Victor Grossman

Victor Grossman is a journalist from the U.S. now living in Berlin. He fled his U.S. Army post in the 1950s in danger of reprisals for his left-wing activities at Harvard and in Buffalo, New York. He landed in the former German Democratic Republic (Socialist East Germany), studied journalism, founded a Paul Robeson Archive, and became a freelance journalist and author. His latest book, A Socialist Defector: From Harvard to Karl-Marx-Allee, is about his life in the German Democratic Republic from 1949 – 1990, the tremendous improvements for the people under socialism, the reasons for the fall of socialism, and the importance of today's struggles.

LATEST ARTICLES BY Victor Grossman

World

Kurt Maetzig, master of German cinema
August 21, 2012 By Victor Grossman
An extraordinary filmmaker who made extraordinary films and lived to the extraordinary age of 101, Kurt Maetzig died August 8. But he was virtually unknown in the U.S.
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World

An in-depth look at Germany’s Left Party congress
June 5, 2012 By Victor Grossman
The media were keen for a real wide split in the party. In truth, a lot of the members feared the same.
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World

German elections: The good, the bad, and the ugly
May 14, 2012 By Victor Grossman
In a way, it's a "good news" and "bad news" angle.
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World

In Germany, the Pirates making waves
May 2, 2012 By Victor Grossman
Germany's energetic young party, the Pirates, held its party congress last weekend in the northern town of Neumünster. The media overflowed with reports, almost uniformly friendly.
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World

Germany aggrieved about Günter Grass
April 24, 2012 By Victor Grossman
Günter Grass, a Nobel Literature Prize winner, causes anger and excitement with his poem "What Must Be Said". And the subject matter is war and peace.
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World

All hail the (German) chief
March 19, 2012 By Victor Grossman
It's hard to decide: which article on Germany's new president, East Germany's (the former German Democratic Republic's) pastor Joachim Gauck, was more misleading.
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World

Was Islamophobia to blame for the resignation of Germany’s president?
February 21, 2012 By Victor Grossman
President Christian Wulff resigns! This has been in the making since December, so it was no surprise but rather a drawn out misery.
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World

Left or right – where’s the threat?
February 6, 2012 By Victor Grossman
The "crime" of those on the left, aside from occasional rocks or bottles thrown at Nazis, was a failure to support the "basic libertarian democratic order."
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