Kit’s resemblance to infamous SS rune of Nazi paramilitary wing unintentional, company says

Adidas has banned football fans from customising the German national shirt with the number 44 due to its alleged resemblance to the symbol used by Nazi SS units during the second world war.

The Schutzstaffel (SS), a paramilitary organisation of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich, was tasked with carrying out the industrialised genocide of Jewish people across Europe.

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After a decade in Germany, I was still anxious talking to native speakers – then I realised my language skills weren’t the problem

I have prefaced every conversation with, “ Entschuldigung, mein Deutsch ist noch nicht so gut ” (“I’m sorry, my German is still not very good”) since I moved to Hermsdorf, a little village in east Germany in 2015. Its purpose was to act as a disclaimer upfront so that the German person I was talking to wouldn’t expect me to articulate complicated ideas or respond promptly and accurately to everything that was said. But mostly, my opening line was a plea for mercy, a signal that I was still learning the language and would greatly appreciate it if they spoke more slowly and clearly. They would always graciously reply: “ Ja, Deutsch ist eine schwere Sprache. ” German is a difficult language, they all agreed. And for the longest time, that was true.

Growing up in Kuala Lumpur as Malaysian Chinese, I speak English almost natively, given that Malaysia was once a British colony. I also speak Malay, Malaysia’s official language, and Mandarin and Cantonese because I needed to communicate with my grandparents. Before moving to Germany, I already spoke Italian after working on board cruise ships for years alongside Italian officers, and conversational French after dating a Frenchman. Then, I met the man who would later become my husband in a bar on the 63rd floor of a building in Singapore and a thought occurred to me: “Wouldn’t it be funny if I have to learn German this time?”

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Over-18s can now to carry up to 25 grams of dried cannabis and cultivate up to three marijuana plants at home

Smoking cannabis is now legal for over-18s in Germany, after new laws for personal possession came into effect.

As of 1 April, adults in Germany are allowed to carry up to 25g of dried cannabis on them and cultivate up to three marijuana plants at home.

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Regulating cannabis use is no longer radical but an increasingly normalised strategy. The ‘tough on drugs’ approach is archaic

Germany’s cannabis reforms were approved this week, overcoming the final legislative hurdle when the Bundesrat, Germany’s upper house, voted through the bill that passed with a huge majority in the Bundestag (lower house) last month. Germany is a significant addition to the growing list of countries defecting from the drug war consensus that had held for more than half a century. More than half a billion people now live in jurisdictions establishing legal adult access to cannabis for recreational use.

When Germany’s new law comes into force on 1 April, it will decriminalise possession of up to 25g of cannabis for personal use (and up to 50g in the home), allow requests to remove criminal records for past possession offences, legalise home growing of up to three cannabis plants for personal use, and establish a regulatory framework for not-for-profit associations within which cannabis can be grown and supplied to members.

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Five reported killed and numerous others injured after FlixBus carrying 55 people overturned on A9 motorway

Multiple people were killed and more injured in a coach crash on a motorway near the eastern German city of Leipzig on Wednesday, police said.

“Several people were fatally injured in the serious accident on the A9 motorway. There are numerous casualties,” said Saxony police in a statement on X.

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Most Germans insist their ancestors weren’t Nazis. Jonathan Glazer’s film pries away at the cracks in this narrative

There is something unsettling about sitting in a German theatre laughing at Nazis. How unsettling depends on the type of humour that prompts the laughter. Is it meant to set the audience apart from the stage action, or does the laughter stem from the discomfort of proximity? When I saw the satire Nachtland staged recently at Berlin’s prestigious Schaubühne (a production also runs in an English translation at the Young Vic in London until 20 April), I perceived the ripples of laughter filling the room as a sort of embarrassed self-awareness. Like a tense moment of getting caught – a feeling that every storyteller ultimately longs to evoke.

In the play, which has a present-day setting, two siblings find a painting signed by “A. Hitler” in their dead father’s house. Once they realise that the kitschy artwork is worth more than €100,000 if they can credibly authenticate the artist as Hitler, the siblings start recasting their entire family history in a different light. While the previous narrative had insisted that “our family had nothing to do with the Nazis” (the dominant account in most German households), now suddenly the late grandmother is not only found to be a comitted follower of Nazi ideology, but to have had a love affair with Hitler’s secretary. As the new family history pragmatically, and profitably, unfolds, it becomes much more realistic, ironically, than the hitherto official version.

Fatma Aydemir is a Berlin-based Guardian Europe columnist

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