Art as a million dollar project

In our capitalist society, works of art represent the ultimate status symbol. The art market is booming, prices are rocketing. Why is it that people are willing to spend millions of dollars on works by van Gogh, Klimt, Keith Haring or Gerhard Richter ...

Compassion is the inner barrier to the inhumane. In Liverpool, two eleven-year-old boys abducted a two-year-old and murder him. This crime could have been avoided if passers-by who heard the child scream had intervened. Arno Gruen asserts that these passers-by placed themselves on the side of the ...

Many members of the older generation remember how the Nazis determined the course of their childhood without having understood it at the time. What did the sons and daughters of Jewish parents go through?

Inge Deutschkron grew up in Berlin and personally experienced the consequences of ...

Preface by Gaetano Benedetti

The concept of autonomy, which does not mean power and superiority but full conformity of a human being to his feelings and needs, is an important factor of modern psychology. If this autonomy is lacking - more often the rule than the exception - ...

Much reflection by many disparate thinkers has been devoted to the complex issue of evil in the world, and psychologists have devised different theories to explain the destructiveness of man. But rarely has anyone dissected the causes with such rigorousness as Arno Gruen. He demonstrates how ...

16-year-old Flora is found by the lakeside, bleeding from multiple cuts. She claims to have no memory of what's happened to her. What's more, the different witness statements don't add up to any kind of coherent picture of events, leaving the police with no leads to follow.

Wanda can't believe what's happening! Dad's girlfriend Inge has finally given birth to a lovely baby boy, and Wanda is just getting used to the idea that she has a brother, when it turns out he's not the only one: it seems Mama's boyfriend, Bertfried, also has a son. His name is Wassily, he's ...

Maxi is in love. Totally crazy about the guy. And Patrick, of all people! Who thinks he's Casanova and has just stood her up for the third time in a row! But, this time, he's going to be sorry. Really, really sorry. She's going to make damn sure of that with the help of her best friend Mo. So ...

A summer’s day that starts out all bright and sunny and by its end nothing is ever the same again – that is the day when Annika's cousin Ginie disappears. Just a short while ago the two of them had been sunbathing by the water’s edge with Annika's friends Steffi, Rüdiger and ...

"This is just the worst thing that could have happened to me. It's utterly dire! New people are moving in next door. And that lot, of all people! I just can't believe it"

No, no! Wanda just can't believe it. This is decidedly too much! Fabian ...

Everything children really want to know about sex-and aren't afraid to ask

How much sex education do primary school children need? As much as they ask for, say the experts. And what exactly is it that children want to know? When teaching primary school classes about the human ...

A girl named Johnny

Early on, Joana Wolkenzin knows that she is different. She spends hours reading and learns song lyrics by heart. As she grows older, she falls in love with both boys and girls. In the No Man's Land of Western Pomerania in the 1990s, she gives herself a new name: ...