[Anti-Fascism and Censorship]

Research on censorship—and in the GDR, publishing policy was also a task of the censorship authorities—allows for a comparatively precise mapping of more or less centrally controlled “anti-fascist” narratives in terms of their historical evolution and political alignment. Thus, the focus of my contribution is not only on the relentless usurpation of the master narrative by the SED leadership—carried out with the aim of stabilizing the party hierarchy— the enforcement and monitoring of a fixed dogma by the SED leadership to create a master narrative, but also on the characterization of the fiercely contested modified discursive spaces within the framework of alliance politics. This was expressed, for example, in the publishing programs of the churches and bloc parties, but also in fiction publishers with a tradition of exile. After more than two decades, the lecture simultaneously attempts a self-critical retrospective and overview of the speaker’s relevant works—often co-authored with Simone Barck—such as “Jedes Buch ein Abenteuer”, Fenster zur Welt, and Der rote Faden.