Philip Oltermann

This is from the book's blurb. 'in 1982, East Germany's fearsome secret police - convinced that writers were embedding subversive messages in their work - decided to train their own writers, weaponising poetry in the struggle against the class enemy.' This sounds like the plot to some black comedy perhaps, but in fact this book is a closely researched account of the period between 1982 and 1989 when the GDR tried to weaponise poetry. It discusses the fact that there was a genuine desire to expose citizens to good writing of every kind. And there was also a fear that those already writing poetry might have an anti-GDR agenda, and their work was exhaustively scrutinised for clues as to the poet's true political leanings. Suspects were often imprisoned while their work was analysed.
This is a carefully researched history, and the author managed to follow up the stories and subsequent careers of quite a few creative writers, from conscripted soldiers to birder guards to professional poets. Such an interesting idea, but the book itself was not easy reading. But I'm glad I made the effort to find out a little more about this bit-part in GDR history.… (more)

Oltermann is likeable, well-read, and well attuned to English and German culture. And by culture, yes of course that embraces the museums and libraries, the classical lineage of Goethe, Shakespeare and the rest.
But he's also someone who like us has watched a lot of television. So this serves as a lively and still informative counterpart to the BM tome "Germany: Memories of a Nation" (reviewed here in 2015).
Plenty to enjoy, and his hilarious accounts of "Dinner for One" or of Berti Vogts on "Tatort" will send you straight to YouTube.… (more)