ABSTRACT
The New Forum’s dream of a liberal socialist state independent from West Germany was soon overwhelmed by resurgent nationalist sentiment (the Eastern protest marchers’ slogan changed from “We Are The People!” to “We Are One People!”) and by electioneering from the better-financed Western political parties. Revelations from newly opened Stasi or secret police files aggravated a mood of disgust with the old regime. Against this background, West German journalists and cultural commentators began attacking the artistic and moral integrity of leading East German writers, among others. The first round of politically-motivated criticism was aimed at Christa Wolf’s short novel What’s Left, but it soon spread to Müller as well, aided by revelations of both writers’ past contacts with the Stasi. These attacks on the oncerespected grand figures of GDR culture set off a debate that came to be known as the Literaturstreit, the literature quarrel, involving writers, critics, and media figures in both Germanies. The history and significance of this debate are analyed by Katrin Sieg (‘The Poets and the Power: Heiner Müller, Christa Wolf, and the German Literaturstreit”).
