W hen I went to school in the 1990s, GDR literature wasn’t taught or read. It was treated as something shameful. I didn’t dare to pick up a book by an East German writer, even though many of them were in our library at home in Leipzig.
Looking back, I believe the reason was the public perception of the old socialist republic. It scared me off. When the Berlin Wall fell on 9 November 1989, it marked the beginning of the end of East German art and literature.
Everything that had shaped our cultural history was thought away, spoken away and written away. West Germans took sovereignty over the narrative, and their verdict was clear: the former East German state was wrong in every aspect and worth nothing. This also meant books, plays, paintings, sculptures, films and music were buried and left behind, because they too were considered wrong.
In recent years, the discourse has shifted. After decades in which the German public had – rightfully – processed the hard, important narratives about injustice, oppression, propaganda and monitoring in the GDR, there was finally some room to revive the lost cultural heritage of East Germany. Iconic writers such as Brigitte Reimann were rediscovered.
In 2023, three of her books were republished, and her story Siblings was finally translated into English , receiving international praise 50 years after her death. Several writers today have dedicated novels to the vanished country and its citizens. From the outside, one might think there .