Sweden is the forerunner as country with the lowest number of smokers across Europe and probably even the world with only 5% of the population 16 years and older. The success of these public health policies is due to banning smoking not only form pubs and restaurants, but also outside in the surroundings of public spaces like schools, playgrounds, train stations and sports facilities. These policies work quite well and the effects of discouraging smoking in public is reduced to a minimum rather than the normal encounter.
Health of the other persons and children passing through these areas is not the only goal. A new estimate of lost days or years due to smoking based on a study from England shows that “each cigarette smoked reduces the smoker’s life by about 20 minutes (17 for men, 22 for women, LINK to study). Of course, there is a huge variance and other work and life conditions that play an important role as well, but the broad average estimate is a nice way of talking about statistics. The basis of the estimate is for those who stop smoking and not those reducing their tobacco intake by some percentage or replacement product.
In the Belgian football stadium (image below 2024) in Brussels the No tobacco sign is well placed to make parents of children and youth understand the challenge ahead. Good resolutions are assisted by gentle regular reminders as well. 
More Battles
In 2025 we continue with the same battles as in the previous year. However, the way armies fight military battles has evolved. New types of weapons like drones have entered the stage. These precision weapons (Horowitz, 2024) have the advantage to be not only less costly than other heavy mass and costly artillery, they can also be guided in swarms to their targets. A further advantage is the steering of drones needs differently qualified persons rather than advancing with heavy armored vehicles on battlefields. Upskilling of defense forces is an important side effect. Jamming technology of radio frequencies was applied before, nowadays this has turned into a crucial defense strategy to intercept and derail drones and rockets off their intended targets.
Other than heavy weight arms, even laser beams enter the arsenal of weapons, if targets are sufficiently static in nature. These high-energy beams are still more in the research and testing realm rather than used on the battle field, but it becomes clear that research capacities play and played an important role throughout military history. The next generation of robots, not only in production processes, but more those walking on the battlefields is likely to change wars to less manned interventions. The technological innovations shall further move the spiral of new generations of weapons forward. Fewer soldiers, but more robots in the air, at sea and on the ground might increase the risks of “restrained”, less costly, but longer duration conflicts across the globe.
I always thought of robots as rescue robots to save lives. The flip side of the coin, however, is destruction before rescue as well. Technology can be put to both purposes. It is us who decide, which one takes the upper hand. 
EU Georgia
It is a moving image to see a hundred demonstrators at „Unter den Linden“ in Berlin just next to the Russian Embassy. The Georgian flag and Georgian people actively seek the association with the European Union and the values it stands for. Irrespective of a large majority of the people of Georgia‘s wish to become part of the EU they have to fight hard to be heard. Next to the Ukranian protests in Berlin it becomes very evident that these two nations fight for living standards and values which are so „self-evident“ for us European citizens that it is all to easy to forget about our neighbors who have to endure hardships with uncertain outcomes. The experience of having lived together under one roof with people from other countries allows to realize that we have so much more in common than what separates us. Our house and home of the EU has much to offer, more than we tend to believe in our daily routine. 
Happy Year
- Happy Past Year? Happy New Year! Happiness is the driving force behind most endeavors for all people beyond the needs of subsistence. Even if many believe that money makes the world go round, the thrive for happiness is soon overriding the comparatively simple pleasures money can buy. A Bistro in Berlin in the middle of a park has the entry reception entitled „zum Glück“. An excellent wish for the New Year and a chance to review the „glückliche Momente“, the happy moments of last year.
Career Criminals
From a life course perspective it is not easy to define a colloquial term like career criminal. A person who has been convicted for a single crime and has served his/her sentence should be allowed full integration into society. Even a repeated offender should not be stigmatized or labeled as career criminal. However, this is exactly what the NS-state did (traveling exhibition across Germany and Austria: „Die Verleugneten“). These persons were subject to targeted charges for criminal offenses they „might“ commit eventually. The term „community alien“ or „asocial“ were also used to refer to persons that did not fit into the dominant Nazi doctrine of „Volk“. It took 75 years until these persons could receive a recognition and a recompense for their unfounded discrimination and incarceration. In concentration camps the so-called asocial or career criminals were at the highest risk of further prosecution and death. Great that the stumbling Stones include these victims as well, as a way to remember these crimes against humanity. Beware of definitions of social groups which are based on totalitarian ideologies. 
Zerreissprobe
The term „Zerreissprobe“ has been chosen by the curator team of the Neue Nationalgalerie In Berlin for the Retrospective of „Art between politics and society“ in the years 1945-2000. In this time period after the 2nd World War until the other „fin du siècle“ the politics of creating a new world order, the cold war and the liberalization of societies had profound impacts on art as well. The positioning of art in the dynamic context and conflicts of these decades is quite well reflected in the title of the exhibition. The English title „extreme tension“ suggests somehow that these years were rather extreme compared to ?, probably today? Although on the territory of Ukraine we witness a hot war rather than a cold war initiated by Putin‘s Russian imperial illusions. The cited work of Günter Brus „Zerreissprobe“ is translated as „stress test“. And maybe, this translation characterizes the post war period even better as these years are a forerunner of what happened after 2000. We continue to be put to tests in politics and societal developments. Accomplishments from the last century are put to crude tests again. Solidarity of people and nations are under pressure to demonstrate their reliability under extreme tension or stress. Art throughout the 5 decades of the last century was a precursor of stress tests for politicians and challenged society in its basic understandings. The comments on the notice board next to the exhibition show the themes of tension in the 2020s. Tensions in families and partnerships, often more extreme around christmas trees, have taken center stage for younger visitors of the exhibition. Sociological research has observed such trends and coined this societal phenomenon „individualization“. Art embedded in society seems to be part of that evolution as well. Art movements are less visible as collective movements. Artists appear more individualistic or ideosyncratic nowadays, just less inclined to be part of a defining larger group. If artists are no longer avantgarde but rather followers of societal trends, the whole „raison d‘être“ of art changes as well. We are likely to witness yet another „ Zerreissprobe“. Cuts to art and culture budgets constitute an additional „ Zerreissprobe“ in the original sense of the word and of art between politics and society in 2024/2025. 
Art Physics
Art is a matter of perspectives. In physics the change of perspectives and even theories about perspectives using optical instruments or illusions enlightens our understanding of the universe. 2D or 3D perspectives by V. Vasarely add yet another dimension through the oppositional hanging facing the Hollow Mirror Objects (convex and concave) by A. Luther (see images below). The curators succeeded in putting both art works with their incorporation of physical principles in an enriching dialogue. Art speaks to us in many languages. In more general terms, there is an underexploited aspect of exposing art. Rather than focusing on a single artist or school of artists in particular, exhibitions may focus on the interrelationships and new ways of combining or communicating images. This is human intelligence. Artificial intelligence will do this without prejudice and my own private collection of images of art works as a similar fountain of innovation as well. (Image Exhibition Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin 2024-12). 
Films of Stills
The exhibition of multimedia artist Nan Goldin at the Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery) in Berlin presents a retrospective of her work using slideshows of stills including soundtracks (Image below). The topics and narratives range from autobiographical work on own traumatic experiences to works entitled „memory lost“. The sequences of stills are a form to deal with trauma through art like overcoming the suicide of a family member. Drug or sexual dependency enter the stills and it becomes clear that stillness is part of the coping mechanism she employs. It is hard to watch, sit still and endure the films of stills. However, there is a kind of therapeutic experience to be gained in coping with trauma through art. The installation in several tents increases the reclusive atmosphere and entering the still rooms invites is, somehow including a warning of what kind of chilling experience we are up to throughout the exhibition. The almost therapeutic experience needs to be handled with care and a visit with friends or family is highly recommended in my view. Community and communication are key to coping with these experiences and even still images contribute to building resilience. 
Cumulative Mandates
Since 2010 and with 18 volumes the documentation of perpetrators assistants free riders during the Nazi rule in Germany has been valuable and reliable source of information (Kugelberg Verlag). The book series defines the perpetrators as the persons excuting crimes themselves or were in command of those who committed the crimes or gave orders to do so. It is not surprising to find evidence of many crimes, but rather that it took such a long time until the documents were published and the descendants were confronted with the facts and the difficult heritage. There are still many who undertake all efforts to deny the facts or try to minimize the guilt of perpetrators. With the real dangers of new right-wing extremism on the rise across Europe and even beyond, it becomes more important to uncover the strategies and biographies of the perpetrators. Certainly the members of the SS were executives and in command of atrocities, so-called NSDAP party officials were also mostly convinced followers of Nazi doctrines and instrumental in the implementation of crimes. Additionally, several professions (line soldiers or medical doctors) were key in the process to ensure the power of the totalitarian regime until the final days. Some persons were cumulating roles and became thereby inescapable spiders in a web of control and crimes. The lessons for today consist in hindering excessive cumulation of mandates, political, professional, military and in other work or civil society related functions. Distribution of power is one form to safeguard the survival of democratic structures. 
Conducter Careers
The careers of conductors during the 1930s and 1940s have been propelled by joining the NSDAP on Germany. Even if not too outspoken as conductors on Nazi discriminatory policies many openings arose only due to banning Jewish conductors and musicians from performing in public. The acceptance of vacancies due to such restrictions advanced the careers of Karl Böhm as well as Herbert von Karajan. A theatre play Böhm at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin takes up this topic and puts the professional career in perspective of an anti-humanist leadership style. Karajan has also come into critic, because of his role in selecting musicians who were conform to the prevailing Nazi-antisemitism. It is important to work on these biographies and their implications for hundreds of lives of other musicians. Many careers have been destroyed due to these two prominent conductors ready to do almost anything to advance their careers. It puts their interpretation of music in a different light knowing about their instrumentalist approach to music, their own careers and the disrespectful Nazi doctrines. Image New Berlin Philharmonic, View from Kunstgewerbemuseum 2020. 