Joe Kaeser

About twenty years ago, Germany got to know Bernd Stromberg and his team from the claims department at CAPITOL Insurance. Back then, there was nothing vegan in the cafeteria, and bullying and sexism were commonplace in the office. Since then, the world of work has changed enormously. But has Bernd Stromberg changed too?

Origin sticks like shit to your shoe! That's what Marlen Hobrack says, who grew up as a working-class child in Bautzen. But the promise of the old Federal Republic was that you can become anything if you just try hard enough. But that no longer applies. So is class in Germany fixed from birth? Have we long been living in a country in which origin and family background are more important for future prospects than individual performance and commitment? In Germany, it takes six generations to rise from poverty to the middle class, in Denmark only two generations. Those affected reflect on their life stories, the burden of their social origins, the wrong and right turning points for social advancement, as classified by social researchers. They talk of pride and shame, of financial hardship and wealth, of origin and future, of growing up and moving up in this Germany with its entrenched selection mechanisms for social advancement.