Sam: Coming soon to Disney Plus as Sam - A Saxon

The extraordinary and exciting story of East Germany’s first Black police officer.

Samuel Meffire grew up as a Black German in East Germany and, against all odds, became East Germany’s first Black police officer. In the nineties, marked by upheaval and unrest, he was the face of an anti-racism campaign, received invitations to politicians’ receptions, talk shows and numerous media appearances. But as Europe changed, he slipped from being a model policeman into crime himself, eking out his days as a hunted criminal and prisoner. After seven years in prison, Meffire fought his way back to life and once again went to the front lines of social upheaval, but this time not as a police officer, but as a social worker for young people with a serious history of violence, and as a successful indie author of dystopian crime novels.

In his memoir, Samuel Meffire gives an intimate insight into his emotional world. In the background and with an almost brutal frankness, he grippingly recounts his life across several continents and, looking back, gives us a fascinating insight into an overlooked period of history.

Author Biography

Born in the former German Democratic Republic to a German mother and an African father, who died on the day of his birth, Meffire makes his way from being a bricklayer in last days of socialist eastern Germany to being the first elite policeman of African descent in the recently reunified State of Saxony in the former GDR. Discontent with the limitations of his job in the police special task force and with being the governmental advertisement icon he quits and takes the wrong turn to the other side of the law. Running a security company first, he soon employs his knowledge and police education to the get the best of what society has to offer: money.

Robbing people doesn’t take too long until things go wrong and Germany’s biggest tabloid takes to calling him “Public enemy #1”. Meffire finds himself on the run from an international warrant. His goal is South Africa, but Zaire will be the end of his road. Surrounded by civil war, violence and bloodshed he feels relieved when he is finally handed over to the German authorities. The verdict: 10 years, no probation. Solitary confinement makes him take up the pen and deal with his demons. After serving seven years he is released from prison and starts a new, more honorable, career as a street worker in prevention programs for juvenile delinquents and novelist. The result: A dialectic view on what is wrong and what is right and the wakeup call, that we can’t go on this way, that mankind has to escape the rat race of more-and-more and faster-and-faster.