A non-profit organisation in Berlin has erased the recording of a young German author’s reading from its website, after he casually revealed he had written an article for a news portal deemed “right-wing” by many on the German Left.
On June 12, Jens Winter, a 33-year-old German journalist, read from his recently completed first novel Im langen Sommer Geboren (Born During the Long Summer) at the Brecht House literature forum in Berlin, the last residence of famous German writer Berthold Brecht before his death in 1956.
The Brecht forum was co-financed with taxpayers’ money by the City of Berlin.
Winter’s novel depicted the experiences of a nameless protagonist as he drifted through the cultural scene of his Berlin neighbourhood.
XS, Winter’s publisher, wrote: “With apparent naivety and wicked humour, Jens Winter draws a topography of the German Left in a state of advanced decay.”
According to Winter, after the reading he attended a wine reception during which he casually mentioned that he had written an article for Nius, a German online news portal run by Julian Reichelt, former editor-in-chief of tabloid Bild.
“I said in jest: ‘That sort of makes us enemies’ and laughed,” Winter wrote in a piece about the evening. Nius is considered a right-wing populist publication by many on the German Left.
Winter said he did not expect any backlash from his humorous comment as he knew the people at the literature forum from previous work he did for the organisation.
Despite that, just 15 hours after the event the organisers told him they had decided to remove the recording from their website. The told him they had not known about his writing or the news portal and that “this does not suit us”.
Brussels Signal verified that the recording could no longer be found on the literature forum’s website.
Winter expressed concern about the deletion.
“I have asked the house whether it will ever make the missing reading accessible to the public again. I have not yet received an answer,” he said.
The article Winter wrote for Nius was critical of the hard-left Die Linke party. Die Linke – the self-described successor organisation to the former East German Communist unity party SED – is especially strong in Berlin.
The latest surveys put the party at 19 per cent of the vote, the second-strongest party after the Conservatives in the German capital.
Brussels Signal reached out to the Brecht House literature forum for comment but had not heard back at the time of writing.
