“The Siblings” was one of the most discussed books in the GDR. Brigitte Reimann's sensational book is now being published in German and, for the first time, also in English. The original 1963 manuscript was discovered by accident.
The writer Brigitte Reimann was Born in Burg near Magdeburg in 1933
The action of “The Siblings” begins in 1961, a few months before the Wall was built. At that time, East and West Germany had been divided for years, even if not yet separated by concrete, and the GDR government tried all means , preventing the brain drain of intellectuals and labour. Now the story has been translated into English, 50 years after the early death of its author from cancer in 1973.
Elisabeth, the main character, is a young painter. Her brother Uli would like to emigrate to the West. The other brother, Konrad, had done this a few years earlier, but Elisabeth was very disappointed when she found out what Uli was up to. She tries to get him to stay. But her brother sees no future in the workers' and farmers' state. In addition, the authorities have the young engineer in their sights.
As an artist with strong opinions, Elisabeth has also had run-ins with the authorities, but after a clash with a local SED party secretary, she proves to Uli that such conflicts can be resolved with enough determination.
Inspired from your own story
Brigitte Reimann's own brother left the GDR in 1960, shortly afterwards she began working on “The Siblings”. Like Elisabeth, Reimann lived on the premises of a factory – in the small town of Hoyerswerda, which was growing rapidly at the time due to the nearby lignite industry. Many artists and writers in the GDR did this, following a government program called “Bitterfelder Weg” that encouraged them to live and work alongside the working class. This was intended to prevent the formation of cultural elites.
In her diaries it is clear that Reimann was a passionate believer in socialism, and Elisabeth is a kind of alter ego of hers. Looking back today and knowing that the GDR was a totalitarian system, Reimann's views appear to have been those at the time was in her twenties, politically naive. Translator Lucy Jones recalls that Germany was then struggling with the aftermath of World War II and Nazi dictatorship, and Reimann “wanted to be part of a state that was the very opposite of fascism”.
With regard to the book, Jones would like to avoid the usual clichés about the GDR. “The truth was that it was a lot more complicated than any film has ever made it out to be,” Jones told DW. Despite her idealism, Reimann was critical of many aspects of the new state, which is also reflected in Elisabeth's thoughts.
An author is rediscovered: documents from Brigitte Reimann's estate
Reimann fictionalized her “deeply personal conflict and at the same time that of an entire generation” that had to come to terms with the division of Germany, says Nele Holdack in a DW interview. The senior editor for modern classics at the Berliner Aufbau Verlag is responsible for a new edition of the story, which will be published on February 14. Reimann was “very brave” to tackle this topic at the time.
Original manuscript surfaced in 2022
The story shows the young generation's doubts about the GDR to such an extent that it is surprising that “The Siblings” did not fall victim to state censorship. On the occasion of the preparations for the anniversary of Reimann's death, which will be the 50th anniversary on February 20th, Aufbau Verlag wanted to find out more about the background of the book. The original manuscript was discovered by chance – in a place that the editors call the “Harry Potter cupboard under the stairs” in Reimann's former apartment in Hoyerswerda. It now forms the basis for the new German-language release.
In a diary entry from 1962, shortly before her book was first published, Reimann mentions that various scenes from “The Siblings” were to be deleted – from Elisabeth's heated discussion with a Stasi agent about references to her sexually liberated lifestyle. But Brigitte Reimann prevailed against the publishing house.
In order to get the book through the censors, the publisher found ways to downplay the system-critical scenes in the story. In their review of the work, the editors wrote that Elisabeth's arguments were so sound that readers hoped Uli would “find the right path”.
In 1959, a Christmas market booth in East Berlin advertised the ideals of socialism
In order to get permission to publish from the Ministry of Culture, a report from outside the literary scene was also needed. The publisher never submitted the first one, too negative. Instead, another was caught. He concluded that by addressing “real problems” the narrative could stimulate significant discussions, quite in contrast to the damage that a “simplistic depiction of the problems of the GDR” would do.
< h2>Against the GDR bureaucracy
After the eleventh plenum of the Central Committee of the SED in 1965, censorship became stricter. Like many other artists, Reimann was disappointed by politics, but she continued to fight for freedom of expression. “She really believed that bureaucrats shouldn't have any say in how writers express themselves,” says Jones. “She was very vocal and angry at these meetings and was a champion of freedom of speech.”
As a writer who spoke forthrightly, pursued her artistic ambitions and lived a sexually liberated lifestyle, Reimann embodied the feminist values of today.
Reimann surprisingly managed to include scenes critical of the system in her novel
“She was such a fun-loving woman,” says editor Nele Holdack. “She was convinced that she had a right to a free, self-determined, happy life. And she was not prepared at all to make compromises. She was really courageous in standing up for her own convictions and was able to stand up in a highly competitive literary field, which was also dominated by men in the GDR.”
Holdack also values the topicality of the book “Geschwister” because in times of political uncertainty we all have a responsibility to become clear about our values and to examine what we would be willing to give up for it.
Finding a lost homeland in Reimann's books
At a recent book launch, translator Lucy Jones noted that Reimann still manages to connect people with a certain feeling Writers Christa Wolf and Maxie Wander illuminated. The room was full of people who enthusiastically recalled the author's late work, which they had read when they were young. This also included Reimann's most famous novel “Franziska Linkerhand”, an unfinished work which was nevertheless published posthumously in 1974 and became a bestseller was.
The people who lived in the GDR “literally no longer have the country in which they grew up,” emphasizes the translator Jones. Without falling into nostalgia for a totalitarian state, we could still acknowledge that these people lost their country. And now “the books have become the country where they feel at home”.
This article was adapted from English.