从今天起,开始记录我的英语学习历程,看两年后能到达什么水平...

来自 : 天涯社区 发布时间：2021-03-24

今天看了一篇文章，学了许多生词和表达方式。边把文章抄下来边写出解释吧！

Moral debate over fate of brutal killers

Germany: Pair seek parole but remain unrepentant after 24 years in prison

parole: 假释
repentant: 悔悟，后悔
unrepentant: 不悔悟，不知悔改

Nearly three decades ago, Germany lived through one of the grimmest episodes in its post-World War II history, a time when many citizens feared the country’s fledgling democracy would crumble through youth revolt or fall once more under the heel of authoritarianism.

grim: 不快的，难过的，/ 坚定的，严肃的
episode: 独立事件，插曲/ 一节，一集
fledgling: 刚刚长好羽毛会飞的小鸟
crumble: 使皱，扭曲 / 崩溃，垮掉
revolt: 早饭，起义
authoritarian: n. adj. 独裁主义的，独裁主义者
authoritarianism: n. 独裁主义

The moment was “the German autumn” and the people who shook west Germany to its foundations were a few dozen young men and women—the Red Army Faction, the most ruthless of the ultra-left terror groups that sprang up in Europe in the 1970s.

Red Army Faction: 红军团，赤军团
ruthless: 无情的，冷酷的，残忍的，坚决的
ultra-left terror groups: 极左恐怖组织 （或左翼恐怖组织? Not sure.）
spring (sprang, sprung): 突然出现，迅速产生，兴起，冒出

With bombings, shootings and kidnappings, these middle-class members of West Germany’s student protest movement prompted a crackdown on civil liberties, a strengthening of police powers and an anguished pondering about why the country’s youth seemed so turbulent and alienated.

anguish: n. (尤指精神上的)极度痛苦
ponder: v. 深思，默想，考虑

These memories of collective neurosis have come flooding back, spiced also by a moral debate. Two of the group’s leaders, Brigitte Mohnhaupt and Christian Klar, are seeking to be freed after 24 years in jail for crimes for which they have never apologized.

neurosis: 神经机能病
flooding back: 此句中形容对他们以前做过的坏事的记忆像洪水一样涌回。
Spiced also by a moral debate: 同时也伴随着道德的争论
free: v. 释放

Mohnhaupt and Klar took part in some of the RAF’s bloodiest acts of terror. They killed the chief executive of the Dresdner Bank, Juergen Ponto, with Mohnhaupt shooting him point blank five times through a bouquet of roses that they presented to him on the front door of his home. They shot dead the West Germany federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback. And they were members of a “commando” that abducted, tortured and murdered Hanns-Martin Schleyer, the president of the German Employers’ Federation.

point blank: 这个词查不到，于是问了老外，他说是“很近的距离”的意思。
bouquet: n. 花束
prosecute: (for) v. 对…起诉，检控
prosecutor: 起诉人，原告，检控官，公诉人
commando: n. 突击队
abduct: v 劫持，诱拐
federation: 联邦政府

Mohnhaupt, now 57, and Klar, 54, have served longer times in custody than any other former group member, and are among only four still behind bars. The others have been paroled.

custody: 监护权，监管，保管

Mohnhaupt was sentenced to five life terms and a 15-year term with a recommendation that she serve a minimum of 24 years, which comes up on March 26. Klar must serve a minimum of 26 years and will quality for parole in two years. He is petitioning German President Horst Koehler to be released on the grounds of clemency.

be sentenced to: 被宣判，被裁决
come up: 发生，走近，走到眼前，接近
petition：n. v. 请愿
clemency: n. 宽容，仁慈，仁厚，温和

A court in Stutigart is due to rule on the parole request this month.
But a large block of opinion, including a majority of the public, if surveys are any guide, is against their release.
Schleyer’s 90-year-old widow, Waltrude, is demanding they stay in jail. “These people don’t deserve mercy. Neither Klar nor Mohnhaupt has shown any sign of remorse.” She said.
Klaus Pflieger, the Stuttgart prosecutor-general, is fighting Mohnhaupt’s parole request on the grounds that the 30th anniversary of the “German autumn” is coming up.
He argues that if free, Mohnhaupt would become a chatshow darling and an instant celebrity, which would infringe the rights of the victims.
But Gerhard Blum, who was the tough-minded interior minister at the time of the “German autumn”, says it is the state’s duty, and in its interest, to show mercy.
“The constitution stipulates that human dignity also means that a person who is sentenced to life imprisonment must be given a perspective for freedom,” he said.
Another powerful voice is that of Klaus Kinkel, a former foreign and justice minister, credited with dampening the risk of a resurgence of the group in the 1990s, “I think people who have been hehind bars for so long must be given the chance to make their way back into society,” he said.

chatshow darling: 备受访谈节目关注和宠爱的人
celebrity: 名人，名流
infringe: v. 违反（法律）, 侵犯（他人权利）
credit: v. 信任，相信
dampen: v. 减弱，抑制
resurgence: (思想，信仰等) 复兴，再起