Freiwillige Ausreise is a term that is used to refer to a method of sending asylum seekers back to their home countries.
For those who have had their asylum applications turned down, this is the chance to leave the country “voluntarily”, rather than go through the appeals process and possibly be deported.
To hear a simple explanation and a short discussion in German, listen to the podcast:
(Press the “play” button to listen to the podcast)
In England wird ja kräftig geschmückt und dekoriert zu Weihnachten und auch sonst gibt es viele Traditionen, aber gibt es auch Weihnachtsmärkte in England?
Die Geschichte des Weihnachtsmarktes auf der Insel ist nicht sehr lange. Nur seit einigen Jahren gibt es in einzelnen Städten einen Weihnachtsmarkt. Diese sind auch sehr angelehnt an die deutschen Märkte, denn es gibt deutsche Bratwürste, Glühwein, Schokoladennikoläuse, Christstollen und viele andere weihnachtliche Leckereien. So heißt auch der diesjährige Weihnachtsmarkt in Birmingham “Frankfurt Christmas Market 2009”. Ihn gibt es seit 1997, er zählt ca. 80 Stände und gilt als der größte in England. Im Laufe der folgenden Jahre kamen noch weitere Weihnachtsmärkte hinzu, zum Beispiel in Bristol (1998), Manchester (1999) oder im schottischen Edinburgh (2000).
Neben den deutschen Köstlichkeiten werden aber auch selbst hergestellte Dekorationsartikel verkauft. Wie es auf dem Weihnachtsmarkt in Birmingham aussieht können Sie hier sehen.
Ich selbst war noch nicht auf einem “englischen” Weihnachtsmarkt, denn Birmingham ist doch ein gutes Stück vom Heimatort meiner Schwiegereltern entfernt. Und in der Nähe gibt es noch keinen. Aber wer weiß vielleicht ändert sich das ja noch.
Seit einiger Zeit gibt es auch für britische Weihnachtsmarktfans Wochenendangebote für Flug- und Busreisen zu deutschen Weihnachtsmärkten, die auch gut ankommen.
Today is a big day in Germany. 20 years ago today the East German government made the announcement that their citizens would be able to pass freely into the West. As one of the journalists asked from when this would apply, Günter Schabowski of the SED answered “as far as I am aware […] immediately”.
And so a large number of East Germans made their way to the border, leading to the now famous scene of the crowd pushing up the barrier at Checkpoint Charlie and flowing into West Berlin.
Much of the blogosphere is buzzing about this today, as are the mainstream media. And one of the biggest questions being asked is “where were you on that day?”
So where was I?
Well, at the time I was still living at home and studying for my A-levels. I remember waking up the next morning and watching the reports from Berlin during breakfast. I think at the time I may have realised that this was a significant event in German history, but maybe not quite the importance that it has come to have.
You see, I don’t think I knew that much about the GDR. I knew about the wall being built, and how Germany and Berlin were divided. I knew a little bit about the rules for visiting the East and how difficult it was to get to the West. But I could probably only name three towns in the East: Dresden, Weimar and Karl-Marx-Stadt (Chemnitz) and I cannot say that I knew much about things like the Stasi, or the internal politics and culture of the state.
One of my A-Level subjects was German, so inevitably the fall of the wall was going to be something that we talked about. I remember keeping files of newspaper cuttings about the events that followed, and in lessons we talked about the events that were changing Germany. We followed the first elections in March 1990, and the discussion about reunification in the same year.
However some wheels turn slower in A-Level education, and I do not remember these topics coming up much in the exams a year later.
They did have a larger impact on my time at university. With the GDR being one of the core components of studying German, much of this part of the course was probably re-written for my first year there. Many other components had to take a new direction as well, as current affairs in the country inevitably looked towards the East.
In front of the Berlin Wall in November 1996
I never made it to the GDR myself. My first visit to that part of the country was in November 1990 when I spent a day in Erfurt. Not much had changed in the few weeks since reunification. The buildings were still drab and there were still Russian troops on the streets. Some of the roads were in bad way. In a way, I had a taste of the country without ever visiting it.
Strangely, I have never been back. With the exception of a few visits to Berlin, one of which I returned by car from, which entailed travelling through the Neue Bundesländer, I have never visited that part of Germany again, despite travelling extensively throughout the rest of the country either on business or with the Scouts. I don’t really know why, the opportunity just never arose.
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