Stefan Zweig

Alexander Starritt

Chess world champion Mirko Czentovic is travelling on an ocean liner to Buenos Aires. Dull-witted in all but chess, he entertains himself on board by allowing others to challenge him in the game, before beating each of them and taking their money. But there is another passenger with a passion for chess: Dr B, previously driven to insanity during Nazi imprisonment by the chess games in his imagination. But in agreeing to take on Czentovic, what price will Dr B ultimately pay?

A Chess Story

Written in the form of a letter from a German World War II veteran to his grandson, We Germans tells the gripping story of one man's quest for goodness and humanity in his desperate escape from the Eastern Front. In the throes of the Second World War, young Meissner, a college student with dreams of becoming a scientist, is drafted into the German army and sent to the Eastern Front to fight the Russians. In retreat from the Red Army, harried and pursued through the Soviet countryside, Meissner's regiment and the other scattered German legions continue to collapse in the face of a Russian onslaught hell-bent on revenge in its race to Berlin. Fifty years later, now an old man reckoning with his past, Meissner pens a letter to his grandson explaining his actions, his guilt as a Nazi participator, and the difficulty of life after war. At once a thrilling story of adventure and a questing rumination on the moral ambiguity of war, We Germans offers a new point of entry to examine one of the greatest evils ever to face humanity. In his years fighting the Russians and attempting afterward to survive the Gulag, Meissner recounts a life lived in perseverance and atonement. Wracked with guilt and shame--both for himself and for Germany--the grandfather explains his dark rationale, exults in the courage of others, and blurs the boundaries of right and wrong. The drama at the heart of We Germans complicates our most steadfast beliefs and seeks to account for the complicity and rationalization of an entire country in the perpetration of heinous acts. In this breathless and page-turning story, Alexander Starritt also presents us with a deft exploration of the moral contradictions inherent in saving one's own life at the cost of the lives of others, and questions whether we can ever truly atone.

We Germans

Een grootvader laat na zijn dood een lange brief na aan zijn kleinzoon, waarin hij vertelt over zijn ervaringen als soldaat in het Duitse leger in Rusland tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog.

Wij Duitsers

Biz Almanlar

La ritirata

John le Carré

Shaun Whiteside

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

Alexander Zuckrow

1984. East Germany. Captain Gerd Wiesler, a loyal member of the secret police, is assigned to spy on the playwright Georg Dreyman. The flat is bugged, and Wiesler begins to listen in to the daily - and nightly -activities of the playwright and his actress-girlfriend. But when he discovers that the surveillance has been instigated by the Minister of Culture's desire for Dreyman's girlfriend, rather than the playwright's political views, Wiesler begins to question his own loyalties. As he continues to listen in, he finds himself becoming increasingly absorbed in the couple's lives, and the gap between his professional duty and personal integrity starts to widen. This hugely influential film by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, whose screenplay is published in English for the first time, is as relevant - or even more so - now, in the wake of Edward Snowden and the WikiLeaks revelations, as it was when it won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. With a foreword by John le Carré. Further contents: Introduction by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck; 'Appassionata: The Idea for the Film', by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck'; an essay by Sebastian Koch ('Georg Dreyman'); an interview with Ulrich Mühe, by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck; 'Wiesler's Change of Heart', an essay by Manfred Wilke; full film cast and crew credits

A Screenplay

The Lives of Others

Jeremy Underwood is a long-suffering subeditor on The Daily Beast, Britain's mightiest tabloid. Returning from holiday, he notices two burqa-clad figures lurking outside the paper's Kensington offices. Two male terrorism suspects have escaped from a mosque disguised as women;recently suspicion and fear have made everyone alert. Jeremy's casual observation sets off a chain of events that spins out of control, as the great Beast feels that it is the next target of terrorism. Alexander Starritt's darkly funny novel is a vivid anatomy of that most uncontrollable of large creatures, the British tabloid newspaper. The ferocious professionalism and manic rivalries of a newsroom have rarely been so well described. And at the heart of the newsroom is the brooding, dictatorial figure of its editor, Charles Brython, the booming voice of Middle England. His world is under threat, and he will do whatever it takes to defend it. This is a story in which comedy teeters on the edge of horror.

Alexander Starritt

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