READING: Die Akte Alma

Join Sabine Welk for a reading on 06.11.2026 at Hugendubel bookshop in Rostock!

This moving family novel follows Alma, a courageous doctor in the GDR who stands up to the Stasi, and her granddaughter, who decades later uncovers a long-buried family secret. Atmospheric and emotionally charged, "Die Akte Alma" weaves personal fates together with German contemporary history into a gripping story about courage and the cost of silence.

About the book:
The GDR beyond the clichés: authentic, nuanced, and richly atmospheric.
A doctor who takes on the Stasi, and her granddaughter who breaks the silence decades later.

Rügen, early 1980s: Alma works as a doctor in the psychiatric ward of a polyclinic. What she witnesses there leaves her appalled. The system spares neither doctors nor patients. Her conflicts with her boss, a hardline party loyalist, keep escalating. When she refuses to admit dissidents to her closed ward, she comes under Stasi surveillance. She is expected to fall in line and spy on colleagues as an "informal collaborator". Her refusal and subsequent application to leave the country push things to a breaking point - the Stasi begins to blackmail her. Decades later, Alma's granddaughter finds her grandmother's Stasi file and stumbles upon an explosive secret. She follows the trail of the past and uncovers a truth that could change the entire family's life.

"Die Akte Alma" by Sabine Welk is a novel about courage, loyalty, and the quiet choices that shape a life - and a compelling piece of contemporary history.
For readers of Alena Schröder and Susanne Abel.
Based on true events: author Sabine Welk, who lives in Greifswald, is drawn to stories of people who had the courage to resist the GDR regime - one of them inspired this novel.