Talk:Censorship in East Germany

I will improve it eventually, bringing the language up to par and adding the current situation, but I don't have the time right now. This article has great potential, especially for its Eastern perspective.

Have a wonderful day!

Weasel 20:22, 11 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Clearly, it needs a lot more sections, including censorship in Nazi Germany, censorship in all German regimes before that, and censorship in current-day Germany; also, any instances of censorship in West Germany should also be noted. *Dan T.* 05:41, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Dan T.! It is okay to ask for more aspects of censorship in Germany. But that are independing topics in the aspect of 'Censorship in Germany' which need a detailed research. That does not mean, that this article is not neutral. It only shows one period of time in the history of Germay regarding censorship. Maybe you can quote this wished topics on the wishlist. Thank you. User:lAbOr


 * Neutrality is more compromised by the fact that the article is a redirect from Censorship in Germany which is then added in some template about a whole list of countries giving the idea of a current event article (and not one of historic value as this is). Agathoclea 19:04, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

major rewrite
I just did a major rewrite of this entire article in attempt to clean it up and remove POV. I'd like to say a couple things about my rewrite:

I know a little bit about censorship in the GDR, because I study history and literature in Germany. I left the sections on journalism and the process alone, because I don't really know anything about that.

The article looked like it was primarily written by someone whose first language was German. I cleaned up the style and grammar a lot. I also textualized the long lists.

I feel like I did a good job cleaning up the POV out of this article, as I took out most of the hot-button words. But it would be arrogant of me to remove the tag myself due to my own edits, so I'm welcoming comments on what I've done.

- Che Nuevara:  Join  the   Revolution 19:41, 6 July 2006 (UTC)


 * P.S. I feel like there ought to be more contextualization, like anecdotal stuff. But I don't want to start adding it if I can't add it consistently. I mean, for example, something like
 * The book Der geteilte Himmel (The Divided Heaven), by Christa Wolf, was a groundbreaker in terms of allowable publishing. The main character, Rita Seidel, doubts heavily the merits of socialist ideology (although she accepts them in the end). She is involved in an incident which appears to be a suicide attempt (although she claims it was an accident). In addition, Der geteilte Himmel was the first publication in the GDR to use internal monologue, which Wolf hid within flashbacks.
 * I just don't have enough examples to populate the article evenly. Can anyone help out here? - 19:56, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The section entitled "Free journalists and participation of citizens" is awkwardly worded. Does anyone have any suggestions as to re-write this or are willing to take the time to do so? Gwright86 15:38, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

External media
The article doesnt really cover much about censorship of material originating from outside the GDR. To what extent were Western books, newspapers etc available ? 86.112.90.70 (talk) 18:20, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Sputnik (magazine)
Sputnik (magazine) wasn't distributed by the post since November 1988.Xx234 (talk) 14:12, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

The list of banned books
The list (Liste der auszusondernden Literatur) had 4 editions 1946-1953.Xx234 (talk) 08:10, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 one external links on Censorship in East Germany. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060113031348/http://www.mdr.de:80/damals-in-der-ddr/ to http://www.mdr.de/damals-in-der-ddr
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060111102718/http://www.petersell.de:80/ddr/2_ueberblick.htm to http://www.petersell.de/ddr/2_ueberblick.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 01:57, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Censorship in East Germany. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.mdr.de/damals-in-der-ddr/
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.petersell.de/ddr/2_ueberblick.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090221212745/http://www.osaarchivum.org/db/fa/300-3-1-1.htm to http://www.osaarchivum.org/db/fa/300-3-1-1.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 21:03, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Editing 'Implementation', 'Art and Culture' and adding sub-sections
Hello everyone! @JonasJeunink and I have taken it upon us to edit this article. I plan on editing the section on implementation, while he will edit ‘Censorship in Art and Culture’. Firstly, under implementation I would like to add a subheader about the structure of the apparatus through which censorship was implemented. Underneath this subheader, another one will follow which will briefly summarize the areas in which censorship was applied: Literature, Media, Art and Culture. Then each of these areas will receive a sub-subheader under which the censorship in this specific area will be elaborated upon. I will restructure the given information on censorship in literature, and hopefully add information as well, but in any case add citations. I will draft a new sub-sub section on censorship in media, also including citations. @JonasJeunink will take over for the section on art and culture. Together we will furthermore edit the introductory section by summarizing the information the article will contain.Tmsuva (talk) 11:14, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Hi everybody. I plan on editing the section on censorship in art and culture in the following way. Firstly, I would like to include a small summary of the different types of art and culture that experienced censorship in the GDR (dance, theatre etc.) to the introductory sentences of this section. Secondly, after the subheader "censored topics", I would like to add a new subheader about the most significant examples of censorship in the different types of art and culture that took place. Furthermore, I aim to add as many citations I can for the entire "censorship in art and culture section".JonasJeunink (talk) 12:27, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Lastly, @Tmsuva and I suggest that the "execution and consequences" subheader will be excluded from the subheader about censorship in art and culture. Instead, we suggest it will be split up in two separate sections (one about execution and one about consequences) that will fall under separate main headers on the bottom of this Wikipedia article. The reason for this suggestion is that execution and consequences cover all different forms of censorship. There is no need for creating a subsection for each form of censorship. By disconnecting execution and consequences from a specific form of censorship, an overseeable section about execution and consequences of censorship in general can be created.JonasJeunink (talk) 12:27, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

UPDATE: Hi guys. I have made some significant edits to the article. Hereby the summary of what I have edited: - @Tmsuva and I have expanded the introduction of the article. - I have expanded the introductory paragraph of the "Censorship in arts and culture" section - I have added a sub-header under the "Censorship in arts and culture" section, called: "Censorship in literature" - I have added a sub-header under the "Censorship in arts and culture" section, called: "Censorship in theatre" I figured that creating a section for examples of censorship in arts and culture would be less logical than creating sub headers for different types of arts and culture and including type-specific examples of censorship there. I have citations for all the infromation that I have added, however I believe more literature can be found to back it up and an example for censorship in literature is still missing. Overall, I think more examples are needed per area of censorship. JonasJeunink (talk) 13:38, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

UPDATE: @JonasJeunink and I have worked on this article together. Therefore, I made some changes on the literature section, which now essentially contained a structured version of the implementation section. Therefore, I removed big parts of the implementation section and we moved the information to 'censorship in literature.' Additionally, I provided additional citations and I added a new section on 'Censorship in Media'. This section can be found under the journalism section. I think that all of this information can be expanded and should be expanded, but I think that the new structure is already a major improvement! Tmsuva (talk) 08:09, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Five state TV Channels
Shouldn't this be two ? There were two GDR terrestrial channels and a short lived experimental (part time) satellite service. The only other "state channels" available were from neighbouring countries and the USSR. 2A00:23C3:70A:4100:4010:AEC7:8920:399 (talk) 10:44, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Western publications.
The article covers internal publication (within the GDR) and censorship in great detail but there's very little about publications (books/magazines/music) from the West. Were these widely available ? Were they automatically presumed banned unless specifically permitted ? Were books/magazines on non-political subjects obtainable ? What happened to Western visitors bringing in reading materials (either for personal use or distribution) etc etc ? 2A00:23C3:70A:4100:C44E:4F9E:BE11:7CA6 (talk) 16:06, 18 August 2020 (UTC)