Deutschlandfunk culture - Christina Cherry

Social psychologist Philip Zimbardo was an appraiser in the war trial that followed the events in Abu Ghraib. In his investigation "The Lucifer Effect" he creates the connection between individual, group and culture in the creation of evil.

Broadcast from 09/30/2007

About dealing with a familiar stranger

For a long time, Cyrille Offermans had closed his eyes to the obvious, interpreting the signs of dementia as age-related ailments. In "Why should I lie to my demented mother?" the Dutchman describes how he treated his mother with love and respect despite the illness.

Self-portrait of a Governing Mayor

The Governing Mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit, has presented his autobiography – and emphasizes that the book should not be understood as an application for the candidature for Chancellor. In "…and that’s just as well" there is little programmatic. Wowereit prefers to talk about his childhood and reveal numerous anecdotes.

Correspondence between two lonely individuals

Their friendship outlasted the horrors of National Socialism and personal blows of fate. The constitutional lawyer Carl Schmitt and Greta Jünger, writer and wife of Ernst Jüngers, discussed political, philosophical and private matters through correspondence – until misunderstandings suddenly led to the end of their longstanding friendship.

Picture journey through history

Some photos have become a symbol of a whole decade: Willy Brandt’s kneeling or Hanns Martin Schleyer kidnapped. Edgar Wolfrum invites with his three-volume work "From the start to postmodernity" on a journey into history. He documents photos that have captured the typical and unique of an era.

Childhood in war

This is a book, the reading of which goes through pain and tear, and which unexpectedly complements the experience reports of Hans Graf Lehndorff and Marion Gräfin Doenhoff about the fall of East Prussia in 1945. It was written by a 70-year-old former industrial engineer who lives in Berlin and witnessed the final battle for Königsberg at the age of eight.

"Long live secret Germany!"

There are only a few other German writers of the 20th century who had a comparable effect to Stefan George, who died in December 1933. In his biography, Thomas Karlauf describes how the poet turned down the offers of the Nazi rulers and inspired the resistance fighters around Stauffenberg.

Sadness in exile

The Atlantic island of St. Helena became famous as a place of exile from Napoleon. Johannes Willms has started to search for traces and is clearing away in his booklet "St. Helena – small island, great delusion" with any form of hero worship.

Without rights

Pakistan is the most dangerous country in the world for women. Because here, as the Dutch journalist Betsy Udink describes in her book "Allah & Eva", are women without rights. They are forcibly married, sold, forced into prostitution, jailed and executed for no reason.

Indestructible social romance

In 1969 the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm gave his work for the first time "Bandits" (The Bandits) who devoted themselves to an outsider class. In the eyes of bourgeois society and its historiography, the rural gangs of robbers had so far gotten off badly. A new edition of this essay has now been published in German just in time for its 90th birthday.

Family empire with tobacco products

The triumphal march of the cigarette and the rise of the Reemtsma family began in the First World War. The historian Erik Lindner tells not only the story of a family, but also the German cigarette industry and recalls the once best known of a thousand long-forgotten names of small manufacturers.

A life of resistance

Michaela Seul’s account of Heinrich von Trott zu Solz is only conditionally a book about the German resistance, which wants to make a forgotten hero late public. The author traces Heinrich’s search for her own path of life in a dedicated way, which was by no means free from errors and mistakes. It allows the reader to take part in the process of interviewing the 90-year-old today.

Administrator of the Wagnerian heritage

After the death of Richard Wagner, his wife Cosima ran the Bayreuth Festival Theater. In "Mistress of the Hill" Oliver Hilmes traces the work of this powerful woman and shows that without her the Bayreuth Festival would look different today.

From the playground to the front

Despite international commitments, war is raging in many African countries. Right in the middle: countless children and teenagers, who take part in the bloody raids. Ishmael Beah was also a child soldier. In his book "Return to life" he tells of how warlike violence became part of his everyday life.

The creator of the Musenhof in Weimar

Weimar classicism would not exist without them: Anna Amalia, who ruled the small Duchy of Weimar-Eisenach for almost twenty years, created the conditions for what was later to be called the Musenhof in the heart of Thuringia. Annette Seeman has now published a biography of the Duchess that is worth reading.

The perspective of a new generation of US politicians

Democrat Barack Obama wants to become president of the United States. With his book "Dare hope" reports a representative of the generation of politicians who can no longer get through the cold war was coined. Obama’s worldview no longer focuses on Europe.

Urban misery

As a result of globalization, Mike Davis believes that more and more megacities will emerge. But the faces of these cities will not be shaped by glass and reinforced concrete facades, but by the slums of those who fled the rural areas in the hope of a better future. With "Planet of the slums" Davis presents a frightening situation report.

Recipes against climate change

Can the climate catastrophe still be averted? – Clearly: yes. At least that’s what Toralf Staud and Nick Reimer say in their book "We climate savers". They give practical tips for environmentally friendly behavior without having to cut back on quality of life.

East German generation break

In "Shared dreams" Robert Ide describes the different experiences of two generations with the turn and the all-German period. He compares his development with that its Parents and sums up the drifting apart of two worlds of experience.

Against demographic black painting

While politicians are panicking about the demographic development in Germany, sociologist Karl Otto Hondrich describes the low birth rate as a stroke of luck. In "Less is more" he disproves the common theses and sees growing opportunities, especially in the population decline.

followed "hybrids"

During the Nazi era, so-called mixed breeds were also subjected to permanent racial discrimination and persecution. But their fate remained largely unknown to the general public. In "In the shadow of the Holocaust" The American historian James F. Tent reports on numerous individual fates and the latest research in this field.

Political diary in thriller format

The television journalist Gerhard Hofmann has painstakingly recorded the daily scenarios of the decline of the Schröder-Fischer government after the disastrous election result for red-green in North Rhine-Westphalia on May 22, 2005 until the Bundestag election in September of the same year.

The Third Reich and the Middle East

The book "Crescent moon and swastika" by Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers refutes the popular thesis that the Third Reich had no interests in the Middle East. In the form of an evidence puzzle, the authors describe how National Socialism used the hatred of Jews in the Arab world for its purposes.

Why some machines failed

The historian Reinhold Bauer explains in his book "Failed innovations", why some technological innovations did not prevail. Exciting and peppered with many details, he describes the struggle of technical systems like a commercial crime thriller.

European trend towards alignment

Europe is colorful and diverse. Nevertheless: After the end of the Second World War and the fall of the Iron Curtain, the national characteristics disappear more and more. Hartmut Kaelble shows in his "Social history of Europe", that the political, economic, social and cultural forms of life are getting closer and closer.