women-scientists-from-germany

""I wish you joy most sincerely on the discovery. I am more pleased than you can well conceive that you have made it, and I think I see your wonderfully clever and wonderfully amiable brother, upon the news of it, shed a tear of joy. You have immortalized your name, and you deserve such a reward for your assiduity in the business of astronomy, and for your love for so celebrated and deserving a brother."

"It may easily be supposed that I must have been fully employed (besides minding the heavens) to prepare everything as well as I could against the time I was to give up the place of housekeeper on the 8th of May.""

"My dear nephew was only in his sixth year when I came to be detached from the family circle. But this did not hinder John and I from remaining the most affectionate friends, and many a half or whole holiday he was allowed to spend with me, was dedicated to making experiments in chemistry, where generally all boxes, tops of tea-canisters, pepper-boxes, teacups, &c., served for the necessary vessels, and the sand-tub furnished the matter to be analysed. I only had to take care to exclude water, which would have produced havoc on my carpet."

"With saddened heart but unflagging determination she continued to work for her brother, but saw his domestic happiness pass into other keeping. It is not to be supposed, however, that a nature so strong and a heart so affectionate should accept the new state of things without much and bitter suffering. To resign the supreme place by her brother's side, which she had filled for sixteen years with such hearty devotion, could not he otherwise than painful in any case; but how much more so in this, where equal devotion to the same pursuit must have made identity of interest and purpose as complete as it is rare! One who could both feel and express herself so strongly was not likely to fall into her new place without some outward expression of what it cost her—tradition confirms the assumption—and it is easy to understand how this long, significant silence is due to the light of later wisdom and calmer judgment which counseled the destruction of all record of what was likely to be painful to survivors.""

"In my brother's absence from home, I was, of course, left solely to amuse myself with my own thoughts, which were anything but cheerful. I found I was to be trained for an assistant astronomer, and, by way of encouragement, a telescope adapted for 'sweeping,' consisting of a tube with two glasses, such as are commonly used in a 'finder,' was given me. I was 'to sweep for comets,' and I see by my journal that I began August 22, 1782, to write down and describe all remarkable appearances I saw in my 'sweeps,' which were horizontal. But it was not till the last two months of the same year that I felt the least encouragement to spend the starlight nights on a grass-plot covered with dew or hoar-frost, without a human being near enough to be within call; for I knew too little of the real heavens to be able to point out every object so as to find it again without losing too much time by consulting the atlas. But all these troubles were removed when I knew my brother to be at no great distance, making observations with his various instruments on double stars, planets, etc., and I could have his assistance immediately when I found a nebula, or cluster of stars, of which I intended to give a catalogue; .but, at the end of 1783, I had only marked fourteen, when my sweeping was interrupted by being employed to write down my brother's observations with the large twenty-foot. I had, however, the comfort to see that my brother was satisfied with my endeavors to assist him when he wanted another person, either to run to the clocks, write down a memorandum, fetch and carry instruments, or measure the ground with poles, etc., of which something of the kind every moment would occur."

"The employment of writing down the observations when my brother uses the twenty-foot reflector does not often allow me time to look at the heavens; but, as he is now on a visit to Germany, I have taken the opportunity to sweep in the neighborhood of the sun in search of comets; and last night, the 1st of August, about ten o'clock, I found an object very much resembling in color and brightness the 27 nebulæ of the Connoissance des Temps, with the difference, however, of being round. I suspected it to be a comet; but, a haziness coming on, it was not possible to satisfy myself as to its motion till this evening.""

"The whole thrust of core Nazi radicals was to overcome what they regarded as an already secularized Christianity and replace it with a faith in the ‘Third Reich’. (p. 149)"

"The Third Reich represented yearning for salvation from despair through the fount of power that had its source in the German people (Volkskraft), not in an otherworldly God. Krieck ended his midsummer night’s talk with a hail to the German Youth, German Volk and Third Reich. (p. 151)"

"There is no dogma, word or scripture. German morality is not rigidly chained to words but changes as reality changes and as the original nature adapts to new conditions. It is a convenient moral relativism that Hauer and his cohorts developed. In the final analysis, it is […] a fighter ethic that negates all moral ties except those with respect to the interests of one’s own Volk. (p. 15)"

"Goebbels followed the stations of political ideologization from Catholicism toward freer forms of a Christian view of the world and self (as in liberal theology) and then National-Socialism. (p. 7)"

"It was precisely Hauer’s and other Nazis’ radical liberalism that led them to National Socialism. (p. 20)"

"Liberalism broke the ground enabling the emergence of radicalism. (p. 21)"

"[T]he variant core elements of Goebbels’ religiosity consisted of Christological symbols and Vitalism. (p. 24),"

"While the constitutions of Western liberal democracies preserve the freedom of new religions, I am not sure whether new religions, including New Age and neo-Paganism, preserve western liberal democracies. In Weimar they did not."

"Those Germans (from Hitler, to Rosenberg, to Himmler, to Heydrich, to Klagges, to Hauer, to Grimm and innumerable others) who became prominent National Socialist ideologues, even though Grimm and other nationalists like him did not become members of the party, were uniformly obsessed with overcoming Christianity and persuading other Germans to do likewise."

"The new religions founded in the pre-Nazi and Nazi years, especially Jakob Hauer’s German Faith Movement, would be a model for how German fascism distilled aspects of religious doctrine into political extremism."

"The source of anti-Semitism lies elsewhere than with religion. It lies in a fundamental human divide between those people who love culture, by which I mean the poetics and politics that grew out of a very specific local condition and history, and those who love civilization, by which I mean the poetic and politics that are rooted in non-specific, universal laws meant to protect civilian, local or foreign. Hauer’s fight against Jewish-Christianity is on this divide. (p. 14)"

"European neo-paganism sees itself as the restorer of all that it claims Christianity removed from European life and thought, that is, human godliness, the seamless unity of religion and science, and the harmony of human beings with the environment. (p. 173)"

"Many of the properties in World Heritage List are under threat and the list is underrepresented. This requires us to strengthen global efforts in heritage protection and I think China can play an important role in this regard."

"Art and nature shall always be wrestling until they eventually conquer one another so that the victory is the stroke and line."

"We will do everything in order to prevent a no-deal Brexit; Britain crashing out of the European Union."

"Globalization -- and I think we share this conviction -- is that globalization needs to be shaped politically. It needs to be given a human face. But we cannot allow to fall back into pre-globalization times. So this conclusion of trade agreements that go beyond the scope of mere tariff agreements, customs agreements, are most important."

"For us Europeans, Africa as a neighboring continent is of prime importance. The development of African countries is in our very own vested interest. We, as Germans, but also we, as members of the European Union, will have to deal with this."

"The European Union as a whole, but also Germany, needs to recognize that this is our alliance, our common alliance, our transatlantic alliance, that we have to step up our engagement. Because, in the long run, we will not be allowed to accept this imbalance as regards the contributions we give to this alliance. And we have understood this message, and we have started to react."

"We work very closely together on the issue of annexation of Crimea and Russia’s attempt to actually conquer Ukraine. And actually they did so -- conquered part of the territory. We tried to come to a peaceful settlement here on this."

"Our interests are very much aligned. Our attempts of cooperation are very much aligned."

"Der Terror ist Teil des Alltags unserer Städte."

"We are in a very serious situation. We must act, and now, to avoid an acute national health emergency"

"After US troops have withdrawn from Afghanistan, Europe must define its own security interests more clearly. It has been seen that America is no longer unconditionally ready to take on a leadership role anywhere in the world."

"No major US ally has been spared from the president's indignities. In private, he pillories partner nations and their leaders and is not shy about doing the same in the open, as in the case of his comment about the Canadian prime minister being "very dishonest & weak," only hours after being hosted by the northern neighbor. He's done the same with France, mocking President Emmanuel Macron on Twitter for his low approval ratings and high unemployment, and with Germany, criticizing Chancellor Angela Merkel's administration for failing to reduce crime and accusing its leaders of being freeloaders that take advantage of US generosity."

"I think when she focuses on this principle of the right to asylum, she is morally and politically correct."

"In many parts of the world, politicians can no longer claim that they do not have the social mandate for taking the climate crisis seriously: citizens are clearly calling for a strong government response, with high levels of public concern about climate change and wide-ranging support for policies to cut emissions. In recognition of this, some senior politicians have actively encouraged citizen activism that pushes them to do more, for example Angela Merkel when she was Chancellor asking young Germans to 'pile on the pressure', and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon acknowledging that 'our feet do need to be held to the fire'."

"Europe was less distracted and divided by disinformation campaigns from fossil fuel companies and emerged early on as a global leader on the climate issue...In Germany - another of Europe's major greenhouse-gas-emitting nations - the Green Party had been growing in influence since the mid-1980s, causing the two major political parties there to adopt environmental and energy goals, which Angela Merkel, a former chemist, continued to pursue after her ascension to Chancellor in 2005. Thus, when the US stepped back from leadership on the climate issue, the European Union, led by the UK and Germany as well as the Netherlands and its Scandinavian member states, partly filled the void and pushed for global action to address the problem. Benefitting from German reunification and the collapse of the former East Germany's emissions, and those from other former Soviet states, the EU achieved the target it agreed to at Kyoto."

"One of my favorites is Angela Merkel because I think she's been an extraordinary, strong leader during difficult times in Europe, which has obvious implications for the rest of the world and, most particularly, our country... her bravery in the face of the refugee crisis is something that I am impressed by."

"Russia was now becoming a dominant factor in European diplomacy. It had copious natural resources, a large army, a nuclear arsenal and a reckless capacity for mischief-making, cyber attacks and overseas assassination. As Churchill had said in 1939, Russia might always be ‘a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma’, but on one matter Putin was crystal clear. He did not like NATO’s encirclement of his borders or meddling within his ‘sphere of interest’. In this he had an increasingly sympathetic ear from Germany’s Angela Merkel and from some former Warsaw Pact leaders. Geography mattered. It was easy for Britain and France to play belligerence with Moscow. It was less easy for Germany and the still ingénue democracies to its east."

"In 2015 Merkel in Germany made a radical gesture. After the failure of an EU plan to absorb refugees from the Syrian civil war flowing into Greece, she decided to offer them sanctuary in Germany. Over a million accepted. The reaction was fierce. An unashamedly right-wing group, Alternative for Germany, emerged in the 2018 German elections as the third largest party, strongest in the former East German provinces. Merkel, so long the queen of Europe, was almost toppled. A charismatic French president, Emmanuel Macron, elected in 2017, swiftly moved into lead position in the EU and promptly initiated yet another attempt to concentrate and reform the eurozone. Germany disagreed. Europe looked ever more divided and confused."

"We’ve discussed this topic election period after election period and every single time it was the CDU/CSU who blocked equal rights for lesbians and gays [...] Mrs. Merkel, I can’t spare you this, it was pathetic, it was embarrassing, since 2005 you have supported discrimination against lesbians and gays and done nothing to achieve equal rights."

"In recent years, key European politicians have also used language not dissimilar to Mr Brevik. Last year, Angela Merkel asserted that multikulti, or multiculturalism, had failed."

"Some of our opponents cannot help putting ourselves in the extreme right corner in the immigration discussion just because we draw attention to the danger of parallel societies in connection with immigration. That, dear friends, is the pinnacle of mendacity, and one such hypocrisy will collapse like a house of cards in front of people. That is why we will continue to demand regulated control and limitation of immigration."

"A Western source told The Jerusalem Post that Merkel lobbied the Romanian president to put a halt on the relocation of its embassy to Jerusalem. It is believed that Merkel called other European politicians as part of a campaign to block the relocation of European embassies to Jerusalem."

"Speaking from the European parliament, Sandell said, “What we have found out, something I heard for quite some time already, from central and eastern European countries that would have an inclination to move their embassy to Jerusalem, this is the natural thing for them to do, is that they have received phone calls from Berlin, from Angela Merkel, the chancellor. Basically, this cannot happen under any circumstances. I have spoken to many Germans these last few days in Brussels,” he said. “They are not aware of this, and all of them would be shocked that all of the countries in the European Union today would want to block an embassy move to Jerusalem, not only for your own country, but for other countries that have the conviction [that] this is the right thing to do, the only country to do would be Germany. This is a big shock.”"

"I invite Mrs. Merkel and Mr. Sarkozy to visit Bucha and see what the policy of concessions to Russia has led to in 14 years. To see with their own eyes the tortured Ukrainian men and women."

"There was a strange aftertaste to many of the calls for grand social reform in 2020. As the coronavirus crisis overtook us, the left wing on both sides of the Atlantic, at least that part that had been fired up Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders, was going down to defeat. The promise of a radicalized and reenergized left, organized around the idea of the Green New Deal, seemed to dissipate amidst the pandemic. It fell to governments mainly of the center and the right to meet the crisis. They were a strange assortment. Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Donald Trump in the United States experimented with denial. For them climate skepticism and virus skepticism went hand in hand. In Mexico, the notionally left-wing government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador also pursued a maverick path, refusing to take drastic action. Nationalist strongmen like Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, Narendra Modi in India, Vladimir Putin in Russia, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey did not deny the virus, but relied on their patriotic appeal and bullying tactics to see them through. It was the managerial centrist types who were under most pressure. Figures like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer in the United States, or Sebastián Piñera in Chile, or Cyril Ramaphosa in South Africa, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, Ursula von der Leyen, and their ilk in Europe. They accepted the science. Denial was not an option. They were desperate to demonstrate that they were better than the 'populists.' To meet the crisis, very middle-of-the-road politicians ended up doing very radical things. Most of it was improvisation and compromise, but insofar as they managed to put a programmatic gloss on their responses—whether in the form of the EU's Next Generation program or Biden's Build Back Better program in 2020—it came from the repertoire of green modernization, sustainable development, and the Green New Deal."

"Nicht die Welt muss dem Iran nachweisen, dass er eine Bombe baut, sondern der Iran muss die Welt überzeugen, dass er die Atombombe nicht will."

"Und so wünsche ich mir, dass die Bürgerinnen und Bürger Europas in 50 Jahren sagen werden: Damals, in Berlin, da hat das vereinte Europa die Weichen richtig gestellt. Damals, in Berlin, da hat die Europäische Union den richtigen Weg in eine gute Zukunft eingeschlagen. Sie hat anschließend ihre Grundlagen erneuert, um nach innen, auf diesem alten Kontinent, wie nach außen, in dieser einen großen-kleinen Welt, einen Beitrag zu leisten."

"Even after the end of the Cold War we are […] faced with the task of tearing down the walls between different concepts of life, in other words the walls in people's minds that make it difficult time and again to understand one another in this world of ours. This is why the ability to show tolerance is so important. While, for us, our way of life is the best possible way, others do not necessarily feel that way. There are different ways to create peaceful coexistence. Tolerance means showing respect for other people's history, traditions, religion and cultural identity. But let there be no misunderstanding: Tolerance does not mean "anything goes". There must be zero tolerance towards all those who show no respect for the inalienable rights of the individual and who violate human rights."

"Freedom is the very essence of our economy and society. Without freedom the human mind is prevented from unleashing its creative force. But what is also clear is that this freedom does not stand alone. It is freedom in responsibility and freedom to exercise responsibility."

"The Freedom Bell in Berlin is, like the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, a symbol which reminds us that freedom does not come about of itself. It must be struggled for and then defended anew every day of our lives.'"

"Of course the tendency had been to say, 'Let's adopt the multicultural concept and live happily side by side, and be happy to be living with each other.' But this concept has failed, and failed utterly."

"History has often showed us the strength of the forces that are unleashed by the yearning for freedom. It moved people to overcome their fears and openly confront dictators such as in East Germany and Eastern Europe about 22 years ago. […] The yearning for freedom cannot be contained by walls for long. It was this yearning that brought down the Iron Curtain that divided Germany and Europe, and indeed the world, into two blocs."