last week, it was sunny and beautiful here. I took out my son for ice-cream which he insists on having everyday and saw a blackbird pair had started building their nest in the garden. But the sun and warmth, it appears, was a short respite from the winter that seems to be never ending this year.
Winter came back with a vengeance this weekend, although spring is supposed to have started. Winter in Germany is typically a gloomy affair, dark and no sun rays to ease the darkness that seems to seep into the soul. And then when the sun comes out, one can’t get enough of it, which is a short promise. The sunny days are over and it I am back to shoveling snow again.
Many Germans claim this is one of the longest winters they have endured. And meteorologists from the National Meteorological Service (DWD) seem to agree with them, it is the darkest winter recorded in the past four decades. less than an average of 100 hours of sunshine have been recorded in the meteorological winter which runs from December to February and it even seems to seep into the month of March, which is considered spring.
And so one waits for spring and the end of this snow-filled winter. I just hope the blackbirds find their nest is inhabitable after all the snow that has fallen on it once again.
Benz’s there
Mercedes Benz is as German as beer and bratwurst, but times they are changing and since never-ending growth in Germany is not possible, the company is looking at China, India and other Asian markets to sell their cars. And for that, Daimler plans to bring a ‘foreigner quota’ to give the company a more international touch.
In India, the company plans to challenge the Tatas in the truck market. It has seen a strong growth since it it launched Bharat Benz last year. From the start of sales on September 26, 2012 until the year-end, company sold 1,098 heavy-duty trucks between 25 and 31 tons. And for its new markets it also needs managers who understand their way through it.
Meanwhile, Wilfried Porth, Daimler’s human resources manager, told the Welt newspaper that the company aims to have more non-Germans in management positions at the company. “Daimler is a global company, and the big growth is currently happening in the US, China, or other countries in East Asia, We need more leaders from those regions,” he said. The company which has its base in the very city of Stuttgart has a large non-German workforce world over, but the management has been in German hands and now Daimler plans to change it.
Porth said Daimler will aim to recruit 50 per cent of new managers from overseas and have a foreigner quota in its management training programme. The company also plans to expand the number of female recruits in management positions.
Quota call
It appears that the German Government wants a hands-off approach to promoting women in leadership positions and does not plan to support a EU wide gender quota for boards of publicly-traded companies. The Munich-based Süddeutsche Zeitung reported last week that German representatives in Brussels have been ordered to ‘immediately — promote the German position’.
The German position has been to fight the mandatory EU-effort and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, who belongs to the business-friendly Free Democrats has warned of the dangers of over regulation. The newspaper claimed that there was a rift in the German Cabinet on the issue, with labor Ministry head Ursula von der leyen, supporting an EU-wide gender quota. Von der leyen was reportedly pressure to accept the coalition decision to not champion a EU-wide women’s quota.
The EU proposal would require at least 40 per cent of all non-executive director positions to be filled by the ‘under-represented gender’. But now that Germany has made its position clear, there is hardly any chance of the mandatory quota legislation being passed in the EU Parliament.
Out in the Kohl
Helmut Kohl, who ruled West Germany before reunifying the country in 1990, finds his private life splashed on tabloid pages now. The former Chancellor is estranged from his two sons, who have accused his second wife, who is much younger than him, of ‘imprisoning him’. They have alleged that Kohl’s wife Maike Richter-Kohl has largely ‘isolated’ the German political giant from his family and friends.
They say Kohl, 82, who is barely able to walk or speak following a serious fall five years ago, is being kept a ‘prisoner’ by his wife Maike, who also decides who has access to him and who does not. The two sons have taken to German television and magazines to express their disappointment with their step-mother, who at 49 years, is in their age-group.
The sons who appear very devoted to their late mother Hannelore, who committed suicide in 2001, after suffering for years from a debilitating condition which made her allergic to light, accuse Maike of having started her affair with Kohl while Hannelore was alive. Maike has not been very popular with Germans. She has been accused of wearing Hannelore’s dresses and now that she also been accused of denying the sons access to their father, her not-so popular image would take some further dents. Allegations have long been made that Maike controls and limits access to Kohl, who is more or less wheel-chair bound.
Peter Kohl told Der Spiegel that his father last saw his granddaughter in 2011. He claimed his father had been pleased to see them, but indicated that they should leave soon ‘otherwise there would be trouble again’. A man imprisoned by his own wife and forbidden from having contact with his children, that is the image that Kohl’s sons paint of their father and their stepmother has not been portrayed in the most flattering of lights.
They also claim that they have been removed from a police list of approved visitors. And have also called their stepmother a ‘stalker’, who hero worshipped and finally married her idol. So, Kohl who ushered in the euro and reunified his country, is in the middle of a rather public-personal spat between his sons and second wife. Meanwhile, the public looks on — fascinated and ashamed at the same time.