We won the Nobel Peace Prize

Posted on October 13, 2012 by Cora

This morning, I was quite stunned to hear on the radio that I had won the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize. Because in the extremely unlikely event that I should ever win a Nobel Prize, I would have bet on literature ahead of peace with the other categories in the “absolutely no fucking way” range.

But nonetheless, I did win the Nobel Prize for Peace today. Along with the approx. 500 million other citizens of the 27 member states of the European Union.

In 2005, when the German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI, the tabloid Bild appeared with the infamous headline “Wie sind Papst!” (We are pope). Back then, I and a whole lot of other people* found the headline incredibly stupid. Because as a formerly Lutheran Protestant and now religiously unaffiliated woman from North Germany, I felt zero connection to the new Pope, a man with whom I have no more in common except that we happen to share the same passport.

But as for this decision, yes we – meaning all 500 million citizens of the European Union – did indeed win the Nobel Peace Prize. Because the Prize was not awarded to a bunch of buildings in Brussels or a bunch of bureaucrats and washed up politicians or to a stack of laws, guidelines and regulations that are impenetrable to the layman, but to the European Union as a whole. And that includes each and every one of us.

Of course, this decision was far from uncontroversial. The Americans are pissed, of course, probably because a lot of them secretly or not so secretly hate the EU (and besides Philip Roth didn’t win the Nobel Prize for Literature once again). Though mainly they seem to be ignoring the decision altogether to discuss other matters. Even Fox News, that bastion of unbiased rightwing propaganda, only offered a lukewarm list of reactions, mostly negative (including those from racist pieces of shit like Geert Wilders and Marine Le Pen who should certainly never be let anywhere near a Nobel Prize for Peace – maybe we should draft an “exclude” list and put Thilo Sarrazin right on it, too). The New York Times got real classy and quoted some retired Greek lawyer who said something about Germany waging economic war on Greece in the third paragraph of its article about the Nobel Peace Prize. The Brits, who actually are members of the EU, though they would apparently prefer not to be, are generally negative about the decision as well, though again I had to go to the conservative paper Daily Telegraph to get really negative reactions. There is also criticism from the left, mainly from Greek and Spanish anti-austerity activists who view the EU as the source of all their problems (though it’s not).

Now I don’t agree with all decisions and policies of the European Union either. There are a lot of things about the European Union that I disagree with (though for the record, I support the financial policies of Angela Merkel and Wolfgang Schäuble). There are certainly a lot of things that could be better. For starters, they could admit Turkey already. However, it’s also easy to forget that without the European Union, all our lives (yes, including people in Greece and Spain) would probably be more difficult in a million big and small ways. I think it’s great that I don’t have to get out my passport at every border, that I no longer need to go to my money box (which holds foreign currencies) before visiting the neigbouring countries, that I can live, work and study in every EU member state without having to deal with immigration laws, that I can buy and import products from other European countries without having to worry about customs and tolls. And – this is easy to forget – I live on a continent largely without war and without the death penalty (except for Belarus), which is a guarantee of peace and safety that previous generations did not have. That’s also the gist of those two supportive opinion pieces from Deutsche Welle and The Guardian respectively.

Besides, I also think that awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union serves as an important reminder in times where all sorts of nationalisms are rearing their ugly heads again that we have got a good thing going here, something that is worth defending. It’s a reminder to stop paying attention to screeching nationalistic idiots like Thilo Sarrazin or Marine Le Pen or Geert Wilders. It’s a reminder to Greek protesters that it’s possible to protest economic policies without resorting to swastikas and Nazi imagery and to tabloids like Bild (of “We are Pope” fame) that it’s possible to criticize the spending habits of other European countries without resorting to racist stereotyping. And finally, it’s a reminder that for all its problems, millions of people worldwide would love to live in the European Union and that thousands are risking and losing their lives (and of course the refugees drowning in the Mediterranean Sea are another shameful chapter that needs to be tackled ASAP) to come here.

*My favourite reaction was that of a Turkish German comedian who said, “Wow, I’m the first muslim to become Pope. Who’d have thought?”

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Traffic Gridlock Linkdump

Posted on October 12, 2012 by Cora

Tonight I had to go into town for the monthly translators’ meet-up and wanted to pick up some books from an acquaintance from university beforehand. However, there was a big problem, because seven trucks crashed into each other on the highway A1, including one truck carrying dangerous chemicals and another carrying live turkeys. So the highway was closed and the entire traffic diverted through Bremen and surroundings, which made getting anywhere difficult.

Initially, I had planned to pick up the books in the Viertel area first and then take the tram into the city to the translators’ meet-up near the central station. However, because the entire city was gridlocked because of the accident on the highway, I eventually drove to one of the Park and Ride stations in the suburbs and took the tram into the city.

In the tram, another issue became apparent that was making the traffic gridlock even worse, because a whole lot of people were heading for an event at the Stadthalle events center or whatever they’re calling it these days. Turns out that comedian Mario Barth was in town. Now I’d rather get my teeth pulled out than watch Mario Barth, because I find his sexist jokes not even remotely funny and don’t even get me started on his jokes about kids on the lowest educational track Hauptschule. Indeed, one of the more bizarre and depressing experiences I had as a teacher was my Hauptschul students repeating Mario Barth’s jokes about Hauptschul students. When I pointed out that “Hey, you are Hauptschul students”, they said, “Well, but we’re not like those stupid Hauptschul students.” Whereupon I said, “Of course, you’re not like those stupid Hauptschul students and neither is the class ahead of you and that coming after you. And since none of the Hauptschule classes at our school are actually stupid, did it never occur to you that the stupid Hauptschul student might just be a stereotype perpetuated by people like Mario Barth and now by you?”

But even though I don’t like Mario Barth and his brand of humour, plenty of people do and Barth is enough of a pull to fill even the biggest of arenas. He once sold out all 70000 seats in the Berlin Olympic Stadium. And since Mario Barth is a huge draw, a lot of people were coming to see him, not just from Bremen but from all over North Germany. And they drove right into a monster traffic jam and eventually did what I had done, that is park somewhere and take the tram. However, since the tram tracks often run on the streets, the trams were also affected by the general traffic chaos.

I left an hour early, which should have been more than enough time to go to the Viertel, pick up the books and take the tram to the meet-up near the central station at seven PM. By the time, I made it to the city centre, it was quarter to seven. If I had gone right on to the meet-up, I would have made it. But unfortunately, I had to pick up the books first. So I took the tram out to the Viertel. In the heart of the Viertel, there are tram stops every fifty meters or so, so the trip took a lot longer than it would ordinarily have. And because I had to go further than I normally go, I missed my stop. Then I got lost looking for a house I have visited several times before, because all of the little side streets in the Viertel look the same, particularly in the dark. It was already past seven, i.e. ten minutes past the time I should have been at the restaurant, when I finally picked up the books. I made it back to the tram, had to change trams and finally arrived more than half an hour late at the restaurant. I got a lesbian proposal on the tram, too, which used to happen quite a bit at university, but hasn’t happened much lately. And unlike university, where I was sending out mixed signals, I was actually dressed quite girly tonight.

And now for some links:

The 2012 Nobel Prize for Literature goes to Chinese writer Mo Yan. Now my familiarity with Chinese literature is close to nil, so I have absolutely no opinion on whether Mo Yan is a worthy winner or not. He does seem to be one of the more controversial choices, since he is believed to be too close to the Chinese authorities (and this article actually is from a Chinese news site). But then the Nobel Prize for Literature should not be awarded for political views (though it often is), but for literary merit. And Mo Yan would hardly be the first winner with problematic political views (if he does indeed hold them, since western journalists are always quick to condemn those living in countries that are not western democracies for trying to get along with the system) – V.S. Naipaul (bad choice in every way) and Mario Vargas Llosas also have problematic politics.

The New York Times worries that the use of Britishisms is increasing in the US. We’ve all heard these complaints before – it’s basically a new take on the old “Why are all of those horrid foreign words contaminating our beautiful and pure language?” game. Germans and the French are permanently troubled by the influx of English (both British and American) words, Brits resent Americanisms and Americans resent Britishisms. What all of these people fail to see is that languages are constantly evolving and that the only “pure” language is a dead language. Meanwhile, John Scalzi, who is cited in the article, responds to the allegations of being a pretentious git here.

Theodora Goss talks about secret stories and how many people imagine a secret identity for themselves as children. And yes, I had one of those as a kid.

Lynn Viehl has a great post about bringing imagined objects from fantasy worlds into the real world at Paperback Writer. I do like having real world versions of objects that are important in my fiction. Jewelery is a very common one for me. I like jewelery and often try to find jewelery that matches that worn by my characters. Or sometimes a character just adopts one of my existing pieces of jewelery for their own. But it can also be other things. If a character drives a specific car and its important (I wrote a car freak character once. It was annoying sharing my head with him, because he would always look at and admire cars to the point that friends noticed that something was off), I like to have a toy model of that car. I have a collection of toy guns (strict gun laws in Germany – can’t have real ones and wouldn’t want to either), swords, etc… for action scenes. And I ended up with a Transformer toy (pre-movie, when they were difficult to come by), because a character had one that was important to him.

National Public Radio has a nice article celebrating the 50th anniversary of the infamous Mars Attacks trading card set, best remembered nowadays as the inspiration for the eponymous Tim Burton film. Found via Charles Tan.

Actor Turhan Bey died aged 90. His career spanned more than forty years from the exotic Technicolor adventures of Maria Montez in the 1940s (totally politically incorrect these days, but I loved those films as a teenager. And they’re nowhere near as creepy as that photo of Katherine Hepburn in really horrid yellowface make-up the Guardian used to illustrate the obituary) to Babylon 5, where he played the Emperor of the Centauri in the 1990s. His Empress was Majel Barrett of Star Trek fame, by the way.

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On Missile Hill

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Cora

In the village of Gessel-Leerßen near the town of Syke, there is an elevation called Hoher Berg (High mountain). “High” in this case meaning 58.5 meters above sea level. Nonetheless, the Hoher Berg is the highest elevation in the area, a relic left over by the glaciers of the ice age overlooking the Weser glacial valley.

However, when I was a teenager, we did not call it “Hoher Berg”. Instead, we called it “Atomraketenhügel” (Nuclear missile hill) or sometimes just “Ami Hügel” (American hill), because the Hoher Berg was the site of a military installation of the US Army from the early 1970s up to the late 1980s. The radar dome of the installation was visible from afar, but apart from that no one knew what exactly the US Army was doing there. Officially, the place was a monitoring station, but that was all anybody knew. Interestingly, the Americans soldiers were rarely seen in Syke and surroundings either, they mostly kept to themselves.

And as usually happens when mysterious going-ons happen, but no one knows anything concrete, rumours soon abounded. The most common rumour was that military installation was actually a silo for short or medium range nuclear missiles, Pershing IIs or Cruise Missiles, those bogeymen of the early 1980s. Nobody knew if it was really true, but the name “Atomraketenhügel” stuck.

Personally, I never really believed that the base really housed nukes. Like pretty much everybody in West Germany at the time with the exception of former chancellors Helmut Schmidt (who lost a vote of confidence over this) and Helmut Kohl, I did not like nuclear weapons, did not see the point and did not want those things on Germany soil, let alone anywhere near me. But unlike many of the other people who were anti nuclear weapons on German soil, I wasn’t anti-American, too. In fact, I quite liked the US and Americans, including American soldiers. So I was convinced that the whole rumour about nuclear missiles on a hill near Syke was just that, a rumour. It was just a small installation, after all, and there wasn’t much in the way of security. Surely, if there really were nuclear missiles there, wouldn’t they have much more security?

As for what it was, I secretly hoped that it had to do with aliens. Monitoring and tracking aliens. Because that would have been so cool. Though the rational part of my mind knew that most likely it was really just a plain monitoring station.

Apparently, some documents have been declassified by now and we actually know what was on the Hoher Berg in Gessel-Leerßen between 1973 and 1989. It was a base for Nike-Hercules air defense missiles, the predecessor of the better known Patriot missiles. And yes, apparently some of them had nuclear warheads. This site about military leftovers in Bremen and Lower Saxony has more information about the base on the Hoher Berg than anybody could ever have asked for. Including that there really were nuclear warheads stationed on the Hoher Berg, which proves the old rumours right. Coincidentally, the site also resolves the mystery why there was an American base without any visible Americans, for the American soldiers were quartered in Delmenhorst, which is quite a bit away. Here is another site by an American who apparently was stationed at the Hoher Berg for a while with some photos of what it used to look like.

The US Army left for good in 1989. Part of the old military installation was still closed off, but the most of the Hoher Berg was turned into farmland and also became the site of some of the earliest wind turbines in the area. I shot a documentary about alternative energy there in my filmmaking days sometime during the mid to late 1990s.

Then, a few years ago, the city of Syke purchased the old military installation, planted trees and created ponds and turned it into a nature preserve. They also installed some benches, a barbecue pit, a playground and a look-out tower. Nowadays, the Hoher Berg a surprisingly peaceful and lovely place, particularly given its less than peaceful history. It’s also a popular site for amateur astronomers, for the very same reasons that the US Army once chose it.

Today, I drove out to Gessel-Leerßen to buy some pumpkins at a nearby farm. And since the weather was so lovely, I also put in stop at the Hoher Berg and brought my camera to take a few photos. Unfortunately, my battery died halfway through, so I couldn’t take any photos from the top of the lookout tower. But below the cut you’ll find the photos that I did manage to take on the Hoher Berg with some bonus pumpkins. Continue reading →

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The German Book Award or Let’s all praise middle class mediocrity

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Cora

The 2012 German Book Award has been awarded to Ursula Krechel for her novel Landgericht (District Court) and it turns out that I am psychic.

Yes, it’s true. I predicted last month that Ms. Krechel would win the award. But don’t be too impressed by my precognitive abilities. Predicting who will win the German Book Award isn’t exactly difficult, since it’s always the same type of book that wins, usually a family saga and always set against the background of recent German history, involving either the Third Reich or Communist East Germany or preferably both. This is not just my impression of the prize, by the way, but a pretty common verdict. Here is an English language article about the award from a site intended to promote German literature abroad. Hint: A bit less navel-gazing might do wonders for the popularity of German literature abroad. Continue reading →

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Another German short story available – noch eine Kurzgeschichte auf Deutsch erhältlich

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Cora

In the next few days, I will go deeper into this over at Pegasus Pulp. But in short, the launch of my line of German language e-books has been surprisingly successful. Particularly the German translation of The Kiss of the Executioner’s Blade really seems to have caught on with readers.

And because anything that has been successful deserves to be repeated, I have translated yet another of my stories into German, namely Honeypot, one of the crime short collected in Murder in the Family.

***

Ich werde in den nächsten paar Tagen auf der Pegasus Pulp Seite noch ein bißchen genauer darauf eingehen. Aber kurzgefasst ist meine Reihe deutschsprachiger E-Books erstaunlich erfolgreich. Besonders Der Kuss des Richtschwertes hat Anklang beim deutschsprachigen Publikum gefunden.

Und weil jeder Erfolg eine Wiederholung verdient, habe ich noch eine weitere meiner Kurzgeschichten ins Deutsche übersetzt, nämlich Honeypot, einen der Kurzkrimis in der Krimisammlung Murder in the Family.

And now the blurb/Und jetzt der Blurb:

Honigtopf CoverPeter Simmons ist der perfekte Nachbar, immer nett and hilfsbereit. Aber er ist auch ein Mann, der seine Finger nicht bei sich behalten kann, ein Mann, der kein Nein akzeptiert, ein Mann, der sich nimmt, was er will, egal ob es sich um frisch gebackene Kekse direkt vom Blech handelt oder um Hannah, eine alleinerziehende Mutter, die gerade in die Nachbarschaft gezogen ist. Denn Hannah ist nicht nur süß wie Honig, sondern auch eine tolle Bäckerin und immer so dankbar für Peters Hilfe.
Aber Nein heißt immer noch Nein. Und manchmal kann ein Griff in die falsche Keksdose tödlich sein…

.

Weitere Informationen finden Sie hier.

Erhältlich für den günstigen Preis von 0,99 EUR, USD oder GBP bei Amazon Deutschland, Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Amazon Frankreich, Amazon Italien, Amazon Spanien, Kobo und XinXii.

Dieses Buch gibt es auch auf English.

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Double Awards Analysis

Posted on October 7, 2012 by Cora

The winners of the 2012 British Fantasy Awards were announced last weekend. Jo Walton’s Among Others won in the best novel category, beating out George R.R. Martin’s and Stephen King’s latest offerings among others (yes, this is a pun). The award for the best horror novel went to The Ritual by Adam Nevill. The full list of winners can be found here.

I can’t really disagree with any of these choices. I enjoyed Among Others very much and so did a whole lot of people considering that it already won the Hugo and the Nebula earlier this year. It’s quite rare that any one novel wins such unanimous approval, even though some people disagree (more on that in a future post). And since I’m not a big fan of the prevailing taste for grimdark in fantasy, I’m glad to see a fairly gentle tale win over such monuments of grimdarkness like George R.R. Martin’s A Dance with Dragons or Joe Abercrombie’s The Heroes.

I’ve always enjoyed Rob Shearman’s work, all the way back to the time when he was still writing Doctor Who audioplays. Lavie Tidhar is good writer, even if I haven’t read this particular novella. The Weird anthology by the Vandermeers got almost universal acclaim. I can’t say much about Adam Nevill’s horror novel, since I hardly ever read that genre (and have never heard of Mr Nevill, sorry), nor of the short story, comic and art categories. The only decision that surprised me is Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris winning in the best screenplay category, since I would have expected that one to go to Attack the Block, which I like a whole lot.

More awards: The winners of the German TV Awards, which are Germany’s equivalent to the Emmys or BAFTAs were announced Tuesday night. My reaction to the winners is largely “meh”. If anything, this reminds me of how little German made TV I actually watch, since I haven’t heard, let alone watched most of the winners and nominees. The lone exception is Der letzte Bulle (The last cop), which won in the best TV series category. Der letzte Bulle is a sort of Life on Mars in reverse story. A tough macho cop is shot sometime in the late 1980s, lands in a coma and wakes up again more than twenty years later to find that things have changed. It’s a surprisingly enjoyable show by the generally low standards of German television.

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Photos: Lüneburger Heide

Posted on October 5, 2012 by Cora

Yesterday was the Day of German Unity, i.e. the anniversary of the unification of East and West Germany on October 3, 1990, which is a public holiday in Germany. The official celebrations have become somewhat subdued in recent years and the glut of East Germany, Stasi and unification themed on TV has ebbed a little. Though should you want to read something in celebration, there’s always The Other Side of the Curtain, my spy novelette set in East Germany, Leipzig specifically, in 1966. Coming soon in German translation, hopefully in time for November 9th.

However, October 3 is still a public holiday and since the weather was tolerable, we drove out into the Lüneburger Heide, a nature preserve with a quite unique heath landscape located between Hamburg and Hannover, for a bit of hiking. Legend has it that the barren heath was the result of salt mining in nearby Lüneburg, because the fires intended to evaporate the water from the saline springs of Lüneburg and leave only the salt behind needed a steady supply of wood, so the people of Lüneburg gradually cut down all the forests in the area. It’s a neat story and would work well as a cautionary environmental tale, but unfortunately it’s false. Recent research shows that the Lüneburg Heath has looked the way it does since the Bronze Age, i.e. long before the saline springs of Lüneburg were discovered, and that the barren landscape is really the result of sand moraines left behind by retreating glaciers in the Ice Age.

Unfortunately, the blooming of the heather was largely over and so the landscape looked brownish rather than the bright purple it’s supposed to look when in bloom (and how I painted it at school many years ago). It’s still a unique and fascinating landscape and ideal for hiking, as you can see by the photos behind the cut: Continue reading →

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Adventures in Wedding Interpretation

Posted on October 3, 2012 by Cora

Regular readers may remember that I had an interpreter job at a preparatory meeting for an intercultural civil wedding last month. Well, the wedding was today and because the registry clerk liked how I did my job the last time, I got to interpret at the wedding as well, even though I don’t have the court approval that’s normally required for any kind of legal interpreter jobs.

Like the preparatory meeting, the wedding ceremony also took place in the registry office in the North Bremen neighbourhood of Vegesack. Vegesack is still quite a way off from where I live, but getting there was easier this time. First of all, there was no traffic jam blocking most of the logical routes. And since the wedding didn’t take place quite so early in the morning as the preparatory meeting, I could avoid rush hour traffic as well. Else, my somewhat confused GPS, also didn’t try to plunge me into the river this time. That is, I suspect she was trying to direct me to the damn ferry again (Else seems to think that ferries are the best way to get anywhere), but since I ignored her directions and drove onto the highway instead, Else eventually relented and took me where I wanted to go. Continue reading →

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October Linkdump

Posted on October 2, 2012 by Cora

At Tor.com, Liz Bourke has a great rebuttal directed towards certain authors of historical fiction and historically flavoured fantasy, who excuse their lack of significant female and GLBT characters as well as characters of colour with “Well, that’s the way it was” and offers plenty of examples.

Paul Gravett offers a history of the Comics Code with illustrations. Found via Charles Tan. Check out the first head of the Comics Code Authority, a very old lady who apparently gave up her whole identity when she got married, since she is only referred to as Mrs. Some Man’s Name. Why is it whenever some sort of voluntary self-control (which is usually neither voluntary nor self-control) is implemented, they always choose the people least likely to actually enjoy the media they are supposed to rate?

While researching something else, I came across this online archive of posters for all sorts of politically left activist events, which gives a great overview of the aesthetics of left social movements in Germany. The same site also offers PDF scans of an alternative magazine from the 1960s and 1970s.

The New York Times has an article about a fashion phenomenon I find problematic (as does the author of the article), namely that there are way too many sleeveless tops and dresses these days. The author of the article pinpoints the origin of the trend for bare arms and sleeveless dresses to Michelle Obama, but at least here in Europe sleeveless outfits have been dominant for far longer than four years. And yes, I find it problematic because I have very broad shoulders and look horrible in sleeveless outfits. Never mind that very few people actually have nice upper arms. Most of the time they’re either too fleshy or too skinny or too muscular or too flabby.

German actor, comedian and entertainer Dirk Bach died today aged only 51. The Spiegel has a longer obituary. In addition to being a very talented actor and comedian, Dirk Bach was one of the celebrities who furthered the social acceptance of gays and lesbians simply by being open about his gayness. Legend has it that he was accidentally outed by his fellow comedienne and friend Hella von Sinnen, who used to share a house with Bach and got so sick of journalists asking when they would get married that she finally answered, “Never, cause I’m lesbian and he’s gay.”

My favourite Dirk Bach skits are not available online, but I quite enjoyed this one where Dirk Bach and Hella von Sinnen engage in misery olympics. Dirk Bach is the short one with the grey wig BTW.

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Two Fires and a Linguistic Oddity

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Cora

Early this morning, Bremen suffered two arson attacks in the same neighbourhood, in the very same street even. The attacks were very nasty, the arsonist set fire in the stairwells of two apartment blocks. Those are old buildings – both built pre-WWII – so the stairs were made from wood and caught fire quickly. Luckily, no one was killed, though more than thirty people were injured, including nine children and a baby. Even more luckily, they caught the guy who did it. Apparently, he has a history of mental illness and arson.

Because today was a slow news day – after all, the media can’t talk about Peer Steinbrück all the time, particularly since the election is still a long way away – the national news picked up the story of the arson attacks in Bremen. However, I noticed something odd in the national news reports about the fires. For if the reports gave the name of the street where the two fires occurred at all, they inevitably got it wrong.

Both fires happened in Gröpelingen, an old working class neighbourhood that now houses many Turkish families and that has been on the cusp of gentrification for years, but has never quite managed to step over, much to the relief of the locals. The street where both fire happened is called “Gröpelinger Heerstraße”. It’s a very long street and a main thoroughfare besides, so the fact that both fires occurred in the same street is not as remarkable as it sounds at first glance.

However, the national news reports did not speak of fires in the Gröpelinger Heerstraße. They spoke of fires in the “Heerstraße”, which was rather confusing to every local, because Bremen has a lot of Heerstraßen. There is the Gröpelinger Heerstraße, the Waller Heerstraße (really the same street, only it changes names when it passes from one neighbourhood into the other), the Kattenturmer Heerstraße, the Schwachhauser Heerstraße, the Hemelinger Heerstraße, etc… All of these streets are main thoroughfares (and permanently clogged) and have been the main roads leading into the city for centuries.

The word “Heerstraße” translates as “Army road”, because these roads were expanded by the French during Napoleon’s times to allow for the rapid marching of armies. And because the French built a lot of army roads, Bremen has a lot of Heerstraßen. So in order to avoid confusion, every Heerstraße is also tagged with the name of the respective neighbourhood. Hence, the Gröpelinger Heerstraße passes through Gröpelingen (and becomes the Waller Heerstraße once it hits Walle), while the Kattenturmer Heerstraße passes through Kattenturm and so on.

Having grown up in Bremen, it’s absolutely natural to me that “Heerstraße” means “main street” and that the full street name designates the neighbourhood. Hence it never even occurred to me that not every city might use the same practice to name its streets.

However, the use of “Heerstraße” in combination with the name of a neighbourhood as a street name is apparently a Bremen specific feature. For example, Berlin only has one Heerstraße sans neighbourhood modifier (which would probably have gone on the list of reasons why Bremen is cooler than Berlin I kept in my teens along with “Berlin is only 750 years old – even our fair is older” and “Berlin doesn’t even have a first league football team”). Hence, the national media automatically assumed that the “Gröpelinger” in “Gröpelinger Heerstraße” was just a modifier rather than part of the street name, so they omitted it.

Here’s one example from the RTL TV news. The commentator speaks about fire breaking out in the Heerstraße in the Gröplingen neighbourhood.

Meanwhile, the relevant article from the local newspaper Weser Kurier uses the full name and clearly states that the fires took place in the “Gröpelinger Heerstraße”.

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