Can a Third of My Neighbors Really Be Far-Right Extremists?

I Joined a United Germany When the Wall Fell. Now I Fear for Its Future

I grew up in East Germany, in the former German Democratic Republic, and I am still here today.

In the fall of 1989, we liberated ourselves from dictatorial conditions through a peaceful revolution. That was a beginning. Freedom “from something,” however, must lead to freedom “for something.” We discussed how we wanted to develop our country. The possibilities seemed endless.

Then the Wall fell. People oriented themselves towards the West. It promised prosperity, which had a stronger allure than taking our own uncertain path.

So, I became a citizen of the Federal Republic …

by Ralf-Uwe Beck | February 7, 2024

My Ride in a German Time Machine

Virtual Reality Took Me to 1926 Cologne. I Found What a City Had Lost—And What Our Democratic Future Needs

by Joe Mathews | September 19, 2023

I was more than a little startled when Konrad Adenauer approached me in the Old Market.

Sure, I was visiting Cologne, Germany, Adenauer’s hometown. But I had never imagined I’d lay …

How Germany Developed a ‘Policy on the Past’

A Constellation of Days Has Emerged to Remember the Holocaust and Its Victims

by Theo Schiller | November 28, 2022

Germany does not have a traditional, centuries-old national holiday, such as July 14 in France or July 4 in the United States.

But Germany is carefully attuned to dates, and how …

Uncovering a Life Deemed ‘Unworthy of Life’

Why the Story of Hans Heinrich Festersen—Gay, Disabled, and Murdered by the Nazis—Matters

by Kenny Fries | November 17, 2022

On September 8, 1943, Hans Heinrich Festersen was hanged at Berlin’s Plötzensee prison. Festersen, 35, had been arrested almost a year earlier, on October 12, 1942, for violating Paragraph 175, …

The Theatrical Concept Powerful Enough to Break a Trumpian Spell

The Great German Playwright Bertholt Brecht Knew How to Jolt an Audience Out of Narrative Complacency

by Oliver Mayer | January 21, 2021

“All the gang of those who rule us
Hope our quarrels never stop
Helping them to split and fool us
So they can remain on top.”
— Bertholt Brecht, Solidarity …

It Takes a Village to Create a Nation’s Memory

Returning Jews and Local Communities Worked Together to Lead Germany Toward Historical Reckoning

by Helmut Walser Smith | January 11, 2021

In the early postwar years in the German town of Warendorf, no one contributed as much to facing the difficult past as Hugo Spiegel. He was not a learned man. …

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