Die Welt (The World) is a German national daily newspaper published by the Axel Springer AG company.

It was founded in Hamburg in 1946 by the British occupying forces, aiming to provide a "quality newspaper" modelled on The Times. It originally carried news and British-viewpoint editorial content, but from 1947 it adopted a policy of providing two leading articles on major questions, one British and one German. At its peak in the occupation period, it had a circulation of around a million.^[1]

The modern paper takes a self-described "liberal cosmopolitan" position in editing, but Die Welt is generally considered to be conservative.^[2][3]

The average circulation of Die Welt is currently about 209,000 and the paper can be obtained in more than 130 countries. Daily regional editions appear in Berlin and Hamburg, and in 2002 the paper experimented with a Bavarian edition. A daily regional supplement also appears in Bremen. The main editorial office is in Berlin, in conjunction with the Berliner Morgenpost.

Die Welt is the flagship newspaper of the Axel Springer publishing group. Its leading competitors are the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Süddeutsche Zeitung and the Frankfurter Rundschau. Financially, it has been a lossmaker for many years.

Die Welt was a founder member of the European Dailies Alliance (EDA), and has a longstanding co-operation with comparable daily newspapers from other countries, including the Daily Telegraph (UK), Le Figaro (France) and ABC (Spain).

The newspaper currently publishes a compact edition entitled Welt Kompakt, a 32-page cut-down version of the main broadsheet. Welt Kompakt has a fresher look and is targeted to a younger public. The paper does not appear on Sundays, but the linked publication Welt am Sonntag takes its place.

In November 2010, the newspaper a newspaper redesign was launched, featuring a new logo with a dark blue globe, a reduced number of columns from seven to six, and typography based on the Freight typeface designed by Joshua Darden. Welt Kompakt was also redesigned to use that typeface.^[4][5] In 2009, the Sunday edition Welt am Sonntag was recognized as one of the "World’s Best-Designed Newspapers" by the Society for News Design, along with four other newspapers.^[6]

Editors[link]

A Die Welt balloon over Berlin

• Rudolf Küstermeier (1946–1953)
• Bernhard Menne (1950)
• Paul Bourdin (1950)
• Hans Scherer, Adalbert Worliczek, Adolf Helbig (1950–1952)
• Albert Komma (1952–1953)
• Hans Zehrer (1946 / 1953–1966)
• Herbert Kremp (1969–1985)
• Manfred Schell (1985–1992)
• Peter Gillies (1985–1988)/(1992–1995)
• Claus Jacobi (1993–1995)
• Thomas Löffelholz (1995–1998)
• Mathias Döpfner (1998–2000)
• Wolfram Weimer (2000–2002)
• Jan-Eric Peters (2002–12/31/2006)
• Thomas Schmid (1/1/2007–2010)
• Jan-Eric Peters (since 2010) ^[7]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website "WELT ONLINE"
• Article Archive for Die Welt

Look up die in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Die usually refers to the cessation of life.

Die may also refer to:

Objects[link]

• Die (manufacturing), a material-shaping device
• Die (integrated circuit), a rectangular piece of a semiconductor wafer
• One of a set of dice, gambling or game devices
• Tap and die, cutting tools used to create screw threads in solid substances
• Sort (typesetting), a cast die for printing

Other[link]

• Die, Drôme, a village in France, best known for its Clairette de Die
• DIE, German Development Institute
• DiE, pedagogical method Drama in Education
• Die (musician), Japanese musician, guitarist of the band Dir en grey
• Die!, the seventh studio album by rapper Necro.
• DJ Die, British DJ and musician with Reprazent
• D.I.E., a Hong Kong TVB show
• DIES, the name of the solo project of Josh Dies, lead singer of Showbread
• Duplication is evil, programming motto

See also[link]

• dié (disambiguation)
• dye
• Dai (disambiguation)
• Di (disambiguation)

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Look up welt in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

A welt is an alternative name for a wheal, a skin lesion. Welt may also refer to:

• Die Welt (german "The World"), a German national newspaper
• Welt (shoe), a part of a shoe
• Welt (album), an album by ohGr
• Welt, Germany

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (February 2012)

Zarah Leander
Born	Sara Stina Hedberg (1907-03-15)15 March 1907 Karlstad, Sweden
Died	23 June 1981(1981-06-23) (aged 74) Stockholm, Sweden
Occupation	Actress, singer
Years active	1929–1979
Spouse	Nils Leander (1926–1930) Vidar Forsell (1932–1943) Arne Hülphers (1956–1978)

Zarah Leander (15 March 1907 – 23 June 1981) was a Swedish actress and singer.

Leander began her career in the late 1920s, and by the mid 1930s her success in Europe, particularly in Germany and the Scandinavian countries, led to invitations to work in the United States. Leander was reluctant to relocate her children, and opted to remain in Europe, and from 1936 was contracted to work for the German Universum Film AG (UFA) while continuing to record songs. Leander later noted that while her films were successful, her work as a recording artist was more profitable.

As a result of her controversial choice to work for the state-owned UFA in Adolf Hitler's Germany, her films and song lyrics were viewed by some as propaganda for the Nazi cause, although she took no public political position. Leander was strongly criticized as a result, particularly in Sweden where she returned after her Berlin home was bombed during an air raid. Initially she was shunned by much of the artistic community and public in Sweden, and found herself unable to resume her career after the Second World War. It was several years before she could make a comeback in Sweden, and she would remain a figure of public controversy for the rest of her life.

Eventually she returned to performing throughout Europe, but was unable to equal the level of success she had previously achieved. She spent her later years in retirement in Stockholm, and died there at the age of 74.

Beginnings[link]

She was born as Sara Stina Hedberg in Karlstad. While Zarah Leander's career in the Third Reich has been criticized, rumors nevertheless erroneously implied that Zarah was of Jewish heritage.^{[citation needed]} According to her son Göran, his mother's family, going back through generations, were from the Swedish provinces of Dalarna and Värmland.^{[citation needed]}

Although Zarah Leander studied piano and violin as a small child, and sang on stage for the first time at the age of six, she initially had no intention of becoming a professional performer and led an ordinary life for several years. As a teenager she lived two years in Riga (1922–1924), where she learned German, took up work as a secretary, married Nils Leander (1926), and had two children (1927 and 1929). However, in 1929 she was engaged, as an amateur, in a touring cabaret by the entertainer and producer Ernst Rolf and for the first time sang "Vill ni se en stjärna," ('Do you want to see a star?') which soon would become her signature tune.

In 1930, she participated in four cabarets in the capital, Stockholm, made her first records, including a cover of Marlene Dietrich's "Falling in Love Again", and played a part in a film. However, it was as "Hanna Glavari" in Franz Lehár's operetta The Merry Widow that she had her definitive break-through (1931). By then she had divorced Nils Leander. In the following years, she expanded upon her career and made a living as an artist on stage and in film in Scandinavia. Her fame brought her proposals from the European continent and from Hollywood, where a number of Swedish actors and directors were working.

In the beginning of the 1930s she performed with the Swedish revue artist, producer and songwriter Karl Gerhard who was a prominent anti-Nazi. He wrote a song for Zarah Leander, "I skuggan av en stövel" (In the shadow of a boot), in 1934 which strongly condemned the persecution of Jews in Nazi-Germany.^[1]

Zarah Leander opted for an international career on the European continent. As a mother of two school-age children, she ruled out a move to America. In her view it was, most of all, too insecure. She feared the consequences, should she bring the children with her such a great distance and subsequently be unable to find employment. Despite the political situation, Austria and Germany were much closer, and Leander was already well-versed in German.

A second breakthrough, by contemporary measures her international debut, was the world premiere (1936) of Axel an der Himmelstür at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna, directed by Max Hansen. It was a parody on Hollywood and not the least a parody of the German Marlene Dietrich, who had left a Europe marked by Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. It was followed by the Austrian film Premiere, in which she played the role of a successful cabaret star.

The UFA star[link]

Zarah Leander on the cover of Swedish weekly Se 1941

In 1936, she landed a contract with UFA in Berlin. She became known as an extraordinarily tough negotiator, demanding influence and high salaries with half of her salary paid in Swedish kronor to a bank in Stockholm. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels dubbed her an "Enemy of Germany", but as a leading film star at UFA, she participated in ten films, most of them great successes. However, unlike other film stars at the time, such as Olga Chekhova, Leander neither socialized with leading party members nor took part in official Nazi party functions. (Both actresses are rumored to have been Communist spies.)

At a party she met the Nazi minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, who asked her ironically: "Zarah... Isn't this a Jewish name?" "Oh, maybe" the actress told "but what about Josef?" "Hmmm... yes, yes, a good answer" Goebbels replied.^[2]

In her films, Zarah Leander repeatedly played the role of a femme fatale, independently minded, beautiful, passionate and self-confident. Although most of her songs had a melancholic flair, some had a frivolous undertext, or could at least be interpreted that way. In 1942, in the midst of a burning war, Leander scored the two biggest hits of her recording career - in her signature deep voice, she sang her anthems of hope and survival: "Davon geht die Welt nicht unter" ('That is not the end of the world') and "Ich weiß, es wird einmal ein Wunder gescheh'n" ('I know that someday a miracle will happen'). These two songs in particular are often included in contemporary documentaries as obvious examples of effective Nazi propaganda at work; however, it should also be noted that Leander's performance on these tracks, along with countless other hits she had all over Europe, struck a chord with the German people. Although no exact record sales numbers exist, it is likely that she was among Europe's best-selling recording artists in the years prior to 1945. Zarah herself was quick to point out in later years that what made her a fortune was indeed not her salary from Ufa, but the royalties from the records she released.^[3] "Ich weiß, es wird einmal ein Wunder gescheh'n" was the song on which New Wave singer Nina Hagen (who grew up in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and as a child had idolized Leander) based her 1983 hit "Zarah".

Return to Sweden[link]

Her last film in Nazi Germany premiered on 3 March 1943. Her villa in the fashionable Berlin suburb of Grunewald was hit in an air raid, and the increasingly desperate Nazis pressured her to apply for German citizenship. At this point she decided to break her contract with Ufa, leave Germany, and retreat to Sweden, where she had bought a mansion at Lönö, not far from Stockholm.

After the Wehrmacht's defeat in the 1943 Battle of Stalingrad, public opinion in Sweden (the government of which remained officially neutral throughout the war, though ideologically aligned with the Allies, but also supplying the Nazis with strategic war materials), was more free to display outward hostility toward the Nazis, especially as news of the Holocaust became widespread^[4] (public opinion was mainly anti-Nazi from the start, but was censored in the press by the government, to avoid severe repercussions from Germany). Leander had been far too extensively associated with Nazi propaganda, and as a result was shunned. Gradually she managed to land engagements on the Swedish stage. After the war she did eventually return to tour Germany and Austria, giving concerts, making new records and acting in musicals. Her comeback found an eager audience among pre-war generations who had never forgotten her. She appeared in a number of films and television shows, but she would never regain the popularity she had enjoyed before and into the first years of World War II. In 1981, after having retired from show business, she died in Stockholm of a stroke.

After the war, Zarah Leander was often questioned about her years in Nazi Germany. Though she would willingly talk about her past, she stubbornly rejected allegations of her having had sympathy for the Nazi regime. She claimed that her position as a German film actress merely had been that of an entertainer working to please an enthusiastic audience in a difficult time. She repeatedly described herself as a political idiot.

Zarah Leander continued to be very popular in Germany for many decades after WWII. She was interviewed several times in German television until she died.

In 1987 two Swedish musicals were written about Zarah Leander.

In 2003 a bronze statue was placed in Zarah Leander's home town Karlstad, by the Opera house of Värmland where she first began her career. After many years of discussions, the town government accepted this statue on behalf of the first Swedish local Zarah Leander Society. A Zarah Leander museum is open near her mansion outside Norrköping. Every year a scholarship is given to a creative artist in Zarah's tradition. The performer Mattias Enn received the prize in 2010, the female impersonator Jörgen Mulligan in 2009 and Zarah's friend and creator of the museum Brigitte Pettersson in 2008.

Filmography[link]

• 1930 – Dantes mysterier, with Eric Abrahamson, Elisabeth Frisk, Gustaf Lövås
• 1931 – Falska millionären, with Sture Lagerwall, Fridolf Rhudin
• 1935 – Äktenskapsleken, with Einar Axelsson, Karl Gerhard, Elsa Carlsson
• 1936 – Premiere (her first film in German), with Karl Martell, Attila Hörbiger, Theo Lingen
• 1937 – Zu neuen Ufern, with Willy Birgel, Viktor Staal, Carola Höhn, Erich Ziegel, Hilde von Stolz
• 1937 – La Habanera, with Ferdinand Marian, Karl Martell, Paul Bildt, Edwin Juergenssen, Werner Finck
• 1938 – Heimat, with Heinrich George, Ruth Hellberg, Lina Carstens, Paul Hörbiger, Leo Slezak
• 1938 – Der Blaufuchs, with Willy Birgel, Paul Hörbiger, Jane Tilden, Karl Schönböck, Rudolf Platte
• 1939 – Es war eine rauschende Ballnacht, with Marika Rökk, Paul Dahlke, Aribert Wäscher
• 1939 – Das Lied der Wüste, with Gustav Knuth, Friedrich Domin, Herbert Wilk, Franz Schafheitlin
• 1940 – Das Herz der Königin, with Willy Birgel, Axel von Ambesser, Will Quadflieg, Margot Hielscher
• 1941 – Der Weg ins Freie, with Hans Stüwe, Agnes Windeck, Siegfried Breuer, Hedwig Wangel
• 1942 – Die große Liebe, with Viktor Staal, Paul Hörbiger, Grethe Weiser, Wolfgang Preiss
• 1942 – Damals, with Hans Stüwe, Rossano Brazzi, Karl Martell, Hilde Körber, Otto Graf
• 1950 – Gabriela, with Siegfried Breuer, Carl Raddatz, Grethe Weiser, Gunnar Möller
• 1952 – Cuba Cabana, with O. W. Fischer, Paul Hartmann, Hans Richter, Eduard Linkers, Karl Meixner, Werner Lieven
• 1953 – Ave Maria, with Hans Stüwe, Marianne Hold, Hilde Körber, Berta Drews, Carl Wery
• 1954 – Bei Dir war es immer so schön, with Willi Forst, Heinz Drache, Sonja Ziemann, Margot Hielscher
• 1959 – Der blaue Nachtfalter, with Christian Wolff, Marina Petrowa, Paul Hartmann, Werner Hinz
• 1964 – Das Blaue vom Himmel (TV-Film), with Karin Baal, Toni Sailer, Carlos Werner
• 1966 – Das gewisse Etwas der Frauen, with Nadja Tiller, Anita Ekberg, Romina Power, Robert Hoffmann, Michèle Mercier

Operettas and musicals[link]

• 1931 Franz Lehár, Die lustige Witwe
• 1936 Ralph Benatzky, Axel an der Himmelstür (as Gloria Mills)
• 1958 Ernst Nebhut, Peter Kreuder, Madame Scandaleuse (as Helene)
• 1960 Oscar Straus, Eine Frau, die weiß, was sie will (as Manon Cavallini)
• 1964 Karl Farkas u. Peter Kreuder, Lady aus Paris (as Mrs. Erlynne)
• 1968 Peter Thomas, Ika Schafheitlin, Helmuth Gauer, Wodka für die Königin (as Königin Aureliana)
• 1975 Stephen Sondheim, Hugh Wheeler, Das Lächeln einer Sommernacht (as Madame Armfeldt)

Footnotes[link]

References[link]

• Ascheid, Antje. Hitler's heroines : stardom and womanhood in Nazi cinema. Philadelphia, Pa. : Temple University Press, 2003
• Carter, Erica. Dietrich's ghosts : the sublime and the beautiful in Third Reich film. London : BFI Publishing, 2004
• Seiler, Paul. Ich bin eine Stimme. LinkBerlin : Ullstein, 1997

Autobiography[link]

• Es war so wunderbar. Mein Leben. Hamburg: Hoffmann u. Campe. 1973. ISBN 3-455-04090-X

External links[link]

• Zarah Leander at the Internet Movie Database
• Listen to Zarah sing
• Zarah Leander talking about her German film years (in Swedish)
• Photographs and bibliography
• Zarah Leander at Find a Grave
• Zarah Leander, German fan-site

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2010)

Christina Stürmer
Christina Stürmer and her band
Background information
Birth name	Christina Stürmer
Born	(1982-06-09) 9 June 1982 (age 30)
Origin	Altenberg bei Linz, Austria
Genres	Pop, Pop rock and Rock
Occupations	Lead singer
Instruments	singing
Years active	2003–present
Labels	Polydor
Website	www.christinaonline.at
Members
Christina Stürmer Hartmut Kamm Klaus Pérez-Salado Oliver Varga
Past members
Gwenael Damman

Christina Stürmer (born 9 June 1982) is an Austrian pop/rock singer.^[1][2] After working at a bookshop in Linz and singing in several bands, she reached #2 in Starmania, an Austrian music casting TV show. Her first song was "Ich lebe" (I'm Alive) released in 2003, which was very successful in Austria and was followed by several #1 hits.

In 2004 the song "Vorbei" (Over) reached the German Top 100, and in April 2005, a new version of "Ich lebe" was produced especially for the German and Swiss market. That song reached very high positions in Germany, Switzerland and Italy, making Christina Stürmer well known in the German-speaking countries. 2006 was her most successful year. She sold more than 1.5 million copies of her CDs in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Italy.

Early life and music career[link]

Starmania[link]

In 2003, Stürmer won second place in Starmania behind Michael Tschuggnall. Shortly after that she released her first original song, "Ich Lebe" (I Live) which in 2003 occupied the number one spot on the Austrian music charts for nine weeks.

Beginning her career in Austria[link]

Euro 2008 concert

After "Ich Lebe" followed two more highly successful singles: "Geh nicht wenn du kommst" (Don't Go When You Come) and the anti-war song Mama (Ana Ahabak) (Arabic for Mama, I Love You) which originated during the war in Iraq. The song represents a little Iraqi girl's perspective of the war, and it also spent nine weeks at the number one spot on the Austrian charts. Her first album, Freier Fall (Free Fall), was released exclusively in Austria in May 2003, and it also rose quickly to the top of the charts, where it occupied the number one spot for weeks. In fall of 2003 she did an Austrian tour behind the strength of her first album.

In May 2004 her second album, Soll das wirklich alles sein (Is that really everything?) appeared, again only in Austria. The album was even more successful than Freier Fall, (Free Fall) but the album's singles had only average sales figures. The Wirklich alles! (Really Everything!) tour in Austria followed in the fall. The highlight of this tour was the concert at Vienna city hall in November, which sold out all 11,000 tickets in a very short time. The concert was filmed, and along with some interviews and a short biography, was released in DVD form as Wirklich alles! During the club tour that began directly after the Vienna concert, she presented for the first time her own original compositions, which she had written with her band.

Breakthrough in Germany[link]

At this time, Christina and her managers, Andreas Streit and Bernd Rengleshausen, were working towards breaking through in Germany. The single Vorbei was released in Germany in November 2004, but it fell short of expectations. In April 2005 a re-worked version of "Ich Lebe" was released in Germany. This single met with great success; it rose to ninth place on the German charts, and shortly thereafter reached number four.

The album which followed, named Schwarz Weiss (Black White) was released in June 2005, in Germany and Switzerland, reached number three on the German album charts, and stayed in the top twenty for more than a year. The majority of the songs on this album, which were mostly already known in Austria, were reproduced and oriented towards the emerging trends in German rock and pop music. The singles were "Engel fliegen Einsam" (Angels Fly Lonely) "Mama (Ana Ahabak)", and "Immer an euch geglaubt" (Always Believed In You). The singles were also re-recorded to be more rock oriented. In late 2005 Christina and her band toured through Germany and Switzerland. The Schwarz-Weiss tour, with just under 40 concerts, lasted two months, in which some concerts had to be relocated to larger halls because of the great demand for tickets. Christina Stürmer and her band had established themselves as a major group.

Continued success[link]

In 2006, Christina and her band released their fourth album, Lebe lauter (Live Louder). The album reached number one in both Germany and Austria. And the singles, Nie genug (Never Enough), and Um bei dir zu sein/An Sommertagen (To Be By Your Side/On Summer Days) both reached number one as well on the Austrian charts. The first single, Nie genug reached a respectable number fifteen in Germany. The following singles after Um bei dir zu sein/An Sommertagen, Ohne Dich (Without You) and Scherbenmeer both reached the top ten in Austria. When Austria co-hosted Euro 2008 with Switzerland, Christina's song Fieber was the Austrian song for Euro 2008,^[3] followed by her last album In dieser Stadt in 2009, which brought us two more singles, "Ist mir egal" and "Mehr als perfekt".

Her new single "Wir Leben den Moment" is set to be released 3 September 2010, from her upcoming album.

Awards[link]

• Amadeus Austrian Music Award 2004 for "Best Pop/Rock national" and "Newcomer of the Year national"
• Amadeus Austrian Music Award 2005 for "Best Pop/Rock national" and "Best Single national"
• ECHO 2006 for "Best National Female Artist (Rock/Pop)"
• Amadeus Austrian Music Award 2006 for "Best Pop/Rock national" and "Best Single national"
• Goldene Stimmgabel 2006 for "Best German Rock/Pop"

Discography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Christina Stürmer

• Official website
• Christina Stürmer discography at MusicBrainz