Aufbauliteratur

In 1952 the Union of German Writers (DSV) was formed as "the organization of writers [...] who actively co-construct the developed socialist society".^[6] Membership was compulsory – and as the DSV was tightly linked to the party leadership, state control is clear. Tight control of all writers organised in the DSV was ensured in various ways: Firstly, in its foundation the DSV agreed Socialist Realism as unifying and binding aesthetic norms.^[6] Secondly, to "promote the ideological and artistic education of writers",^[7] the Institute for Literature "Johannes R. Becher" was founded in 1955. Thirdly, the DSV regularly published the journals neue deutsche literatur (New German Literature, ndl) and Der Schriftsteller (The Writer) as organs to express the ideological and artistic guidelines for writers.^[6]

After the 1947 decree to "Confiscation of National Socialist and Militarist Literature" where literature not aligned with Marxism-Leninism, particularly but not exclusively Nazist, was banned. Originally justified as part of the Denazification process, the SED had now final authority over the literature newly published. In addition to its control of writers indirectly through the DSV, the government also established organs of direct control as the Office for Literature and Publishing and the State Arts Commission giving out licenses for works needed in order to be published. As the SED drew its claim to power from a self-perception as the sole "organisation of proletarians",^[8] it also held a monopoly over cultural and political questions – as representing the workers' views. They not only oversaw the release but also production and distribution of books^[8] to ensure consistent ideological alignment.^[9] As authors in the GDR often also worked as journalists, they were significantly limited too by the release of information, controlled by a third committee, the Universal German Information Service.^[10] Also in the DSV, the "task and value of the socialist journalist for the Aufbau des Sozialismus"^[11] were prominently discussed, creating a normativizing effect on authors.

The Bitterfelder Weg (Bitterfeld Path) was an initiative between 1959 and 1964 which attempted to bridge the gap between academic elitism of the writers and the reality of farmers and workers in the GDR,^[12] named after the place in which the first conference took place, the industrial Bitterfeld in today's Saxony-Anhalt. Under the initiative, East German writers were encouraged to spend time in factories and other industrial plants.^[13]

Literature was to consolidate the single ruling party, the SED, as "conscious advance of the working class"^[9] in its foundation myth of the "first workers' and peasants' state on German soil".^[14] But literature remained volksfern (distanced from people's reality): Although Marxist rhetoric penetrated public discourse, literature failed to form the bridge to East German reality. This changes included orientation towards contemporary soviet idols which "caused a change in the language used by writers in the GDR [...] Language served as propaganda".^[4] In 1956, the Bitterfelder Weg was introduced to overcome this academic elitism in both encouraging "Proletarian Writers Circles" (farmers and workers as unprofessional writers) but also writers to "join workers in their socialist reality and to overcome the difference between workers and the intellectual elite".^[15] Yet, after the 2nd Conference in 1964 it became clear that writers didn't have the capacity to permanently move into factories and farms and that the "Proletarian Writers Circles", though enthusiastically arising in hundreds of factories and farms, couldn't deliver the literary quality demanded by the SED and the DSV.^[16]