Schadenfreude, or joy in the misfortune of others, is a lovely word and a pleasant sensation. But we should contain ourselves at the news of yet another big rise in unemployment in Germany.--For all Germany's troubles, our living standards remain lower. Despite mass unemployment, Germany remains a more equal society than ours. Their health service is better, crime is lower and Germans work fewer hours. —— Don't Blame the Euro for Germany's Economic Woes; Independent, March 7, 2003

The twist was that irony, pathos, schadenfreude and all those other emotions normally evoked by revisiting famous folk after their star has faded were notably absent. Nor were they intended by Frostie and his team, and glory be to them for that. (If you want that kind of programme, try Reborn in the USA, where artistes such as David Van Day of Dollar tour America - one way to teach the US a lesson - only to reveal that they are as appalling as ever, but older.) —— Martin Kelner; It's a Knockout Revisited When Frostie Met Ali; Guardian; March 24, 2003

The sickness has passed, they said; voyeurism and schadenfreude have gone out of fashion. The sad truth is that voyeurism and schadenfreude are always in vogue; it's just that, sometimes, the public appetite gets sated.--The even sadder truth is that this isn't one of those times. This unholy hybrid of Pop Idol and Big Brother has been gaining audiences – a week ago, it had a perfectly respectable 6.3 million viewers, and in last night's final, 6.9 million telephone votes were cast. —— Robert Hanks; Media Review: Fame Academy; Independent; Dec 13, 2002

And heaven help you if you get drunk, steal a neighbor's garden gnome or shoot out some fellow's porch light. The police officers in Greenport are good. More to the point, the town newspaper monitors all their logs. Get yourself arrested anywhere east of Riverhead and it will make the next week's police blotter in The Suffolk Times. The digest makes for fabulous reading and is my regular Friday night date on the couch.--And it's not just mine. Tim Kelly, who edits The Suffolk Times, says that the police reports are among the weekly's most popular features. ''Up there with the obituaries,'' he told me. It's not difficult to decipher why. Police reports are a reminder that life, seen at its sinful worst, is a tapestry of bad decisions, poor luck and glorious schadenfreude. —— Sam Sifton; Rituals; Reality TV? I've Got Reality Newspaper; The New York Times; March 7, 2003

And it might now be admitted that the Cold War's half acceptance of "two Germanys"—a policy that left a new generation of East Germans to grow up without any experience of democracy—was paradoxically conditioned by the same feeling of "woe to the conquered." (Interesting that we still employ the German word schadenfreude when speaking of a cruel sense of satisfaction, as if nationalizing an emotion that is common to all.) However, it can be pointed out without too much defensiveness that American and British soldiers did not, upon their arrival in Germany, commit atrocities against civilians on the ground. This is much more than can be said for the legions of either Hitler or Stalin, and it must qualify any suggestion that the war against Nazism was allowed to become a war of "annihilation." —— Christopher Hitchens; The Wartime Toll on Germany; The Atlantic; Feb 2003