In the dying days of the German Democratic Republic, a group of peace activists gather in a church in Dresden to discuss the more bottom-up, less authoritarian country they would like to see emerge out of the crumbling socialist state. A mixed-race man on one of the back rows speaks up. “You have no idea of the rage that’s out there”, he says. “If you lock people up in a cage for life then at some point they will find someone to blame for that. Someone who’s different. And you want to abolish this state? The last bit that keeps...