Innovations magazine for in asia the us for every week and always looking to the future fund d w dot com science and research for asia. Learn german with d w any time any place. Whether with joe joe and her friends alex stuck to those. With friends all over the world online and interactive. In german to go. Learn german for free with d w. Meet the germans new and surprising aspects of sleaze and culture in germany. Us american keep news us take a look at germany dissing chrissys at their traditions every day lives and Language Culture theres a lot of not. So im ok im good to. The trick i am going to t. W. Dot com meet the germans. Inconceivable atrocities took place in the nazi era. Three european authors have written very successful crime novels and the third time. So why is this a Fitting Shondra for writing about this chapter of german history. Shapes a hormone war. I wrote a new r. Novel about paris during the occupation because the french know very little about those years should. And even less about the collaboration with the nazis but he almost this city itself becomes a protagonist in the novel a bit too much of a moment it was a violent time. In some parts of paris people were partying while in other parts they were starving for no good no hes a quintessential elements of the War Fiction One that allowed this self to come on. Because of the price because of my mom republic because of the nazis because of the cold war i think has been probably the most courteous Changing City most interesting city to write about was the must have you said from the Point Of View of crime writer talking of anywhere so lets get right. To the bible in berlin the final years but the most exciting time after that because of your apart from the Economy Everything was flourishing intellectual and cultural life and science all that ended up roughly one Nine Hundred Fifty Three its almost impossible to explain this cultural breakdown which was ultimately to wreak havoc on the entire world the Crime Novelist the best medium for understanding this period with the three. Philip was the first to create a German Police inspector who works in the third. Is based in berlin. After the Nazi Takeover And High Stock Fire the nature of policing changed opposition politicians were rounded up. A man with drafted in to work as exhilarate police. Increasingly jews became a target of persecution. In his novels kermit is history and fiction. Boss is detective superintendent. A modern Police Officer who introduced the use of Crime Scene Forensics he was also the inspiration for superintendent in fritz langs film. Only now. Your first quote i. Started out as a copywriter. In london in the one Nine Hundred Eighty s. First floor office so one moment smile face when. That was the agency i worked in before i went to work. For a subject such. So yeah i worked in there for. Four five and i said to him interested in the whole phenomenon of third of the Nazi Revolution and i wanted to understand it better and once i started to read german philosophy i i sort of started to get much more interested in how it all happened hes a kind of extension of me in a lot of ways hes big hes grumpy hes misanthropic. Hes some decent hes temperamentally unemployable. Most of your mo hes got a very dark sense of humor as i havent got a very black sense of humor myself but i find that some. I find that chimes with bell in itself and it i think berliners have a free every dog sense of humor a cruel sense of humor. Perhaps its me growing up in school on that neighbor the scots have a very cruel sense of humor and theyre cruel people. And say the cruelty comes out in the human i think really and thats that in a way its the its the humor that makes it possible for the writer to get through the book without committing suicide. Writer and former journalist lives in cologne. His first crime novel was published in german in Two Thousand And Seven it was the start of an Award Winning series about cologne native. Who also works as a Police Inspector in berlin. Carry on heart is a typical cologne native the church is important for him and carnival season is even more important hes not as catholic as his parents think he should be but hes more catholic than he realizes hes actually sort of agnostic his attitude is typical of his home city of gnostic or maybe there is a god so we should live our lives in a way that we just that we can to have and. Thats also how german comedian youre going back or put it in a grade of d. Minus is good enough its not immortal fear me knows i just. Cut in contrast to philip kirk begins his work in the weimar republic. Hes interested in how inspector hot deals with a transitional from democracy to dictatorship. And his fifth case Hardison Cologne for the famous monday carnival parade. In one Nine Hundred Thirty Three mayor khan had ordered the removal of Swastika Flags from the streets. The parade motto was con of the like it used to be. But not a flags were everywhere. And racist and antisemitic themes also featured increasingly on the floats this reached its india in one thousand Nine Hundred Eighty nine. That here there will be gas. And by Nine Hundred Forty Five colonial a in ruins. But in one thousand Nine Hundred Eighty three cotswold was still in pretty good shape he even had a fling after all it was kind of old time. Influence. In those days things werent as permissive as they are today still at the Carnival Celebrations Guys could find a girl everyone was in a party mood auto so found a woman but unfortunately he was already engaged that was not exactly appropriate this himself wasnt. Writer and former historian dominic minority lives in paris. And the first crime novel was published in the one nine hundred ninety five. In Two Thousand And Four she released her darkest novel yet which describes the brutal activities of the french to stop and during the occupation they would like get i dont just get up. There is a was important at the beginning of the war the first thing the germans did was march down the boulevard. If throughout the occupation they paraded here every morning he. Said in my novel theres a scene that takes place at the end of the war as. It describes an endless procession of damaged tanks and very young soldiers have it be so. If you want or exhausted many are wounded. And theyre on their way home. Testing for. This is the cover of the paperback edition photo. Of the photo shows paris residence during the occupation theyre standing under swastikas and flags and fraternizing with the germans the rough cut of his su. Well known you can see a Champagne Glass in the foreground. The atmosphere is very relaxed it shows ordinary people having a great time for small. Minorities chief carrots and is a Vice Squad Inspector who works undercover for the resistance and is in Radio Contact with london. He frequents the glamorous parisian salons and observes firsthand how easily the germans are corrupting french society. He was he still. He belongs to both the resistance and the police he has to play a street in conspicuous character at all times. Hes morse into playing this role he has to appear completely insignificant. But under normal circumstances he wouldnt be like that at all. Knowing the condition. In her book menotti also writes about a massacre of young Resistance Fighters that was carried out by the french gestapo in august Nine Hundred Forty full. We. So that actually happened in what event sense. But i moved it to the board of law and. All Novel Writing is politics its a huge luxury to be able to write about you know the worst people in History Heidrick And Go Balls and himmler and people like that they are its like race like dracula i mean the these are wonderfully villainous or for people to write about that are beyond Invention Udo Novelists could invent a character as we could as hydra. This is general kind of this was one of the main architects of the holocaust and Cursed First Novel March By and its going to me titus who sends him to the Concentration Camp as an undercover agent its a painful experience for bernie. In later books had evolved into his make the step. To this was fully capable of being a loving father and a Brutal Police functionary the czechs called him the blond beast. How did it was assassinated in prague in the one Nine Hundred Forty two in his Novel Prague Fertile how trace has bernies lover checks by brutally tortured in his presence. So that scene came around because i just wanted to remind people of what these who these people were and what they did to people what they were capable of doing to people you know so but equally the method that they used to interrogate that go is what the cia are doing today. So thats why its there you know the nazis invented waterboarding or probably they didnt but they were certainly very effective at doing it so you know you with all these stories you want there to be a kind of. Something that resonates in the modern world. In january Nine Hundred Forty two hailes presided over the vines a conference on the Final Solution to the jewish question. Then it was decided that most of the jews in german occupied europe would be deported to poland and murdered. Her has come here to do Research Movies of the. Worst of the worst. And they see as. Hes wearing when he done after the war was declared he did a lot of time in the in the lift up he became first of all came a real gun. And left off and went on bombing runs in this new wales. And he really enjoyed it he just enjoyed seeing the back machine gunning. Another of his nazi era crime novels focuses on a Fictional Police conference that was held five months after the bands a conference. Is dead by then and s. S. Chief chairs the conference which is also held at the vans theyve all. The same time the International Crime of the century was being committed by many of the people sitting in the room and it just struck me as she always loved these kind of ironies of history i love the sort of the bits Between The Lines of history that we dont know about i mean it was trite most people is absurd that they would they would do that but thats exactly what they did so you know here where were standing now there would have been in july Nine Hundred Two that would have been policeman from all over you are standing here having a cigarette i mean a cup of coffee and then going in there and having lectures from various policeman one of whom in the novel will be pentagon for. So bernie us turn up and make a speech in there so thats really what i was after im standing in that Window Thinking thats where he stands thats where the speech occurs and then they come up here and they have a cup of coffee hes introduced to somebody who will be pivotal in the rest of the story whos a swiss policeman. In one Nine Hundred Forty the nazis occupied paris. Minorities main character is the head of the french Kostopoulos Pierre Bunny A highly decorated Police Officer and he controls all of paris together with former gangster all the love for. Both the collaborators and criminals those who oppose them fall out of windows will simply vanish for ever hell need. To i guess that before were here at Ninety Three Rule Laurie Stone you know because this was an infamous address during the occupation that it was the headquarters of the french to stop oh yes the people that youre giving here. In the lobby of wooden is building where bonnie and la phone had their offices was called lock erlang or the cockpit. You. See i see this building witnessed many dreadful crimes who you see many people were tortured here has a book now. The french gestapo was a key element of the Collaboration Structure and that they could be and i think they dont mean you because. You see only this is this you know. This is the plus does it has uni just a few steps away. Day the frame i just awful prison was located here at number three. On his nerves were kept here between interrogations. Before they were turned over to the germans ive owned and even its at the top of a mess. Only about twenty meters away from the Gestapo Prison at number eleven is the otel dont know why you during the war it housed one of the liveliest literary and artistic cellphones in paris. He there were two big cell phones one was run by florence the other by madame dont know why you. Know i gave my mom was that the buildings are close together was every time i come here im struck by the contrast and it reminds me that people must have known what was happening here again your plea they could not have ignored it and this is where it all took place memo. This year the extravagant parties and their that doc torture and death. Memo and the buildings were right next to each other. The french upper class completely accepted the s. S. And they were mocked they dont mean the s. S. Men were more popular because their uniforms were much more attractive uniform a black is a lot more becoming than field gray. A pretty young because. The chief collaborators came to an inglorious and the germans abandoned them when they pulled out of paris. When la phone was taken prisoner after the liberation he said i spent. Four years surrounded by orchids tell you send bentleys it was worth it for a phone was the rest of the day paris was liberated and was executed immediately. Now his thoughts are existence means admitting that terrible things happened. If you dont talk about them you allow them to happen again. Comments of. The room was full of people muttering and clouds of Cigarette Smoke max hansens voice created from the photographs because. Then comes a Quote From Hanson Books and yet. Here give. Me a. Really became an ultra light of inishmaan how can i continue my daily routine when i realize that everything around me is jane ging radically throws up the shaft a lot since i got to be careful theres no more rule of law for them and its easy to fall into the clutches of a wild pack of essay wolves that bush didnt need money would never stick his neck out like phillip because benny going to no way as im going to know what he said totally different kind of character you are going to sometimes i wonder how good to could have survived back then rod might have a big mouth in charlies present but never around anyone from the s. S. O. S. A. It as if we had was a can all go part of i used to carefully thought out everything as you should do with Crime Stories the plot is really important but lots of ideas come to you while youre writing and thats great its surprising how many of these ideas you can use and how things work out differently than id imagined and thats not so bad because if i can surprise myself hopefully i can surprise my readers as well at least thats what im striving to achieve just for you get a mission. This is what gave you my heart will look like any new graphic novel. The comic also in this is how the artist imagine same as psycho. Ward and his galileo in front of his headquarters on berlins alexanderplatz. And thats barely house. Well you can see the stop lights and power lines and of course a cigarette you better go youll never leave home without you want me to. With all novels. The especially novels written in the first person i vi. The eye makes it more personal its like you yourself are meeting goebbels youre self or having to shake his hand and have a meeting at a coffee and a cigarette with gerbils and you yourself are having to be careful about what you say so hopefully the choices that conversation brings you to. Brings bernie to the same choices that the reader would have which is you know how do i say how do i if this person what they want but without compromising my moral my my true moral in a self how do i do that how do i not do everything he wants without ending up dead and so you know these are the things that interest me as a as a writer how to be how to walk that tightrope. Goebbels was famously. I want to. Seem to have had an affair with many actresses. Principally one called leader my robot but he got a bit of a reputation as a lady. And it wasnt just the sort of rest of the third reich that made jokes about sexual. Appetites it was it was pretty much so. And of course being in control of germanys Film Industry which was based here was like sort of. Putting this you know. A fact kid in charge of this weeks show really wasnt perhaps the best thing that could have. Could have happened. And cast early crime novel a quiet flame danny boldly climbs into the flask of yours if god is in the bathroom he leaves behind a most unpleasant calling card. I was asked myself what i would do you know and i guess thats what i would have done a fight but i found myself in goebbels his bathroom you know i did yeah use toilet and then flush it and. I got it as i think ive probably told you earlier ive got a sort of naturally dark sense of humor. Is what makes writing about nazi germany from a detective Point Of View so interesting because nobody is what they seem to be just from a Point Of View and from a Point Of View of survival that quite often the good the good guys arent what they seem to be because they have to pretend not to be good guys its like bernie as old as i mean ive always been a big fan of his era the one Nine Hundred Twenty s. And thirtys the berlin of the New York Jets tipitinas mint and american gangsters from the twentys and thirtys. And for her thats once again i say got front of emotion fast in the end of it by this ive always found them fascinating he does but as i got the idea of combining the two after watching two films with my favorites are standard wished in. Road one was Road To Perdition with tom hanks which came out around ten years ago. And you did enough to me for what i was the other was fritz langs m. On the shoulder honest i thought and it takes place in one thousand nine hundred eighty one the same year that the film was made on. The Road To Perdition also takes place in One Thousand Thirty one but was shocked about seventy years later when a lot i could do it would have. Been right there thats right. All of them. How did he take. You back to the world featured in Road To Perdition and the world of one Nine Hundred Thirty s. Berlin it can also contemporaneous so why dont merge them and thats how i got the idea for getting a moderately. Depleted suspect definitions for the political aspect germanys Political Development is now the most important thing for me that he asked us so the idea to follow the course of this development was the second step and. Then i had the idea to create a series that goes beyond ninety thirty three instead of having these gangs of stories take place before Nine Hundred Thirty Three in a more or less normal society i think the mine shaft i wanted to use the crime novel to show how Society Changes us if you use it. For that for me much to anybody in no madhu crime novels usually try to restore things to the status quo especially evil should be punished and locked away and carry on does this the best he can he says but this is ultimately futile in the third reich its the criminals hes hunting up both the murderous and his superiors you know and hes in a rather bizarre situation and this is what i wanted to trade in chicken with. Rick. I have vivid memories of the third man its wonderful i always try to imagine those scenes when i write. Sometimes i imagine scenes in black and white. Film noir has had an enormous influence on me. Thats. What the book now. Also addresses the fact that many french artists including john cook told admired the german counterparts people like hitlers favorite sculptor. Doorway. And was a major collaborator he organized the Big Breaker Exhibition in paris in one thousand Nine Hundred Two and wrote an introduction for it. Who was fascinated with erotica visited the exhibition. He said its a good thing Statues Dont Have Erections otherwise thered be no room to move around. According Shasta Swapan the. Publisher is based in new york. When his books come out in the u. S. He travels around the country to promote them this time because wife writer jane time has come along americans love his blend of nazi horror and hard boiled detective fiction. Theres only one thing worse than being an American Book Tour and thats not being asked to do with america too. Because its like its its. Theres a lot of adrenaline and its a performance. In new york he makes an appearance at a small but well stocked bookstore that specializes in crime novels the mysterious bookshop. Unlike his colleagues doesnt care much for standard readings he prefers to talk about his latest books. Over the years ive learned a lot awful lot about this period and you know you read about one Concentration Camp or another or the holocaust and i became aware of the existence of this place in the former yugoslavia which was called just the end of the just end of it wasnt just the death count it was an murder and cruelty and killing cap. And that the cruelties that were practice there were unspeakable im not going to give into details but they put this way it was so bad that your original s. S. Detachment whod been sent. Back to berlin and said look can we leave this place it was so bad even the s. S. Didnt want to be there bags how bad it was. Theres a kind of a train parked in this field it was the death train rather like the sort of train that arrived Auschwitz Men Women And Children were taken off this train and they were they went on this little ferry across a river and on this island there were all these people waiting to murder them with axes and. And beheading is become a kind of a phenomenon that weve become weve become very familiar with in in the newspapers of late. These yugoslavian Roman Catholic priests who were principally responsible for getting. Nazi War Criminals out. There was nobody worse than these people i think they probably killed. Between eighty and One Hundred Thousand people on this Little Island Roman Catholic priests anyway that was the other thing why i want to write about the yugoslavs and the croats because its commonly. Assumed that it was the germans. Who. Killed people and we forget the role played by some of the other races in europe like like the crow and so. There have been in auschwitz because i mean theres no scene in theres not really a scene in the book which is set out if there had been i would have got not yet well no i dont think there will be actually because i feel i would feel probably uncomfortable writing about it because i feel that. If it was something that was so awful i think you know to try and describe it i dont think unless youve been there you kind of earned the right probably to write about it if youve been there but i think you havent really read the right to write about it if you hadnt been there. And i had to sort it was difficult because when i wrote from zagreb i had to go to this place this awful Concentration Camp. In bosnia called years and verge and. I felt i had to get permission from the people who had died there so i sort of stood in the Sounds Melodramatic but thats how it felt your stood in the cattle the the wagons had transported the people on the train. The train is there so you can actually stand in these cattle cars and feel what it must to be like so i felt i had to sort of you know pray almost to the people and say look if im right about this i promise i will not you know its trivialize this and i promise i will be your. Chart. Minute ok. Professor now four years oh i see you may want to see your Weather Front camera. Now youve been to see what youre about the qualities not thank you. Everything. Is. Ok thank you so much. For. Paris august Nine Hundred Forty four the citys new german commander general details from cultists has earned his respect by leveling service to poll with the socalled col c. Took on. Hitler demanded that paris suffer the same fate. But fun call to ignore what his order is by then he had decided that hitler was insane. Some reports say that hitler phoned the general in a rage and screamed is paris burning. Not he writes about the battles between Resistance Fighters and german troops in the final days of the occupation. Hundreds were killed in the fighting. One called it surrendered his troops on august twenty fifth. Later that day general shanda gold arrived in paris as the leader of the provisional government of the french republic. The german up. Of the french capital. Residents celebrated. They also started punishing alleged collaborators french women who had fashioned with german soldiers who publicly humiliated this was the beginning of a partial rewriting of the history of the war but the nazi refuses to accept this interpretation. Its Scapegoat Politics so many things happened its time to come clean. In any case war has always been waged on the bodies of women. When you conquer a country you rape the women. In order to liberate the country you shave the heads of women. May not have slept with germans. Such uncivilized things didnt happen in the upper echelons. So. It was a way to deal with the horror of the war. And to create a morally superior version of the past the. Among. The so. Crime novels because they represent my Dark View Of The World the war and the period of collaboration are perfectly suited for crime novels. That. Theres more the Pressure Increase to bit by bit more success means more pressure and you grow into it and box it up to the office and im glad that my first novel babylon berlin wasnt immediately a huge success im going to have otherwise i would have had to keep chasing that success and even under bush going to cross did that his whole life because of the tin drum. It was kind of tragic luckily i didnt suffer the same fate though ill never win a nobel prize. This is. The one of the earliest forms of writing ever this is about Five Thousand years b. C. And these little marks on it were written by. An architect and these things used to they used to put them in little holes in the bill in the building that theyd made and it was a description of who the architect was and it was like a little autobiography or a little. Like a little brass plaque on the wall. Thats right. It you know i think its good to have a really early writing in front of you when when youre doing this because it just reminds you that really. Its the only thing if you that will maybe lost. So much money and. Im going out. My Character Meeting me would be a pretty horrific experience he he would have had a good life for me this is the ambivalent relationship writers have with their characters because they know in their bones inside themselves they know their character would hate them. And mine would certainly hate me. Just as if i was at a time like you ask yourself what would i have done back then and but you dont have an answer with your life you can come close to announce that through the novel certainly through the situations that your characters get themselves into through their actions and development and we can all. Be untrue but youll probably never find an onside and. This is a maybe so not necessary. But its good if some readers think about it his own and only as of and and ask themselves the same questions that we do you know i mean what would i have done back then i said it and i was going to. Leave the best way to understand writers is through their books this meeting was very nice but the book reveals all that soon evil. Is his government ready to address the concerns voiced by brussels will continue rejecting them out of the. Midst of d. W. Charged up and ready to hit the road with an ecard across europe. Up. From italy all the way to norway. With innovative compact or sporty its got to be emissions free across europe are electric car is it possible. Europe goes electric made in germany in thirty minutes. You know the banks. And so was the language