Newly revealed documents reveal that MI5 taught Brazilian secret police the techniques deployed by the 1964-85 military dictatorship in horrific prisons like Rio de Janeiro’s House of Death. SARA VIVACQUA reports
PLEASANT, hilly Thuringia, the “green lung” of Germany, has not always had pleasant times. One hundred years ago, after a socialist revolution had been squelched following World War I, Social Democrats and Communists in Thuringia and neighbouring Saxony defiantly elected coalition governments.
This could not possibly be tolerated. So the Berlin government, run by reliable, “correct” Social Democrats, sent in troops to put things back in order. Which they did.
Seven years later, in 1930, Thuringia became the first state to include Nazi ministers in its cabinet. Only two at first. But in August 1932 the Nazis took over completely, four months before doing the same in all of Germany.
NICK WRIGHT returns to Berlin and finds a city in darkness and political turmoil
The German Chancellor seeks EU sanctions on the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to prevent future governments from resuming Russian gas deliveries, delivering a devastating blow to German industry — and German workers, writes RAINER RUPP
In part two of May’s Berlin Bulletin, VICTOR GROSSMAN, having assessed the policies of the new government, looks at how the opposition is faring
In part one of his Berlin bulletin, VICTOR GROSSMAN assesses the economic and political difficulties facing the new Merz government — and a regrettable ruling-class consensus on the solutions



