Stefan Heym

A great number of people in the East German parts had been Nazis, so the change of mind was not altogether there.

— Stefan Heym

Show me one place where a whole government is concerned with a book of a writer and is concerned enough to suppress…

— Stefan Heym

You must have, if socialism was to succeed, a socialism with lots of democratic elements in it.

— Stefan Heym

I not only saw the possibility of nuclear war, I feared it very much. If they started a military conflagration, it would…

— Stefan Heym

I defended myself at the first opportunity I had, which was a meeting of writers in which I proved that Honecker had…

— Stefan Heym

People who were not active in the intellectual life of the country could go on without feeling restricted, except they could not…

— Stefan Heym

I certainly hoped that in the Eastern part of Germany, what was just beginning to be called the German Democratic Republic, you…

— Stefan Heym

Even in West Germany in the beginning, people wanted a kind of socialism.

— Stefan Heym

I did not oppose unification, I knew unification would have to come, but not in the form in which it did come.…

— Stefan Heym

And of course, in West Germany, they made every effort that people who came from the East would get jobs and would…

— Stefan Heym

The Wall was the actual symbol of a defeat, of inferiority.

— Stefan Heym

I was in psychological warfare in World War II, so I know psychological warfare when I see it.

— Stefan Heym

In the question of peace, people spoke up and demonstrated for peace and against the threat of war, the threat of atomic…

— Stefan Heym

If you live in a system that is suppressive, you don't walk upright, you always go with your head down.

— Stefan Heym

Today, when we live in a what is called Western democracy here... you're not taken seriously all the time. You can write…

— Stefan Heym

If we had had time and the occasion to develop a new socialism in the GDR, socialism with a human face, with…

— Stefan Heym

The idea of a socialism with a human face was something that I absolutely could support, because it was my idea from…

— Stefan Heym

We certainly hoped perestroika would win out and that there would be changes. We knew all along that socialism could flourish only…

— Stefan Heym

You had censorship. If you brought a manuscript to the publisher, you knew he would suggest changes. If you wanted to write…

— Stefan Heym

People in the East looked toward the West with longing. They would have liked to have the same comforts, the same goods,…

— Stefan Heym

And also, of course, I knew that the German people, they're one, and would tend to consider themselves as one; and therefore…

— Stefan Heym

A Western writer came up to me and said, how come nobody at this demonstration spoke of German unity? I told him,…

— Stefan Heym

And one of the worst effects was that by suppressing critical thought, it also suppressed critical thought in the field of economics…

— Stefan Heym

I disapproved of the fact that the government here refused to adopt the few reforms that Gorbachev put over in the field…

— Stefan Heym

A foreman in the East wouldn't know how many workers he would have the next day, because part of his working force…

— Stefan Heym