It should be a stimulating, harmonious evening.

Jenny and Friedrich, middle-aged couples from West Germany who have been living in East Germany with their two sons for a decade, have invited Rolf and Beate, work colleagues from Brandenburg, to dinner.

In addition, Tine, an early love of Friedrich (holidays on the Amalfi coast), has invited himself to dinner.

Rainer Hank

Freelance author in the business section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.

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That can be cheerful: from the very first moment, Rolf and Beate put Jenny out of her composure and embarrass Friedrich.

More than thirty years after reunification, misunderstood West-Eastern states of mind are still making their way.

You are mutually disappointed in one another.

In the end it will not only be cheerful, but also spooky.

Easy prey for the AfD?

The evening for five is the plot of the recently published novella "Gewitter guests" by the writer Dirk von Petersdorff.

He comes from West Germany himself, has lived in Jena for a long time, has so far attracted attention with his poems, but has recently also written prose.

Because Petersdorff is a literary scholar as a part-time or main job, the little book can also be read as an exercise in literary theory for the introductory seminar: everything takes place in one day and in one place, like in a drama.

And of course there is that “unheard-of event” that since Goethe has been mandatory for a self-respecting novella and marks the turning point of the plot.

Of course, this outrageous event will not be revealed here.

In terms of content, the scarcity provision of the amendment has the advantage of peeling the mutual accusation dynamic down to its core.

The western couple living in the east, whose budgerigar “Udo” (like Udo Lindenberg) crows sounds that sound like “Habeck, Habeck” in the ears of the easterners, makes every effort to remind the east Germans at the dinner table of the advantages of freedom , which they take so naturally.

You should be glad to be rid of the dictatorial Stasi state.

Rolf and Beate don't want it back either, on the contrary: They take the Westerners' claims of freedom at their word and are disappointed.

"We're very sensitive to paternalism." They don't like the fact that their diesel car is made dirty, just for example.

They need it after all in the country,

to get to work.

She is particularly annoyed that these bans come from men from Berlin who drive to work with electric scooters and shoulder bags.

And then the Ostler become fundamental: Sometimes they find the current "banned state" worse than the GDR: "You could go underground or live inconspicuously, but this state here: much finer, it completely grasps you, your thoughts, mine I.” The nasty word “democracy” is used;

well, Rolf isn't quite sober anymore.

"Prohibition State"?

East resentment and easy prey for AfD politicians, of course.

But that would be making things too easy, I think.

While I am reading Dirk von Petersdorff's novella, there is a debate in German politics about the new Infection Protection Act.

The transition from fiction to reality is effortless.