Writing in the GDR

The politicisation of literary practice in the GDR also stemmed from a conception of the role of the writer as both “teacher” and “partner,” as Ian Wallace describes it.6Wallace, “Teacher or Partner?” From the outset, writers were believed to have an ­imp­ortant part to play to “disseminate noble ideological ideals, encourage socialist reconstruction of the country, and create heroes who would stand as model figures, inspiring the reader to comparable feats or life styles.”7Hutchinson, Stefan Heym, 77; Wallace, “Teacher or Partner,” 11; ­Mittenzwei, Die Intellektuellen, 73. See Jones, Complicity, Censorship and Criticism for an analysis of the expanding boundaries of legitimate debate. This firmly political role meant an increased status for writers in the GDR, including privileges not accorded to the rest of the population for those seen to be sufficiently conformist—a boundary that was constantly shifting and gradually expanding.8Hutchinson, Stefan Heym, 7–78; Emmerich, “Between Hypertrophy and Melancholy.” Some writers even assumed positions of power within the party app­aratus and saw themselves as playing a genuine role in political decision-making about the future of the state.9See e.g., Jones’s discussion of Hermann Kant and the writer as functionary. Jones, Complicity, Censorship and Criticism, 32–93.

The acceptance of that political role on the part of the writer frequently outlasted their unwavering commitment to the SED and belief in the party’s ability to implement socialism. Wallace describes how a new paradigm emerged in the 1970s that positioned the writer as “partner, engaged on equal terms with [the] reader” to produce literature as “a vehicle for social comm­unication and exchange through which collective values are organised and molded.”10Wallace, “Teacher or Partner,” 14. Writers still felt they were needed as part of social debate (perhaps even as a “replacement” for a lack of social debate elsewhere), but that debate would include addressing social problems where they saw them.11Wallace, “Teacher or Partner,” 16. Bathrick describes the paradox that those celebrated in the West as dissidents were most often “reform-dedicated Staatsdichter” who offered a “variant of the official voice,” rather than true opposition to it.12Bathrick, The Powers of Speech, 11. It is this ambiguous political positioning that fuelled the attacks on prominent GDR writers—particularly Christa Wolf—in the immediate post-Wende period. In the fierce exchange in the German feuilletons that became known as the Literaturstreit (literature debate), Wolf was dubbed by Ulrich Greiner as “die Staatsdichterin der DDR” (state scribe of the GDR). Her literary account of Stasi surveillance, Was bleibt (What Remains, 1990), was described by the critic as showing a lack of “Aufrichtigkeit” (decency) and “Feingefühl” (sensitivity), considering the extent of repression suff­ered by more outspoken critics of the state.13Greiner, “Mangel an Feingefühl,” citations on 66 and 70.

More recent work suggests that this picture is too simplistic and that writers across the political spectrum negotiated ambiguous positions and ­relationships with those in power. Those ambiguous positions also played with publicness and secrecy in different ways. For example, as Sara Jones has shown, where Hermann Kant largely expressed conformity to the party line in public, he negotiated behind the scenes for the publication of critical works; Stefan Heym was extremely vocal in his public critique of the SED, but willing to talk to and negotiate with representatives of power when the political moment allowed.14Jones, Complicity, Censorship and Criticism. Greiner’s attack on Wolf also failed to acknowledge how the relationship between an individual and the state might evolve over time and be ­subject to ruptures and turning points. There is a tendency to overstate the ­latter to the detriment of gradual change. Nonetheless, moments such as the 1953 uprising in the GDR, the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, the show trials against the “Harich Group” in 1957, the 1968 Prague Spring, the 1976 expatriation of Wolf Biermann, and the 1979 expulsion of nine authors from the Writers Union resonated deeply in the cultural sphere.15For a chronological overview see Mittenzwei, Die Intellektuellen. Documentation of the Bierman Affair and the expulsions from the Writers’ Union are provided in: Keller and Kirchner, Biermann und kein Ende; Berbig et al., In Sachen Biermann; Walther et al., Protokoll eines Tribunals. The Biermann expatriation in particular, and the differential punishment of those who signed the open letter against the SED’s actions, is seen as a moment of disillusion for many intellectuals. Wallace states: “it is clear in retrospect that, in terms of cultural policy at least, November 1976 marks the beginning of a process of disintegration.”16Wallace, “The Politics of Confrontation, 74.

Indeed, an emerging generation of writers in the last decade of the GDR viewed the ambiguous positioning of their older counterparts with suspicion and aimed to avoid being similarly imbricated with those in power by rejecting state structures completely. In contrast to the older generation of writers, these “Hineingeborenen”17A term borrowed from an eponymous poem by Kolbe, Hineingeboren. (those born into the GDR)—associated most strongly with the artistic “scene” in Berlin Prenzlauer Berg18For a critical engagement with this nomenclature, see Brady, ­“Prenzlauer Berg.”—“never made the conscious decision to build a socialist state and therefore did not feel obliged to conform to its limitations.”19Cooke and Ploughman, “Introduction.” Their relationship with politics and the politics of literature was diverse, but also distinct from that of the reform socialists described by Bathrick. As Karen Leeder notes, in the immediate post-Wende period, the writing of this group “was celebrated for its postmodern aloofness, for refusing to accept the antagonistic deadlock of collaboration and dissidence, and for founding an autonomous realm beyond official discourses.”20Leeder, Breaking Boundaries, 5. Where critics before them had sought to engage the state, this group had abandoned all allegiance to it and to the utopian principles it claimed to represent.21Leeder, Breaking Boundaries, 6; see also Cosentino and Müller, “Die Kunst der Rebellion,” 5. For many, this meant a refusal of politics—including the politics of opposition—and a focus on language, intertextuality, intermediality, and artistic play. This focus became in itself a subversive act in the context of the GDR.22Cosentino and Müller, “Die Kunst der Rebellion,” 19. See also Berendse, Grenz-Fallstudien, 20. Others created work that was openly critical of the regime.23Cosentino and Müller, “Die Kunst der Rebellion,” 13. Although some of the key figures in the scene were able to publish officially on occasion, the majority of work was disseminated outside of official structures—in “underground” literary magazines and in unauthorised readings and performances in unofficial “literary salons.”24See, for example: Ní Chroidheáin,“Dangerous Creations.”

Most of the figures that form the focus of this book (Kolbe, Wagner, Maaß, Stötzer, Moog) were associated with the Prenzlauer Berg scene and/or moved in related underground scenes in other East German cities such as Erfurt, Dresden, and Magdeburg. Kolbe and Wagner, for instance, edited one of the most well-known unofficial magazines, Mikado (together with Lothar Trolle); Maaß was the organiser of one of the most significant “literary salons” in the Prenzlauer Berg.25See Kolbe, Trolle and Wagner, Mikado oder Der Kaiser ist nackt; Böthig, Sprachzeiten. Our focus on this generation of writers is partly a feature of the passing of time and the availability of individuals to sit for interviews in 2020 and 2021. The period of the late 1970s to the 1980s is also of interest because of the changed operational approach of the Stasi from more open and brutal methods to an emphasis on “Zersetzung” and infiltrating oppositional groups (as discussed below), making the question of who knew what about whom even more salient. This means our findings are principally relevant to this period in the late GDR. The dynamics of knowledge, trust, and agency would likely have looked quite different in the 1950s and 1960s.

The common connection with the Prenzlauer Berg also means that we can view these figures as part of a network. One criticism of the term “scene” is that it risks eliding the plurality of artistic activity of those who are identified as being part of this grouping: as Jan Faktor (one of the key protagonists) stated, “Die Szene war nicht homogen” (the scene was not homogenous).26Cited in Brady, “Prenzlauer Berg,” 1. Nonetheless, Philip Brady identifies a “sense of shared activity” among the poets within the Prenzlauer Berg.27Brady, “Prenzlauer Berg,” 5. Gerrit-Jan Berendse describes these artists as replacing the official collective with a “selbstgewählten ingroup” (self-selected ingroup—­italics in original), and “Splittergruppen” (splinter groups) that formed in particular around the production of the unofficial literary ­magazines.28Berendse, Grenz-Fallstudien, 20. He identifies familial-like structures and a network that is, however, “fein zerfasert und teilweise brüchig” (finely frayed and partly brittle).29Berendse, Grenz-Fallstudien, 25. It is in part this fragmented network-like structure that allows us to trace how knowledge—specifically knowledge about the Stasi—was generated in this unique social context and how that knowledge was circulated and used to combat state surveillance.

That is not to say that writers outside of the Prenzlauer Berg (or other underground scenes across the GDR) did not also form professional and personal networks in which they generated and exchanged information. It also does not mean that the networks in the Prenzlauer Berg did not include individuals who are not generally identified with this grouping. Established authors—notably Volker Braun, Elke Erb, Franz Fühmann, and Christa and Gerhard Wolf—were connected to the “scene” and actively supported the authors in it.30Consentino and Müller, “Die Kunst der Rebellion,” 16. Bettina Wegner established her career in the 1970s and is not generally considered part of the Prenzlauer Berg. Nonetheless, she grew up and was active in official and unofficial cultural life in East Berlin until her departure from the GDR in 1983—the same can be said for Klaus Schlesinger, who left the GDR in 1980. Throughout this book we trace connections between different groups of authors, showing also how knowledge gained through experience with the state and its security services was transmitted across literary “generations.”