Germany’s dire situation requires humour and humanity | Letters

Thorsten Wulff looks for laughter amid the bleakness, while Carola Gartner is concerned about poverty and drug use

Peter Kuras's analysis of the rather dire situation Germany faces right now is spot-on (Tractor chaos, neo-Nazis and a flatlining economy: why has Germany lost the plot?, 6 February). Back are the dreaded times of the sick man of Europe, only stopped 20 years ago by the Agenda 2010 reform package of the social democratic chancellor Gerhard Schroder. Who is an outcast not only in his party these days, being Vladimir Putin's friend. Endless rows of tractors from the Brandenburg Gate to the Siegessaule, where Barack Obama spoke to the masses in a much brighter 2008, are the solidified image of the muck the country is stuck in.

And then there is the stiff seriousness of German politics. In August 1919, the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung, successful precursor of magazines like Life, published a funny image of President Friedrich Ebert and his defence secretary, Gustav Noske, in trunks on the beach. The scoop made the front page; the young republic was outraged. Lloyd George must have felt the hypocritical quake in Downing Street.