German Holocaust survivor and witness-bearer Margot Friedlaender dies at 103
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Friedlaender's death "fills me with deep sadness".
"She gave our country the gift of reconciliation, despite everything that the Germans did to her as a young woman," he said. "We cannot be grateful enough" for Friedlaender's efforts.
Friedlaender was born in Berlin into a Jewish family of button makers and trained as a fashion illustrator.
During the Holocaust she was sent to the Theresienstadt camp in what is now the Czech Republic.
While she and her husband Adolf survived and later emigrated to the United States, the rest of her immediate family perished in Auschwitz.
After her husband's death she began taking a memoir-writing class and worked on a documentary about her experiences.
She went back to Germany for the first time in 2003, and moved permanently to Berlin at the age of 88.
Her tireless efforts in keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive, particularly by sharing her experiences with younger people, won her plaudits in Germany and beyond.
Germany's new Chancellor Friedrich Merz joined those paying tribute on Friday, saying Friedlaender had "entrusted us with her story".
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"It is our task and our duty to carry it forward," he said.
Steinmeier had been due to award Friedlaender Germany's highest civilian honour at a ceremony earlier Friday, which was abruptly cancelled.
"Until the last, she urged us to defend democracy -- remembering alone is not enough," her foundation said.
Her last public appearance was at a ceremony this week to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II at Berlin's city hall, where she repeated what became her mantra.
"Be human! That is what I ask you to do: be human!" she said.
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DW
4 hours ago
- DW
Will Germany raise retirement age beyond 67? – DW – 08/01/2025
Germany's old-age pension system faces collapse under the weight of an aging population. The country's new Economy Minister Katherina Reiche wants Germans to work longer to make up for it. For German Economy Minister Katherina Reiche, there's a simple way to fix Germany's pension system: "We need to work more and longer," she flatly told the newspaper in late July, instantly triggering a new debate along familiar lines. Reiche argued that the pledges her government had made in the coalition contract earlier this year were just not going to be enough. Germany's aging population has long been recognized as a problem. The population's median age — 46.7 — is the eighth-highest in the world and the third-highest among major economies, after Japan and Italy. By 2040, fully a quarter of the population is expected to be 67 or older. This year, birth rate fell to its lowest point in 20 years. This has had a marked effect: In the early 1960s, there were still six actively insured workers for every pensioner — that ratio is now 2 to 1 and sinking, and in 2025, two-thirds of the Labor Ministry's budget will go into the pension system: €121 billion ($140 billion). "It cannot be sustainable in the long term for us to work only two-thirds of our adult lives and spend one-third in retirement," said Reiche. "Unfortunately, too many people have been refusing to accept the demographic reality for too long." Reiche's statements triggered a quick backlash from her center-left Cabinet colleagues. Lars Klingbeil, finance minister and leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which traditionally sees itself catering to a working-class electorate, described Reiche's statement as a "slap in the face" for many workers. "It's easy to say that when you're sitting in your comfortable chair in Berlin," Klingbeil told news outlet ntv. "But you should go out and talk to the people in the country who are working as roofers, who are working as nurses, who are working as teachers and are really wearing themselves out and who are already struggling to make it to 67." Trade unions, meanwhile, said Reiche's plan was simply a new way to cut pensions. Many workers will be unable to work to a higher age for health reasons, forcing them to retire early, and accept deductions that permanently reduce their pensions. The contract agreed by Germany's two governing parties — Reiche's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the SPD — promised that Germany's current retirement age would not be raised. Instead, the contract pledged, "We want more flexibility in the transition from job to pension." In practice, "flexibility" means offering incentives to people who work beyond the legal retirement age. This would include measures like the so-called "Aktivrente" ("active pension"), by which any income of up to €2,000 per month is tax-free for those above the legal retirement age. Jan Scharpenberg, pensions expert at the financial advice company Finanztip, is convinced that the German pension system urgently needs to be reformed, but that the debate around it has become tedious. "The length of a working life is just one of the levers that can be adjusted to reform the German pension system in order to deal with the demographic transformation," he told DW. "And if I'm being really honest, I think it's a bit exhausting how for years and decades the same pro- and con arguments are being made, but no actual reform is put in place." While he agrees that raising the legal retirement age may become necessary, that doesn't negate the argument that it would, in practical terms, mean pension cuts for some people. "Those two things can be true at the same time, but that shouldn't prevent a pension reform," he said. "A reform of the system will only work if you combine and pull several levers." The retirement age system in Germany is dauntingly complicated. At the moment, the legal retirement age in Germany is 65, though it is scheduled to rise to 67 by 2031. But the age is staggered depending on the individual's year of birth, and how long they have paid into the system. And there are exceptions: People who are disabled or have paid into the system for 45 years, for example, can retire earlier. A contribution of 18.6% of an employee's gross monthly salary goes into the state retirement fund, with the employee and the employer each paying half. The government expects this contribution rate to rise to 22.3% by 2035, where it is supposed to level out until 2045. Johannes Geyer, public economics researcher at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), pointed out that the reason why the retirement age issue is so contentious is because it affects workers differently. "There are lot of people who can't imagine working beyond the age of 67," he said. "But those in perhaps better paid jobs can do that." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video But many experts say the narrow focus on the retirement age is unhelpful, as there are many different ways of increasing contributions to the pension system. One measure, for example, would be to provide better child care facilities, so that more single parents are able to work full-time and therefore pay higher pension contributions. Another solution might be to make migrating to Germany to work easier and more attractive. There are also proposals to increase the number of people paying into the public system by including the self-employed and civil servants, a proposal made recently by Labor Minister Bärbel Bas from the SPD. Meanwhile, on the expense side of the ledger, some more painful measures might be put in place to balance the books. Apart from raising the retirement age, that might mean extending the "waiting time" (the number of years one must pay into the system before one can begin to draw a pension), or reducing the rate at which pensions increase every year. The pension increase is calculated based on the development of gross wages and salaries in Germany and is 3.74% for 2025. In the coalition agreement, the SPD was able to secure the pension level at 48% of the standard pension to the average income (before taxes) until 2031. Critics have labeled this as untenable. According to Scharpenberg, a mix of measures needs to be implemented. But instead, he said, the perennial political debate revolves around doing one measure or another, as if it were impossible to combine them. The German pension system is structured very differently to other European countries. In Denmark, for example, the retirement age is linked to the country's life expectancy, so that it rises automatically as people live longer. And in Sweden, an individual's contributions are invested in various financial markets and then the profits are paid out when that person reaches old age. "That helps to diversify the risk," said Geyer. "They're not so dependent on the aging of their own population." In the German system, on the other hand, contributions from workers are put into a single pot, which is used to finance current pensions. Geyer argues that, unlike other European countries, Germany has failed to develop private insurance options to complement state pensions so that they help the whole population, rather than just the rich. "Other countries have done that significantly better," he said. "The UK, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden — they all have systems of obligatory insurance with relatively low costs and good profits. That's missing here."While you're here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter Berlin Briefing.
DW
5 hours ago
- DW
Recognizing Palestine would deepen French Muslim-Jewish rift – DW – 08/01/2025
President Emmanuel Macron's announced intention to recognize a Palestinian state has sharply divided French politicians. France's Jewish and Muslim communities also fear it could drive them even further apart. Mohammed Iriqat has witnessed first-hand France's shifting stance on the crisis in the Gaza Strip, from the taunts he once received for wearing a kaffiyeh, a scarf symbolizing Palestinian solidarity, to being part of widespread protests as the devastating war in the Palestinian enclave grinds on. Now, the Paris-based Palestinian law student is experiencing yet another shift after President Emmanuel Macron announced on July 24 that France will recognize Palestinian statehood at the United Nations General Assembly in September. "It's very symbolic, but ultimately important," Iriqat, 30, said of the statehood recognition, even as he prefers tougher options like boycotts and sanctions against Israel. Still, he added that the move "will build on others for a new era." Iriqat's response echoes the fractured reaction in France to Macron's statehood announcement, which has sharply divided France's political class and deepened tensions between its Jewish and Muslim communities, Western Europe's largest. Both have seen a sharp uptick in attacks since the Israel-Hamas conflict erupted nearly two years ago. Even with a split on the statehood recognition, both faiths also worry their fraying ties may further erode. "The war has ended many relationships, both among leaders and among the population," Gerard Unger, vice president of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF), told DW. "The two sides hardly speak anymore. Each side is aware that if they do, each will declare it's a victim." The CRIF is among those blasting Macron's declaration, alongside French conservative and far-right politicians. In a statement, the Jewish group called it a "moral fault, a diplomatic error and a political danger." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video "Macron isn't respecting his own engagements," said Unger. He noted that the French president earlier set still-unmet conditions for recognizing Palestinian statehood, including the release of Israeli hostages and the "demilitarization" of Hamas, an Islamist militant group which Israel, the European Union, the United States and others have designated as a terrorist organization. "That explains the Jewish community's anger and disappointment." Other prominent Jewish figures are also sharply critical. "It's an opportunistic decision," lawyer Arno Klarsfeld, son of famous Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld, told France's conservative CNews TV. "It cements the divorce with the Jewish community in France, considerably chills relations with Israel and the United States and reinforces Hamas." Not surprisingly, many of France's Muslim leaders and leftist parties have broadly saluted the president's move. "Mr. Macron's decision has been received with great satisfaction and joy," said Abdallah Zekri, vice president of the French Council of the Muslim Faith. "We hope it will translate to reality in September, without any preconditions." Few dispute that Macron's statehood declaration marks a diplomatic U-turn. Two weeks after the Hamas-led attacks against Israel on October 7, 2023, the French president was in Jerusalem pledging "unconditional support" for Israel, calling for an international coalition to fight Hamas. Last year, he led a ceremony for French victims of the Hamas assault, calling it "the largest antisemitic attack of our century." But Macron reportedly has been shaken by Gaza's escalating humanitarian crisis and Israel's ongoing military campaign. The conflict in Gaza has killed more than 62,000 people, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in the enclave, and many currently suffer from widespread famine. In June, France shut down several Israeli weapons stands at the Paris Air Show for refusing to remove attack arms in their display, sparking Israeli fury. Then came Macron's announced intention to recognize Palestinian statehood, a move Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized by saying it "rewards terror." Undeterred, France, along with Saudi Arabia, co-hosted a UN conference in New York on July 28 calling for a two-state solution. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Polls suggest that a majority of French people support the idea. But a June survey from the French Institute of Public Opinion, sponsored by CRIF, shows most first want the remaining Israeli hostages taken during the October 7 attacks freed and Hamas to surrender as conditions. "The majority of French Jews aren't hostile to a two-state solution" under the right conditions, the Jewish council's Unger added. Most also "consider the situation in Gaza with tens of thousands of dead is awful," he said, even as they blame Hamas, not Israel, for the war. Like the CRIF, Pierre Stambul, who heads the small French Jewish Union for Peace, also criticizes Macron's statehood declaration but for different reasons. "It's total hypocrisy," he said. "What France is doing is nothing at all. Many states already recognize the state of Palestine." Rabbi Michel Serfaty, who has worked for years building interfaith ties, was noncommittal about Macron's announcement. "Let's see how our fellow Muslims will react," he said. "What interests many is just to live in peace." Events in the Middle East have long reverberated in France, where many of the country's roughly 500,000 Jews and up to 6 million Muslims hail from similar North African roots. Both Jews and Muslims have seen a spike in physical and verbal assaults since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza. Unger, of the CRIF, said antisemitic attacks have "multiplied by two or three. Before, they were verbal threats; now, they're physical ones. Rabbis have been attacked." The French Muslim Council's Zekri described a similar uptick. "Personally, I've received slices of ham in my mailbox, threats sent to my home," he said. Many Muslims, he added, also don't report such acts to the police. In the 19th arrondissement of Paris, home to some of the city's biggest Muslim and Jewish populations, many declined to be interviewed. A group of Hassidic men, chatting outside a religious book shop on a sunny afternoon, only acknowledged that relations were complex. "We're not looking for problems," one said. "We try to keep good relations with the Arabs." A few blocks away, Algerian businessman Karim Kata said the two communities "try to avoid politics." "We've known each other for a long time," he added, pointing out Jewish businesses nearby, including a kosher butchery employing Muslim workers. "We respect each other. Politics are politics. People are people." Iriqat, the Paris law student, moved to France four years ago and is no stranger to interfaith tensions. He describes slurs against him in the street and being targeted for joining pro-Palestinian demonstrations, which were initially banned over public order concerns. "It's difficult to hold any sign that tells that you are Palestinian," he recalled of the early protests that initially mainly drew Muslims. "To wear a kaffiyeh, to hold the Palestinian flag — it was very difficult." Soon, however, "we started to see a lot of French, even the Jewish community, the leftist Jews," Iriqat said. "I saw they began to feel sorry about what was happening." Born in the occupied West Bank, he still recalls the day Israeli soldiers shot dead one of his uncles as the man sat studying on the family's rooftop terrace. Iriqat was 4 years old at the time. "I remember every single thing — even the smell of the food my grandmother was cooking," he said. "I remember pieces of my uncle's brain on the stairs of our home." He hopes growing international pressure on Israel will eventually sway its biggest ally, the United States, to follow suit and ultimately destroy a system he describes as apartheid. "I'm dedicating my life to Palestine and the Palestinians," said Iriqat, who plans to remain in France and continue his studies. "When I'm fighting for Palestine," he adds, "I'm also fighting for the interests of the Israelis."
Local Germany
10 hours ago
- Local Germany
OPINION: Why Germany's pensions problems will soon be your problem
Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil presented his budget for 2026 this week. And now that the debt brake has been taken very firmly off, he's splashing the cash. So much so that it's easy to lose track of where the money is coming from – and where it's going: billions for the Bundeswehr here, billions for Deutsche Bahn there; even the consolation prizes for out-of-fashion green initiatives have nine-figure price-tags… But the real story here is not the €126 billion in off-plan spending on defence, infrastructure, and net zero. It's the near-identical sum which will be spent on pensions: €127,8 billion. That's almost a quarter of the regular budget, which stands at €520 billion. And given the lower-than-projected tax take in year six of economic stagnation, this level of spending will require a record €170 billion of government debt. So yes, we are, in essence, topping up the pension fund on credit. How the German pensions system works If you are employed in Germany, you make monthly contributions of 9.3 percent of your salary to an arms-length body, Rentenversicherung , which is matched one-to-one by your employer. Similarly to systems such National Insurance in the UK, the idea is for those in the workforce to finance pensions while they themselves acquire entitlements for their own retirement. So in theory, the government shouldn't need to allocate any budget to the system at all. Yet in practice – in another similarity to the UK's National Insurance – the system stopped working a long time ago and now requires annual injections of cash from the state exchequer to stay afloat. Unfavourable demographics The principal cause is that Germany now has far more retirees living much longer set against a rapidly-declining working population. Advertisement When the current pensions architecture was put in place in the 1950s, there were around six people in work for every one person claiming a pension. Average life expectancy was still below 70, and as Chancellor Adenauer famously remarked: ' Kinder kriegen die Leute immer ' (People always have kids). It didn't turn out that way. Instead, as life expectancy heads past 80, there are now only three workers for every pensioner; soon, this ratio will be closer to two to one. READ ALSO: 'Multiple crises' - Why fewer babies are being born in Germany While Germany is not alone here, our 1950-1970 boomers proved both particularly numerous and particularly shy of having children, so we have worse statistics than neighbouring countries – and more trouble paying pensions. Poor design Moreover, Germany's pensions system is, by design, more expensive than most other variants: instead of setting a minimum number of years' contributions as a threshold for a basic entitlement (as in UK, Denmark, or Sweden, for example), our system awards earnings-based points throughout working lives and then sets an individual pension level accordingly. Advertisement Check your annual statement to find out your projected monthly sum, and you'll see that this is good for high-earners and bad for the low-paid. What is more, it makes life difficult for actuaries at the pensions body, who have no idea how contributions from those still in work will develop. Germany has plenty to offer retirees. Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay If the current labour force earns less, workers pay in less, too. Yet life expectancy rises inexorably (especially for high earners, who tend to be healthier in old age), and so the government has to step in to satisfy pensioners' legal entitlements. Bad politics Worse, government has continually tweaked the system in ways which make it ever costlier. In the late 2010s, for example, Merkel's coalitions expanded early retirement programmes, enticing anyone with 45 years' employment history to leave the workforce at 63 rather than 68, cutting five years of potential contributions out of the system – and adding five years of pay-outs. They also introduced the basic minimum state pension ( Grundrente ) and an additional mothers' allowance ( Mütterrente ) – over and above the points-based calculation. READ ALSO: Tax cuts and pensions - How Germany's budget changes could impact you The justification for this was that people who don't earn well or leave work to look after their families accrue fewer points, and so are left with low pensions. Advertisement Some say it's only fair that everyone has a decent income in old age, regardless of what they contributed. Others say: hard cheese, that's how it works. Wherever you stand on the politics, though, one thing is clear: the system was not designed to simultaneously reward high earners and be generous to all. Why the German pension systems won't stop working – for pensioners Yet that is precisely what, out of political expediency, it is being bent to do. The result is an already huge demographic deficit being made worse, swallowing up ever larger amounts of government spending. And it's about to get worse: a new, expanded Mütterrente is being planned as part of a bill guaranteeing that pay-outs will average 48 percent of wages for the remainder of this parliament. All workers in Germany contribute to the country's pension system. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Axel Heimken Yet there will be no reduction in entitlements for higher earners, so the money will have to come from… That's right, future budgets! By 2027/2028, we can expect subsidies to the system to be approaching one third of regular spending. This means that, once the €500-billion off-plan bonanza ends in 2029/2030, there'll be direct competition for resources between the Army and the army of pensioners. Whoever the Finance Minister is by then, they'll be weighing up whether to spend on upgrading railways or uprating pensions. OPINION: If Germany is to thrive it must help foreigners feel they belong here What is already obvious: they'll opt for the latter. As everybody knows, turkeys don't vote for Christmas – and any politician looking to please turkeys doesn't put them on the menu. As pensioners make up an ever-growing proportion of the electorate, no major party will campaign to make them even marginally worse-off. Recent policy initiatives from well-meaning economists – e.g. a ' Boomer-Soli ' whereby wealthier pensioners pay a tax surcharge to finance the system, or doing it like the Danes and coupling pension age to life-expectancy – are total non-starters. As is the idea of getting civil servants and state functionaries to pay contributions. (Yes: Beamte get off scot-free…) How will the pension challenge affect today's workers? Instead, the ever-growing pensions bill will have to be financed by penny-pinching elsewhere – and by increasing insurance contributions for those currently in the workforce. So expect taxes to stay high, public infrastructure to get worse, and that 9.3 percent on your pay-packet to turn double-digit before the decade's out. READ ALSO: '€10 a month' - Germany to set up pension accounts for all children from age 6 Of course, no-one is going to say that out loud, which is why this thorny issue has been delegated to a commission which will report on the matter in the coming… *Yawn*. As anyone who has worked in a German company knows: Wenn man nicht weiter weiß, bildet man einen Arbeitskreis! (If you don't know the answer, set up a committee!) So if you're in work in Germany, there are two ways of looking at: Pessimistically, you're being sucked dry by a Ponzi scheme which will have collapsed by the time you're of pension age. Or, optimistically, politicians' consistent refusals to change anything mean that, when you hit retirement age, you'll be having the cash splashed on you – and may see the whole issue quite differently. Advertisement One thing's for sure: if Germany retains its system in anything like the present form, it will remain generous by comparison to many other countries – who will also be facing demographic pressures to varying degrees and seeking to keep spending under control. And a country without any pension provision at all is almost inconceivable. Indeed, as one of German politics' most enduring soundbites has it: " Die Rente ist sicherI " (Your pension is safe).
