DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

MUNICH, Germany — A night at the opera conjures images of elegant outfits and spectacular vocals. But at one German opera house, 18 audience members required medical treatment after watching recent performances featuring explicit lesbian sex scenes, piercing, and lots of blood. The opera, Sancta, premiered at the Mecklenburg state theatre in Schwerin in May. It was based on the controversial 1920s opera Sancta Susanna, whose story follows a nun facing her repressed desires. The new version of Sancta, directed by Austrian choreographer Florentina Holzinger, shows naked nuns roller-skating on a half-pipe and a wall of crucified unclothed bodies.

Persons: Sebastian Ebling, Sancta, Sancta Susanna, Florentina Holzinger Organizations: Stuttgart State Opera, NBC News Locations: MUNICH, Germany, Mecklenburg, Schwerin, Austrian

MAINZ, Germany — Police are investigating after an explosion rocked central Cologne in western Germany on Monday. The explosion took place in the entrance way of the Vanity nightclub in the Hohenzollernring area, known as a main entertainment district of Cologne, at around 5.50 a.m. local time, a police spokesman told NBC News. Several glass windows apparently burst in the explosion “and could have likely harmed more people, if the explosion had occurred at a later time,” the spokesman said. Local authorities said in a post on X on Monday that a "major" police operation was underway as they urged residents to avoid the Hohenzollernring area. Police told NBC News that the area is under CCTV surveillance and that the footage will be part of the ongoing investigation.

Persons: Andy Eckardt, Chantal Da Silva Organizations: Germany — Police, NBC News, Police Locations: MAINZ, Germany, Cologne, Mainz, London

MAINZ, Germany — A 97-year-old woman who worked as a secretary at a Nazi concentration camp was convicted by a German court Tuesday of being an accessory to the murder of more than 10,000 people. In what could be the last trial of its kind, Irmgard Furchner — dubbed the ‘secretary of evil’ by German media — was handed a two-year suspended sentence for helping the Stutthof concentration camp to function during World War Two. That's in line with what prosecutors had sought, while survivors of the death camp and relatives of victims who appeared as joint plaintiffs also said that it was not in their interest for the 97-year-old to serve any time in prison. Furchner was charged with “aiding those in a position of responsibility at the former Stutthof concentration camp with the systematic killing of those imprisoned there, due to her work as a shorthand typist/secretary in the Camp Commandant’s Office between June 1943 and April 1945,” according to a court press release. In Germany proof of intent is required for criminal liability.

MAINZ, Germany — Authorities in Germany arrested 25 people on Wednesday who are suspected of planning to violently overthrow the government in a far-right extremist plot. It is centered on the so-called Reichsbürger, or Reich Citizens, movement which is motivated by conspiracy theories about the role and legitimacy of the modern German state. The homes of a further 27 people suspected of being members or supporters of the group have been searched. The German armed forces have been beset by a series of scandals involving personnel belonging to far-right groups. German prosecutors note, however, that there is no evidence Russian officials reacted positively to the request.

Search resuls for: "Andy Eckardt"

4 mentions found