'I'm a Little Bit Ashamed'

This is an English summary. The full article is only available in German.

Three of our [the newspaper's] writers have left the GDR thirty years ago because working conditions had become unbearable. At that time, Berlin was not divided by the Wall, and everyone could travel into the Western sectors.

By Hans-Eberhard Teuchert

I once asked Stefan Heym how it feels if your books are not available in the country where you have chosen to live. That was sad, he answered, but it would change. I almost bet against him. Stefan Heym only escaped imprisonment in the GDR through his huge popularity in the West. Now his books can be bought in the GDR, too, but I still doubt his vision of a true Socialism in the GDR.

By Günter Tilliger

When I hear the latest news about the events in Berlin, I was reminded of the 17th of July, 1953. I had been sitting in a restaurant next to the ruined Semper-Oper in Dresden, watching how protesters were met by Russian tanks - without bloodshed at first, but later that day there were gunshots. Yesterday I thought that maybe this insurgence was not futile and somehow bore fruit decades later.

By Dieter Hoffmann

I didn't think that I would live to see these changes. Still I'm not sure how to judge what happened; the freedom to travel itself is nothing new, we had that even in Stalin's dark times. I'm a little bit ashamed that I didn't stay in the GDR, because now I could help re-building my torn country.