Publisher's Synopsis
As little as the legitimizing function of anti-fascism for the GDR is questioned today, the way in which it is dealt with remains controversial. The book sees itself as a contribution to this ongoing discussion that extends beyond Germany. Stories of heroes and fighters, perpetrators and victims, martyrs and traitors are told. The author constructs important areas of literary anti-fascism in the GDR and analyzes its particular ideal and artistic nature as well as its dependencies on SED politics. Barck not only examines well-known Antifa texts, for example by Stephan Hermlin, Bodo Uhse, Bruno Apitz or Peter Weiss. She pays particular attention to the lesser known, repressed and excluded evidence of the confrontation with the Nazi past, which she seeks out in the tension of historical and literary simultaneity and non-simultaneity. In an impressive synopsis of these texts with archival materials of various kinds, the image of a complex, identity-forming communicative network emerges, which was always strongly determined and controlled by the SED leadership, but at the same time was always characterized by strong "obstinacy".
