The Essentials of Theory U

7

Returning to the Roots

I started my journey on a farm. One day when I was five or six years old, a family friend visited. He worked in the state government in Hamburg. I was transfixed by the stories he shared about a world that was completely foreign to me and remember wondering if someday I might be connected to the world he operated in.

With Compliments to the East German KGB

Later, of course, I became very interested in what was happening in the outside world and got involved as an activist in various social movements. During the heyday of the peace movement in Europe, I occasionally traveled back and forth between East and West Germany—until one day in 1984, when I found myself on a black list. I was barred from entering East Germany. ...