Staying Connected - London Edition

What makes Berlin so attractive? Has the German capital become 'normal'? Does someone really walk sheep on an abandoned airstrip? Author and broadcaster John Kampfner and RTL journalist Katharina Delling discuss Berlin's allure, British and German idiosyncrasies and a recent poll of UK peoples attitudes towards Germany in this latest episode of the podcast.

In 1939, Maria Ault and Kurt Marx managed to escape Nazi Germany and were brought to the UK on the Kindertransport. They told London-based German radio correspondent Gabi Biesinger their moving stories: what it was like to arrive in the UK as children, their journeys, whether they saw their parents again, and the importance of Holocaust education.

Generations of children have grown up with children’s books illustrated by Axel Scheffler. Most recently, he read The Gruffalo to school pupils in Hamburg with Her Majesty The Queen Consort during a state visit in Germany. Before the royal visit, journalist Rosie Goldsmith sat down with Axel Scheffler to ask him about his work, his influences and his life as a German in the UK.

Comedian Henning Wehn, the self-styled 'German Comedy Ambassador to the UK' sits down with FT journalist and occasional stand-up comedian Josh Spero to chat about comedy in the UK and Germany. The pair discuss why some UK humour would never go down well in Germany, why Germans are obsessed with a 1960s British comedy sketch called 'Dinner For One' and more.

In this festive episode of our Staying Connected podcast, the Berlin correspondent of The Times Oliver Moody sat down with GBBO legend Jürgen Krauss to talk all things Christmas, including, of course, food. The most famous German baker in the UK also talks about what brought him to the UK and how he got into baking. Warning: listening to this episode might well make you very hungry.

How do football fans in England and Germany perceive each other's top flights? Is the rivalry between England and Germany one-sided? As the Premier League and Bundesliga pause for the World Cup in Qatar, football journalists Raphael Honigstein (based in London for 'The Athletic') and Kit Holden (based in Berlin for the 'Tagesspiegel') have a wide-ranging chat about the different approaches to football in the UK and Germany and also discuss the controversy surrounding the Christmas World Cup.