Dark Avenger – In the frenzy of the first computer viruses
The “Dark Avenger” is not a new, annoying superhero or a heavy metal band, although the latter is already heading in the right direction. The “Dark Avenger” was a Bulgarian hacker who was one of the first to program computer viruses in the 1980s. One of his works even made it onto the Pentagon’s computers. To this day we don’t know who is behind the “Dark Avenger”, and the evidence is all very vague: In his codes he (it’s almost certainly a man) hid, among other things, quotes from the British metal band Iron Maiden. Since access to computers was severely restricted in Bulgaria in the 1980s, it could well be that a high school student in Sofia hacked the American Department of Defense from his school computer. Or is his opponent, the virus expert Vesselin Bontchev, behind the Avenger? Maximilian Brose, Shahrzad Golab and Jana Wuttke dig up all the obscure information that can be found about the Bulgarian hacker and aim no less than perhaps ultimately catching him themselves. An entertaining and detailed search for clues, where you also learn a lot about the beginnings of digitalization behind the Iron Curtain. Nicola’s friend
Five minutes of Goethe
He rides late through the night and wind, of course, but who or what is he, an Erlkönig? Anyone who is still concerned about Goethe after reading it at school can find answers in the podcast of the Klassik Stiftung Weimar, which, among other things, manages central Goethe institutions. Erlkönig is not only the name for the test cars from car manufacturers disguised in black and white patterns, the podcast begins in a beginner-friendly way, but also the creepy title of Goethe’s famous ballad. A literary scholar from Copenhagen can help. The Erlkönig is based on a translation error from an earlier poem; an Erlenkönig came into German from a Danish elf king. In Goethe’s book, is he a tree king, a nature spirit, a child molester? The podcast addresses such questions very briefly and yet with the necessary depth. Ira Klinkenbusch from the Goethe National Museum and Hannes Höfer from the Goethe Society lead the discussions and have so far also dealt with Goethe’s school days, his relationship to Schiller and Islam. Aurelie by Blazekovic
exile
Florence Mendheim didn’t want to flirt with the German-American Nazis, whom she spied on for the American Jewish Congress. That was too disgusting for her. But she obviously enjoyed the undercover work, calling herself Gertrude Müller and sometimes Anna Hitler. The fate of the librarian in New York in the 1930s is one of twelve that the podcast exile processed. The episodes are based on diary entries, letters and archive documents; in exchange with family members, the Leo Baeck Institute in New York/Berlin and the Federal Agency for Civic Education shed light on previously unknown stories of Jews from the National Socialist era. Albert Einstein is also among them. It ran in the USA Podcast series with actor Mandy Patinkin (Homeland) last year, the German edition reads very sensitively and confidently Iris Berben. Without many effects, but very impressively, German-Jewish life before and after National Socialism is vividly illustrated. And adding another exclamation point to “Never again.” Carolin Gasteiger
Metro Men
Günter Schotte-Natscheff worked at the Metro AG headquarters in Düsseldorf in the late 1970s and early 1980s and discovered that there was a security gap. His superior weighed it down, so Schotte-Natscheff provided proof: He transferred one million German marks to his partner Fred Vowinkel. Without anyone at the metro noticing this. He actually wants to give the money back. But Vowinkel had already started spending. Luxury items, first-class flights, five-star hotels: Schotte-Natscheff and Vowinkel let it rip, and the Metro employee siphoned off more and more money, a total of 36 million marks. After a few months, they set off for Rio de Janeiro – just at the moment when the theft was finally noticed during an audit. Hannjörg Hereth, the man for special tasks in the service of Metro boss Otto Beisheim, chases after Schotte-Natscheff and Vowinkel, not caring about law and order. The author Christoph Mathieu and the actress Lisa Hrdina tell this true criminal case, which was sensational at the time but is now largely forgotten, as a thriller, alternating from the perspective of the perpetrator and the hunter. Stefan Fischer
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