Nullerjahre

The post-reunification period among the Stralsund prefabricated buildings – while many adults give up the search for a place in the new system, Hendrik and his friends seek ways to escape boredom and find new role models. Slowly, the front lines of the baseball bat years are crumbling, combat boots are being replaced by sneakers, and right-wing rock by gangster rap. The options remain the same: eat or be eaten. In kindergarten, at school, and in the soccer club, they learned that the smarter one only gives in until he becomes the dumber one. And so the goal is clear: to become tougher, to become more blunt. The means are found – strength training, drugs, rap. Hendrik Bolz tells the story of the East German 2000s and explains a piece of contemporary West German reality. A mix of pop literature, coming-of-age story, memoir, and social science research.