Aus der schönen neuen Welt

From the Brave New World
Non-fiction
approx. 208 pages
Paperback

German Audiobook with Random House Audio

Lowest of the low, Günter Wallraff’s report on the mistreatment of contract workers, was one of the biggest blockbusters in the history of the German book trade, selling over five million copies. Once again, Wallraff is working undercover …
Nobody has revealed as many social injustices as Günter Wallraff. Millions have read his books, and he is a source of inspiration for young journalists who slip into roles to uncover the dark sides of social reality. Günter Wallraff has not gone into retirement, but for some time now has been working undercover again. As "Michael G.", he researched conditions in German call centres. Reactions to his report, which was published in DIE ZEIT, were phenomenal. Wallraff appeared as a guest on television and radio programmes, and numerous call centre employees came forward to report their experiences. His second coup: Wallraff worked in a factory that bakes bread for the discounter chain Lidl – to the point of exhaustion, and like his colleagues, he suffered numerous burns. In the TV show Kerner, Wallraff asked the head of Lidl’s board of directors Klaus Gehrig to work with him for two days under these penal colony conditions. Gehrig turned down the offer. And in the winter of 2008/ 2009, Günter Wallraff found out the hard way how homeless people live in Germany. He stayed in hostels for the homeless and spent the coldest days of the winter, when temperatures dropped to minus 20 degrees, on the streets.

Alongside a fourth case, which has to remain secret until its publication, and other cases, Wallraff comprehensively documents the results of his latest research in this book for the first time, and he will continue his research after its publication in the press.
His conclusion: in a wealthy country, more and more people are living at the very bottom, and this is threatening to divide society.


Günter Wallraff was born in 1942. After completing a bookselling apprenticeship, he was forced by the Bundeswehr to do military service for ten months. He then worked in various companies and wrote a book about the experience he gained there entitled Industriereportagen (1966). Several book publications followed, sometimes resulting in court martials or even imprisonment. Wallraff caused a sensation in 1977 with undercover research at the editorial offices of Bild-Zeitung (Der Aufmacher. Der Mann, der bei ’Bild’ Hans Esser war). His report on the inhuman treatment of contract workers, for which when he played the part of Turkish labourer Ali (Lowest of the low, 1985), proved especially effective on a political level. His books are translated into numerous languages.

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