Willi Winkler

In the organizer's words:

Henry Kissinger & Siegfried Unseld

The friendship of two survivors - a double portrait

Lecture

In the summer of 1955, two survivors meet on the campus of Harvard University: Henry Kissinger, who escaped the persecution of the Jews to America in 1938, and Siegfried Unseld, who had gone to war against the Soviet Union as a soldier of Adolf Hitler and was only able to save himself in Sevastopol by swimming out to sea. At Harvard, both began to build up their networks, which would enable them to rise further - Kissinger to become an advisor to Nixon and a world politician, Unseld to become one of the most important publishers in West Germany. Their backgrounds could not have made them more different - but they remained connected through literature.

In his gripping double portrait, based on previously unknown archive material, Willi Winkler tells the surprising and fascinating story of an unusual friendship - and at the same time demonstrates how spirit and power, literature and politics, Germany and America were linked in the 20th century.

Willi Winkler was editor of Die Zeit, head of culture at Der Spiegel and has been writing for the Süddeutsche Zeitung for many years. He is the author of numerous highly acclaimed books. His most recent book was Kissinger & Unseld. The friendship of two survivors (2025).

Price information:

Normal € 11.90 Reduced € 9.90 Members € 6.90 Surcharge at the Box Office