Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Regisseur von “Das Leben der Anderen”, war mir schon an der Oscar-Verleihung äusserst sympathisch und ich freute mich über seine Auszeichnung (obwohl ich den Film leider noch nicht sehen konnte, was ich schleunigst nachholen werde). Offenbar ist der Mann nicht nur ein grossartiger Regisseur, sondern auch liberal denkend. Folgende Interviewauszüge machen ihn nochmal sympathischer:
Thema Ostalgie und Waffenverbote
I really have a profound dislike for any kind of strong government. For example … I even find it worrying when I hear tendencies in the U.S. to abolish something like the freedom of the individual to bear arms.
I get worried about that. Because I always look to the U.S. as an example of an incredibly successful country that was all about empowering the individual. … Of course you’re going to have terrible things that happen if you give individuals that kind of power. But, look at what terrible things happen if you give all that power to the state. For example, in Germany, where we’ve never had that tradition of arming individuals …[…]
It’s so hard to get the right to bear arms. You have to be a major celebrity and have to present a written death threat …
In Germany, people are so proud of that. They say: Look at all the murders in the U.S. But I think … “Look, we Germans — have we really made such great experiences of giving all the power to the state? How do you think the situation would have been in 1938 if, let’s say, all the Jews had been armed? Maybe the Gestapo would have thought twice about just going in there and taking them to the camps.” I just think that … freedom comes at a certain price.
[But], in the whole debate about the G.D.R., how can the people … be longing for life under a dictatorship again? Europeans generally are a little bit like that. Life in Europe is much more cozy, because the state takes care of so much. I do not have to worry about health care … social benefits. But if you go so far that you’re nostalgic for a system that brutally killed its enemies … then I think you should feel guilty for it.
Thema PDS und Gregor Gysi
It’s an absurdity that a legal successor to this party is allowed in our government, the very party that decreed that anyone that tried to leave the East would be shot and the very party that the Stasi was declared shield and sword of. And now, this party is promising to people if they elect them they will bring them back the social economic stability of the east. What many people don’t know is that the economic stability of the East was not paid for.
First of all, they were living in huge debt, then they received huge subsidies from the West- I’ll never understand why they felt the need to do that, but it was done, and then one of the main sources of financing was the selling of political prisoners for Westmarks from the East to the West. That was one of the main sources of income. And I always think when I hear Gregor Gysi promising what he’s going to give people, I always think, if we elect you, and you’re going to give us that economic stability, who will you sell your political prisoners to this time? Do you think the US will buy them? It’s an absurd electoral lie of the most extreme thought. […]
Gregor Gysi is a great talker, and a fantastic speaker, very intelligent, very quick in the head, will always think of a way of phrasing something to incapacitate his political opponents. But then afterwards you go home and you start thinking about it, it makes sense that it sounds great. But he is like that, and actually while writing the character of Grubitz, the boss of Ulrich Mühe, I thought of Gregor Gysi because he is also one of those just happily amoral creatures. One of those people where you feel that in the evening, their evening prayer is, “Thank you God, for not giving me scruples like everybody else has. I’m so glad I’m like that.” And actually on the DVD commentary that I made for the German DVD version of “The Lives of Others”, I talked about how he had inspired this character, and Gregor Gysi had that stopped, because you’re not allowed. Germany is not like America where you have complete freedom of speech and you can say whatever, you can reenact scenes in the Oval Office with scenes of Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton and put them on the Internet .
You just can’t do that in Germany, there’s a thing called “Persönlichkeits Recht” which is “The Right of the Personality.” which I think is ridiculous thing that’s being used in Germany, which will allow people to prevent you from being able to do something like that, so he actually damaged us quite a bit economically on that, too. Because we had to take the DVD off the market and all these things.
Für diese mutigen Aussagen werde ich seine DVD kaufen. 
