{"id":995,"date":"2017-05-15T08:00:09","date_gmt":"2017-05-15T06:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.dresden-magazin.com\/uncategorized\/peter-richter\/"},"modified":"2020-05-12T17:28:41","modified_gmt":"2020-05-12T15:28:41","slug":"peter-richter-dresden-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dresden-magazin.com\/en\/heart-of-the-city\/peter-richter-dresden-revisited\/","title":{"rendered":"Peter Richter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On the one hand \u2026 and on the other<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Dresden does not only suffer from xenophobia against itself, it also has someone who can write about that very dilemma \u2013 a certain Peter Richter. The journalist and author left the city of his birth 25 years ago to go to university. But as he puts it himself: \u201cIn the rear-view mirror, you see things in close-up\u201d and \u201cIt\u2019s my considered opinion that you remain a Dresdener even when you\u2019ve left the place, not least because you are constantly required to serve as an apologist for it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In writing his autobiographical novel \u2013 \u201889\/90\u2019 \u2013 about the period immediately before and after the demise of the GDR, Richter delivered a lucid commentary on the people who live in this part of the Elbe valley. In a subsequent volume of essays, \u2018Dresden Revisited\u2019, he once again asks the right questions \u2013 or elicits them from others. For example from Tom Hanks who wanted to know what it was like growing up in the \u2018Valley of the Clueless\u2019, a far-off land behind the Iron Curtain. As exemplars of this mystical place, Richter cites the villas of Blasewitz and Loschwitz with their charmingly overgrown gardens and their vibrant social mix \u2013 which have since been transformed into respectable family homes amidst carefully manicured gardens. But sentimentality doesn\u2019t enter into it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCould it be that this city is one big shape-shifting hologram?\u201d he asks, finding innumerable examples of \u201con the one hand this, on the other hand that\u201d, which suggest a Dresden mentality that veers between cosmopolitanism and narrow-minded stubbornness, between the Protestant work ethic and the Catholic way of holding court, between the Reform movement of the early twentieth century and its more radical offshoots, between the sort of social democracy preached by August Bebel and the particularly virulent anti-Semitism that reared its head in the interwar period, between Romanticism and New Objectivity (and the first exhibition venue for degenerate art).Could it be that this city is one big shape-shifting hologram?Peter Richter<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of this is reflected by Peter Richter in his rear-view mirror from New York, where he works as a correspondent for the S\u00fcddeutsche Zeitung. He also uses the final chapters of this slim yet immensely dense volume to look at immigration policy in the USA and draws a comparison that is no longer focused exclusively on Dresden but on Germany as a whole: \u201cWho knows, maybe it would work out a lot better if a more pragmatic approach were taken, with less in the way of autoaggressive apocalyptic pronouncements and half-baked attempts to educate the populace.\u201d And he has a special message for the Dresdeners: \u201cThe image of a city can be turned around.\u201d Let\u2019s see what they will make of themselves, the Dresdeners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Skyline
\u00a9 Patrice von Collani\/Westend61\/Corbis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Peter Richter<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Born 1973 in Dresden, moved to Hamburg in 1993 to study Art History, completed an internship at national radio news channel Deutschlandfunk, worked for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and is currently arts correspondent for the S\u00fcddeutsche Zeitung in New York. His literary output includes \u201eBl\u00fchende Landschaften<\/a>\u201c (Blossoming Landscapes, 2004), \u201eDeutsches Haus<\/a>\u201c (German House, 2006), \u201e\u00dcber das Trinken<\/a>\u201c (About Drinking, 2011) und \u201e89\/90<\/a>\u201c (2015).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dresden Revisited<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Peter Richter\u2019s essay \u2018Von einer Heimat, die einen nicht fortl\u00e4sst\u2019 (Of a homeland that never lets you go) is a follow-up to his \u2018Dresdner Rede\u2019, the text of a speech he was invited to deliver at the Dresden Schauspielhaus theatre in 2016. Published by Luchterhand Literaturverlag<\/a>, 2016, 160 pages, \u20ac18.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the one hand \u2026 and on the other Dresden does not only suffer from xenophobia against itself, it also has someone who…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":880,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-heart-of-the-city"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDresden Magazin: Peter Richter \u2013 \u2018Dresden Revisited\u2019<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Peter Richter really doesn\u2019t like having to explain his native city to outsiders. 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