Two of our authors will be presenting their books in the coming weeks: Frank Brunner will be reading from „Mit aller Härte“ in Waiblingen, and Raphael Thelen will be reading from „Straße der Träume – Ein Roadtrip auf der B96“ in Berlin.
Reading and Lecture: With All Due Severity. How Police and State Security Hunt Left-Wing Radicals
Frank Brunner (Author) and Oliver Rast (left-wing activist)
Monday, May 14, 2018, 8 PM, Kulturhaus Schwanen, Waiblingen
„With All Due Force“ is the story of a hunt. For years, the BKA (Federal Criminal Police Office) and the BfV (Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution) have been tracking the „militante gruppe“ (militant group), a secret organization of anarchists challenging the state with attacks on police, Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces), and other government facilities. The domestic intelligence service monitors telephones and email accounts, installs GPS trackers in cars, and places hidden cameras opposite building entrances. At times, surveillance teams follow suspects almost around the clock.
But the wrong people are in their sights. Investigators are spying on left-wing activists without any initial suspicion. Only by chance do they get on the trail of the real perpetrators. Frank Brunner reconstructs the duel between the state and its enemies using police files, intelligence analyses, interviews with witnesses, and research from the trial against the radical leftists.
Organizer: Zeitenspiegel Reports and Kulturhaus Schwanen
Frank Brunner is a political scientist and journalist. He worked for various Berlin daily newspapers and „Spiegel Online.“ In 2014, he was co-author of the book „Geheimsache NSU“ (Klöpfer & Meyer), in 2015 a guest lecturer at the Institute for Media Studies at the University of Tübingen, and in 2016 a guest editor at the South Tyrolean political magazine „ff“ in Bolzano. He is currently an author in the „Stern“ office in Baden-Württemberg and a member of the Zeitenspiegel Reportagen agency.
Oliver Rast is a bookseller and antiquarian. In 2009, the Berlin Regional Court sentenced him to several years in prison for membership in the „militant group.“ In the Berlin-Tegel correctional facility, Rast founded the Prisoners' Union, which advocates for a minimum wage for working inmates and their inclusion in the pension system. In 2016, the Humanist Union of Germany awarded the Fritz Bauer Prize for Human Rights to the Prisoners' Union.
Further information about the event can be found here.
Reading and Lecture: Road of Dreams – A Road Trip on the B96
Raphael Thelen (Author) and Thomas Victor (Photographer)
Friday, June 15, 2018, 5:30 PM, Urania Berlin e.V., An der Urania 17, 10787 Berlin
At some point, Raphael Thelen and Thomas Victor had had enough of the same old clichés about Eastern Germany. So they set off on a road trip in their dented station wagon along Federal Highway 96 to form their own opinions. Traveling along what was once the most important long-distance road in the GDR, they journeyed from the depths of Saxony, through Berlin, to the wide horizons of the Baltic Sea.
On their journey, they met river barge captains and squatters, tattooed people and headmistresses, barmaids and pop musicians, and asked them all the same question: What do you dream of? They discovered a surprising amount of optimism and a sense of community, and kilometer by kilometer, their view of East Germany and its residents changed.
Raphael Thelen, Born in 1985, as a member of Zeitenspiegel Reportagen, he writes for „Spiegel,“ „Die Zeit,“ „FAS,“ „Die Welt,“ and other German and international media. He primarily reports on political upheavals, refugees, and the consequences of the European economic crisis. He moved to Leipzig for two years to conduct research in East Germany. He currently lives in Berlin.
Thomas Victor, Born in 1983, he moved to Leipzig after studying photography in Hamburg, Hanover, and Berlin. He has lived here with his family for three years and focuses on East German themes. He is a member of the Focus agency.
Further information about the event can be found here.