Fewer and fewer Germans trust in their country’s institutions – not in the political parties, nor the media, not even academia. But can a democracy continue to function in such circumstances? Anita Blasberg, award-winning journalist, examines one of the most pressing questions of our time: people’s loss of trust in their own country. She reconstructs the gradual erosion of trust over the last thirty years in an engrossing and unsparing way – using the example of her own mother and by referring to historic fractures and quoting various people’s experiences. There is the university graduate who has sold off eighty East German businesses over two years; the hospital doctor who is expected to discharge patients more quickly than she would like; the politicians who are astonished to find themselves helpless in the face of the financial crisis, and then don’t bring about any changes after all.
The author finds that a lot of people don’t trust that the government really wants or is able to solve problems. People like her mother. The author’s conversations with her mother make the book personal. But above all it paints a lasting picture of recent German history – it shows the deep-seated reasons why many citizens feel estranged from politics.
