Der Spiegel is a renowned german news magazine and has been setting standards in the field of journalism since its inception in the fifties. Although you might dispute the overall quality nowadays (which I do) there‘s no doubt its quality is still way beyond of what you get in most of the news outlets around the world. So its voice is important for Germany in general on an international level.

So it is interesting to see that Der Spiegel has now started an international version. You won‘t find everything there is in the german version but they are focusing on topics that are probably more interesting to an international public. German politics are clearly misrepresented on the Internet as most people derive their information from US American or British sources which don‘t really have a track record of understanding Germany alltogether. Spiegel might be an alternative. We have to wait and see.

For now, I‘d like to point you to an interesting interview with the German foreign minister Joschka Fischer dubbed „We Opposed War in Iraq for Good Reasons“ which is not only an insightful view into our government‘s general policies. It also taught me that „Realpolitik“ is apparently an accepted english term (which I didn‘t realize – I was aware of Zeitgeist others having made an international career).