Martin Becker: Die Arbeiter

A declaration of love to a dying milieu whose children dreamed of the big time. Sometimes the parents leave the hot factory halls behind and head off. They take the children to the seaside, always to the North Sea and only for a few days at a time. The rest is drudgery: for the terraced house, for the children, for a bit of happiness.

Martin Becker tells the story of a small-town family that no longer exists. Of parents and siblings who died too young, of the small miracle of being a father after the disappearance of the original family. The mother's old-fashioned sewing machines, the father's heavy blacksmith's hammer, the cheaply furnished vacation apartments and always smoky small cars from third, fourth and fifth hand: it is the story of an origin from simple circumstances, far removed from all romanticism and transfiguration. A memorial to the vanished working-class family. A declaration of love. More topical than ever.

Martin Becker was born in 1982 and grew up in the small Sauerland town of Plettenberg. He comes from a working-class family, his father was a miner and his mother a seamstress. He is a freelance author for public radio, has published several novels and lives with his family in Halle (Saale).

In cooperation with the Fritz Hüser Institute

Moderation: Arnold Maxwill