Bestselling author Bruno Preisendörfer uses influential slogans like "Prosperity for all" and "We can do this" to explore the moods, hopes, and realities of German history from 1945 to today.
Who doesn't immediately hear the sound of John F. Kennedy's legendary ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ in their ears – a sentence that seemed like a spontaneous confession, but was in fact carefully rehearsed in Willy Brandt's office. Quite different: Günter Schabowski's legendary ‘immediately, without delay,’ which heralded the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 – and proved Honecker's bold claim that the Wall would ‘still be standing in 50 or 100 years’ to be a lie.
Preisendörfer's book opens up surprising perspectives on well-known turning points and deconstructs myths such as the ‘economic miracle’ or the ‘miracle of Bern’. An intelligent and entertaining book that shows how yesterday's words shape today's reality.
