GDR in an autobiography. The text of the Werner Heiduczek’s ‘Shadows of my dead’

Abstract

The paper Die DDR in einer Autobiographie. Zu Werner Heiduczeks ‘Die Schatten meiner Toten’ [GDR in an autobiography. The text of the Werner Heiduczek’s ‘Shadows of my dead’] is the result of research conducted by the author over the image of the GDR in the literature of personal documents (autobiography) writers from East Germany after reunification in 1990. The present text is an analysis of the autobiography of a German writer Werner Heiduczek ‘Die Schatten meiner Toten’, published in Leipzig in 2005. The analysis is preceded by a brief portrait of the writer and the contribution of autobiography as a literary genre and its role in relation to the text of Heiduczek. The analysis focuses on the complex relationship of the writer to the GDR, his assessment of the most important events in the GDR: uprising of 17th June 1953 and turn of 1989, keeping the events around W. Biermann in 1976 and its own place in society and politics as well as personal life.