Shows
How To DiariesChildhood EchoesThis is my sixth week in custody. While we screw on our Bakelite plugs, I try to remember my earliest childhood. My first memories flicker in a daycare center.My mother usually had to leave very early in the dark to go to work at a very large factory. At the time, I didn't know that it was Buna in Schkopau.I can't say how we got there, about 5 km away. Probably on a bicycle with a child seat. That was common back then.How To Diaries is a reader-supported publication. To...2025-05-0402 min
How To DiariesConcrete Jungle MemoriesWhup-whup, whup-whup, whup-whup. Ha-Neu. Every minute I stay in this cell, I get weaker. And every minute Erich (Mielke, the head of the Stasi) squats out there, he gets stronger.Okay, Ha-Neu isn't Saigon. The movie quote is just nonsense I dreamed up.And the helicopter noise isn't mixed with the whirring of a ceiling fan like in “Apocalypse Now.”How To Diaries is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.It comes from a helicopter circling over Greifswald as I'm...2025-05-0302 min
How To DiariesDangerous ConversationsOne last thing. Then we can put a lid on this chapter, I try to get our conversation from yesterday going again.We could both get in trouble for what we talked about this week.All it would take is for me to rat you out and you to rat me out, and we'd have some explaining to do.Or someone might have overheard us – then they could use it against us.I don't care because I'm done with this system.A country that turns every fart into a po...2025-04-2101 min
How To DiariesQuestioning LoyaltyAndi wants to know what I have against our army. The West has one too, he says. And they have compulsory military service over there too.These are the usual arguments I am constantly confronted with.Yes, once upon a time when I looked up with wide eyes at big, strong men with steel helmets and Kalashnikovs who protected us children from evil enemies.The news is full of perverse wars, bloody conflicts, and nuclear dangers.At first, I wanted to become a sailor in the merchant navy to see the...2025-04-2003 min
How To DiariesDefiance and ConsequenceAndi wants to know what I know about the military prison in Schwedt. “Nothing.” And that's more than enough, I scrape together what I've heard.No one talks about it. But everyone knows someone who knows someone who was there. And they keep quiet.What all the rumors have in common are the reasons that landed self-confident young men in Schwedt and caused them to return to their companies intimidated or even broken.Assault, theft, insubordination, desertion, drunkenness, or disobedience were the usual "crimes", punishable by up to two years in NVA prison.2025-04-1903 min
How To DiariesSurviving the ShadowsI continue our conversation from yesterday about what he knows about “real prisons.” No one knows anything for sure, Andi evades.There are remand centers, youth work centers, youth homes, penitentiaries, and at least one military prison in Schwedt on the border with Poland.The Stasi runs a remand center in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen. He doubts that our remand center here in Greifswald is a Stasi thing.First-time offenders with relatively short sentences are often sent to Waldheim between Dresden and Gera. It is said to be one of the oldest prisons still in opera...2025-04-1802 min
How To DiariesPaper ConfessionA month ago today, I was arrested and imprisoned.Because it is a crime according to paragraph 213 of the penal code to want to go to the West. The attempt is punishable by prison.There is no doubt about my guilt. After all, I confessed to having written “Let's Go West” on a piece of paper.Besides, I wanted to take public transportation to get over there. This is a capital offense.In the meantime, 31 days and nights have passed.“Don't worry, they'll count that as time served,” Andi laughs.2025-04-0701 min
How To DiariesThe Killing Wave of EnvyIt is a mystery to me how such a book can end up in a prison library. I am not particularly interested in the adventure that is the subject of “Die tötende Welle” (The Killing Wave). It is the habitat in which it takes place.The book is set in the Hawaiian Islands. And in the modern 1970s, when Hawaii has long since been the 50th state of the United States of America.How To Diaries is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free...2025-03-3001 min
How To DiariesSilent Messages“No message is also a message,” Andi surprises me for the second time. “Eureka!” I hiss enthusiastically. “Of course, that's the key,” I slump down in my chair.Twice I have unmistakably asked to greet Uncle Werner, Aunt Erika and Karin – our relatives in Wuppertal. My mother never mentioned it.She could have distanced herself with political phrases by reprimanding me to refrain from such greetings to relatives in “capitalist foreign countries”.Writing that she had passed my regards would have been dangerous. As soon as the Stasi found out who these relatives really were, she w...2025-03-3002 min
How To DiariesLetter from HomeWe are happily tinkering with our bakelite plugs. There is another clatter at the door and warden Schäfer is looking in again.This time he sounds as arrogant as usual when he hands me a letter with an educational saying. From my mother:Dear Thomas! We have received your two letters. We cannot understand your behavior. Why do you always cause us such grief? Get used to the idea that your current place of residence will not change anytime soon – with or without a lawyer. We advise you to abandon your further plans and rep...2025-03-2902 min
How To DiariesDreams of FreedomWe are happily tinkering with our bakelite plugs. There is a clatter at the door and warden Schäfer looks patronisingly through the hatch.He seems a little sheepish as he hands me a letter with some stupid remark:From Dr. jur. h. c. Wolfgang Vogel, attorney and notary – “also admitted to the courts in West Berlin”.How To Diaries is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.He had accepted the mandate and registered with the public prosecu...2025-03-0701 min
How To DiariesJailhouse Melodies"You're pooing and flushing like you've been here before," I continue to probe Andi as we mount bakelite plugs. "You too,” he laughs.But yes, many months ago he was here for a few months. Back then he got off with a suspended sentence. This time it will probably be longer.I try to find out if he wants to talk about it. "No, I don't feel like it." Instead he wants to know why I can sing those lyrics.How To Diaries is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and su...2025-03-0102 min
How To DiariesLearning to Speak UpToday Andi surprised me for the first time. "Why don't we have work?" he asks, as if I don't want it."Because they didn't ask me," I shrug helplessly. "Do you know what work there is?" Yes, I do, and I tell him about the rattling.How To Diaries is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.He gets up and bangs on the cell door. The hatch opens and a guard demands to know what's going on....2025-02-1001 min
How To DiariesFrom Thugs to TunesThe night was short. My new cellmate is too simple-minded for the kind of deep conversations I had with Jürgen and his boys. At some point we started talking about music.Udo Lindenberg's "Jonny Controlletti" comes to mind and I start singing quietly:"Neulich war ich mal wieder in Amerika(Recently I was in America again) /Und da traf ich einen Herrn von der Mafia … (And there I met a gent from the Mafia...)"Andi is stunned.How To Diaries is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and sup...2025-02-0302 min
How To DiariesPrison Power PlayBang-bang, rattle-rattle, lock-lock. The door bangs open and a young thug is pushed into my cell.He looks like my older brother, smaller than me, with a nasty rash on his face.He throws his clothes on the top bunk, says mine and looks at me like a maniac, knowing that it was mine.How To Diaries is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.My first dick comparison.With an "I s**t bigger piles...2025-02-0201 min
How To DiariesThe Cliff, The Cell, And A Life SavedAfter the prosecutor's visit, I was moved to another cell. His clear message seems to be a green light for solitary confinement again.It feels like a psycho killing - the conversations and the feudal meals with the boys did me a lot of good.Bang-bang, clatter-clatter, lock-lock. Little Big Boss Warden Schaefer is standing at my door, telling me about a last chance to withdraw my application to leave the country if I want better prison conditions like my 'holiday' under the roof.How To Diaries is a reader-supported publication. To receive...2025-01-2802 min
How To DiariesA Prosecutor's VerdictWednesday and Thursday as usual, rattling plugs, sniffing sour air and having good conversations with the boys.Today I'm isolated during the yard walk and taken to another part of the building with a gag chain.A gag chain is a short iron shackle that is wrapped around your wrist like a bracelet.How To Diaries is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.It has no lock, but two T-ends that are hooked together and held between...2025-01-1902 min
How To DiariesFrozen by FearSlowly but surely I'm getting calluses on my fingers. Almost like when I play the guitar. Only in different places.Where they come into contact with pins, screws and nuts after hours of fiddling with bakelite plugs. And the smell of old paper bags and stale air. And the constant rattling.How To Diaries is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Jürgen wants to know why I chose the long way round the prison. I remember 'Gerhard Göse...2025-01-1701 min
How To DiariesAll Quiet in the Eastern JailThis is my third week in prison. No prospect of anything. After breakfast, it’s off to the “Klapper” as usual – paper bags, bakelite, screws, nuts and bolts. Yard walk, lunch and dinner.“Why now?” Jürgen wants to know. In the spring of 1983, I received my call-up for the medical examination.After various skirmishes with the police, the Stasi, the party soldiers, the district court and the arbitration commission, the time had come to start my escape straight ahead while I was still young and robust enough to bear the risks and side effects.The only...2025-01-1301 min
How To DiariesNuclear Shadows“Why Canada?” Jürgen continues our conversation from yesterday. Because I have relatives in Toronto and I might be better able to survive a nuclear war in the Canadian outback.In the mid-1970s, Uncle Adolf visited my grandparents in Teutschenthal. Uncle Adolf is a brother of Grandpa Hans.How To Diaries is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.My great-uncle stood tall in my grandparents' crooked shack, looking like a man of the world and dressed like...2025-01-1201 min
How To DiariesBack to the FutureThere are four of us taking a shower today. The water is warmer and lasts longer because we are on earlier than newbies like me last week. And because we've done our norm.After breakfast it's back to the rattle-shop - paper sacks, bakelite, bolts, screws and nuts all Saturday.What I want to do in the West, Jürgen tries to tear me away from the past and to dare to look ahead.How To Diaries is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free o...2025-01-1201 min
How To DiariesSurvival ScarsSlept restlessly. Dreamed of evil guards, mean snitches and brutal thugs.Guards are the least of my worries, I've been washed in all kinds of water since my earliest childhood:From three to five in a children's weekly home, from six to eleven in after-school care and "holiday games", with various holiday camps in between.As a teenager in a "work and leisure camp". Finally, an apprentice hostel and pre-military training.How To Diaries is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free...2025-01-1101 min
How To DiariesThe Waiting GameIt smells of sweat and sour air. A bitter mixture of paper sacks, Bakelite and oily metal. Yard walk in the fresh air always makes me a little dizzy.After three days of fitting plugs, fiddling with pins and turning screws, I’ve finally got the hang of it. Today I’ll get my sack full without the guys."Still no mail," I grumble. "It takes time," they say. Because of the censorship. First our super warden reads what I've written.Then an investigator or a prosecutor. And then, because of the application to l...2025-01-1001 min
How To DiariesHope and HistoryWhere we’ve ended up here I want to know from Jürgen. Our prison is in Domstraße, practically in the center of Greifswald, he tells me.Conveniently, there is a beautiful courthouse right next door, to which the prison is connected by at least one corridor.There is another part of the building for women next to ours. Hans Fallada is said to have served time here. That was long before the Nazi era.Travelers who get off the train in Greifswald, step out of the station building and look in the...2025-01-1001 min
How To DiariesParadise in TeutschenthalToday I have to think of my beloved “Mama”, my mother’s mom. She lives in Teutschenthal, where I spent most of my childhood weekends and many vacations.Her “apartment” is a crooked hut with no sewage system. Instead of a toilet, there was a dung heap and an outhouse. We picked fresh fruit and vegetables right next door in the garden. Every now and then we slaughtered a rabbit or a chicken from grandfather’s barn. We bathed in a zinc bathtub in the washhouse. There was no bathroom.For me as a city...2025-01-0902 min
How To DiariesThe Bright Side of the Doom, Part 3In summer, the Polish harvester came with their families to bring in the harvest. The grandmother — the babushka — stayed in the barn with the smallest children, where everyone slept, and took care of the dinner.Everyone was in the fields. In piecework the men mowed the grain, the women tied it into sheaves, and the children set up the sheaves where the grain could dry until threshing.No home of their own for weeks. Many young men stayed in the village after the harvest and became miners. This was still better than the Romani life at h...2025-01-0702 min
How To DiariesThe Bright Side of the Doom, Part 1There are things and experiences in life that you remember decades later. To the outsider, they may often seem banal, but to the person who has experienced them, they are of extraordinary importance because they are deeply and indelibly etched in the memory.I am lying in my crib. My father has his suit on and a tie around him. He seems strange to me. In her most beautiful dress, my mother sits in front of the mirror and combs her hair especially carefully. I sense that I will soon be left alone. My father sits down...2025-01-0702 min
How To DiariesThe Bright Side of the DoomManfred Jannot, born in 1933 in Ahlsdorf (Saxony-Anhalt), has lived in Leipzig (Saxony) since 1968. He studied education there and graduated as a teacher. He previously worked as a qualified welder and pipe fitter.He was later involved in the construction of the Druschba line. Until reunification, he managed a department of the municipal housing administration in Leipzig. He has also been making music as a singer and guitarist for decades.The Bright Side of the Doom is the prequel to his sons's diary The 18-Year-Old Who Wrote a Note and Disappeared.The prequel starts...2025-01-0700 min
How To DiariesEchoes of IronyRums-rums, rattle-rattle, lock-lock. “Mr. Constable, prison room …”, that’s as far as I get. The falsetto voice drops something. Decent as I am, I bend down to pick it up.Hiss, clap, groan – a sharp pain in my neck. I drop to my knees and look up, perplexed. The fistula voice pulls back its rubber truncheon and scowls at me. The moral of the story – don’t ever move when you salute.Then it’s off to work. A windowless workroom the size of a small classroom. A few tables and chairs. In the corners, lots of waist-hi...2025-01-0601 min
How To DiariesA Culinary AdventureThey came last night. Three guys.The first a proudly rooster who looks like my stepfather.The second was terribly big and strong like my cousin Siegfried. The third a normal guy like my brother.They want to know who and why I’m here, to which I answer as compactly as possible.Then they say rule number 1: Never poop just before breakfast, lunch or dinner!Rule number 2: When pooping, flush immediately while the sausage is still falling! Never wait until it comes to rest. I will sm...2025-01-0302 min
How To DiariesLocked AwayRump-rump, rattle-rattle, lock-lock. The door opens and just stays open. Diffuse to and fro in the corridor. I hesitantly dare to look outside.The fistula voice is standing there saying “Undress and out!”. But no “Face the wall!”. Instead, a nod of the head in the direction of the neighboring cell, which is a shower.A few seconds of plenty of water – neither warm nor cold. Water off. Quick soap and hair wash. Water on. Quick rinse. Water off. Dry off the residue with a coarse tea towel where no water had reached.Back into...2025-01-0102 min
How To DiariesMy First Great LoveThe night lasts forever. Sleepless, I torture myself with memories. Fall 1977 …Cycling from Halle-Neustadt via Holleben past Buna to Merseburg. Visiting Kathrin. Two dead children on the highway behind Schkopau on the opposite side of a large intersection. A destroyed bicycle under a truck. An ambulance and police. My heart drops into my pants. Onwards with weak knees.Half an hour later, I ring the doorbell at Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 14. She opens the door. Black curls in a snow-white sweater. With a noodle in the most beautiful face in the world. Sooo cuute. We fall into eac...2024-12-3101 min
How To DiariesThe Hitchhiker's DilemmaNothing happens. Many hours of brutal silence. Doubts arise. Why have I done this to myself? Flashback to the past - spring 1983 ..."You know you're not allowed to get in? The driver calls me with a formal greeting, which is rare."You know you’re not allowed to stop?" I grumble and get in.Somewhere near Berlin, on the way from Halle to Greifswald. The Western car looks like a spaceship. The huge dashboard is covered in displays, lights and controls. When I close the door, I feel a slight pressure in my ea...2024-12-2902 min
How To DiariesAll Quiet in the Eastern JailThe flap opens. Stationery and a list of lawyers are passed through. A short letter to one of them. An attachment with the heading “Application to leave the country”.Memory log of a letter I wrote to the Stasi in Rostock in November. Cramped verbiage. As reactionary as necessary and as unambiguous as possible.Right or wrong – the main thing is to get the documents to the lawyer. Let him clarify how to do it properly through the courts. Let’s see what happens. All Quiet in the Eastern Jail.How To Diaries...2024-12-2800 min
How To DiariesThe Sound of SilenceRump-rump, rattle-rattle, lock-lock. This sound is produced when a prison guard slams open the two steel bolts on the upper and lower frame of the cell door with his hands and feet in a fluid motion.At the same time, he swings a heavy bunch of keys like a Colt and shoots the matching one from his hip into the keyhole. Then he turns it two full rounds at supersonic speed.I can tell what a guard is up to by the suddenness, volume and frequency of the movements. It gets really unpleasant when I'm...2024-12-2602 min
How To DiariesRisk of AbscondingRump-rump, rattle-rattle, lock-lock. The door bangs open. A big old prison guard with a cute fistula voice and a nicely delicate face barks “Get out!”.He steps back so I can bend down through the door. “Stop!”, “Face the wall!” so that he can close the door. This goes on for many meters, stairs, corridors and bars.In front of a door to the outside, the guard demonstratively puts a gag chain on me harder than necessary and almost breaks my wrist. Then he leads me across another courtyard into an outbuilding. A magistrate is waiting for...2024-12-2303 min
How To DiariesBehind BarsThis is what a prison cell looks like from the inside. Roughly as I imagined it from books about the Nazi era. Five step lengths long, three steps wide.Instead of a fold-out cot, a double bunk bed along the left wall. A small table and two chairs on the right.In the corner between the bed and the cell door, a toilet bowl and a tiny washbasin with a narrow shelf above it.No poop bucket like the Russians have! That’s what I call progress.A funnel-shaped depression at ey...2024-12-1802 min
How To DiariesA Dangerous GameThis is our last chance. If we tell a fairy tale now, we might get out of this place again. But I wrote the note to prevent that.If we overdo it, we could end up in the loony bin. If our plan works, they’ll lock us up. If we back out, they’ll harass us until we take our own lives.We went to the police station in the patrol car. My interrogation began at around three in the morning.An officer of the Kripo (local slang for CID, criminal investigation depa...2024-12-1701 min
How To DiariesThe Beginning of a NightmareHere we go again. Selchow, the drunken clochard, wants to kick me out again. This time he’s going to overdo it and make a big deal of it. This is the opportunity to finally start my final journey.“I’m coming with you,” says Jens. “It could take two years or more,” I reply. “We agreed,” he adds. “Your decision,” I insist one last time.To avoid any misunderstandings, I write a note and place it prominently on my bed. Then we get dressed warmly and leave the dormitory.We walk to Kemnitz. After half...2024-12-1600 min
How To DiariesThe 18-Year-Old Who Wrote a Note and DisappearedListen to the English series of two German books on the subject of contemporary history. It begins with an adventurous escape from the GDR.In his real-time diary, the author describes a true crime for which he was sentenced to prison in 1984.“The 18-Year-Old Who Wrote a Note and Disappeared“ is the sequel to his father's memoirs “The Bright Side of the Doom”, which were published as a book in 2016. Both stories are based on facts.The diary starts on Friday, January 6, 1984. To be continued… This is a public epi...2024-12-1500 min