My Real Life

Description

Harbour Front Special: Thalia x F. A. Z. Shaping the Future Joachim Sauer has kept the public role, which was assigned to him through his marriage to Angela Merkel, surprisingly small over decades. Now he is sharing in detail about his own life for the first time. "My Real Life" takes us from childhood in the GDR through scientific work in Berlin-Adlershof to the years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and into the Berlin Republic. When the wall fell, Sauer was forty years old. He had spent almost half of his life under the SED dictatorship. In his autobiography, he recalls his origins and education, the start of his research career as a quantum chemist, pressures to conform, pragmatic compromises, and personal boundaries. He talks about loyalty to the party line, but also about room for maneuver, everyday life in a scientific world that thought internationally but remained politically controlled, and about the transition that began with 1989/90. The book's tension comes from an unusual perspective. Sauer narrates as a scientist dedicated to research, and at the same time as someone who witnessed his wife's political rise up close. In Hamburg, Joachim Sauer discusses the milestones of his autobiography, about influences and ruptures, and about humor as a form of distance. Joachim Sauer (*1949) is a chemist and quantum researcher. He earned his doctorate in chemistry in 1974 and worked from 1977 to 1991 at the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR in Berlin-Adlershof. From 1993 to 2017, he was a professor of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at Humboldt University in Berlin; since his retirement, he has been working there as a Senior Researcher. In 2026, he was elected as an international member of the National Academy of Sciences. Since 1998, he has been married to Angela Merkel.

Highlights

• Joachim Sauer talks about his life and autobiography
• Insights into the GDR and the period after the fall of the Berlin Wall
• Event in Hamburg

General Information

Joachim Sauer, chemist and quantum researcher, shares in his autobiography his childhood in the GDR up to his life after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The event takes place in Hamburg and offers a unique insight into personal and political developments.

Location

Pinnasberg 80, 20359 Hamburg, Germany

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