SOURCE: Niven, William. “‘Das Geld ist Nicht der Gral’: Christoph Hein and the Wende.” Modern Language Review 90, no. 3 (July 1995): 688–706.

In the following essay, Niven discusses Hein's attitudes toward reunified Germany and capitalism in Eastern Europe.

This article sets out to examine the issue of Christoph Hein's contribution to the process of de-Stalinization in the GDR during and after October 1989.¹ There have been articles on this topic, notably by Frauke Meyer-Gosau² and Eckhard Thiele.³ But neither of these is objective. While Meyer-Gosau is keen to present Hein's contribution in as uncompromised a light as possible, Thiele denies that Hein made any contribution in this direction at all, presenting his role more as Stalinistic than as anti-Stalinistic. There is a need for an attempt at a more balanced picture.

De-Stalinization can best be defined as the process of identifying, confronting, and overcoming the repressive mechanisms inherent in Stalinism. A corollary...