The German Russia-Complex – Depths and Shallows

German-Russian relations in the 20th century were marked by fascinations and phobias. The artistic, literary and general cultural references between Russia and Germany were for a long time of almost unique density and intensity, before they were broken off by world wars and courses of the world or came under pressure of opinion. Gerd Koenen, journalist, historian and author of several books on the subject, will trace these developments in his lecture and, at the end, look into the present.

Gerd Koenen, journalist and historian, has been publishing for decades on German-Russian relations in the 20th century and on the history of communism. Among his best-known books on the subject are “Utopia of Purification” (1998), “Der Russland-Komplex. The Germans and the East 1900-1945” (2005) and “The Color Red – Origins and History of Communism” (2017)