Walk with Marion Brasch : seconds of life

Whether you would like today move? Marion Brasch on the busy Alexander road between Alexa and the Convention center and the high looks of a prefabricated building. "Centrally located, and the inside is quite nice," she says. "Here in the Meadow I used to always field mushrooms collected, and the top of my doll's kitchen fried." Second floor, four rooms, sky-blue balcony with direct views of the Alex – here Marion Brasch spent the first ten years of her life.

the writer and radio presenter 1961 in East Berlin was Born. In her fourth book, "somewhere else" in the Fischer-Verlag, kind of a Spin-Off of your last novel appears to be "whimsical travels to the North". But many Berliners know, especially your voice, since 1997, she has been a presenter at radio one, and with this warm, sympathetic voice with the unmistakable Berlin felling is now considering, according to the exact time when your family actually moved in, in 1961 or ’62,.

- Coveted apartments be the, the SED functionaries lived, especially her father, Horst Brasch was Deputy Minister for culture. Also artists such as the filmmaker Konrad Wolf belonged to the neighbors, "but also very normal families, the children were in my school."

"still Look the same as before"

As the whole settlement of the concrete slabs seem to have on your old school and the years defied. "Still look the same as before," says Marion Brasch. The little Alexander street, past the Playground, at that time had very different frames, she remembers: a climbing camel, a swing, a dice thing.

At the corner of Jacoby street, a swarm of tattered crows, a bag of Yum Yum noodles. Marion Brasch whips out her phone and begins to film. "A kind of diary," she explains. She collects seconds, every day, adds an App then to each other. "I know exactly what happened that day and how I felt." The crows are the second of the day? "Let's see, the birds always have great Potential." She smiles. It is very good, this Smile, unpretentious it's like the whole Marion Brasch.

which is Why the parents moved here at that time? You don't know it. Not if your 16 years older brother, Thomas, as the two other brothers, Klaus and Peter artist, and died a member of the resistance, and early in a tragic way – even with moved. "This is one of those questions I had until she was able to answer me any more."

There are a lot of those questions that can't clear a file, not a movie – in August, the documentary "family Brasch came" from annekatrin Hendel in the cinema finally. Marion Brasch can only rely on your feeling. This was distributed a day in August 1968, after the 23-year-old Thomas with other dissident leaflets against the invasion in Prague.

journalist Marion Brasch, 1961 in East Berlin born.Photo: Kitty Kleist-Heinrich

"Thomas hid initially, but came home," recalls the sister, then seven years old. "You have to ask you," demanded the father. "I can't", replies the son, "certainly, if You ask me."

a Little later the Stasi Thomas takes in the parental apartment. Had Horst Brasch shortly before that, really, made, as it told Thomas of his life, in a phone booth, the telltale call? "I don't know," says Marion Brasch. "In the work room, a telephone booth, he wouldn't have gotten out of the house. And I also remember no cell phone in the vicinity.“ It's bad enough that the father protected the son, even that was a betrayal. But him deliberately denounce? "I can't imagine."

"I was always rather average"

The father is sent for one and a half years at the party school in Moscow, the Rest of the family remains at the Alex live. "In this time, my mother blossomed." Gerda Brasch, as her husband is from a Jewish family in exile, a Communist, had loved her husband, had followed him uncomplaining always. "But never as the victim, rather with Dignity. You put your needs second, behind the 'great Plan'.“

In the singing road Marion Brasch on their former schoolyard. Today, the Max-Planck-Gymnasium, formerly Ernst-wild angel-high school with advanced study of the Russian language. "Who is gifted enough, had already from the third class Russian. I don't, I was always rather average.“ On the facade of the ball game children, relics of socialist everyday romance.

from first to fourth grade, you spent here, in 1971, then the incision. Horst Brasch was treated after his return from Moscow, the family moved to Karl-Marx-Stadt. Marion Brasch says, of course, Karl-Marx-Stadt, the Name of Chemnitz is a Change.

Was transferred to the father a criminal? "This is my Interpretation," says the daughter, in the files is only: "comrade Brasch is from the umpteenth second Secretary of the district headquarters in Karl-Marx-Stadt." But he had accepted it with equanimity, like everything, even this Breach of his beloved party, and the time in Moscow. "He was always as a mark of distinction, it is but a logical consequence of this: Your son screwed up, so You have to get out first."

the Route of the Kiezspaziergangs through the middle (click on graphic to Enlarge).Graphics: Tsp/Klöpfel

after a suicide attempt, the SED family brought him back to Berlin and let him do what he did best, says Marion Brasch: "By the world travel and tell stories of how great the GDR." As Vice-President of the League for friendship with the peoples, he flourished, in this Phase, in the 70s, the GDR was recognized everywhere and messages emerged.

Karl-Marx-city of Chemnitz

In the Michael Church road shows on a nondescript office building. "Here I learned to be a typesetter", vocational school "Rudi Arndt" for printing technology, the construction in the courtyard looks like at the time. This time was one of the happiest in her life, she says. "I know of was finally back in Berlin, met new people and was way out of Lichtenberg, where we are from 1975 in a plate in Lenin Allee lived – today Landsberger." After the training, she worked for two years in the New Germany, made music on the side, and landed in 1987, when the youth radio station DT64.

A normal career, you might say. Abnormally for the Scion of a family line of faithful parents and three brothers, all in the of the Stasi critically eyed culture scene. Your role sees you, in retrospect, as the family lightning rod. "I was fond of, and I have works. I was a little kid and wanted to fight you to stop.“ Constantly, there had been a noise, political discussions, and often Unprofessional turned. "Always the banging of doors, and I just wanted my peace and quiet."

"now the silence", - stated in 2012 published an autobiographical novel titled but according to a Ritual of the mother, with the she brought her children to bed. "Some see in the novel a self-therapy, but I don't have the feeling to be traumatized. I wrote the book to understand. My father has not spoken.“ About the exile in England, Yes, and how he founded with Erich Honecker, the FDJ. But never about how it went for him. "As a Jew, to Catholicism, and then to communism, converted to the party was his Religion, he threw himself." A few months before the fall of the wall, he died, long ago widowed, in his tiny Lichtenberger apartment. "He was convinced, more to him."

On the Michael bridge you. The sun is shining, a pair of seagulls flying over the river Spree. Marion Brasch whips out her cell phone. "That would be now as a sequence," she says, "the second of the day, You're so good. If you don't mind?“

"somewhere else" appears on the 27. 2. in the Fischer-Verlag. Book launch: 28.2., 20 PM, broadcasting house. Audiobook premiere with Jasna Fritzi Bauer: 11.3., 20 PM, Pfefferberg Theater.

More about

books by and about Brasch "I am history

Thomas made" Wild

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