Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Leibniz Hall.

In Ferdinand von Schirach’s play, the audience is asked a question. "Do you think it's right," the chairwoman of the Ethics Council asks, "that Mr. Gärtner should be given Pentobarbital to kill himself?" And further: "Do you think it's right to give a healthy person a lethal drug? Would you do it if you were a doctor? Would you give Mr. Gärtner Pentobarbital when you know that it will kill him. Mr. Gärtner is 78. Would you give the drug to a 30-year-old woman? You will have to consider this question in your decision."

On this website we'll be presenting the results of the sessions on an ongoing basis.

Since the 2020/21 season the play has been on the program of 26 theatres.

And how do we want to die? The desire to leave the world painlessly in familiar surroundings - we all know it. But how often does it come true? What can we hope for?

We want to die with dignity. But diseases, accidents, wars, hunger, despair - biological or external causes can take away the dignity we hope for in the last hours. But what if we could decide for ourselves on the end of our lives?

We could commit suicide. But the jump from the bridge, the cut in the wrists, the train racing towards us - these are not the paths we want to take. Our death should not frighten, it should not bother others, it should be self-determined and peaceful. Can we make this decision for ourselves and hope for support?

Under current German law, this was not possible until the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court in February 2020. Paragraph 217 of the German Criminal Code, in the version of December 2015, prohibited the "businesslike promotion" of suicide.

Private individuals, companions of the dying people, doctors, organizations of assisted suicide, nurses and lawyers had lodged a constitutional complaint against this. According to the complainants, the ban violated their fundamental rights. For if the state prohibits assisted suicide, it denies the right to self-determined dying. On 26 February 2020, the Federal Constitutional Court authorised medical assistance for suicide.

Ferdinand von Schirach’s new play is about death. It deals with issues concerning human freedom, autonomy and self-determination. It is about questions that have been discussed in different and passionate ways for years between morality, Christianity and politics.

How do we want to live? And how do we want to die? After TERROR, his first play, Ferdinand von Schirach once again devotes himself to a topic of the highest socio-political relevance. After TERROR, GOD is the second part of a theatre trilogy.

Germany’s DER SPIEGEL called him “a magnificent storyteller”, the NEW YORK TIMES an “exceptional stylist” and the British INDEPENDENT compared him to Kafka and Kleist.

Ferdinand von Schirach’s story collections “Crime” and “Guilt” and his novels “The Collini Case” and “The Girl Who Wasn’t There” were bestsellers, selling in millions in 35 different countries. Schirach has received many literature awards, internationally too; these include the prestigious Kleist Prize.

France’s LIBERATION accounts for his success so: “Schirach’s master-stroke is to show that no matter how monstrous the deed is, human beings remain human beings.”

Ferdinand von Schirach lives in Berlin.

Information at: www.schirach.de