The day that changed Germany: Leipzig, 9th October 1989 (Why could the FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL happen?)

How to win a revolution without bloodshed...
East Germany 1989.

Why could the FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL happen?
(And why was everybody suprised about that?)

Video (BBC-Interview, Oct 2014).

Audio (BBC-Interview, extended version, Oct 2014). 

Novel (Rabet, Munich 1999).

History book (The day that changed Germany, Leipzig 2007).

RABET or How to win a Revolution without bloodshed (novel)

Thist novel about the peaceful revolution of soviet-occupied East-Germany in 1989 was originally published in 1999 in German language with the title: "Rabet oder das Verschwinden einer Himmelsrichtung - Rabet or The Disappearance of a Cardinal Point" (via verbis publishing, Munich). It was translated into Italian and Indonesian languages and partly also into Czech and English.

About the Novel: A German journalist narrates the events in Leipzig from 1987-1990 to his unknown daughter in New York.  Events which he has not talked about in years, absurd stories and the feeling of an era he thought long gone, begin to manifest themselves.  For the first time in German literature the story of the peaceful revolution is told from the perspective of a revolutionary.  The fictional characters exist in an authentic, historic background.  This novel hauntingly describes the interior dynamics of the events which began the German revolution, and the dreams, disenchantment and moments of joy lived by real-life protagonists.  Through this book, it becomes clear how truly these dynamics are still at work today.

Content: Benjamin Grasmann, an aspiring musician from the provinces, breaks out to the East German city of Leipzig.  While there, he falls in love and meets deeply inspirational artists of the Opposition.  He soon finds himself caught up in the opposition's conflicts with the socialist regime.  As small upheavals and demonstrations become commonplace, more and more of his friends are arrested.  The news of his lover's pregnancy arrives at the peak of political conflict, the struggle for supremacy grows inevitable, and not just Leipzig, but the whole of the GDR hangs in the balance.  And Benjamin Grasmann finds himself right in the middle.

Voices about the book:

“Martin Jankowski belongs to the most interesting voices of a new generation of East-German writers...” (Caroline Wyatt, BBC)

“We've had to wait ten years for this book!” (Thomas Meyer, Leipziger Volkszeitung)

“Rarely have the final scenes of East German history been described in such a realistic and at the same time hilarious manner.” (Wolfgang Engler, Sociologist, director of the Ernst Busch Actors School Berlin) 

"Very authentic ... describes how young people in particular in Leipzig fought against the system froze - and it finally brought to falter." (STERN Extra 4/2009, "Against the wall in the head")

“...one of the few novels in which the European dimension of the revolution is expressed... the representation of the split between those protesters willing to leave and those who wanted to stay is unique...it seems to be a legend of change – contrary to events. Jankowski is one of the few authors who makes not only critical, but ironic commentary." (Frank Thomas Grub, “Wende und Einheit im Spiegel der deutschsprachigen Literatur” 2003, de Gruyter Berlin – New York)

“Jankowski is making his way into German literature...” (Sabine Neubert, ND-Kultur)

beyond the time (offline pirates)

bite your chip  
off the sub skin
its so incredibly

easy to escape:
hook enter
black & out

Digital Totalitarianism

 Join the manifest:
 
In the 80ies me and my family were observed and under pressure of the East-German secret service STASI. All my American and British friends were shocked of what these non-democratic tool of opression did to us during the Cold War. Now, long time after the Cold War has ended, the secret services of the USA and the UK start to observe us all without any democtratic legality and control. Is it really the year of 2013, dear friends?! If the Anglo-American secret services (supported by Canada, New Sealand and Australia) and their illegal disctruction of all our data privacy become international then also our demand for democratic control of those dubious institutions must become international ...

No clandestine mass electronic surveillance data mining! Internet control must compeletly be controlled by democratic institutions like parliaments and official courts etc.! Save the internet, save the self-determination, save the freedom of each individuum!

Roberto Yanez in Berlin ...

On Friday, Nov 1st, the German-Chilean poet and painter Roberto Yanez from Santiago de Chile visited our literary salon at Kollwitzplatz in Berlin. He read some new poems on the occassion of launching his first German poetry book "Frühlingsregen" (Insel Verlag/Suhrkamp 2013) which is illustrated by his own paintings. (He also launched an exhibition of his pictures later in Berlin.) The special thing about Roberto: He is the grandson of Margot an Erich Honecker, last heads of state of the GDR until the time of the fall of the wall in 1989. Of course Roberto is tightly related to his grandparents until today but in a personal not in a political way. (Erich Honecker died in Chile in 1993, Margot is still alive an in a constant contact with him.) Roberto abruptly left Berlin with his family and went to Chile for good when he was 15 years old.

  Now it was for the first time that he came back to Germany and his hometown Berlin. As a poet who was pursued by the socialist secret service of the GDR (Stasi) at this time it was a pleasure for me now, after 23 years, to invite Roberto, who became a poet too in the meantime, for a reading to our salon ... (HERE a link to a song i wrote about his grandfather in 1989...)

And THIS is his song about his personal reunion with Berlin ...

Kafka about Egyptian president Mursi

Franz Kafka when asked what he thought of the (Russian) Revolution:

"These people are so confident and funny. They are masters of the streets and think they are the masters of the world. They are wrong. (...) The more the flood spreads, the more shallow and turbid becomes the water. Then the revolution evaporates and leaves just the mud of a new bureaucracy."

 

(Gustav Janouch:.. Conversations with Kafka, memories and records Frankfurt 1951, p.71)

King Kong in Chile

 FIRST just this: http://vimeo.com/53989876

Then he arrived ...

... finally with great SUCCESS!! 

Official Video. 

(Congratulations to the friends from casagrande...)

THIS IS A PROTEST SONG ...

AGAIN - THE GERMAN Copyright Agency GEMA DID NOT ALLOW TO BROADCAST THE OFFICIAL VIDEO OF THE BEST SONG OF THE SEASON to the GERMAN AUDIENCE ... AS A PROTEST AGAINST THE CRAZY AND ANNOYING POLITICS OF GEMA I POST MUMFORD & SONS "I WILL WAIT FOR YOU" HERE IN A LIFE VERSION AT STUDIO Q ... THANK YOU, GUYS!

new songs

new songs

released

from the duty of revolution

we enjoy the later morning

and the grumbling of the ageing

joggers that in former times everything was better

worse and the youth

did not smile so mildly

we take pleasure in the special reports

on the daily apocalypses of course

we are worried and a little bit indignant

well-behaved rebels

we go and take a shower

we are accused

of accepting everything

                       and of not being sufficiently discontented

we nod assent

and switch off the tremendous music

coming out of the radio we whistle

a little tune

not new but who cares

we are offered revolutionary

soft-drinks exciting

creations and hand-selected

pro-biotic world-cultures 

we are amazed but

thank you

granted, a glass of water

is not new

but still

quite good