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Russian President Vladimir Putin bathes in the blood of Ukraine, while US President Donald Trump tears up the climate protection agreement like an angry child: These Düsseldorf carnival floats made by German artist and float builder Jacques Tilly are meant to provoke. They've now also provoked the Russian state, which has taken him to court — a first for the famed artist.  A trial against Tilly is now underway in Moscow. It was scheduled to continue this past Wednesday in the defendant's absence, but after a brief opening session, it was postponed for the second time until February 26.Move over, Vladimir: Putin isn't the only politician Tilly satirizes, as this float of Donald Trump from 2025 showsImage: Karl F. Schöfmann/imagebroker/IMAGO At earlier hearings in December, the court-appoi...

A dictator wearing reflective sunglasses, medals arrayed across his chest; a parliament in disarray; a people silenced by impunity. These are images we may envision when we hear the phrase "banana republic." The term was coined by US writer O. Henry (real name: William Sydney Porter), who'd fled to Honduras in 1896 to escape embezzlement charges by a Texas bank. In the coastal city of Trujillo, he'd observed how the US-owned United Fruit Company dominated the city's railways and docks and wielded significant political influence. This inspired his novel "Cabbages and Kings" (1904), in which he wrote about the fictional republic of Anchuria — a "small, maritime banana republic" whose government bent to the interests of a powerful foreign corporation. "Since then, it has been loosely used...

Leon Weintraub can still remember the day the Nazis marched into his Polish hometown of Lodz on September 9, 1939. "There they came, seemingly endless rows of tall, healthy young soldiers in green Wehrmacht uniforms. The thought of the sound of their hobnail boots on the cobblestones still sends a cold shiver down my spine," he tells DW. "They exuded so much power and would smash anything that stood in their way." Weintraub was only 13 then and had no idea what horrors awaited him. He lived in a poor neighborhood with his four sisters and his mother, who ran a small laundry service. His father had died when he was barely two-years-old. The tight-knit family relied on each other for support. Leon was a bright boy. "Reading books and watching movies were like a peephole for me, allowing m...