SOURCE: “The Crisis of East German Socialism: Christa Wolf and the Critique of Economic Rationality,” in Monatshefte, Vol. 84, No. 1, Spring, 1992, pp. 59–73.

In the following essay, Love discusses Marxist conceptions of work and economic ideology in East Germany, drawing attention to Wolf's criticism of modern industrial society for its alienating effect on individuals.

Wir mochten ihn nicht, diesen Kapitalismus mit seiner sozialen Ungerechtigkeit, mit seinen perfekten Mechanismen, mit seiner rücksichtslosen Effektivität.

—Helga Königsdorf¹

As the mass media reported the disintegration of Eastern European socialism and either triumphantly predicted the reunification of Germany and the demise of the German Democratic Republic, or else projected terrifying images of a potential “Fourth Reich” emerging from a reunified Germany, research on literary and cultural developments in the GDR became both more difficult and more urgent. Faced with the need to see past the superficial exultation as well as the dire...