KISSINGER & UNSELD – A Friendship of Two Survivors

The gripping story of an unexpected friendship.

In the summer of 1955, two survivors meet on the campus of Harvard University: Henry Kissinger, who fled from Jewish persecution to America in 1938, and Siegfried Unseld, who fought in Hitler’s army against the Soviet Union and narrowly escaped death in Sevastopol by swimming out to open sea. At Harvard’s International Seminar, hosted by the rising professor Kissinger for future global leaders, both men begin to establish networks that would fuel their future success – Kissinger as Nixon's advisor and a global statesman, and Unseld as one of West Germany's most prominent publishers. Though their backgrounds could not be more different, literature keeps them connected.

In this gripping dual portrait, Willi Winkler tells the little-known but captivating story of an unusual friendship, shedding light on the intersections between literature and world politics.

"Willi Winkler is one of our most evil and one of our most tender writers. In short: he is a fantastic storyteller." Claudius Seidl