Glasnost in the GDR?: the East German Writers Congress of 1987

Abstract

By the late 1980s many East German authors had for years called for expanding what could be said publicly about the ruling regime. The ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED) was quick to suppress such rhetoric, however, and many fellow writers condemned outspoken colleagues for providing ammunition to the West. Yet after years of struggle, the year 1987 witnessed an eruption of public criticism during the Tenth Writers Congress, hosted by the East German Writers Union, the governmentdominated organization to which all authors had to belong. These congresses were typically propaganda events, but in 1987, inspired by Mikhail Gorbachev's calls for greater openness in the USSR, several authors, in front of the media, interrogated many aspects of the dictatorship, stunning the SED elite and secret police in the process. This article explores the congress, tracing the Writers Union's role in shaping debates about freedom of expression. Changes in the preceding years meant that by 1987, critical views had become more widespread, including among those who had once condemned nonconformists. Consequently, at the congress a critical mass of writers succeeded in expanding the limits of speech, joining a wider call for liberalization across the communist world.