I am writing this text from the train, on the way from Berlin to Hamburg. While the sun is setting outside, my thoughts are still on the conversation I just had: I spoke with historian Katja Hoyer at a SPIEGEL Deep Dive about how to deal with GDR history, and subscribers were also able to ask their questions.

Katja Hoyer, born in the GDR in 1985, has made a name for herself with her book "Diesseits der Mauer. A New History of the GDR« sparked a fierce debate in Germany. » There is no question in my mind that the GDR was a dictatorship that should not be wished back. Nevertheless, I think it's wrong to look at life there exclusively from the point of view of the unjust state," she said in an interview with my colleague Katja Thimm. It was more complex. There were also colorful, light-hearted sides of the GDR. To remember this does not mean to glorify the SED regime. But if you don't remember it, you take away an important part of many people's history."

That's why she spoke for her book with people who were neither opponents of the regime nor supporters of the regime, but somewhere in the middle, Hoyer explained again on Wednesday evening.

But it is precisely for this reason that Hoyer's book has met with widespread criticism. The historian Franziska Kuschel, born in 1980 in Lübz (now Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania), accused her of one-sidedness and "grotesque abbreviation" in SPIEGEL: "The fact that Hoyer's book reveals something new about GDR history can only be believed by those who have not noticed anything at all about the diverse scientific and media reappraisal of the past decades," Kuschel wrote.

Is this blurring?

Hoyer's book was criticized for the fact that it was mainly people who had come to terms with the regime who had their say to speak. There is hardly any room for the perspective of those who suffered from it or did not come to terms with it and therefore had to accept disadvantages.

In a SPIEGEL editorial, my colleague Felix Bohr placed the book in a row with other works that have propagated a new – more positive – interpretation of German history in recent years. He warns against blurring: "One may wish the story to be beautiful and somehow bright. But she wasn't like that."

Hoyer's book didn't convince me either: you can tell that she originally wrote it for an English readership. It does not tie in with the debates here, simplifies and generalises too much in many places, it has too many regrettable gaps and remains strangely free of theses. In the end, I was rather perplexed.

However, there are other voices as well. SPIEGEL columnist Sabine Rennefanz welcomes Hoyer's perspective and calls for a new think about the wiped out state. And explains, very thoughtfully, the new sharpness in the East-West debate with the dwindling charisma of the capitalist "West".

What I took away from the conversation with Hoyer on Wednesday evening was one thing above all: the author is also concerned with no longer seeing German history primarily as West German history, in which the division of Germany and thus also the GDR is described as a temporary phenomenon. Instead, she wants the recognition and inclusion of other experiences without immediately judging morally. Again, this is not groundbreakingly new, but it is an important aspect. In any case, the conversation with Katja Hoyer was exciting, if you want to see it for yourself, you can find it here .

If you've read the book and have an opinion on it, I'd be interested to hear what you think about it and why. Feel free to write to me at spiegelgeschichte@spiegel.de .

The editors of SPIEGEL GESCHICHTE recommend:

  • When grandma's trauma is inherited: Social psychologist Angela Moré explains why unprocessed war experiences can continue to torment generations – and what helps against it.

  • Assassination attempt in Solingen 30 years ago: Five women and girls died when right-wing extremists set fire to the house of the Genç family. Racism by no means came from the East to the West, it has a long tradition in the Federal Republic of Germany.

  • The soloist: U.S. politician Henry Kissinger, who was able to flee Nazi Germany with his family in time, was only Secretary of State for a few years and is nevertheless considered a legendary figure of the century. How did he do it?

  • "It's like confessing to murder": Charles Darwin feared being considered a heretic. With his theory of evolution, he refuted the creation story of the Bible – and caused great grief to his pious wife Emma.

  • Conflict over the skull of the Rapa Nui: Activists from Easter Island are reclaiming human remains of their ancestors. A Leipzig museum agrees. Still, there's a problem.