Second Time As Good As The First

Hertie bear

 I am back in Berlin for the second half of my Humboldt Award-sponsored time at the Hertie School's Center for International Security.  Last year, I was here from mid-February to mid-May.  This time, I am starting a couple of weeks earlier and going until the end of April.  I have successfully cleared the decks as we submitted the two major grant applications and the edited volume is now under review.  So, what will I be doing this year?  Mostly more of the same but more of it with a few key differences:

• Final stages of production of the book on parliamentary oversight (last year, we were still in the revising and submitting process).
• Continue interviewing German experts, MoD officials, and military officers for the next book on the relationships between defence agencies and militaries.
• This time, I am headed to Sweden and Poland to do interviews for this book.  Last year, I went to Finland.
• I need to write up the case studies from last year--Germany and Finland, while doing a better job this year of keeping up with the new case studies.
• Get a sense of how Europe is reacting to Trump 2.0.  Last year, I was more focused on how the Europeans were viewing the war in the east.
• Skiing the Alps.  Last year, I went to Austria for my first real Alp-ine experience.  This year I am headed to Zermatt and the Materhorn.
• Watch the German election up close.  Last year, there was an EU election.  This year, the stakes are probably more significant.  I keep getting approached at the Saturday street markets by reps of various competing politicians.  I just smile and say, "I don't think I can vote here" and move on.

The Marxist-Leninst Party
steals from Trump?

Olaf Schmidt is scary

The CDU messed up their whole
"choose stability amid the chaos"
thing by bring the AfD alongside for
an anti-immigration vote if
I understand it correctly.

 I am staying in a different place--much nicer, but less convenient.  It requires a 15 minute tram ride rather than a three minute walk to get the the Hertie Center for International Security.  It requires a 20 minute walk to get to the closest gym.  I am probably a 30 minute walk from the fabulous bakery, so the gym may actually help me lose weight rather than just maintain.  It is a very different place than last year--much bigger, in a very stylish building, the average age is much younger. 

the washer is
in a cabinet so it projects
the time left in the cycle
onto the floor

The apartment has been a bit of a mystery as it has very modern appliances, which have non-intuitive controls.  I eventually realized that one turns the hood fan and light on by pulling it out to get to the controls.  The place did come with manuals in German, French, and Italian, so Google Lens has been my friend.  I still haven't figured out how to turn on the under-cabinet lights in the kitchen.  Still, it is a bigger space with a desk, so I can get work done here or at Hertie, and the kitchen sink is actually large enough to hold a pot.

Disappearing controls.

 

 I have pretty thoroughly explored Berlin in previous visits so I will have to figure out which areas I have yet to visit.  As it is my second three-month stint, I will feel less obligated to eat German food and enjoy more of the foreign food that is all around me--Turkish, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Georgian, Italian.  I also repped myself at a bunch of Humboldt events last year, so I will not be doing that as much this year.  

And I will still take note of signs that amuse me:

Propaganda means word of mouth?
Best sign for a dentist's office

Berlin, Week Acht!

 Wow, time is flying by.  I have one week in Finland, two weeks of tourism in middle Germany and Northern Italy with Mrs. Spew, and then two weeks left of research and speaking and networking and Berlining. I have really enjoyed my time here, have made significant progress in the project, learned a lot about how Europeans are thinking about Ukraine (haven't had a chance to talk with them about Iran-Israel yet), and eating a lot of great baked goods. 

 The research has been good but not great.  Parliamentarians have been too busy to talk to me, so I am hoping for better luck next winter when I return for another three months.

This was a fun week as I started it having a beer in a beer garden with Erin Koenig, a Canadian diplomat I know via her work as chair of Women in International Security-Canada.  Tis a CDSN partner, so we had much discuss on that as well as comparative Berlin experiences.  And she was a great photographer as she patiently endured my interview on the Canadian defence review for the home crowd.  Had I had more warning about the DPU (I learned it was dropping a day before it dropped), I would have gotten my hair cut.  Shaggy, beer swilling Steve on the CBC! 

 

I had a very productive visit to Potsdamn.  The Bundeswehr's Center for Military History and Social Sciences is in a very scenic location, right on the river.  I met with a couple of folks there to discuss future cooperation with the CDSN as we move towards our next big grant application which will focus more onc civil-military relations and will involve international partners more directly and more extensively.   

I had a fun conversation with a Canadian student studying at Hertie about why Canada doesn't produce foreign policy reviews.  Tis is his project, and he guessed right that I might have opinions.  I have interacted with a handful of Hertie students regarding their projects.  They are sharp and engaging and fun--kind of like NPSIA students, as Hertie is the closest thing to NPSIA in Germany.  

I spent my Saturday walking to and from an excellent small Indonesian restaurant.  One of my basic rules of life: if I can find such a place with a good rating, I must go.  And it was pretty terrific.  The walk was great too, as it was a spectacular Berlin spring day.  My only regret was that I discovered a street market too late in the day to enjoy it--it was closing up when I arrived.  So, something to do when Mrs. Spew is town in a couple of weeks.  I walked past some neat murals and a funky park (see pics below).

I am finishing this now as I am about to board my flight from Frankfurt to Helsinki.  It has been one of my best Frankfurt experiences--incoming and outgoing planes eight gates apart, a small coffeeshop with sandwiches in between.  I may start to hate this airport less!  Anyhow, enjoy the rest of your weekend.  Next weekend's post will be about my first trip to Finland since a very short layover going from Leningrad to NYC long ago. 

Berlin Week Sieben

I am now more than half way through my time in Berlin, which is flying by.  The weather has mostly turned to spring so this weekend I walked around in shorts!  I am making progress on both the main project and other stuff, while embracing the best doner I can find.  

Upon returning from the Austrian Alps, my research project picked up.  I not only interviewed a German admiral and a former adviser to the Defense Minister, but I also interviewed a Finnish general via zoom.  I am headed off to Finland in a week to study that case, and I got a head start since the aforementioned general couldn't meet with me while I am in Helsinki.  

No, we didn't hold the workshop in the elevator
but I did selfie us when I had the chance.

The latter part of the week was focused on a workshop run by Christian Gläßel, a Hertie post-doc, and Adam Scharpf, a U of Copenhagen prof, on authoritarian politics.  They presented drafts of their chapters of their amazing book--it focuses on the logic of careers within autocratic institutions and how losers in the career competition either get detoured to the icky jobs (secret police) or try to force their way up (coups).  They also invited sharp folks from around Europe and North America to present their work.  I was tempted to play a favorite Sesame Street bit as I did not really fit.  But I got super useful feedback.  

I spent this Saturday enjoying the weather by walking around an old neighborhood with much Jewish history.  It reminded me of a commonality between Jewish sites and US embassies: you know you are close as you notice increased security measures.  Not great that this is necessary.  On some of the buidings, there were plenty of references to Kristallnacht, the night that the Nazis incited much violence against the Jews across Germany, a major milestone towards the Holocaust.

 

 

So, for a lighter Sunday, I went to a park that had heaps of people enjoying the sun, a very nice beer garden, and, oh yes, one of the largest Soviet WWII memorials.  I was struck not just by the size but by all of the Stalin quotes.  I remember enough Russian from way back when to

understand Stalin's name when I see it, even if I can't understand the quotes. I could not help but notice that there was hardly any German writing anywhere except in the room at below the big statue.  On my way out, I learned that there are still 20,000 or so Soviet soldiers here who were buried at the end of the war.

Whenever I am in Berlin, I can always feel the dark history, more so than anywhere else I have ever visited.  Whether it is hearing or seeing the train directions towards Wannasee or Spandau or the little markers in the sidewalk noting where Jews lived before the Holocaust and what their ultimate fate was (more often Auschwitz),* the Nazi period is inescapable, and so is the Stalinist period.  The Germans do a far better job than other folks of remembering their dark past, which is a good thing.  Even after seven or so weeks here, it has not faded or gotten old.  

 

Good thing I could embrace my favorite things to lift my spirits: ice cream and beer but not at the same time. 

Berlin 2024 Week Vier: Progress Accelerating

A bit of the wall near
the Canadian embassy

 Time flies when one is sabbaticalling in a foreign land.  Today marks a complete month in Europe with most of it in Berlin (just the one trip to Vienna thus far but that will change soon).  I had my first interviews for the project--it took a while to get started, but now the schedule is filling up.  And I got to present the project to the Hertie folks.  Oh and more walking and gawking and touristing. 

Usually, when I travel to a national capital to do fieldwork, I am there for a week or two, I try to fill up my schedule before or as I arrive, and then scamper around to meet as many people as possible.  This trip is different, of course, since I am here for three months this year and then again three months next year.  So, I prearranged an apartment and other living details but mostly waited to arrange the interviews until I got here.  Just before I started to get frustrated, I started getting appointments for this past week and the upcoming weeks.  I had an excellent conversation with a German air force officer and with a defence attache, and people have started to shower me with the names of interesting people to meet.  So, I will be doing coffee somewhere tomorrow (Sunday) with one such person and then my Monday will be quite full.  I have, of course, preconceptions of where Germany will fit in this project, but have already heard that some of that may be a bit off.  Good--I like learning.  

Speaking of learning, I presented my project to the Hertie folks.  They have a colloquium every two weeks, so I was invited to share my research, such as it is.  The project is in its very early stages, so the feedback can and will be most useful in directing the project.  I received a lot of very good questions, some of which we had not thought about.  It was a very helpful experience, and I hope to be able to do it again next year and see if we have made much progress.

I stayed in character and betrayed my character in the same day.  I saw this and ran away.  No, most of the milk here is in cartons.  I haven't gotten milk in a bag, although I have sometimes bought shelf-stable milk.  I still prefer to buy cold milk, but the shelf stuff was fine.  The betrayal was that the highly rated cookie store near me is vegan.  I had one wildly overpriced cookie, and it was good. I won't be going back mostly because of the price.  It was about 60% the cost of an amazing doner kebab sandwich I had a few minutes earlier, so I know where I will be investing my food splurge Euros.

I did do a spot of shopping as a need a luggage strap for my huge suitcase for the trip back in May.  So, the Mall of Berlin was tempting but not for the goods but because of this:

Yep, a three story slide.  If I wasn't wearing my nice clothes (I was in the neighborhood for an interview), I would have done it.  Maybe next time.

I am finally making progress on writing up the South Korean case study which is a mass of contradictions.  I have been doing some CDSN stuff--podcast recording, meetings, reporting.  So, the beat goes on.

I have been most successful at binging stuff--Masters of the Air is done, The Gentlemen was good except a meh ending, Damsel was a fun princess versus dragon (quite an excellent dragon) tale.  I have slowed my Buffy watching because, dare I say it, I don't find it that compelling.  I think my daughter will disown me....  oh well.

But in the next few weeks, the rhythm will change.  I will get on the road (or rails) more as the Humboldt folks have a meeting for us awardees in Bamberg, which is famous for smoky beer.  The following week I head off to the Alps (which will require planes, trains, and automoboiles) to see how Euro-skiing is different from my experiences elsewhere.  This year, I am doubling the continents where I have skied as I had done North and South America (Chile) in previous years, and Japan/Asia in January.  Very much looking forward to the next new skiing experience.

I will be spending this afternoon checking out a new (to me) neighborhood and food market.  Hope all is well over there.

Berlin 2024: Report Zwei

 Before I go out and tourist this Saturday, time to post about my second week in Berlin.  The big news was laundry.  No, not really.  The big news is the Zeintwende conference I attended.  

I spent two days hanging out at the Hertie School where they and the German armed forces Centre of Military History and Social Sciences held a conference on how European countries are re-thinking their world views in the aftermath of Russia's re-invasion of Ukraine in 2022.  I blogged about it here, so I will not repeat my summary of the event.  I will say that it definitely facilitated two of my objectives for my time here in Berlin: interviewing folks about the civil-military relations of European countries (as part of the larger, global project) and getting European perspectives on the state of things.  So, I learned a great deal, and I met with folks who I will eventually be meeting for interviews.  I definitely am feeling good about the research project even though I haven't interviewed anyone here yet.  But that will change soon.

Nice views of Dom
and TV tower at hight

The conference had one complication--a transit strike.  Google maps wouldn't show u-bahn routes, but I tried my local u-bahn stop anyway, but the subway entrance was fenced off.  I tried another entrance and same thing.  I was able to take the s-bahn and then walk about 15 minutes to get to the Hertie School on the first day.  I walked all the way home (I could have gotten a cab or taken the s-bahn, but it was a nice night).  The strike ended the afternoon of the second day so I could go home after the conference and then come back for a great dinner with some of the folks who were still around.  My first real German dinner, as I have been mostly cooking for myself, and, yes, my first beer on this trip.  

I did also do laundry.  The place I am staying has a scary looking washing machine and no dryer, so I took my stuff to a nearby laundromat.  It was super clean and got cleaner as the attendant showed up midway through my cycles and was super thorough.  The machines automatically put in detergent and such so I didn't have to buy any or measure any.  There was a central panel that controlled all the machines so I didn't have to have a lot of coins (5 Euro notes were handy).  And plenty of instructions in both German and English.  My plan was to read a novel while I waited, but I got to chat with a lovely Australian couple that were cleaning their clothes in between their Norwegian cruise and their German touring.  

I made progress in revising the legislative civ-mil project, and now have some appointments for the next project.  

The most dangerous aspect of this trip: I live way too close to one of the best bakery chains in Berlin: https://zeitfuerbrot.com/en.   Yum. 

Nope, didn't go, but thought about it.