Today, when we live in a what is called Western democracy here... you're not taken seriously all the time. You can write what you want because nobody cares about it. But at that time, they cared very much about what you wrote, so that's an entirely different feeling.

A Western writer came up to me and said, how come nobody at this demonstration spoke of German unity? I told him, because it isn't on the agenda. People were interested in having another, better GDR, another, better socialism.

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.

A foreman in the East wouldn't know how many workers he would have the next day, because part of his working force had left the system to go to West Germany.

In the question of peace, people spoke up and demonstrated for peace and against the threat of war, the threat of atomic war.

We certainly hoped perestroika would win out and that there would be changes. We knew all along that socialism could flourish only with a certain amount of freedom and democracy.

The idea of a socialism with a human face was something that I absolutely could support, because it was my idea from the very first.