Martin Gerke

In 2001, Jimmy Wales published the first article on Wikipedia, a collaborative effort that began with a promise: to democratize the spreading of knowledge, monopolized by the elites for centuries. But is Wikipedia really a utopia come true?

Several high-budget epic films became Omar Sharif (1932-2015) a film star. He was an actor, but also a bridge player, a womanizer, a bon vivant; he was a man full of contradictions, who enjoyed card games more than movies; he was an eternal nomad who spent half his life in a hotel.

His opponents accused him of being homosexual. The male favorites he gathered around him during his short life gave those malevolent enemies solid arguments to do so. He would not have failed if he had proved himself to be an energetic king. But Edward II of England (1284-1327) never was a king like Edward I Longshanks, his father, or Edward III, his son, were. And his end is shrouded in myth and mystery.

While the First World War and its battles on the Western Front are still very much anchored in our memory of history, the simultaneous battle in the East appears now to have been largely forgotten. During the course of this military action, a peculiar, state-like entity was created, a German colony in Eastern Europe, a military utopia: the Land of Ober Ost. The occupied region was to become a productive state, completely under military command; a state that was to serve not least as a deployment zone for the impending war.