#GermanLitMonth25 Rummelplatz (GDR week)

by Werner Bräunig (no photo)

Finish date: 25.11.2025
Genre: novel
Rating: C
#GermanLitMonth25

Good News: I finished it, whew!

Bad News: There are a series of complexities in the book not obvious to me as a first time reader of GDR German literature: the endless bureaucracy, repressive bureaucrats and a scathing indictment of communism. I was overwhelmed. The scope of characters (…the minor ones who appear then disappear!) the disjointed but passionate writing and my lack of knowledge about the uprising in 1953 of the Soviet owned uranium mines of the Wismut AG, the paper factory in Chemnitz, and a paper factory in West Germany….made for exhausting reading.

Personal: At times I had to read very attentively, re-reading to even grasp the basic meaning of the book! I need Wikipedia to explain to me what happened in the GRD during the 1953 uprising.
It is not is not difficult, obscure or forbidding book in any way, you can get through it with some reading discipline…but it is also NOT for the fainthearted!