It is now 15 years ago that I made my first trip into what used to be East Berlin.  I was there to solve a problem with a computer belonging to someone who I have been in contact with ever since and recently visited at the Störtebeker Festspiele on the island Rügen – singer and television presenter Wolfgang Lippert.

I had only been living in Germany for a year and although I was aware of the significance of whose computer I was looking at in terms of how important the customer was for my employer, only recently have I discovered the significance of the person behind it for the former East Germany’s show business industry.  This I have to thank to his autobiography Lippi-Bekenntnisse.

Rather than being just another autobiography of a German celebrity, Lippi-Bekenntnisse gives an inside look into the way that the entertainment business worked in the GDR from someone who was part of it in quite a unique way.  Reading it made me realise how little I know about that part of Germany’s history. [Read more…]