Christa Wolf (1929-2011)

[angel80]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/arts/christa-wolf-dies-at-82-wrote-of-the-germanys.html

The book that made a huge impression on me was the semi-autobiographical A Model Childhood (I think it had a different name in the US). It

Comments

[eternityfan]

The whole raising of the Stasi issue whenever possible is irritating me soooo much. I think sometimes it is a deliberate attempt to destroy/ discredit East German potential elites. Unfortunately, the Stasi issue is framing official GDR history as of now - reducing the GDR to dictatorship and Stasi only, which means any GDR is of lesser value due to that. Annoys me.

Haven't read much of Christa Wolf, though in the recent years, followed what she worked on more closely. Read and loved her book One day A Year.

[angel80]

Agree with you on the history question. Some time ago I used to know a woman who'd had a job at Humboldt teaching Vietnamese language and literature. She was sacked after 1991, as was her husband from his job in the archives (the not-the-Stasi archives). He was a professional archivist. The entire academic staff at Humboldt was sacked - only a few managed to hang on for a little in short-term contract jobs. All of them were ideologically suspect - which says something about academic freedom in the West!.

There was a well-known left wing sociologist from Bielefeld, who turned up at Humboldt after the anschluss. I found that slightly ironic! It was like they didn't care who you were as long as you weren't Ossie.

[eternityfan]

Yep - in LE all of the political science profs were sacked - of course - as they were teaching marxism leninism, not political science. One prof that came as a replacement - a marxist from the west, guess they were even better at teaching marxism.
The sacking however still lingers on - the majority of profs in the East are from the West - in the social sciences and humanities over 90 percent still - replicating that elite whenever possible. And out of the 13 universities in east only one now (a very small technical university) is headed by an East German president.