Crises

Articles about crises and crisis management. This section deals with personal experiences, methods for dealing with difficult situations and approaches for long-term stabilization.

Corporate insolvency: A personal experience with a guide for times of crisis

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Guide to corporate insolvency

Looking back, it all started for me in 2007 with a business model that was surprisingly stable. I was selling refurbished Apple hardware and had a direct contact with Apple. More specifically, someone who was in charge of the refurbished department at the time. It wasn't an anonymous relationship, but a working relationship with clear agreements. The goods were in demand, the prices were realistic and the margins were solid - measured against what was to come later.

This model had a decisive advantage: it was flexible. The goods were cheaper to buy, the target group was price-sensitive but appreciative, and expectations were clear. Nobody expected high gloss, but function. This is often the healthiest phase for an entrepreneur: manageable costs, clear processes, few illusions.

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Ulrike Guérot: A European between idea, university and public discourse

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Ulrike Guérot and Europe

There are people whose thoughts you like to follow not because you agree with them on everything, but because they make an effort to penetrate things. For me, Ulrike Guérot is one of these voices. I have been watching her lectures for a few years now - not regularly, not ritualized, but when I come across a topic that I feel is worth listening to more closely. What strikes me is that her arguments are calm, structured and largely non-ideological.

This does not make her lectures spectacular in the media sense, but they are sustainable. You can listen to her for a long time without getting the feeling that she is trying to sell a ready-made world view. Especially at a time when political debates are often morally charged or emotionally truncated, this way of speaking seems almost old-fashioned. In the best sense of the word.

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Game theory explains 25 years of geopolitics: How Europe lost its strategic role

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Game theory explains 25 years of geopolitics

For many, game theory sounds like dry mathematics, like formulas, like something that only plays a role in lectures or business games. In reality, however, it is an ancient thinking tool that existed long before its academic formalization. Diplomats used it, commanders used it, captains of industry used it - long before it was even called that. In the end, it is nothing more than a sober question:

„When several players have to make decisions in an uncertain situation - what options do they have and what are the consequences?“

This kind of thinking has become surprisingly rare today. Instead of analyzing alternatives, much is narrowed down to moral narratives or spontaneous interpretations. Yet in geopolitical issues in particular, a clear analysis of the possibilities would be the foundation of any mature policy. It is precisely this old craft that I would like to take up again in this article.

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Permanent crisis as a normal state: How narratives distort our perception

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Permanent crisis, narratives

It's strange how certain developments creep up quietly and only reveal their full impact in retrospect. When I think about how I perceive the news today, I realize that my approach to it changed fundamentally more than twenty years ago. Since the turn of the millennium, I have hardly watched any traditional television news. It was never a conscious decision against something - more a gradual growing out of it. At some point, I simply realized that the daily bombardment of alternating doomsday scenarios was neither improving my life nor making my vision clearer.

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Jan-Josef Liefers: A portrait of attitude, origins and artistic freedom

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Jan-Josef Liefers

When you see Jan-Josef Liefers today as the eccentric Professor Boerne in „Tatort“, it's easy to forget how long it took to get there. I myself have always enjoyed seeing him in this role: as a mixture of subtlety, narcissism, humor and astonishing clarity. But this mixture doesn't come out of nowhere. It is the result of a life that began in a completely different Germany - in the GDR, in a country with narrow borders and clear guidelines.

To understand why Liefers takes such a consistent stance today, you have to go back to his childhood, to his parents' theater world and to a time when criticism of the system was anything but without consequences.

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State of the German economy in 2025: Five years of crisis, figures, trends and outlook

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State of the German economy in 2025

If you look at the German economy today, it is almost impossible to separate the last five years. It was a chain of events that overlapped, reinforced and in some cases blocked each other. The starting point was 2020 - the year in which the pandemic brought public life, supply chains and entire industries to a standstill in one fell swoop. Many companies had to close, production was interrupted and government aid was provided to prevent the economy from collapsing completely in the short term.

However, what seemed like a temporary exceptional situation at the time developed into something bigger: The consequences of the decisions made at the time still affect the everyday lives of entrepreneurs, the self-employed and employees today. Anyone who thought back then that after a few months everything would be „as it used to be“ can now see that many things have changed permanently.

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Why Dieter Bohlen speaks when others remain silent: A portrait of diligence and clarity

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There are personalities that you only really understand when you detach yourself from their public image. Dieter Bohlen belongs exactly in this category. Musically, I myself am not a big fan of his shallow, often very simple melodies - and yet, to be fair, it has to be said that what he created was extremely precise, target group-oriented and clearly structured for the 1980s. Bohlen was never the great artist in the romantic sense. But he was an outstanding businessman, a hard worker and someone who understood his craft in a way that few do today.

What makes him interesting for me is not so much his music - but the fact that he remained successful for decades, while whole generations of artists came and went around him. That he attended the same commercial college in Oldenburg as I did. And that today - after many years of silence - he is suddenly taking a clear stance on social issues. That is the reason why it is worth looking at Dieter Bohlen as a person beyond the usual media image: not as a pop titan, not as a TV pundit, but as a craftsman, businessman and mirror of a time that understands itself less and less.

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Dieter Bohlen in plain language: Why Germany is failing because of its own bureaucracy

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Dieter Bohlen in conversation with Dominik Kettner

This article highlights a recent, remarkably candid conversation between Dieter Bohlen - the longtime music producer, entrepreneur and one of the most recognizable faces of German pop culture - and Dominik Kettner, a precious metals expert, YouTuber and financial entrepreneur who has been studying wealth protection and economic trends for years.

At first glance, the meeting of the two seems unusual: here the entertainer with decades of international experience, there the financial analyst who primarily addresses security-conscious savers and entrepreneurs. But it is precisely this mixture that makes the interview so exciting. Bohlen speaks freely, without a PR filter, while Kettner drills down and makes complex developments tangible. Together, they create a space in which undesirable political developments, economic risks and personal experiences are interwoven - clearly, directly and without excuses.

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