Culture

To mark the Bayreuth Festival's 150th anniversary, a memorial event titled "Silenced Voices" ("Verstummte Stimmen") will take place on July 26, before the premiere of the opera "Rienzi." Works by Richard Wagner, Gustav Mahler and Jewish composer Pavel Haas, who died in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, will be performed at the event. Organizers also invited broadcaster, journalist and former deputy chair of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Michel Friedman — himself at one time a DW show host — to speak about Wagner's antisemitism and its legacy. The program aims to confront the festival's own history, while proceeds from the event are to fund scholarships for Israeli musicians. The Holocaust memorial concert came into the spotlight when it was suddenly canceled, with fe...

The Bayreuth Festival celebrates its 150th anniversary beginning July 25. But in the lead-up to the milestone, some observers have criticized how Bayreuth deals with the festival's antisemitic legacy. Jewish public intellectual Michel Friedman was invited to speak at a memorial ceremony honoring victims of National Socialism at the opening of the festival. Scheduled to discuss Richard Wagner's antisemitism and the festival's historical ties with the Nazis, Friedman was suddenly disinvited — only to be reinstated after public backlash and a series of reversals. German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung described the episode as reflecting a "chronic German desire to be spared from confronting its own history." Katharina Wagner is the director of the Bayreuth FestivalImage: Armin Weigel/dpa/pic...

The 2026 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, a prestigious award that honors individuals who contribute to the realization of peace through their work, goes to French-British lawyer and author Philippe Sands, the prize's board of trustees announced on Thursday. "In his literary work, which is distinguished both by narrative brilliance and historical depth, Philippe Sands devotes as much attention to the motives of the perpetrators as to the suffering and lives of the victims," the jury noted in its statement. "At the heart of his legal work is a commitment to the universal rights of every human being, evidenced in his advocacy for victims of war crimes, racism, torture and colonial injustice." More than a chronicler of crimes and violations of international law, Sands is also a promine...

A bright, almost cloudless sky. Waves lash against the Jackdaw. Her sails snap in the wind. To the horizon, single-masted ships drift across the ocean. To starboard, empty sandy beaches lined with palm trees stretch off into the distance. Standing at the wheel of my very own pirate ship, I listen to my crew as they launch into their next shanty. The salty scent of freedom washes my face — and all this despite the fact that I'm really at home, sitting on my couch. I'm playing "Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced." The video game is a fully revamped version of the popular 2013 pirate adventure. With updated graphics and additional missions, it's expected to become a hit with gamers. Pirates, after all, never go out of style, a long-standing staple of popular culture. Writers such as Emi...

Singer Bonnie Tyler has died unexpectedly at the age of 75 on July 8 in a hospital in Portugal "as a result of the illness that she was being treated for," a statement on her website says. At the beginning of May, she had been placed into an induced coma to aid her recovery after emergency intestinal surgery. After she emerged from coma more than a month later, she remained in intensive care. She was best known for the 80s megahit "Total Eclipse of the Heart," but also singles including "It's a Heartache" and "Holding Out for a Hero" from the soundtrack of the musical movie "Footloose." A raspy voice becomes a trademark Born Gaynor Hopkins on June 8, 1951, in Wales, UK, she grew up in a working-class family, where music played a central role.  She began performing in local clubs durin...

"I always thought of my grandfather as a left-wing unionist, and now he's turned up in the NSDAP database," Hanno Dannenfeldt told DW. It was always said in the family that his paternal grandfather had clean hands. Now that the National Archives of the United States has published its collection of National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) membership cards, Dannenfeldt is one of countless Germans eager to find out whether their relatives were members of the party that ruled Germany during the Nazi era from 1933 to 1945. This has not been an easy task: The site is often inaccessible because of heavy traffic, and the user interface is difficult to navigate. A German tool simplifies the search The German weekly newspaper Die Zeit has developed a tool that simplifies the search. User...

"I always thought of my grandfather as a left-wing unionist, and now he's turned up in the NSDAP database," Hanno Dannenfeldt told DW. It was always said in the family that his paternal grandfather had clean hands. Now that the National Archives of the United States has published its collection of National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) membership cards, Dannenfeldt is one of countless Germans eager to find out whether their relatives were members of the party that ruled Germany during the Nazi era from 1933 to 1945. This has not been an easy task: The site is often inaccessible because of heavy traffic, and the user interface is difficult to navigate. A German tool simplifies the search The German weekly newspaper Die Zeit has developed a tool that simplifies the search. User...

The river reeked so badly, it left Londoners gasping for air. Those who could afford to fled the city. Those left behind soaked their curtains in lime chloride to keep the stench at bay and pressed handkerchiefs over their noses whenever they ventured outside. "Whoso once inhales the stink can never forget it, and may count himself lucky if he live to remember it," the local press wrote. It was 1858. For weeks, temperatures hovered above 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit). Not a drop of rain fell to cool the city — or to wash away the filth choking the River Thames. London's lifeline became an open sewer: a murky, sludge-filled mix of human and animal waste, garbage and industrial pollution. The relentless heat drove the river to unusually low levels, exposing sewage and rotting r...

German is not the first language you'd expect to find behind a global TikTok hit, which is why the success of "Gut genug" is even more surprising. The track was a collaboration between Berlin-based producers KitschKrieg, indie duo Blumengarten and rapper Shirin David. Now, millions of social media users worldwide have featured the song in their videos — although many of them don't understand a word of German. Despite that fact — or perhaps because of it — the song has become a hit. The hook sticks in your head and is easy to sing along to. Blumengarten singer Rayan croons it in a high, expressive voice, and the melody carries a message that transcends language. It offers comfort, reassurance and the desire to simply be accepted; things that are felt all over the world. 'Doobie Scoot C...