Mein Weimar

Weimar – the "Ilm Athens" and "Goethe City" alongside the neighboring town of Buchenwald. The famous conductor, musicologist, and writer Peter Gülke, a descendant of the Vulpius family, reflects in this book on the formative experiences of his life: childhood in a city that "the Führer" loved to visit; youth in the Stalinist GDR; a career as a musician in a controlled state; the decision in 1983 to leave the country due to unbearable pressure from the Stasi; and in 1990, his return to his "distant, close, desecrated, beloved Weimar," which had become a different city. Time and again, glimpses into past eras emerge, with Goethe, his wife Christiane Vulpius, Herder, Schiller, and Schopenhauer making appearances, as well as Schubert, Bach, and Mendelssohn – indeed, portraits of musicians and brilliant music descriptions form another focal point of the book. A recurring motif is the visits to Ettersberg and the attempt to explain "the incomprehensible" nature of crimes against humanity. "Perhaps one must see the city, in which so much personal history is intertwined, as completely lost in order to perceive it anew, to accept it anew.".