For anyone to understand a regime like the GDR, the stories of ordinary people must be told. Not just the activists or the famous writers. You have to look at how normal people manage with...

And the clearer you see that, the worse you feel.

Miriam is upset. Her voice is stretched and I can’t look at her. Perhaps they beat something out of her she didn’t get back.

In dem kleinen sozialistischen Land hatte man gemeinhin Probleme mit den Gefühlen und dem Berühren, mit Zärtlichkeit und Anteilnahme, das lag nicht an dessen geographischer Position im Norden Europas, sondern vielmehr an seiner Geschichte, in...

Betrayal clearly has its own reward: the small deep human satisfaction of having one up on someone else. It is the psychology of the mistress, and this regime used it as fuel.

I like trains. I like their rhythm, and I like the freedom of being suspended between two places, all anxieties of purpose taken care of: for this moment I know where I am going.

Beyond all of that, I could see the wall I had seen from inside the train, the wall that runs along the train line. I assumed that there, behind it, was the west, and I...

There are no people who are whole” he says. “Everyone has issues of their own to deal with. Mine might be a little harder, but the main thing is how on deals with them.