After Theatre of Reconciliation and Overcoming the Present, the third season of Max Czollek’s series of talks, entitled The Beginning is Near, looks to the future. Considering the calamities of recent years and those currently looming, this may seem counterintuitive, but that’s the point: to take these crises as a starting point from which to move forward to different and better things. It requires a twofold insight: firstly, recognizing that current developments radically question previous political and economic conditions and social mores, and secondly  acknowledging that things must therefore start anew in order to change for the better. The question of what has not worked and is currently not working is closely linked to the question of the future. It forms the context for Czollek’s conversations with people who, in one way or another, are dealing with the question of how things can and must continue. These interlocutors  develop ideas and provide stimuli for the motto of this third season: The Beginning is Near.

Tobias Ginsburg is a writer, journalist, and theatre director. For his investigations, he goes undercover to gain access to fanatical movements, living among neo-Nazis, Reichsbürger and in a sect, and has infiltrated right-wing extremist fraternities, militias and an international network of gay-hating clerical fascists. His books Die Reise ins Reich. Unter Reichsbürgern, Rechtsextremisten und anderen Verschwörungstheoretikern (2021) and Die letzten Männer des Westens. Antifeministen, rechte Männerbünde und die Krieger des Patriarchats (2021) were published by Rowohlt.