Angst

Angst is no longer just a German phenomenon: A specter is haunting the world – the specter of angst*.
*A play on words based on the opening sentence of the Communist Manifesto

People are suffering from Weltstress (global stress) and feel they are losing control of their lives. They are at the mercy of climate change; as a consequence of senseless wars, they suffer from high prices caused by resource shortages; they hear AI predicting their imminent demise; and they feel lonely despite an oversupply of friend requests on social media.

Many people are overwhelmed by the fast-paced present and lament, “Everything used to be better in the past.”

They see decline on all fronts. Germans no longer trust the established parties to get their country‘s problems under control. Anger mingles with citizens’ angst for their future: “Those who govern us are incompetent; they can’t get things under control.”

Former East Germany is AfD land,
while in the West the Christian Democrats are still (?) dominant (©Deutsche Telekom).

People are looking for ways out of this threatening trend and seeking alternatives. Hoping to restore a predictable outlook to their lives, they vote for politicians or parties that cater to this longing.

Indeed, these parties offer simple solutions with slogans like socialization, expropriation, Tax the Rich, remigration, Dexit*, back to our national roots, and the DM. These catchwords will surely make life cheaper and foreign influence more bearable.
*coined after Brexit

Who will bear the costs? Tariffs*, the rich, and big tech.
*or another country: Mexico will pay for the wall

©Deutsche Telekom

Meanwhile, in Germany, a shrinking centrist bloc is fighting to keep its government afloat amid dwindling revenues. Social benefits, personnel costs, and subsidies rise; public spending on these items will climb to 52.0% of gross domestic product this year, and the trend is upward. Germany is not yet the European champion, with Finland (58.9%) taking the gold medal and France (57.4%) the silver.

Because the ruling parties are suffering one election defeat and one poll shock after another, they shower people with favors, even though there is nothing left to give. An economic expert called the second German fuel rebate - costing 2.5 billion euros - an “expression of political desperation.”

On Monday, Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced a lowering of the electricity tax for everyone to the European minimum, making German energy-hungry industry internationally competitive and easing the financial burden on private households. According to Merz, the government will use financial leeway in the budget to achieve this, but in reality these subsidies are paid for by increasing our national debt.

For decades, citizens should have realized that the state pension is no longer sufficient to maintain their standard of living when retired. Nevertheless, few did make provisions for the future. Only 48 percent of West Germans have a private supplemental retirement plan; in the East, the figure is a mere 27 percent.

When Merz plainly said in April that the statutory pension would serve only as a basic safety net in the future, there was an outcry. Citizens expect the state to rescue them.

Germany still enjoys a high standard of living. We remain the world’s third-largest economy. But the German economic model has limited long-term sustainability. The welfare state is severely overstretched, non-wage labor costs are high, and bureaucracy is enormous. If we do not address these problems, Germany’s economic performance will decline.

©NTV

89% of our citizens recognize the need for reforms, which will inevitably lead to sacrifices, but only 32% are willing to make them.

Germany is incapable of reform, and people’s angst will grow.
**

Ice-Cold Neutrinos

This blog reveals a connection between the Freiburg-Madison-Gesellschaft and CERN, and its personal too.

©THE CAP TIMES

Francis Halzen, a Belgian-born physics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and, from 1969 to 1971, a colleague at CERN*, won this year’s Nobel Prize for his neutrino research. He learned about it while sitting in a hotel room in Italy: “I got the call at around 11 o’clock. … If I had been in Madison, they would have woken me up. I slept very well last night.”

*I joined CERN in 1968 and never met him

While writing a research proposal for a committee meeting with his peers, the newborn primus inter pares said, “I hope I don’t disturb the peace there too much.”

He told Madison’s THE CAP TIMES: “This project was challenging enough that it ending up with the Nobel Prize was so unlikely that until we started to finally achieve some results recently in the last 10 years, I certainly … never thought about this, and this certainly was not a motivation.”

“I was lucky enough that the right people showed up at the right time with the right talents to overcome the challenges the project faced. Some were overcome with pure luck, but that's science,” Halzen chuckled. “It's a combination of perseverance and talent and luck.”

Neutrino research was a field in high-energy physics where CERN led when Red Baron worked there.

And CERN continued its neutrino research beyond my retirement. In 2011, experimental results caused an outcry in physics when physicists measured neutrinos produced at CERN in the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso buried deep below the mountains that were “speedier” than the speed of light.

Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (©Alastair Philip Wiper)

The OPERA* experiment, designed to study the transformation (oscillation) of muon neutrinos into tau neutrinos during their 730 km journey from CERN to the Gran Sasso detector, observed a light-travel time of 2.4381723 ms while the expected time was 2.4382323 ms. This meant neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light arrived 60 ns too early.

*Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus

Did we have to rewrite Einstein’s Theory of Relativity? I can reassure you, no.

In May 2012, OPERA repeated its measurement with a new, short-pulse neutrino beam. The final conclusion was that the CERN-to-Gran Sasso neutrino flight time matched the speed of light. The physicists concluded that a faulty fiber-optic timing element caused the original OPERA result.

The team compensated for the experimental blunder. In 2018, OPERA produced the long-desired result, observing 10 tau-neutrino candidates. The researchers confirmed that muon neutrinos produced at CERN can transform into tau neutrinos while traveling 730 km.

Back from “speedy” to ice-cold neutrinos.

To put it right away, the neutrinos aren't cold; Francis Halzen’s detector is. Instead of building an enormous artificial detector, he turned Antarctic ice into a gigantic neutrino telescope with thousands of photomultipliers watching for the tiny flashes of blue Cherenkov light produced when a neutrino interacts. Francis proposed the basic idea of an IceCube Neutrino Observatory in the late 1980s, and the detector now covers about one cubic kilometer of ice with more than 5,000 light sensors.

The important results are:

IceCube established that extremely high-energy astrophysical neutrino fluxes in the 100 TeV* to PeV range are coming from outside our Solar System.
*CERN’s LHC has a maximum collision energy of 13.6 TeV

Its findings opened a new form of neutrino astronomy. Light is absorbed or deflected, and magnetic fields bend charged cosmic rays. Neutrinos interact extremely weakly and travel directly from their birthplaces to Earth.

As a result, IceCube has identified individual cosmic sources. A particularly important source is NGC 1068 (Messier 77), an active galaxy about 47 million light-years away. Over the past decade, IceCube has detected about 80 (!) high-energy neutrino events.

With IceCube's results, scientists can now locate neutrino sources, i.e., cosmic-ray accelerators. Extremely high-energy neutrinos point back to these active galaxies containing supermassive black holes.

In short, Francis Halzen created a new astronomical instrument that began identifying the cosmic engines producing the most energetic particles known.

While neutrino oscillation experiments essentially asked: “What are neutrinos telling us about particle physics and stars?” Francis’s IceCube tells us something fundamentally new about the universe: “What can neutrinos tell us about the most violent objects in the universe?”

As Red Baron wrote before: Astrophysics is the new spearhead of physics.

**

The Other Look

Red Baron reads the New York Times, The Washington Post, Der Spiegel, and the local newspaper, the Badische Zeitung, all online. Lately, I’ve added the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, and I’m becoming increasingly impressed by the unique perspective Der andere Blick offers on German politics.

The editors tell it like it is and don’t beat around the bush. They give me new insights into my homeland - which is so in need of reforms - and shed new light on old issues from surprising angles.

Last week’s topic in Der andere Blick: The Decline of the Mainstream Parties - An Opportunity for Democracy. The decline is obvious in Germany today, but across Europe as a whole, it is no new phenomenon. It’s just that, once again, Germany is a latecomer.

Suddenly, the Christian Democrats (CDU) are in a steep nosedive, while the Social Democrats have been crumbling away for quite some time. Populist and nationalist parties are filling the vacuum created by the evaporation of the established mainstream parties.

Why didn’t we see this trend sooner and take countermeasures earlier, before Jean-Marie LePen's France and Silvio Berlusconi's Italy drifted to the right? By now, Marine Le Pen’s Front National, Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia, and AliceWeidel’s Alternative für Deutschland have become political forces to be reckoned with.

In the NZZ article, Eric Gujer calls Chancellor Angela Merkel the gravedigger of Germany's old party system. She committed the fatal sin of allowing the ideological differences between the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats to disappear and of declaring their policies alternativlos, to be without alternative.

Now Angela’s successor, Friedrich Merz, must govern with a Christian-socialist unity coalition that is incapable of implementing major reforms, making only cosmetic adjustments to Germany's excesses of social welfare and bureaucracy.

Who can blame voters for looking for alternatives (!) and seeking salvation in new parties? The AfD and The Left make frivolous promises to voters, whether it’s “Make Germany Great Again” or “Tax the Rich.”

©NZZ

So, like many other countries, Germany is becoming increasingly politicized and polarized. The former is evident in rising voter turnout. Whatever reforms our centrist, Christian Social Democratic government attempts amid dwindling resources are, in the eyes of many citizens, insufficient and so merely play into the hands of populists. 

No matter how you turn it, the AfD is currently the only true people’s party in Germany.

**

Antwerpen

After a short break, our group headed to Antwerp for an afternoon visit. The bus found a parking space in a deserted hall of the once florishing port along the Scheldt River.

Red Baron felt as if he were at the Hamburg Landungsbrücken, though the Antwerp pier had no visitors or large ships. In the background on the right, you see the castle, Het Steen.

The Margraviate of Antwerp, established around 974, was a border march between the Holy Roman Empire and, on the opposite bank of the Scheldt, the County of Flanders, subject to the French king as its feudal lord.

Around 1200, Het Steen (the stone) was part of the city's fortifications, protecting access to the city from the western Scheldt. Most of the castle was demolished in the 19th century. Only the gatehouse remained of a larger complex belonging to the Dukes of Brabant. It is thus considered the oldest surviving building in the city of Antwerp.

Heading toward the Grote Markt, we passed the Vleeshuis (meat house) built by the butchers' guild in the late Gothic style around 1500. The red-and-white masonry was deliberately made to resemble speklagen (bacon layers). The towers, stepped gable, and the enormous hall were designed to give the rich butchers an imposing presence in the city.

Then we walked through narrow alleys lined with brick buildings.

The richly decorated guild halls on the Grote Markt bear witness to the city's former wealth.

A building with the inscription Bonaparte caught Red Baron's attention. In 1800, Antwerp belonged to France. Napoleon first visited Antwerp in 1803 and called the city "a pistol aimed at the heart of England." He loaded the pistol with two harbor basins, the Bonaparte and Willem docks, which were and still are the core of Antwerp’s modern port. 

The city became one of the Empire's most important naval ports and shipbuilding centers, where warships were built to support the Continental Blockade Napoleon announced in Berlin after his victory over Prussia. Cut off from global trade, the city was booming thanks to the arms industry.

And yet, the golden eagle on Antwerp's Renaissance city hall built in 1561-1565 is not l'Aigle Imperial, but the eagle of the Holy Roman Empire. It faces toward Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), the center of the HRE.

The Brabo Fountain (Brabofontein), right in the middle of the Grote Markt in front of the city halll, and the severed hand hold the key to explaining the name Antwerpen.

According to legend, a giant named Druon Antigoon lived on the Scheldt. He controlled shipping and demanded a high toll from every ship. Anyone who could not or would not pay had to suffer a cruel punishment: Antigoon would cut off their hand and throw it into the Scheldt.

When the Roman soldier Silvius Brabo passed by, he defeated and killed the giant, cut off Antigoon's hand, and threw it into the Scheldt. The figure at the top of the fountain depicts this moment when Brabo threw the hand. This throwing (werfen in German) gave rise to the popular explanation of the city's name: hand werpen → Antwerpen.

.

The legend of the hand lives on to this day: Antwerp's famous Antwerpse Handjes - a pastry or praline shaped like a hand - draw inspiration from this very legend.

The Antwerp Coat of Arms shows a castle or fortified gate (Het Steen) in the center and two hands traditionally associated with the Brabo legend. In fact, the Brabo-Antigoon drama features two hands: the giant's hand and the hand Brabo severed.

For the city, the hand is a heraldic symbol, part of the founding legend, and a play on words with Antwerp's name.

On our way to the cathedral, we passed the restaurant Het Elfde Gebot (The Eleventh Commandment) that reads: "Thou shalt drink your beer with respect." Onze Lieve Vrouwe placed on a pedestal welcomes the guests. The interior of this old residential building resembles a church or an antique museum rather than an ordinary pub. Walls, ceilings, and open spaces are densely packed with historic wooden and plaster statues of saints, angels, Mary, and Jesus. Old pulpits, stained-glass windows, crucifixes, and altar fragments complete the decoration.

And there it was: the Onze Lieve Vrouwekathedraal in all its splendor.

The richly decorated main entrance was locked, so we entered through a side door and were confronted with a paygate: Adults €12. Red Baron qualified for the 60+ at €10. Even that seemed too much for a quick glance, with the rest of the group impatiently waiting outside in the warm September sun.

A screen displaying changing images of the cathedral's interior enticed those standing in front of it to visit.

Suddenly, the statue of De Buildrager (The Dockworker), bearing the inscription Arbeid Vrijheid (Labor Freedom), confronted us Germans with our past. Initially a symbol of the working class becoming conscious of itself, it also came to stand for regained freedom after WWII. The statue became the memorial for the dockers who kept working under the German V-bomb terror.

When we discovered these Stolpersteine (stumbling blocks) in Antwerp's Jewish quarter during an evening walk, our consciences were deeply troubled.

**

PISA

My late wife and her Golf

In Germany, golf isn't as popular a sport as it is in English-speaking countries. That's why Germans rather associate golf with the once-successful VW model series. Consequently, in my country, Generation X (1965–1980) is also known as the Golf Generation.

On our honeymoon at the Adria in Primosten, Yugoslavia, in 1965

Red Baron is of an earlier origin and belongs to the Beetle Generation, even though he is classified internationally as part of the Silent Generation (1928–1945).

But I digress. My point is that I no longer associate Pisa with the Leaning Tower, but rather with the "leaning" state of school education in Germany.

In fact, PISA stands for "Program for International Student Assessment." It is an international study conducted by the OECD that has been regularly assessing, since 2000, how well 15-year-old students can apply basic knowledge and skills.

The focus of the study is on:
📖 Reading literacy
➗ Mathematics
🔬 Science

So, PISA doesn't measure memorized school knowledge but rather whether young people can apply what they have learned to practical and new situations.

In Germany, "PISA shock" refers to the major public debate that followed the first PISA study in 2000, when German students performed surprisingly poorly in the international comparison.

Can German students still fall deeper?

Since then, some progress has been made, until the recent PISA study revealed alarming findings again.

OECD average: 469 All, 482 Science, 461 Reading, and 463 Mathematics

In the rankings, Far Eastern countries lead the way, and in Europe, Estonia - the country with the best IT infrastructure - tops the list.

Germany ranks 25th, right at the average performance level. Immediately, spin doctors rush to emphasize that our students are, after all, above the average of all OECD countries in every category.

It is cold comfort that European countries like Denmark and France fared even worse.

The U.S., ranked 16th, is in the red zone in math - one point behind Germany - but is only marginally worse than the average.

The decline in student performance is global. On average across the OECD, scores have fallen by 22 points in mathematics since 2015 and by 28 points in reading. Reading is more demanding than watching memes on the Internet.

The measured declines are equivalent to a lag of more than one school year. Currently, 20 percent of students in the OECD region are considered low achievers in all three assessment areas and lack the basic skills needed for success in further education, professional life, and everyday life. 

In Germany, one in three adolescents does not meet the minimum proficiency level in math and reading. These students struggle to understand everyday texts or solve simple math problems. Since 2015, the proportion of low-performing students has risen by 17 percentage points in math, by 15 in reading, and by 10 in the sciences. About one-fifth of young people lack sufficient basic skills in all three areas.

At the other end of the spectrum, the proportion of students with particularly high proficiency in the sciences has decreased slightly since 2015, from 11 to 9 percent. In math and reading, it has declined more sharply, from 13 to 8 percent and from 12 to 7 percent, respectively. The correlation between skills and socioeconomic status is now at its highest level since the PISA studies began. Only 2 percent of students from socioeconomically disadvantaged families achieve high proficiency levels.

In Germany, all efforts to close the gap between a family's socioeconomic status and children's educational success failed. Instead, the achievement gap in Science between the top and bottom 25 percent of the socioeconomic distribution even widened between 2015 and 2025, while it narrowed on average across the OECD. The family home plays an important role in children's learning. The educated middle class highly values a good education for their children.

I have a nightmare.

In ten years, today's Chinese students - who are well-educated in STEM subjects - will be celebrating their first research findings, while their long-time studying German counterparts will be - à la recherche du temps perdu - starting their 15th semester in the social sciences. If, contrary to expectations, they managed to complete their studies, they'll flood the job market in search of a "suitable" occupation and ultimately end up, utterly frustrated, as taxi drivers.

All that's left for Red Baron to do is lament, along with Adenauer:

The famous sentence "My God, what will become of Germany?" fell, although not quite, on September 28, 1954, on the first day of the Nine-Power Conference in London. Adenauer was at Claridge's Hotel in London, where he spoke in German with Luxembourg's Foreign Minister, Joseph Bech, and Belgium's Foreign Minister, Paul-Henri Spaak.

In August 1954, the French National Assembly had rejected the European Defense Community Treaty. This jeopardized Adenauer's plan to integrate the Federal Republic into a European defense structure rather than build an independent German army, which he feared.

At the time, Adenauer served as chancellor and foreign minister in a dual role. So he said to his Belgian and Luxembourgian colleagues, "I am firmly convinced that a German national army will become a great danger to Germany and Europe - once I am no longer here, I do not know what will become of Germany if we do not succeed in creating Europe in time."

**