Axel Fair-Schulz

Anniversaries have a way of focusing historical memory. One such anniversary is upon us in 2022 and another came and passed in 2021. Forty years ago, in 1982, East Germany’s most famous dissident, the internationally acclaimed scientist and critical Marxist Robert Havemann, died. Imprisoned and sentenced to death by the Nazis for his activities as an…

When I finally met Stefan Heym in person at the public reading of his last published novel, I encountered a man in his late eighties, at once frail and energetic.  He introduced himself to his audience at the main theater in Potsdam, Germany, on that beautiful and sunny afternoon in May of 2000, by thanking…