[In the following essay, Clarke examines Hein's rejection of Western capitalism and his desire to establish a social system based upon shared personal and political values.]

In the years following the ‘Wende’ of autumn 1989, journalists, academics and politicians instrumentalised the collapse of state socialism as evidence for the unsustainability of all alternatives to liberal, capitalist democracy as it exists in the West today. Whilst Francis Fukuyama proposed his Hegelian thesis of ‘The End of History,’¹ those who, as the Iron Curtain fell, had still clung to the idea of an improved form of socialism were accused of having failed to recognise in time the superiority of the capitalist system. In the case of the GDR, this charge was levelled not only at writers like Christoph Hein, as I will show in this article, but also at the dissident intellectuals who had played such a significant role in the bloodless revolution of 1989.² Yet, as Rolf Jucker has convincingly shown, such arguments themselves paradoxically raise the capitalist system to the level of a ‘real existing utopia’ by praising the status quo as the best of all possible worlds.³ The thesis of the ‘End of History’ must, therefore, bracket out all those instances in which a society dominated by the market proves to be incapable of delivering on the promises of its champions.

One significant example is provided here by the East German writers Daniela Dahn and Klaus Schlesinger, who both point to the inability of liberal democracy as we know it to guarantee consistently the human rights of citizens, and to the readiness of the state even in the West to resort to violent means in order to preserve order and protect the interests of money and power. Schlesinger, for example, illustrates this state of affairs with reference to his experiences amongst squatters in West Berlin in the 1980s.⁴ From another perspective, Wolf Biermann and Volker Braun both point to the burden which the capitalist system places on the environment, thus endangering the very survival of the human race. This, they claim, is cause enough to question the notion that human society cannot be better organised.⁵

In his acceptance speech for the Erich Fried Prize of 1990, Christoph Hein also clearly rejects the thesis of the ‘End of History,’ insisting that the ‘Zug der Geschichte’ is still very much in motion and far from having reached any imagined destination.⁶ Here Hein describes capitalist society as being not merely in need of change but also fundamentally destined to change, on the grounds that it is incapable of catering for a basic human need. This need, however, is not simply material:

Eine menschliche Einrichtung, sei es eine Familie oder sei es ein Staat, die nur noch—und sei es bestens—funktioniert, aber die nichts darüber hinaus verbindet, die von keiner gemeinsamen Idee getragen und verbunden ist, ist tot und wird verfallen. Es ist eine Besonderheit des Menschen, die ihn groβ macht und ihn gefährdet, daβ er diese merkwürdige Kleinigkeit einer Vision benötigt, um existieren zu können.

(MJ, 61)

In the following I will demonstrate the central role which the notion of a society founded on common beliefs and goals plays in Hein's literary texts before and after the ‘Wende.’ His critique of ‘real existing socialism’ can be read in this context as the analysis of a society in which an authoritarian government attempts, often by coercive means, to create the appearance of social consensus, whilst at the same time calling into question the possibility of a more genuine solidarity. Hein's critique of the GDR regime equally shows the extent to which the SED abandoned the hope of creating a socialist utopia at some point in the future, and how the party instead tried to make good this loss of vision by seeking to satisfy the immediate material needs and desires of the population. However, according to Hein, capitalism also consistently undermines the possibility of the shared ‘vision’ which he sees as essential for any society.

The short story “Moses Tod,” first published in 1994, can be interpreted as an illustration of this position. Here, the entry of the Israelites into the Promised Land is retold as an allegory of betrayed revolution: Kaleb, the successor of Moses as leader of the Israelites, promises his people a ‘Himmel auf Erden’ which should make superfluous any desire for a ‘Himmel über ihrem Land,’ in other words for any kind of religious or otherwise transcendental belief (EK, 123; my emphasis). Kaleb thus wishes to persuade the Israelites that they have reached a place in which it is no longer necessary to hope for anything more than that which has already been achieved. The naive Israelites seem to have accepted Kaleb's description of their new home as the best of all possible worlds, although the ‘unwürdige Chronist’ who reports on these events refrains from confirming Kaleb's claim. The fact that Kaleb appears to have liquidated the other Israelite leaders, who are accused of treachery for having doubted the possibility of arriving in the Promised Land, suggests perhaps a reference to Stalinism in the Soviet Union here. On the other hand, the fact that Kaleb himself abandons the journey towards utopia by simply declaring the status quo to be an already achieved ‘Himmel auf Erden’ is reminiscent of the behaviour of the SED and of other communist parties in Eastern Europe. In the GDR specifically, the SED under Honecker became increasingly orientated towards the attempt to gain approval by meeting the consumer needs and desires of the population, thereby seeking to compensate for the lost promise of communism. The fact that this consumer-oriented attempt to legitimise the SED regime remained unsuccessful is closely linked to the failings of the GDR economy,⁷ yet it equally demonstrates the extent to which the SED had in reality abandoned its efforts to instill a faith in the common utopian project of communism into the GDR population.

The parable of “Moses Tod” can, however, be understood in a very different way. Just as the Israelites spent forty years in the desert, so the inhabitants of the GDR were compelled to spend forty years under SED rule. On arrival in the Promised Land of capitalism, they discover a ‘Himmel auf Erden,’ a consumer paradise in which, if not all, then certainly the majority of their material desires are satisfied. As the discourse of the ‘End of History’ shows, however, this is also a society which has lost hope in the possibility of change for the better. In this second reading of Hein's story, Kaleb can be seen as a politician in the capitalist system (does Kaleb equal Kohl?⁸) who denies the necessity of any utopian project on the grounds that all that could be achieved has already been achieved. What is clear in both of these interpretations of Hein's story is the author's concern to underline the abandonment of any collective hope for a better future, i.e. of that ‘gemeinsame […] Idee’ of which he speaks in May 1990 and which, he claims, is the necessary foundation of human society.

As Dennis Tate's study from the early nineteen-eighties shows,⁹ the search for community is a central theme of early GDR prose fiction. A number of novels of the late fifties and early sixties, such as Wolf's Der geteilte Himmel (1963), Reimann's Ankunft im Alltag (1961) and Fühmann's Kabelkran und blauer Peter (1961), tell of young intellectuals entering the world of industry in search of a common ‘Wir’ which is primarily to be established through solidarity with those working-class figures alongside whom they work for a time ‘in der Produktion,’ and through identification with the party which claims to express the will of this class. This identification is thus closely connected with the common project of building socialism in the GDR. According to Tate's description of this development, identification with the SED ends at the latest with the Biermann affair of 1976. The party no longer appears to show an interest in the contribution of writers to socialism, and a dialogue between intellectuals and the party leadership no longer seems possible. On the other hand, the working-class equally fails to exhibit any collective revolutionary or utopian impulses, a situation which, for example, Erich Loest's suppressed 1978 novel Es geht seinen Gang oder Mühen in unserer Ebene clearly documents.

Christoph Hein does not belong to that generation of disillusioned writers described by Tate. In the first instance, his biography as the son of a Protestant pastor excluded him from any youthful identification with the GDR state and the SED. The difficulties that Hein experienced at school, later when attempting to study in the GDR, and then during his time as an in-house playwright (‘Dramaturg’) at the Berlin ‘Volksbühne’ in the 1970s, doubtless contributed to the author's continuing sense of distance from the socialist state.¹⁰ As Hein himself observes:

noch bevor ich in der Lage war, mir ernsthaft die Frage zu stellen, ob und wie ich mich in die Gesellschaft einbringen sollte, teilte der Staat mir mit, daβ er auf meine Mitarbeit keinen Wert legte.¹¹

Nevertheless, Hein's earliest works for the stage bear witness to an interest on the author's part in the possibilities of collective action in the name of the common goal of socialism.

For example, in Hein's ‘Kinderspiel’ Vom hungrigen Hennecke, which received its first performance in 1974, the party activists Willi and Paul spur the starving Hennecke on to ever greater feats in the name of the coming new society. Unfortunately, Hennecke remains the prisoner of his own material interests: he works in order to fill his belly or to afford a bottle of schnapps, and not primarily in order to help build socialism, as a resigned Willi and Paul are eventually forced to recognize:

Allein wir meinen—wir sagen es vorerst nur leise—Es ist noch immer nicht der neue Mensch, der jetzt zu seiner eigenen Feier läuft.

Zwar arbeitete er auf äuβerst neue Weise Jedoch auf äuβerst alte Weise er nun säuft.¹²

After this retrospective on the early post-war years, the comedy Schlötel, oder Was solls, which was premiered on the same evening as Hennecke, examines the relationship between the workers and the party at the beginning of the nineteen-seventies. Whilst Willi and Paul in Hein's play for children still see their role in terms of the transmission of revolutionary ideals to the masses, the representatives of the SED in Schlötel are cynical enough to recognise that their planning targets are best achieved by means of a barely disguised bribery of the workers. In this respect, the party no longer appears to consider the creation of a shared faith in the project of socialism to be a prerequisite for success, as the attitude of a representative party official, the ‘Parteisekretär’ Netzker, only too clearly demonstrates: ‘Ich will Sekretär sein, kein Pfaffe,’ he insists (Sch, 170). For Netzker, ‘[gehört] das sozialistische Bewuβtsein … zum Überbau, das Sparkonto ist Basis’ (Sch, 177). Starting from this position, any attempt on the part of the SED and its officials to persuade the workers or to inspire in them commitment to a common set of goals, as attempted by Willi and Paul in Hennecke, becomes unnecessary. The promise of short-term material benefits for the individual is seen as being just as effective, if not more effective, than reliance on the political beliefs of the workers. As Netzker observes, ‘für eine Prämie baut der Teufel auch eine Kirche’ (Sch, 177).

Hein's critique of party functionaries in this play does not exclude a critical assessment of the eponymous protagonist, the intellectual idealist Schlötel, who will not accept the validity of any private interest which does not contribute to the common project of building socialism. Yet Hein's portrayal of the workers, who appear to be bereft of any sense of cohesion or common cause, is generally negative: they tend towards violence, are sex-obsessed and often drunk. Not even Archipenko, a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, is able to hold on to his old ideals, dedicating his time instead to his sexual adventures.

In the novella Der fremde Freund (1982), Hein formulates his critique of the party and its failure to establish a ‘gemeinsame Idee’ in GDR society in still harsher terms. In Schlötel, the SED is portrayed primarily as promoting materialistic self-interest as a means of making good its utopian deficit and of motivating the workforce. However, in Claudia's narration of her adolescent experiences, the reader is shown the extent to which the party is prepared to secure its authority by coercive or violent means, a strategy which simultaneously precludes the development of any alternative set of common ideals outside the regime's own ideology. The SED's claim to a monopoly in the interpreting of social phenomena and of the whole course of history, which remained a basic tenet of the party's self-legitimation,¹³ was fundamentally called into question by the June 17 uprising of 1953 and, as a consequence, was brutally defended by the party. Katharina and Claudia, however, seek to arrive at a common world-view independently of the SED state. Or, more precisely, they attempt to make a choice between two opposing world-views, namely those of Christianity and of Marxism. Interestingly, the truth value of these two competing ideologies is of relatively little interest to the girls. Instead, their concern is to achieve a common set of beliefs which will bind them closer together:

In dem Sommer, der unserem 14. Geburtstag folgte, würden wir uns, so war verabredet, zusammen zu einer Antwort entschlieβen, um dann, an Gott glaubend oder ihn leugnend, durch eine weitere Gemeinsamkeit verbunden zu sein.

(DfF, 147)

Yet Claudia soon learns how fragile such solidarity can be, especially when it is formed in opposition to the ideology of those in power.

Although the state by no means carries the sole responsibility for the failure of Claudia and Katharina's friendship, it nevertheless exerts a distinct pressure on the two girls in order to separate them and withdraw from them the possibility of experiencing solidarity in the name of a world-view of their own choosing. With her denunciation of her former friend, however, Claudia does appear to achieve identification with the ‘Wir’ of her conforming classmates, amongst whom the Christian Katharina has become an outcast. This new sense of belonging increases for Claudia when she is permitted to continue her education in a nearby ‘Oberschule,’ where she appears on her first day with a symbolically red briefcase, signalling her new identification with the party and the state. The officially proclaimed mission of the GDR, as stated in the constitution of 1949, ‘den Nationalsozialismus und Militarismus zu überwinden und das von ihnen verschuldete Unrecht wieder gutzumachen,’¹⁴ provides Claudia with access to a further communal ‘Wir’ which, like her attachment to Katharina, is of a highly emotional character. The figure of Anne Frank, whose diaries move Claudia to tears, serves partly as a replacement for Katharina, but Claudia also identifies herself with the victims of Nazism as a whole.

Central to Claudia's development, however, is the discovery that her favourite uncle betrayed his social-democrat colleagues to the National Socialist regime during the Second World War. Uncle Gerhard's crime serves not only as an example of the fragility of relationships of solidarity based on shared beliefs or political principles, but also makes clear to Claudia the significance of her own actions in having betrayed her comparable solidarity with Katharina in the service of another authoritarian state. Thus Claudia's shock at her uncle's actions is formulated in terms of self-recrimination, as she belatedly assumes her own guilt for having betrayed her friend to the coercive SED regime. Claudia's subsequent refusal to enter into any relationship of solidarity with other human beings, summed up in her motto ‘Jeder für sich’ from the book's introductory dream sequence (DfF, 5), is therefore perhaps best understood not as a mistrust of others, but as a mistrust of herself and her own proven capacity to betray those with whom she is allied when she is placed under pressure by the GDR authorities. Thus, in this text, the socialist regime is portrayed as creating a society in which the establishment of solidarity in the name of common ideas or goals is undermined by the state's determination to preserve its ideological hegemony. The absence of this experience of solidarity in Claudia's life, represented by the loss of Katharina, results, however, in a sense of meaninglessness, in which human existence is reduced to senseless routine and the passing of time cannot be invested with any sense of purpose or direction: ‘[Die Zeit] verläuft mit der Stupidität eines Perpendikelschlags … Eine Bewegung, die zu nichts führt … und deren einzige Sensation der irgendwann eintretende Stillstand ist’ (DfF, 197–8).

In Hein's Der Tangospieler (1989), the reader encounters the academic bureaucrat Hans-Peter Dallow, a man who cannot come to terms with life outside the state apparatus. The routine of his former position as an assistant in a university history department offered him, he believed, a completely predictable future, a ‘gedankenlose[s] Dahinleben’ (T, 115) from which he is suddenly expelled into a structureless freedom. Compared to the sense of disorientation which Dallow feels after his release from jail, even his old cell is a preferable environment, since at least it had the virtue of offering an ‘ausnahmslos geregelte[s] Leben’ (T, 114) not dissimilar to that which he once enjoyed as an academic.

Initially, then, Hein's text seems to echo Hannah Arendt's description of a ‘totalitarianism’ in which only the institutions of the state can provide ‘atomized, isolated individuals’¹⁵ with a sense of having a stable place in the world. However, Hein does point to an alternative, whilst simultaneously demonstrating how it is stifled by the SED. This alternative is represented by that vaguely defined group which expresses its support for a ‘Sozialismus mit menschlichem Antlitz’ and demonstrates its solidarity with the Prague reformers of 1968. The young woman in Dallow's room who listens, weeping, to the news of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia serves as a symbol for this form of solidarity in the name of a common cause. She shows herself to be capable of empathy with complete strangers merely on the basis of their commonly held beliefs, whilst Dallow, on the other hand, is unable to establish any kind of close human relationship, not even with his family or the women he sleeps with. Furthermore, the woman's sense of solidarity with those who share her views also makes her capable of action, as in her plan to join friends in Berlin in order to protest against the invasion, whereas Dallow is unable to act and make decisions about his own future (‘ein groβes weiβes, erschreckendes Blatt’ (T, 37), as he terms it) until that future is clearly mapped out for him by the authority of the state.

As Dallow's concern over the consequences of the woman's apparent determination to protest in support of the Prague reformers shows,¹⁶ he is only too aware of the coercion which the state is liable to employ in order to suppress the development of such alternative loyalties. He is nevertheless drawn to the young woman and all that she represents, but can only find an expression for these emotions by making love to her, an act which takes on overtones of rape and thereby mirrors the violence which the Warsaw Pact states, including the GDR, mete out to the Czechoslovak reformers. Finally, the tanks which Dallow witnesses moving in convoy towards Prague leave him in no doubt as to the consequences of the attempt to establish a ‘gemeinsame Idee’ in opposition to the authority of the party. Yet, as in the case of Claudia, Dallow's rejection of commitment to such an endangered solidarity is accompanied by an awareness of leading a senseless existence. In this case, the ordered life provided by the state fails to offer an adequate substitute for the shared goals and ideals which could give meaning to the life of the individual. Thus, the secure routine and predictable life-plan which the GDR state offers Dallow is compared to the circular track upon which a toy train (i.e. Dallow himself) ceaselessly turns. Here the experience of movement belies the lack of direction in the protagonist's life (T, 110).

Hein's portrayal of the GDR state at the end of the 1980s, and thus on the eve of the ‘Wende’ is therefore anything but hopeful. There is no indication in Hein's prose fiction that the project of socialism might be reinvigorated in East Germany, nor that the population of the GDR, with the exception of the small minority who cling to the ideals of the Prague Spring in Der Tangospieler, might be prepared to support such an enterprise. It is, after all, the Claudias and the Dallows, that is to say, the alienated and the conforming, whom Hein makes the central figures of his fiction, not those who are drawn to a new socialist solidarity, and who, in Der Tangospieler, remain marginal representatives of a dwindling hope. It is perhaps surprising, then, that in the first months of the ‘Wende’ Hein so forcefully defended the continued existence of the GDR as a socialist alternative to the Federal Republic. Furthermore, the way in which Hein expressed his support for this option has drawn harsh criticism.

The case against Hein is put most strongly by Eckhardt Thiele, who accuses the author of having, along with other GDR intellectuals, failed to recognise that the existence of the GDR was, it is alleged, inseparable from the power of the ‘Stalinist’ SED (‘Ohne Stalinismus keine DDR’).¹⁷ Thiele regards Hein's concern for the continued existence of the GDR as evidence of his basic loyalty to the SED, whereas the people were, he claims, capable of freeing themselves from the party's power and acknowledging the only genuine alternative to the SED regime, i.e. unification and the acceptance of liberal capitalist democracy.¹⁸ Thiele is not alone in establishing the link between Hein's ‘törichten Hoffnungen’¹⁹ and the author's supposed internalised Stalinism. Reinhard Andress is less scathing, but makes the point that Hein's language in public statements during the ‘Wende,’ particularly his suggestion that Leipzig should be awarded the title ‘Heldenstadt der DDR,’ recalls official SED formulations.²⁰ William J. Niven asserts that, in his apparent sympathy for the institutions of state socialism, preferred to a vision of capitalism which has little to do with its realities, Hein occasionally becomes an apologist for the regime and thus ‘Stalinist’ not merely in tone.²¹

I would argue, however, that Hein's comments on the ‘Wende’ can be much better understood when these accusations of (unconscious) Stalinism are abandoned in order to understand the author's interventions in the debate over the future of East Germany in the context of the critique of GDR society as described above. What appears to interest Hein most about the demonstrations of 1989 is the possibility that they might represent the re-emergence of a popular enthusiasm for a democratic form of socialism and thus a return of the kind of solidarity, encompassing both ordinary people and intellectuals, which the SED regime appeared to have stifled long ago in its determination to secure its exclusive hold on power. The re-emergence of this sense of common purpose, as Hein understands it, must be preserved against a possible take-over by a Western model of capitalist democracy. Thus, for Hein, the early phase of the East German revolution is not only an ‘Überwindung des Stalinismus’ (AK, 167), but equally the emergence of an alternative to the ‘Ellbogengesellschaft’ of the West (AK, 250), in which, according to Hein, the possibilities of solidarity remain limited to a great extent.

In the 1980s, Hein's critique of the West focused largely on an examination of the situation of intellectuals in the Federal Republic, especially in comparison with their counterparts in the East. For Hein, the subjugation of all values to the interests of profit, which he sees as characteristic of the capitalist system, necessarily leads to a ‘Ruin der Kultur,’ in which particularly literature becomes the victim of a ‘Bestseller-Mentalität’ (AK, 84–5). More seriously, however, the West German intellectual increasingly loses his ability to experience a genuine sense of solidarity with others. Hein accuses the disappointed ranks of the 1968 generation of having abandoned their collective belief in the possibility of a better world. They seek to make good this loss, Hein claims, by means of a localised engagement for a variety of disconnected causes which can be adopted or abandoned at will. As Hein writes in his 1983 review of Peter Sloterdijk's Kritik der zynischen Vernunft, the various issues which interest Western intellectuals of the Left are basically interchangeable, more a matter of fashion than of lasting and meaningful commitment:

Da war oder ist man für die Frauen und für die Sintis, für die Homosexuellen und gegen den Numerus clausus, für die französische Küche und die Abtreibung und gegen Gewalt, für den Wald und gegen ‘BILD,’ für den New York-Urlaub und gegen die Hundescheiβe.

(Öa, 147)

A similar attitude is evident in the behaviour of the West German academic Horst who appears briefly in Der fremde Freund. He seems capable of talking about any topic without ever giving any indication of being concerned personally with the issues at stake, which are reduced here to elements of the general party chatter:

Der Professor aus Bochum sprach über die Immanenzkritik der ‘Ökofreaks’ … Übergangslos sprach er dann von Sprachverschluderung und Amerikanismen. Er konnte offenbar über alles reden. Auf mich wirkte er wie eine Comicfigur, die beständig kleine runde Blasen vollspricht und sie dann irgendwohin segeln läβt.

(DfF, 90)

Hein understands his position as an intellectual in a socialist country very differently. He believes that he, in contrast with his Western colleagues, is still in a position to be able to experience and to demonstrate a genuine solidarity with those around the world who are struggling towards the goal of socialism. As Hein states in the essay quoted above: ‘Alle Probleme und Schwierigkeiten dieser Länder und meines Landes werden auch meine Probleme bleiben’ (Öa, 152). The subtext of this claim is clear: in the socialist state of the GDR, and in spite of the many deformations of the ideals of socialism which this regime represents, it still remains possible to partake in the hope for a more humane society, a hope which is shared by others, not just in the GDR but also in socialist countries around the world. In Hein's speeches and interviews around the time of the ‘Wende,’ the author consistently regards this potential for solidarity, which he projects onto the demonstrators of autumn 1989, as being under threat from the lure of Western consumer society.

Hein was far from alone among GDR intellectuals in regarding the ‘Wende,’ or perhaps more precisely that phase of the ‘Wende’ until the fall of the Berlin Wall, as the rebirth of a common faith in the possibility of creating a socialist society. Christa Wolf, for example, speaks in retrospect, of the ‘zum Ersticken dicht[en] Konsistenz unseres gemeinsamen Erwartungshorizonts’ during autumn 1989,²² but comes eventually to the conclusion that she and other intellectuals were mistaken in seeing the mass demonstrations against the SED regime as an expression of the collective desire to build a democratic form of socialism.²³ Nor was it only the writers who placed a distinct emphasis on the need to preserve a sense of solidarity and common goals in the GDR after the revolution. The first programme of ‘Neues Forum,’ for example, speaks of the need for a new ‘Spielraum für wirtschaftliche Initiative, aber keine Entartung in die Ellbogengesellschaft. … Wir wollen freie Menschen, die doch gemeinschaftlich handeln.’ Similarly, groups such as ‘Demokratie Jetzt’ and ‘Demokratischer Aufbruch’ at this time still placed a distinct emphasis on defending the ‘Gemeinschaftswerte’ of socialism.²⁴

Like so many aspects of the activities of GDR authors and intellectuals both before and during the ‘Wende,’ this faith on the part of some, including Hein, in the solidarity of the GDR population and their basic consensus for the building of a new socialism has inevitably attracted retrospective criticism. Bernd Hüppauf asserts, for example, that this belief rested on the misapprehension that a ‘verkappter sozialistischer Kern’ was concealed in the demonstrators' cries of ‘Wir sind das Volk!’²⁵ Monika Maron, on the other hand, accuses her colleagues of having idealised the GDR as a site of mass solidarity, even though they themselves, she claims, often failed to support the victims of the SED regime.²⁶ Nevertheless, and whatever the truth of the views which these writers and intellectuals held about the population of the GDR during these months, it is only possible to understand some of Hein's (in retrospect) more questionable statements when they are placed in the context of the assumptions described above.

For example, Hein's belief in the GDR as a bastion of solidarity and consensus leads him to denigrate those who choose to leave for the West, ascribing to them the egotism he regards as characteristic of a profit-driven capitalist society, whilst at the same time attributing to the East German security forces the desire for solidarity with the mass of the GDR population. Thus, in an interview at the beginning of November 1989, Hein claims that ‘die Leute, die jetzt noch gehen, nicht Reformen vermissen, sondern ein gröβeres Auto’ (AK, 128). Only shortly before this, on 28 October, Hein had called upon his audience in the ‘Erlöser-Kirche’ to see in the police and in the ‘Stasi’ possible allies who were suffering as a result of their alienation from the people:

Ich kann mir nicht vorstellen, daβ die Männer in den Sicherheitskräften über dieses Miβverhältnis wirklich glücklich sind, daβ sie vom Volk eben nicht geachtet werden und daβ das Volk durchaus nicht das Gefühl hat, es seien seine Schutzkräfte.

(AK, 173)

Whilst this statement may be understood as an attempt to calm a tense situation and thus to avoid any further violence on either side, it remains a strikingly positive view of the security forces, given that Hein's speech begins with explicit criticism of police brutality against protestors in Berlin on 7–8 October 1989. Indeed, less than a week later, the author became part of an independent commission investigating this violence.²⁷ Hein may well be correct in suggesting that the ordinary policeman may be closer in sympathy to the demonstrators he is ordered to attack than to the ‘Befehlsgeber’ whom Hein sees as primarily responsible (AK, 172). Nonetheless, this assertion seems unusually generous when contrasted with his willingness to assume that those leaving the GDR for the West have only materialistic motives.

The leader of the SED and of the GDR regime, Erich Honecker, also gains Hein's sympathy when the latter interprets the elderly Head of State's actions in terms of affiliation to that same common socialist project which he also attributes to the protestors of the ‘Wende.’ In his speech at the now famous Alexanderplatz demonstration of 4 November, Hein reminded the crowd of the fate of Honecker, describing him as a former idealist whose dream of a true socialist society has become distorted by the circumstances of its realisation:

Und ich glaube, auch für diesen alten Mann ist unsere Gesellschaft keinesfalls die Erfüllung seines Traums. Selbst er, an der Spitze des Staates stehend und für ihn, für seine Erfolge, aber auch für seine Fehler, Versäumnisse und Verbrechen besonders verantwortlich, selbst er war den verkrusteten Strukturen gegenüber fast ohnmächtig.

(AK, 176)

Whilst Hein does not seek to exculpate Honecker, he does encourage his audience to sympathise with the old man as someone who shares a similar dream to their own. This perspective on Honecker is echoed in the short allegorical story “Kein Seeweg nach Indien,” originally published in English in Time in June 1990. Here the figure of ‘der groβe Kapitän’ who leads the search for utopia is ultimately shown as a tragic figure who, having lost touch with his ‘Vision,’ ‘ohne es zu bemerken oder sich einzugestehen,’ becomes a ‘hilflos[er], verängstigt[er] Greis’ when he finally realises what he has done.²⁸ Hein's stance towards Honecker as the leader of the SED and of the GDR regime, whilst critical, is thus fundamentally positive in that he sees in the leader of the party a man who basically shares the ideals of those demonstrating against him, even if his attempts to put those ideals into practice have proved disastrous.

For Hein, the Monday demonstrations in Leipzig represented not only the positive expression of a new consensus amongst the population, but also a ‘fürchterliche Destabilisierung des Staates’ (AK, 176). The way out of this dangerous situation, as he sees it in one interview from 29 October 1989, is a political reform which would make the protests ‘überflüssig’ (AK, 176), presumably by taking measures to which the protestors can assent and thus re-establishing a consensus between the people and the state. However, it is not merely the GDR state itself which is in peril due to the gulf which has opened up between the policies of its rulers and the ideals of its citizens, but also that ‘Konsens für eine sozialistische Gesellschaft’ (AK, 205) which Hein interprets as being central to the demonstrations of the ‘Wende.’ If this consensus cannot be extended to encompass the politicians who run the state as well as the people on the streets, then it will, Hein fears, be broken down by the temptations of the capitalist West: ‘Der grelle Unterschied in der Wirtschaft, dem Konsumangebot und in der Währung wird wieder eine bedrohliche Gefahr für das Land und den Staat’ (AK, 187).

It is clear that Hein's ideal is the reformulation of the common ‘Vision’ of socialism, not its abandonment in favour of the extreme individualism and materialism he sees in the capitalist system. Hein's play Die Ritter der Tafelrunde (originally written circa 1986,²⁹ but widely produced during 1989 and 1990) can be read as an allegory of the process of renewal which Hein hopes to see become a reality during the ‘Wende.’ Artus, as leader of the Knights in their utopian quest for the Grail, has reached a point where he must admit that their methods are no longer appropriate to the world they now find themselves in. However, this does not mean that the quest for the Grail is per se a failed enterprise. As Artus states, ‘wenn der Gral für uns unerreichbar wurde, müssen wir nach anderen, nie gesehenen Wegen suchen, um zu ihm zu gelangen’ (RT, 191). Indeed, the search for the Grail is an essential aspect of the human condition: ‘Solange Menschen leben, werden sie auf der Suche nach dem Gral sein’ (RT, 181). This continued quest must, therefore, now be handed over to a new generation in the shape of Artus's son, Mordret. However, the son's destruction of his father's ideals does not automatically imply that this new generation will live without common goals: instead, they will find ‘ein[en] neu[en], ein[en] ander[en] Weg’ (RT, 193) which, by implication, will have the same power to bind together those involved in this common project as did the old means of seeking the Grail for Artus's knights.³⁰ It is for this reason that Artus can accept his son's destruction of all he has held dear, despite the fear that this process inspires in him.

As Niven observes, Die Ritter der Tafelrunde is thus prescriptive rather than prophetic, portraying the transfer of power from the ideals of one generation to those of another, as Hein hoped it would come about in the GDR.³¹ The necessity of these new ideals, or new ways to search for the Grail of a better society, is made clear in the experiences of those figures in the play who have lost their faith in the old order. Mordret becomes the victim of a debilitating sense of meaninglessness,³² and even Jeschute, who remains distant from the ideology of her husband Orilus, is disturbed to think that the Knights too are beginning to have their doubts: ‘Es war so angenehm zu wissen, daβ wenigstens ihr sicher seid. … Plötzlich tut sich ein Loch auf, riesig and bodenlos, and wir werden fallen and fallen and fallen’ (RT, 178–9). Interestingly, it is in taking up his father's challenge to assume power and find a new way to the Grail that Mordret becomes able to act decisively, recalling the determination of the young woman in Der Tangospieler whom I have already compared with the immobilised Dallow. Thus it can be said that, on the evidence of texts such as Der fremde Freund, Der Tangospieler and Die Ritter der Tafelrunde, Christoph Hein sees it as essential for the existential well-being of individuals that they be able to identify with shared values or goals, which, in turn, allow them to experience their lives as meaningful and purposeful, rather than as a directionless and undifferentiated passing of time.

Hein's assessment of the actual historical result of the process of revision and renewal, which he describes in ideal terms in Die Ritter der Tafelrunde, is to be found in his one-act sequel to the play, In Acht and Bann. This text was commissioned by the Deutsches Nationaltheater in Weimar as part of an evening on the theme ‘Deutschland zehn Jahre nach dem Mauerfall,’ and was premiered in April 1999. Here the hardliners of Die Ritter der Tafelrunde are still trapped in their illusion of being the rightful leaders of the people, even though they now languish in jail, and hold daily cabinet meetings for a shadow government. Artus, however, is disappointed to find that the new path to the Grail, which he believed would necessarily be produced by Mordret and his generation, has failed to materialise. Mordret has become a follower of the old enemy Klingsor, who can be easily interpreted as being representative of the Western capitalist system, and the only alternative which the youth of the nation has to offer is represented by the ‘Junge Ritter,’ a group who want to free Artus and place him back on the throne. As Artus's repeated complaint that his son no longer talks to him indicates, the old king still harbours hopes that a dialogue might be possible between the representatives of the old way of seeking the Grail and Mordret's generation (AB, 120–4). Artus still clearly represents the point of view that his means of striving for the Grail have failed, but he is disturbed to see that the utopian project has not been reformulated.

If the demise of the Round Table and the end of the SED dictatorship represent the opportunity for establishing a new meaning-giving consensus, then capitalism, as Hein portrays it, is not capable of meeting this challenge. The consequences of this state of affairs are described, for example, in Hein's first major prose work of the 1990s, Das Napoleon-Spiel (1993), in which the cynical West German narrator distinguishes between those he considers to be ‘Knechte’ and ‘Spieler’ like himself. The former are characterised, he claims, by their need for ‘unerschütterliche Werte, eindeutige Handlungsanweisungen and eine Moral’ which help to create what Wörle describes as a ‘durchaus angenehmes Paradies’ (NS, 50). He regards himself as being disillusioned enough to recognize the fragility of the values which the ‘Knechte’ believe to be unshakable, and consequently avoids identifying himself with any of the meaning-giving projects or world views which society places on offer. Wörle's wariness in this respect can be traced back to his childhood, in which he saw the collapse of the ordered world of his home town at the end of the Second World War, losing, like Dallow in Der Tangospieler, those certainties which he assumed would dominate his future life.³³ The death of his mother, who is unable to bear the loss of her role as a lady of Stettin society, provides a further example of the pitfalls of identifying oneself with the roles placed on offer by a particular society, roles whose stability is merely an illusion.

Wörle extricates himself from what he sees as the dangers of such identification by moving without commitment from game to game, using other human beings like billiard balls to achieve the game-playing objectives he sets for himself. However, it soon becomes clear to the reader that these games nevertheless function as a ‘Mittelpunkt’ in Wörle's life (NS, 82), offering him ‘eiserne Regeln’ (NS, 175) which belie his claim to act in complete freedom. Wörle thus does in fact seem to need some kind of project or goal to which he can dedicate himself, yet believes himself to live in a world in which the permanent adoption of any such means of giving structure and purpose to one's existence is inherently dangerous. However, without his game he becomes the victim of a ‘Gefühl der Leere’ and of a ‘Sinnlosigkeit’ (NS, 97), reminiscent of that identifiable in Hein's GDR protagonists. This experience of meaninglessness may be understood, I would suggest, as the result of a Western capitalist society in which the projects placed on offer to the individual in order to help make sense of his or her life are recognised as being essentially temporary and unstable, a vision which is echoed in Hein's opening speech to the 1994 Frankfurt Book Fair. The modern market economy, Hein asserts, demands from the individual, that s/he show him or herself to be endlessly adaptable in order to meet the demands of the market and to abandon old positions and world-views on demand. In such a society, no-one can afford to become too attached to ‘eine einzige Identität’ (MJ, 57).

Whilst Das Napoleon-Spiel does not offer a solution to Wörle's condition, it might be suggested, in the context of Hein's comments on capitalism and the ‘Wende,’ that the author would propose a set of durable common ideals, possibly framed in terms of a belief in progress towards socialism, as a means of escaping that ‘Lebensleere’ which Wörle experiences. As Hein's interview with Günter Gaus in March 1990 shows, the author regards socialism, defined broadly as ‘die Hoffnung auf eine menschliche Gesellschaft,’³⁴ as a transhistorical ideal which survives the catastrophes associated with it (for example, the end of the Prague Spring): ‘Ich werde meine Meinung nicht ändern, weil irgend etwas verlorengegangen ist oder irgend etwas gesiegt hat. Da will ich bei mir bleiben.’³⁵ Similarly, in his acceptance speech for the Erich Fried Prize, Hein speaks of the rebirth of the ideal of a socialist society after the demise of one of its failed manifestations, thereby insisting again on the survival of this principle in spite of historical events.³⁶

The continued relevance of this ideal is given further expression in the story “Ein älterer Herr, federleicht,” written, according to Andrea Hilbk, in 1990.³⁷ As in “Moses Tod,” Hein takes up a biblical theme, in this case the story of Noah, yet anachronistically places the legendary figure in contemporary Berlin: whereas the Noah of the Bible dies in the pre-Christian world at the age of 950, his counterpart in Hein's text dies (or appears to die) at the same age in a recognisably modern, and implicitly post-Unification setting. Hein's Noah, who is discovered alone in his run-down flat by a group of young squatters (one of whom takes it upon herself to look after him), differs from the biblical model in that he is disillusioned with God's attempt to create a just order on the earth for Noah's descendants. The flood is compared to an ‘Erziehungsmaβnahme’ or a deadly punishment by means of which God sought, foolishly according to Noah, ‘die Menschen … zu bessern’ (EK, 187), thus perhaps hinting at a parallel between the deity's attempts to force people into following his laws and the efforts of socialist regimes, such as that of the GDR, to improve society through an authoritarian form of education.

Noah's cynicism at the possibility of improving human society brings him close to the figure of Wörle, whose disparaging comments on the Enlightenment Noah echoes in describing God as a ‘Wahnsinnigen, der die Welt nicht kennt’ (EK, 187; compare NS, 76). Noah's unexplained first appearance holding a billiard cue, Wörle's chosen murder weapon in Das Napoleon-Spiel, is perhaps a further playful intertextual reference. Yet, in spite of his own disillusionment, Noah still functions as a symbol for an ideal of harmony and justice on earth which will not die, even when the chances of its realisation in history seem at their most remote. As in Die Ritter der Tafelrunde, a younger generation appears to move in to occupy the space once dominated by the utopian idea: Noah's young friend Barbara clears out Noah's flat after his death and makes it her own, just as Mordret plans to put the Round Table in a museum in order to make room for ‘Luft zum Atmen’ (RT, 193). However, despite his apparent disappearance, Noah's ghost remains in the flat, as a visiting social security official discovers, even though Barbara does not seem to be aware of his continued presence. In this way, Hein shows the extinction of one failed manifestation of the belief in human progress towards a more just society, and a contemporary world which remains indifferent to this project, whilst at the same time hinting that this same ideal will nevertheless survive in some form and return to play a role in the lives of a new generation. Thus, whilst in Das Napoleon-Spiel history teaches Wörle to recognize the fragility and transience of human ideas about the world, Hein appears to hold fast to a hope for the future which attempts to make sense of human history, offers the possibility of commitment in the name of a shared cause, and which remains resilient in the face of historical change.

Since Das Napoleon-Spiel, which suffered perhaps the harshest critical reception of any of Hein's works, there has been some indication that Hein has, if not revised his view of the West, then at least suspended some of those judgements which are evident in his first post-‘Wende’ novel. In his recent Von allem Anfang an (1997), Hein returns to a familiar GDR setting (reminiscent of the Bad Guldenberg of Horns Ende), and examines the position of Daniel, a young boy who, not unlike Claudia and Katharina, is caught between the competing ideologies of Christianity and Marxism in the East Germany of the 1950s. Here, however, the central figure displays none of Claudia's desire to find solidarity with others through the acceptance of one of the world-views placed on offer to her; indeed, Daniel's only goal is to escape to West Berlin, a city onto which he projects the fantasy of a detached individuality, and where he believes that citizens live their lives indifferent to the fates of their fellow human beings. Daniel's aim is not ‘Gemeinsamkeit,’ as is the case for the young Claudia, but rather a detached ‘Gelassenheit,’ a quality which he discovers in the inhabitants of West Berlin, in his hero, the trapeze artist Kade, and in the image of St. Luke in his father's church.

In one scene in Von allem Anfang an, in which Daniel and his family, whilst visiting West Berlin, witness news of the 1956 invasion of Hungary by Soviet forces, Daniel's attitude is contrasted with that of his father. Daniel is most impressed by the technical device, a ‘Leuchtschrift’ which delivers the information, and by the seeming indifference of the West Berliners to these far-away events:

Verwundert beobachtete ich die anderen Gäste des Cafés. Sie warfen nur gelegentlich einen Blick auf die Leuchtschrift and beobachteten offensichtlich weder die Nachrichten noch die Werbung. … Diese Gelassenheit beeindruckte mich.

(VA, 185)

Here the reader may recognize parallels with that portrait of the Westerner which emerges from Hein's essay on Sloterdijk: neither the news of far-off struggles for freedom, nor the advertisements with which capitalism bombards them seem to affect the West Berliners, whereas Daniel's father, as an East German citizen, although by no means an uncritical one, can still talk about the importance of the Hungarian uprising for his own life and for the future of his country. Nevertheless, in this case the contrast between East and West is relativised. Daniel's limited, childish, often ill-informed perspective, from which the adult narrator derives a good deal of comic effect, implicitly calls into question this view of capitalist society. Yet equally, Hein's novel stops short of telling the reader about Daniel's experiences once he finally leaves for West Berlin. Thus, Daniel's youthful perceptions are neither confirmed nor contradicted within the text, allowing the reader the freedom to decide to what extent Daniel's anticipations about life under capitalism will be fulfilled.

The open-ended nature of this text in comparison with Das Napoleon-Spiel is also clear in relation to the issue of ideology. Daniel wants to escape from a society in which he is encouraged to choose between two world-views, neither of which he finds particularly appealing. Once he has made his way to West Berlin, however, the reader is given no indication as to how Daniel copes with the absence of any such shared values, or if, indeed, his interpretation of the capitalist West proves to be accurate in this respect. What is interesting, however, is that Daniel's position in limbo between these two ideologies, and his inability to find any group whose values he can identify with, is not portrayed as leading to a sense of meaninglessness. In fact, the clear purpose which Daniel is able to formulate and act upon is that of maintaining this detachment from such groups by leaving the GDR for his idealised West Berlin. This represents a distinct shift in Hein's assessment of the importance of common goals and ideals, in which their existential necessity for the individual is called into question, although not yet necessarily denied.

This reassessment is taken a step further in the one-act play Himmel auf Erden (1999), which deals with the situation of former East German citizens in the contemporary Federal Republic. The title obviously recalls “Moses Tod,” but here the ‘heaven on earth’ offered to the Israelites materialises in the form of an over-priced bar with ‘exotic’ dancers. If there is a sense of purpose to the lives of Horst and Heinz, the central figures of this play, it is formulated only in terms of the quest for physical gratification through alcohol or sex at the end of the working day. Capitalism is portrayed as providing many opportunities in this respect, yet every individual is, of course, limited to finding his or her own ‘Himmel auf Erden’ to suit his or her limited financial means. Thus Heinz leaves the expensive bar to hire a cheaper pornographic video, creating a cut-price ‘heaven on earth’ in his own home. Hein's complaint from “Moses Tod” against societies (socialist or capitalist) which reduce human life to the satisfaction of immediate material desires rather than allowing their members to participate in common goals and values is still in evidence here, yet it is significant that this state of affairs is not seen as producing a sense of meaninglessness amongst the individuals affected. Heinz is disgruntled at the overpriced entertainment on offer in the bar ‘Himmel auf Erden,’ yet quite content with the less costly idyll he chooses for himself at home. Whilst the audience is left in little doubt that this ‘heaven on earth’ is merely a tawdry substitute which fails to point forward to a more genuine utopia, the individuals portrayed here find in capitalist society the means to live a subjectively satisfying and meaningful life in the absence of any such collective project. Thus, in this text, Hein seems to recognize the efficacy of those material compensations which capitalism employs in order to make good the absence of that ‘gemeinsame Idee’ which he has so often seen as essential for the well-being of the individual.

Notes

1. Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: The Free Press, 1992).

2. See, for example, Christian Joppke, East German Dissidents and the Revolution of 1989. Social Movements in a Leninist Regime (Houndsmill: Macmillan, 1995).

3. Rolf Jucker, ‘Zur Kritik der real existierenden Utopie des Status quo,’ in Zeitgenössische Utopieentwürfe in Literatur und Gesellschaft. Zur Kontroverse seit den achtziger Jahren, ed. Rolf Jucker (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1997), pp. 13–78.

4. Klaus Schlesinger, Fliegender Wechsel. Eine persönliche Chronik (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1990). See also Daniela Dahn, Westwärts und nicht vergessen. Vom Unbehagen in der Einheit (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch, 1997).

5. Wolf Biermann, Über das Geld und andere Herzensdinge. Prosaische Versuche über Deutschland (Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1991), p. 42. Volker Braun, Wir befinden uns soweit wohl. Wir sind erst einmal am Ende. Äuβerungen (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1998), p. 26.

6. Christoph Hein, Die Mauern von Jerichow Essais und Reden (Berlin: Aufbau Taschenbuch, 1996) p. 57. See also Heinz Klunker, ‘“Mut zur eigenen Verantwortung”: Ein Gespräch mit Christoph Hein,’ Deutschland Archiv 7 (1990), 1144–7 (1147): ‘daβ Veränderungen sich auch weiter selber verändern werden, das ist völlig klar, wir sind an gar keinem Schluβpunkt.’ In the rest of this article, works by Christoph Hein will be referred to in the text using the following abbreviations and the relevant page number(s) in parentheses: AB = ‘In Acht und Bann. Komödie in einem Akt,’ in Bruch, In Acht und Bann, Zaungäste, Himmel auf Erden. Stücke (Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1999), pp. 85–127; AK = Als Kind habe ich Stalin gesehen. Essais und Reden (Berlin and Weimar: Aufbau-Verlag, 1992); EK = Exekution eines Kalbes und andere Erzählungen (Berlin: Aufbau Taschenbuch, 1996); DfF = Der fremde Freund. Novelle (Berlin: Aufbau Taschenbuch, 1996); MJ = Die Mauern von Jerichow (see above); NS = Das Napoleon-Spiel. Ein Roman (Berlin: Aufbau Taschenbuch, 1995); Öa = Öffentlich arbeiten. Essais und Gespräche (Berlin and Weimar: Aufbau-Verlag, 1987); RT = Die Ritter der Tafelrunde, in Die Ritter der Tafelrunde und andere Stücke (Berlin and Weimar: Aufbau-Verlag, 1990), pp. 131–93; Sch = Schlötel, oder Was solls. Eine Komödie, in Cromwell und andere Stücke (Berlin and Weimar: Aufbau-Verlag, 1981), pp. 161–224; T = Der Tangospieler. Eine Erzählung (Berlin: Aufbau Taschenbuch, 1995); VA = Von allem Anfang an (Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1998).

7. On this point, see Rolf Reiβig, ‘Das Scheitern der DDR und des realsozialistischen Systems—Einige Ursachen und Folgen,’ in Der Zusammenbruch der DDR. Soziologische Analysen, ed. Hans Joas and Martin Kohli (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1993), pp. 49–69 (pp. 51–4).

8. Mathias Wedel also compares Kohl to Moses, especially in relation to a slogan reportedly addressed by a crowd of East Germans to the then Federal Chancellor in the run-up to unification: ‘Helmut, nimm uns an der Hand, und führ uns in das Wirtschaftswunderland.’ See Mathias Wedel, Einheitsfrust (Berlin: Rowohlt, 1994), p. 51.

9. Dennis Tate, The East German Novel (Bath: Bath University Press, 1984).

10. For further information on Hein's biography, see Phillip McKnight, Understanding Christoph Hein (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995) and Chronist ohne Botschaft. Christoph Hein. Ein Arbeitsbuch. Materialien, Auskünfte, Bibliographie, ed. Klaus Hammer (Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1992), pp. 263–7.

11. Christoph Hein, ‘“Ich hielte gern Friede und Ruhe, aber der Narr will nicht.” Über Politik und Intellektuelle,’ Freitag, 8 March 1996, pp. 9–10 (p. 9).

12. Christoph Hein, Vom hungrigen Hennecke. Ein Kinderspiel (unpublished typescript produced by Henschel Verlag, Berlin, 1974), pp. 17–8.

13. On this point, see, for example, Thomas Neumann, Die Maβnahme. Eine Herrschaftsgeschichte der DDR (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch, 1991), pp. 8 and 79.

14. Die Verfassung der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (Berlin: VEB Deutscher Zentralverlag, 1953), p. 46.

15. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, new edn. (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1966), pp. 323–4.

16. ‘Er befürchtete, die Kleine könnte in Berlin irgend etwas anstellen, das gefährlich für sie wäre’ (T, 199).

17. Eckhardt Thiele, ‘Engagiert—wofür? Zu Christoph Heins öffentlichen Erklärungen nach der “Wende” in der DDR,’ Text + Kritik. Christoph Hein (Munich: edition text + kritik, 1991), pp. 74–80 (p. 79).

18. ‘Engagiert—wofür?’ p. 75.

19. ‘Engagiert—wofür?’ p. 74.

20. Reinhard Andress, ‘Christoph Heins Weg durch den Herbst 1989,’ in Chronist ohne Botschaft, pp. 158–71 (p. 166). On this point, see also Frauke Meyer-Gosau, ‘Christoph Hein, Politiker,’ in Chronist ohne Botschaft, pp. 173–83 (p. 179) and William J. Niven, ‘“Das Geld ist nicht der Gral”: Christoph Hein and the Wende,’ Modern Language Review 90.3 (1995), 688–706 (692–3).

21. Niven, ‘“Das Geld ist nicht der Gral”,’ 693–5.

22. Christa Wolf, ‘Woserin, Freitag, den 27. September 1991,’ in Auf dem Weg nach Tabou. Texte 1990–1994 (Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1994), pp. 93–114 (p. 108).

23. Christa Wolf, ‘Zwischenrede,’ in Auf dem Weg nach Tabou, pp. 17–22 (pp. 18–9).

24. All quoted from Ehrhardt Neubert, Geschichte der Opposition in der DDR 1949–1989, 2nd edn (Berlin: Links, 1998), pp. 836–40.

25. Bernd Hüppauf, ‘Moral der Sprache: DDR-Literatur vor der Moderne,’ in Literatur in der DDR. Rückblicke, ed. Frauke Meyer-Gosau (Munich: edition text + kritik, 1991), pp. 220–31 (p. 226).

26. Monika Maron, ‘Das neue Elend der Intellektuellen,’ in Nach Maβgabe meiner Begreifungskraft. Artikel und Essays (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1993), pp. 80–90 (pp. 86–7).

27. The commission's investigation is documented in Und diese verdammte Ohnmacht. Report der Untersuchungskommission zu den Ereignissen vom 7./8. Oktober 1989 in Berlin, ed. Daniela Dahn and Fritz-Jochen Kopka (Berlin: Basisdruck, 1991).

28. Christoph Hein, ‘Kein Seeweg nach Indien,’ in Christoph Hein. Texte, Daten, Bilder, ed. Lothar Baier (Frankfurt am Main: Luchterhand, 1990), pp. 13–19 (pp. 15–16).

29. See Günther Gaus, ‘Christoph Hein: Gespräch vom 14. März 1990,’ in Gaus, Deutsche Zwischentöne. Gesprächsporträts aus der DDR (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1990), pp. 95–114 (p. 114).

30. Thus, for Anthony Meech, the play represents a sympathetic approach to doctrine on Hein's part. Meech, ‘Christoph Hein: “Engagement” in the German Democratic Republic,’ Contemporary Theatre Review 4.2 (1995), 71–7 (77).

31. Bill Niven, ‘A play about socialism? The reception of Christoph Hein's Die Ritter der Tafelrunde,’ in Whose Story?—Continuities in Contemporary German-language Literature, ed. Arthur Williams and Stuart Parkes (Bern: Lang, 1998), pp. 197–218 (p. 215).

32. ‘Ich bin wie gelähmt,’ Mordret complains at one point, ‘Ich verabscheue euch. Aber weit noch mehr verabscheue ich mich, weil ich meine Jahre, das biβchen Zeit, das ich habe, hier vergeude’ (RT, 178–9).

33. These certainties include his inheritance of the family firm, his marriage to a local girl and even his sexual initiation by the female workers at his father's factory (NS, 15–6 and 25–6).

34. Günter Gaus, ‘Christoph Hein,’ p. 111.

35. Günter Gaus, ‘Christoph Hein,’ p. 101.

36. ‘Erst mit dem Tod eines todeswürdigen Systems können seine Vorstellungen von einer menschlicheren Gesellschaft aufblühen and wiedergeboren werden’ (MJ, 53).

37. Hilbk cites a letter from Hein as the source of this date. Andrea Hilbk, Von Zirkularbewegungen and kreisenden Utopien. Zur Geschichtsdarstellung in der Epik Christoph Heins (Augsburg: Wiβner, 1998), p. 114.