CHRISTA WOLFS „WAS BLEIBT“ (1990). EIN ZEITLICH-LITERARISCHER SPAGAT ZWISCHEN ÄSTHETIK UND POLITIK

Christa Wolf belongs to the groups of authors who were involved in the literary polemics after the German reunification occurred 1990. With her book, Was bleibt (1990), she tries more or less to clarify some different aspects of her own involvement in the daily life of the former GDR which tend to be to some extent very dramatic. In this narrative with obvious autobiographical underpinnings, she deals with a part of her life, during which she suffered from surveillance by the Stasi, the secret police of the former GDR. With the publication of this book, she launches a heavy literary debate in the unified Germany, where she was seen as a close collaborator or victim of the GDR. This paper traces out the life of this great German literary figure and revisits different political contexts and literary aspects during the Cold War in Germany.