I defended myself at the first opportunity I had, which was a meeting of writers in which I proved that Honecker had based his whole attack.

Even in West Germany in the beginning, people wanted a kind of socialism.

A great number of people in the East German parts had been Nazis, so the change of mind was not altogether there.

I certainly hoped that in the Eastern part of Germany, what was just beginning to be called the German Democratic Republic, you would develop a system of socialism with freedom and democracy.

People who were not active in the intellectual life of the country could go on without feeling restricted, except they could not go where they wanted. They could not cross the border to the West whenever they liked.

People in the East looked toward the West with longing. They would have liked to have the same comforts, the same goods, the same chances. They saw a system that demanded of them sacrifices with nothing but promises for the future.

Show me one place where a whole government is concerned with a book of a writer and is concerned enough to suppress it.