Frank Schirrmacher - Debates Encouraged

Debates Encouraged

Schirrmacher has always managed to determine what controversial topics are discussed in the German public, the debates about genetic engineering and brain research and about the low birth rates in Germany and Europe, for example. Newsweek named him one of the leading intellectuals, Ray Kurzweil calls Schirrmacher one of the "big thinkers".

Frank Schirrmacher's roasting of Martin Walser's novel Tod eines Kritikers in 2002 caused a stir in the German press. Schirrmacher claimed the book contained anti-Semitic passages. He had reviewed the book before it came out, so the publishers changed the novel before publishing it, the first time a book review had this effect in German history.

In 2004, Schirrmacher published the bestselling book Das Methusalem-Komplott, published in 14 languages selling more than 1 Million copies in Germany, prognosticating the ageing of society as a result of low birth rates and calling for an "uprising of the old". He received the Goldene Feder award for this book. In 2006, Minimum was published, which became a bestseller too. The title refers to Schirrmacher's analysis of the effects of the dissolving of the family as the smallest cell of society and the resulting diminution of social relationships to a minimum. To prove the superiority of the family, he cites the event of the Donner Party, resorted to cannibalism. Critics claimed that he exaggerated the statistics and that he supported a conservative view of the family. Through a clever campaign, which included publishing some passages in Der Spiegel and Bild-Zeitung, the book caused another medial debate about the topic.

In a 2006 interview with Schirrmacher, Nobel laureate Günter Grass admitted to have served in the Waffen-SS as a young man. Grass made the admission in a conversation with Frank Schirrmacher referring to his new autobiography, "Peeling Onions", said he was drafted at the age of 17 into the Waffen-SS—the combat force of the SS—in the final months of World War II. The interview stirred up a worldwide debate and forced Grass' publisher to publish the book earlier than intended.