Archives for March 2008

More railway strikes in Germany

March 6, 2008 By 6 Comments

We thought it was all over – but obviously it isn’t. The Bahnstreiks, or railway strikes. It seems that the union that represents the train drivers is planning strikes for next week, even though they effectively got what they were asking for.

Just listen to the details of the deal that they worked out with Deutsche Bahn recently:

  • an extra wage agreement “Tarifvertrag” for train drivers
  • a back-dated one-off payment
  • an 8% wage rise from March 2008
  • a further 3% wage rise in September 2008
  • a reduction of working hours from February 2009 onwards

There are probably many unions out there that can only dream of an 11% wage rise!

But now they cannot agree on what to do with shunters, or with temporary staff leased from other parts of the company.

And because they cannot agree, the GDL – the union representing the train drivers – says that they are going on strike again on Monday. Indefinitely.

Indefinitely? Because of a few small details? They didn’t even go that far to get their main targets met!

In the meantime the poor passengers are left stranded, and probably wishing that they could have an 11% wage rise as well.

Filed Under: Current affairs, Travel Tagged With: , , , ,

Palmsonntag

March 6, 2008 By 4 Comments

Palmsonntag (Palm Sunday) is the Sunday before Easter.

On this day the Church remembers Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, riding a donkey, where the bystanders waved palm leaves and hailed “Hosana”.

In addition the Catholic Church remembers Christ’s suffering – the so-called Passion, whereas the Protestant Church does this later on in the week on Good Friday.

On this day people go to Church and take palm leaves with them to be blessed.

Two other traditions on this day are:

  • the Palmesel – the last person in the family to get up on this Sunday
  • the Palmhase – like the Easter Bunny, except it brings one or two eggs on Palmsonntag and is a tradition in the Odenwald – part of Hessen.

To hear a simple explanation and a short discussion in German, listen to the podcast:

(Press the “play” button to listen to the podcast)

Download a transcript

Download the MP3 file | Subscribe to the podcast

Filed Under: Easter, German Words Explained, Podcasts Tagged With: , , , ,

The secret Indian army of WWII

March 5, 2008 By Leave a Comment

I’m always fascinated by lost tales from World War II – small unknown facts that have only now been made public.

Such stories are not becoming rare, so I was interested to read this report on a secret army of recruits from India that had trained in Germany.

The information had originally been locked away for 75 years, having been deemed too sensitive to be made public any earlier, but now it has been and it really does stun me as to the countries involved.

When you learn about the British Raj in India and the time around WWII, you learn about the threat from the Japanese army. The thought that Nazi Germany was training Indian recruits in secret is something completely new.

I have certainly never heard of the “Free India Legion” defending the Atlantic Wall before.

I wonder what other secrets are in the archives, waiting to be discovered before the people who were alive then can no longer enlighten us to their personal experiences.

One example are the documents concerning the occupation of the Channel Islands – these were sealed for 100 years!

Will these now be available earlier as well?

I’ll leave the 9th May 2045 in my diary for the moment.

Filed Under: Cymeradwyo

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