Introduction

In a book chapter on East German perspectives on flight and resettlement (“Umsiedlung”), the literary historian Elke Mehnert claims that at least twenty-five GDR authors hailed from the “historical German eastern territories.” Mehnert does not define this latter term, but even if it does not include those areas of central-eastern Europe outside the German Reich, twenty-five is a conservative estimate to say the least. If we include those authors born into German-speaking areas, enclaves, and communities—such as those in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Romania—outside the 1937 borders of the German Reich, then the number may be nearer eighty, perhaps even one hundred. Mehnert contends that for decades GDR authors from the “historical German eastern territories” kept silent about their biographical points of origin. One might remark here that authors generally are not obliged to discuss their origins; many prefer not to. If some GDR writers born in the above-mentioned areas did not, then one cannot automatically assume from this that their silence was the result of a political taboo. Moreover, there is enough evidence to suggest that quite a few others did explicitly address the question of their origins in interviews or autobiographical texts. Mehnert's claim, furthermore, that the East German literary corpus on flight and expulsion was “sparse” (dürftig) is not tenable. Of the eighty to one hundred writers I estimate, at least half addressed the topic in one way or another.