Divorce excluded

For the release of their new book, the brothers Benjamin and Tillmann Prüfer wrote an article in ZEIT magazine 19 on 04/30/2009.
http://www.zeit.de/2009/19/Brueder-19

Barely, another relationship coins more than the one between siblings. In letters, two brothers write why they love each other. And even, why they wanted to kill each other.

Dear little brother, until you can be seen on big screen, normally you have to achieve something historically. You have had to have posed naked on the cover of stern magazine like Uschi Obermaier or you have had to have killed a dictator or done something else thundering and laborious. However, lately I have watched my alter ego on movie screen without any effort. I just needed to be a brother.
You fell in love with a girl in Cambodia. It turned out that she was HIV positiv. Back in Germany you organized a HIV therapy for the woman you love and you married her. Later on you wrote an article about your story, a book afterwards and then Detlev Buck made a film out of it. Tom Cruise plays Stauffenberg, David Kross plays you, why not?

During a test screening I run into Detlev Buck. He says hello hesitantly as if he would feel uncomfortable, to meet me. Suddenly he starts talking about, having to disengage himself from our original story, life is life, a movie is a movie. There are also other guests present. “YOU are the older brother of Benjamin?” they say. The film starts and I begin to understand. Henri, the name of my alter ego, is cynical and a skirt-chaser. First he thinks about his career and second about his fellow people. He only feels gently mock for the romantic efforts of his younger brother. Every movie needs a bad guy. For the director it was evident that it had to be the brother of his main actor. I am the antihero. Always hit the big guys.

Beloved brother, there is no need to be huffy. I like Henry. At least he makes his brother feel, that he backs him - no matter what happens. This you have in common with the character in the movie: you always believed in me, for reasons I don’t know. But you know what makes me really happy? That you’ve been the one who was asked: if you are the brother of someone. Don’t be mad at me but that was me life’s desire.
Lately I ate dinner together with Detlev Buck and his film team. I told him that I was writing a book about brothers. The director asked me if the book also deals with a situation of not having a brother. He is a single child and always wanted to have a brother. Immediately, a few people at the table agreed. They also would have loved to have a brother or a sister! And I sensed a warm feeling around my stomach. I knew: the director collects one film award after another, but I have a brother and he, poor guy, does not.

Benjamin Prüfer und Tillmann Prüfer | © DIE ZEIT, 30.04.2009 Nr. 19
by courtesy of ZEIT magazine and Tillmann Prüfer