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.

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 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.

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

You must have, if socialism was to succeed, a socialism with lots of democratic elements in it.

If we had had time and the occasion to develop a new socialism in the GDR, socialism with a human face, with democracy, this might have been an example also to West Germany. The development would have run the other way.

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.