For the Good of the Community

A Scherbenthal Novel

Scherbenthal is the sort of German town where nothing is ever merely a local issue.

A new tourist attraction? A question of identity.

Two fire brigades sharing a station? Practically an assault on village honour.

A car park? Political dynamite.

And an innocent administrative proposal can become a constitutional crisis before lunch.

Johannes Falk knows this better than most.

A lawyer, long-serving municipal councillor and leader of the independent Bürgerforum group, Falk has spent years observing the peculiar laws of local politics: old grudges outlive election terms, every expert opinion eventually meets another expert opinion, and the smaller the issue, the greater the number of people willing to defend it on principle.

Then Scherbenthal discovers tourism.

An ambitious elevated walkway promises visitors, investment and a new future for a municipality still living in the shadow of its once-famous glassworks. Politicians sense opportunity. Administrators produce plans. Consultants produce presentations. Journalists ask questions. Villages remember grievances nobody else knew still existed.

And Falk finds himself in the middle of it all.

What follows is a sharply observed comedy of councils, committees, consultants, citizens and political survival – a world in which perfectly sensible people can spend an entire evening arguing about something nobody had considered important that morning.

For the Good of the Community is a dry, affectionate and mercilessly observant political satire about German local government, village rivalries and the strange things that happen when good intentions meet bureaucracy, ambition and human nature.

Because in Scherbenthal, everyone wants what is best for the community.

The trouble begins when they have to agree on what that is.