Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume X, Eastern Europe

303. Telegram From the Embassy in the German Democratic Republic to the Department of State¹

5371.

East Berlin, December 24, 1987, 1015Z

SUBJECT

• GDR To Publish Two Long Censored Novels.

REFS

• A) EmbBerlin 05300;²
• B) EmbBerlin 05053;³
• C) EmbBerlin 04262.⁴

1. Summary: Stephan Heym, probably the single most prominent GDR writer but unpublishable here for nearly a decade, said December 22 that he had been told that morning by his old publishing house that it would bring out one of his banned novels next year. Heym made this statement while participating in a late night West Berlin television talk show, which could be received in much of the GDR. He interpreted this—as do we—as a further sign of a limited “thaw” in GDR cultural policy. End summary.

2. Heym, 74, fled the Nazi’s, became an American and returned to Germany in the U.S. Army in 1945. He left the U.S. for the GDR at the height of the McCarthy era and was for a time a leading official cultural personality. His expulsion from the Writers’ Association in 1979 for publishing without permission in West Germany a critical novel about the state security services (“Collin”) was the catalyst for a crackdown on other unorthodox writers. Since then, Heym has continued to live in East Berlin, travelling to and publishing in the West, but his works have not been available here.

3. Heym said that while the extent to which GDR cultural policy is changing should not be overstated, there has been movement. Ten years ago, when he and other authors criticized censorship, they were persecuted. When the topic was raised at last month’s Writers’ Congress, the leadership at least listened. As a further sign that more critical books and sensitive topics are gradually being allowed into the East German light, Heym said that Monika Maron’s 1981 novel on environmental destruction and party indifference, “Flugasche,” will be published next year.

4. All of this, Heym indicated, was a GDR reaction, in its own careful way, to the inevitability of change throughout Eastern Europe, which the Gorbachev phenomenon in the Soviet Union most clearly expressed.

5. Comment: Heym’s indication that two further critical books that have long been held back by the censors will at last be published in 1988 is indeed a further sign of change in the GDR. We agree with his characterization, however, that what is happening so far is only the early stage of a thaw after an ice period. He himself will still have four novels which have not been published here. The GDR leadership, which is embarrassed by the loss of many of its most prominent cultural figures, has been making gestures to suggest that a reconciliation with those celebrities is possible. It is not yet seeking, as Gorbachev has been doing, to enlist a wider circle of intellectuals as key supporters for a full-fledged social reform by offering major changes in the structure of its cultural policy.

6. Moscow minimize considered.

Meehan

1. Source: Department of State, Files on the German Democratic Republic, 1987, Lot 90 D 14, SHUM–1 Human Rights—General. Limited Official Use. Sent for information to Eastern European posts collective, Bonn, Moscow, USAFSB Berlin, and USDel NST Geneva.
2. Telegram 5300 from East Berlin, December 19, reported that the GDR Writers’ Association Congress, held in November, proved to be a turning point for relations between authors and the state. (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, D871040–0508)
3. Telegram 5053 from East Berlin, December 2, discussed the openness and critical nature of the Writers’ Association Congress. (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, D870987–0675)
4. Telegram 4262 from East Berlin, October 6, reported that the GDR continued to ban the work of some East German authors. (Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File, D870830–0312)