A moment of pause on Monday evening in the almost full large auditorium of the LMU: Joachim Gauck did not understand a question. Because of his hearing problem, you shouldn’t be surprised if he generally can’t answer so precisely, he warns. His conversation partner, the Swiss author Lukas Bärfuss, moves closer and repeats his somewhat tortuous question. Whereupon Gauck, the Protestant theologian, civil rights activist and later politician who grew up in Rostock, explains with extraordinary precision how his experiences as a young person in the Stalinist GDR shaped his political worldview.
Joachim Gauck at the Munich – Munich Literature Festival
