Aiming for the "Wow"-effect, now subject to investigations of a parliamentary enquiry committee - the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg (Photo: WikimediaCommons/K. Baumgartel)

Simply a money-drowning prestige object?

The ground-breaking ceremony in the spring of 2007 seemed to herald a promising start for Hamburg's superlative project for the new Elbphilharmonie (Elbe philharmonic hall). Now, a parliamentary enquiry committee is investigating what slowly appears to be a bottomless pit.

German Soldier In Kosovo  (Photo: www.magazine-deutchland.de)

My son Janusz was drafted into the German Army or Bundeswehr, in 2007. To my wife's Elisabeth and I's surprise he took to it well. He left a message on the answering machine saying joyously that he had survived the first days of basic training exclaiming "I am Alive!" The discipline, cultivation of competence and camaraderie of army life proved to be what he needed. We were happy too, for he had given us years of grief as a wayward teenager, dropping out of several schools, getting arrested, smoking a lot of hashih, sleeping late till five or six in the afternoon, being generally rebellious and drifting aimlessly.