, Germany, and Australia The campus map of The Southport School spreads before the observer like a cartographic representation of educational aspiration rendered in brick, mortar, and carefully maintained playing fields. Founded in 1901 during the late colonial period when Queensland was barely forty years removed from its separation from New South Wales, TSS positioned itself from inception as an antipodean outpost of British public school traditions. The term “public school” in this context carries its peculiar English paradox, denoting institutions that are in fact highly private, selective, and expensive, serving as gatekeepers to social mobility while simultaneously functioning as mechanisms for its restriction. The architectural and institutional DNA of TSS derives directly from the Victorian reconfiguration of older British grammar schools, establishments that had existed since medieval and early modern periods as charitable foundations intended to provide classical education to promising boys regardless of economic circumstance. The nineteenth century…

Paradise Lost

Do you have a favorite place you have visited? Where is it? The True North of Germany in the hills of Holstein is the place I was born in Aug 1949. In fact the same day as Johann W von Goethe, who became my Star since I can think. Home is not where you decide to live, home means literally the place you were born. Why? The Mother of all good questions, indeed. Some people joke Home is where the Wine is, I cannot disagree more. Serious Jokers like myself rather state: Home is where your loved ones live, like wife and family. What happens then to expats like Thomas Mann, Bert Brecht and Walter Benjamin and Stephan Zweig? Good question, indeed .. It depends on the circumstances for sure. Are you forced to leave your home like many refugees? Jewish Germans left Germany after 1933. If they understood the political context and the writings on the walls. I am a fan of Banksy ... Some US citizens consider leaving the USA. Why? Another good questions. Many Germans have decided to live outside Germany and the EU? Why? For many reasons for sure. What worries me at present is the number of younger people considering to leave Europe for good ... Why? Another good question, indeed. Why do you live at the Gold Coast though born in Holstein north of Hamburg?…

Summer is close

The long summer vacations start in Australia after the first or second Dec week (Southern Hemispheres) plus Southern Cross. Funny to celebrate Christmas in the middle of summer, when Bavaria measures 1 m of snow or more. So in short and in Tees and Shorts: No ice and snow and not any central heating here at the Gold Coast, where houses are finished in less than one year. Only a bit of concrete and some Dachlatten, a bit of steel and Gips. The rest is decoration, more or less ... Wanna know more about retirement at the Gold Coast? Why not? The Mother of all questions, indeed.

Edle Federn

This essay was written by Claude AI prompting different versions and after re-reading and re-editing the AI version, ready to be published on my Blogs on Higher Education. Target group teachers and academic learners of German and German Studies and Literature. Pls note at the end the date of latest update. Juli Zeh: Literary Voice and Podcast Pioneer in Contemporary German Culture Introduction: A Writer for Democratic Times Juli Zeh occupies a distinctive position in contemporary German culture as bestselling novelist, constitutional judge, and host of “Edle Federn,” one of Germany’s most significant literary podcasts. Born in Bonn in 1974, she has constructed a career that defies simple categorization, moving between fiction writing, constitutional adjudication, and public intellectual engagement with questions of democracy, civil liberties, and social cohesion. For those interested in German Studies and contemporary European intellectual life, Zeh represents both continuity with German traditions of engaged authorship and their adaptation to twenty-first-century media and political circumstances. Her novels explore tensions between individual freedom and collective demands, her constitutional work addresses fundamental questions of democratic governance, and her podcast creates sustained public conversation about literature’s role in contemporary society. This essay examines Zeh’s literary achievements and the innovative contribution of “Edle Federn” to German literary culture, arguing that together they demonstrate how serious intellectual discourse can adapt to digital media while maintaining depth, nuance, and commitment to literature as essential…

Corrupt

With Maria Ines I have discussed politics in Brasil: Her views: Corrupt! All the parties and politicians are corrupt! I have always objected from my German point of view. Watching SBS World News today about Ukraine and Putin and Trump: Putin is a war criminal and highly corrupt. Trump is very corrupt. The not elected leader of the Ucraine and his best friends seem to be as corrupt as Trump. And now what? Giving up watching SBS and ABC News. Rather go walking or swimming or camping. Or cycle. Like my Aussie mates phrase it: I vote (not to be fined) and rather go swimming or fishing or golfing. What do you think? Is Albo corrupt? Are Australian politicians corrupt? The mother of all questions, indeed ...

FAZ Artikel: Bengio in Montreal

From Pioneer to Prophet: Yoshua Bengio's Turn Toward AI Safety and the Question of Bildung in the Age of MachinesWhen one of the world's most influential AI researchers publicly questions the direction of his own field, we should pay attention. Yoshua Bengio, the Montreal-based computer scientist who shared the 2018 Turing Award for pioneering work in deep learning, has undertaken a remarkable intellectual pivot that carries profound implications not just for technology policy, but for how we understand human agency and autonomy in an increasingly algorithmic world.In June 2025, Bengio launched LawZero, a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing safe-by-design AI systems, named after Isaac Asimov's zeroth law of robotics [Lawzero](https://lawzero.org/en/news/yoshua-bengio-launches-lawzero-new-nonprofit-advancing-safe-design-ai) [Yoshua Bengio](https://yoshuabengio.org/2025/06/03/introducing-lawzero/) . This move represents the culmination of a transformation that began in 2023, when Bengio recognized what he describes as the potentially catastrophic trajectory of commercial AI development. The organization has already raised nearly $30 million from philanthropic backers including Schmidt Sciences and Open Philanthropy [Time](https://time.com/7290554/yoshua-bengio-launches-lawzero-for-safer-ai/) .But LawZero is more than just another AI safety initiative. It represents a fundamental challenge to the dominant paradigm of artificial general intelligence development—one that raises questions German educational philosophers would recognize immediately.The Turn: From Technical Achievement to Ethical ResponsibilityBengio's evolution mirrors a pattern familiar to anyone versed in the German Romantic-Idealist tradition: the moment when technical mastery confronts its own limitations and moral implications. Just as Fichte and Schelling grappled with the…

There Is Only One Person I Want To Be

If I could be someone else for a day, it would be me. The me who overcame her fears and doubts. The me who published best-selling novels. The me who … There Is Only One Person I Want To Be This is nice, indeed … Beyond Myself there are others I love, of course: My wife, the Love of my life! And my and her family for sure! But it is a good start to love yourself! And your daily learning to become yourself. Linked J W Goethe

Black Rider

Along the wind-lashed dikes of the North Sea rode the Black Rider on his dark steed, Fury, their figures outlined against the roaring “Blanker Hans.” The people of Husum whispered that he was a spirit of the storm, sent to guard the dikes where Hauke Haien once fell to the sea. When the tide rose and the wind moaned through the reeds, his hoofbeats echoed over the salt marshes — steady, unyielding, like a heartbeat of the land itself. Fury’s mane streamed like black foam, and in his rider’s eyes burned the same fierce will that once drove Hauke to defy the sea. At dawn, when the storm broke, the Rider and Fury vanished into the mist — leaving only silence, and the feeling that the dikes still had their watchman. 🌊🐎 Northsea in German: The Blank Hans Be aware pls: This Post is about Death: Following the Grimm Brothers on Gevatter Tod. The latest Bob Dylan concert in Hamburg - according to some reviews I read in German media, showed an artist and song writer awarded with a Nobel Prize in Literature because of his lyrics: Haunted by the Black Rider. A bit like the last Jonny Cash Songs that I love a lot before this great artist died (RIP). Bob Dylan (Robert Zimmermann) has fascinated me since I had learnt to read and write in a Primary School in…

Wendland

In Hamburg Sep 2025 | Credit phb This post is about the ZDF Series Wendland with the German actor Ulrich Noethen. I worked in Wendland for 11 Years: Because of the Zonenrandgebiet and Gorleben a North German area near Lüneburg, not to be missed! The Elbtaulaue from Bleckede to Dannenberg and Hitzacker has attracted many visitors from Europe and around the world. The area is Storch Country and very known among cyclists mostly with push bikes on their racks like the Police Volkswagen Van. Paradise for Bird Watching and Campers and Outdoors. Artists have settled here as well. Known is the annual Kulturelle Landpartie. More to come here soon. Wendland Magazin | Credit phb Credit phb Credit phb Ulrich Noethen and “Wendland”: A Critical Review About the actor Ulrich Noethen Ulrich Noethen, born November 18, 1959 in Munich, is one of Germany’s most acclaimed character actors . His breakthrough came in 1997 when he starred as Harry Frommermann in “Comedian Harmonists,” earning him the German Film Award for Best Actor in 1998 . He has notably portrayed Heinrich Himmler twice, in “Der Untergang” (Downfall) and “Mein Führer” , and played Otto Frank in “Das Tagebuch der Anne Frank” (The Diary of Anne Frank) . Noethen has won numerous awards including the Bavarian Film Award, the German Television Award, the Grimme Award, and the German Television Academy Award in 2022 . The…

Initiaton and Omission

Chapter 1 US Literature and American Studies Hemingway, Salinger, and the Satirical Legacy of T.C. Boyle Iconic Baywatch Tower | SLS in OZ | Credit phb Introduction The American short story tradition has long been shaped by the theme of initiation—moments of moral, emotional, or existential awakening that mark the transition from innocence to experience. Among the most influential voices in this tradition are Ernest Hemingway and J.D. Salinger, whose divergent narrative strategies have defined two poles of literary minimalism and psychological introspection. This essay explores how Hemingway’s Iceberg Theory and Salinger’s interior monologue construct distinct models of initiation, and how T.C. Boyle, writing in their wake, synthesizes and subverts these approaches through satirical realism. The result is a dynamic lineage that charts the evolution of American narrative form and thematic preoccupation from modernist restraint to postmodern critique. Hemingway: The Iceberg Theory and the Stoic Initiation Ernest Hemingway’s contribution to literary modernism is inseparable from his Iceberg Theory, which posits that the deeper meaning of a story should remain implicit, submerged beneath the surface of sparse prose. In stories such as "Indian Camp," "The Killers," and "Soldier’s Home," Hemingway crafts initiation narratives in which young protagonists confront death, violence, or disillusionment. These experiences are rendered with minimal exposition, relying on dialogue and action to suggest psychological transformation. The absence of overt emotional commentary forces readers to engage in interpretive labor, mirroring…

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