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April in Pictures
Sand Sculpture Festival in Warnemünde, © picture alliance/dpa | Jens Büttner
We hope that this review of the month of April will bring you joy and perhaps inspire you to read up on some of the events that happened in the past month!
The red sun, part of the anti-nuclear logo, stands in front of the Brandenburg Gate during a campaign by Greenpeace to celebrate the shutdown of the last three German nuclear power plants. As of Sunday, April 16, Germany is no longer producing any electricity from nuclear power plants.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) testing some AR glasses (Augmented Reality) during the opening tour of the Hannover Messe. The Hannover Messe is the world's leading industrial technology trade show and took place from April 17 to 21, 2023.
The former Governing Mayor and designated Senator for Economic Affairs, Energy and Industry, Franziska Giffey (r, SPD), and the designated Governing Mayor, Kai Wegner (CDU), after signing the coalition agreement for 2023-26 between CDU and SPD. Kai Wegner (CDU) was elected as the mayor of Berlin on Thursday after three rounds of voting. Prior to this, the German capital was governed by a coalition between the SPD, the environmentalist Green Party, and the hard-left Die Linke. As part of his election campaign, Wegner emphasized the need for increased security measures and the modernization of Berlin's administrative infrastructure, among other priorities.
On April 23rd, Germany celebrates the “Day of Beer” as it marks the proclamation of the German Purity Law (Reinheitsgebot) on the same day in 1516.
Over five hundred years ago, Bavarian Duke Wilhelm IV demanded that only the four natural ingredients of water, malt, hops, and yeast be used for brewing. He wanted to put an end to the custom of brewers adding the most outrageous things to their beer. Over time, people had come up with highly adventurous ideas to give their beer a special taste or to make it non-persihable: from adding herbs or soot to dark beer, chalk powder to make sour beer drinkable again, or even using belladonna and fly agaric mushrooms. Some dubious self-proclaimed “brewers” back then obviously stopped at nothing. When hearing this, one can't help but feel grateful to Wilhelm IV.
© Zoonar.com/Maurice Tricatelle
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) visits the Joint Security Area (JSA) in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. In the background, the Phanmun Pavilion is visible on North Korean territory. After the three-year Korean War, a four-kilometer-wide demilitarized zone (DMZ) was established in July 1953 with the Armistice Agreement, which marks the border between the two countries over a length of 248 kilometers. The Armistice Agreement was signed in one of the blue barracks in the headquarters (l) in the JSA. More on Annalena Baerbock's visit to South Korea.
Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Robert Habeck meets Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the village of Jahidne, which was occupied by Russian attackers in the early stages of the war. Zelensky showed the minister a cellar where the Russian army had crowded around 350 civilians for weeks. Eleven people did not survive the confinement back then. Habeck expressed his regret that Germany and other countries had not supported Ukraine earlier. He had last visited Ukraine as Green Party leader in May 2021 before the outbreak of war and had subsequently advocated for the delivery of defensive weapons.
© picture alliance/dpa | Christoph Soeder
“Avast Ye, All Ye Scallywags!”
Six artists from five countries created figures for the 13th Sandworld exhibition from 300 tons of special sand directly on the harbor canal in Warnemünde. Under the motto “Metamorphosis - Gone with the (Baltic) Wind”, various motifs on the theme of the sea have been created prior to the opening of the festival on April 6, 2023. The exhibition will be open until October 29, 2023.