Epilogue: The Literariness of East German Literature

Summary

REINER KUNZE's three-line, twelve-word poem “Selbstmord” (Suicide) was composed in 1971, the year that Erich Honecker gave his “No Taboos” speech, and the poem was published in 1972, the year that Ulrich Plenzdorf first published Die neuen Leiden des jungen W. Kunze's poem compares suicide to a door, states that it is the last door, but then counters that no one has ever knocked on all of the other doors. On the surface, it is an inspirational poem concerned with suicide prevention. At first glance, it concretizes suicide as a “way out” and then gives the hope that there is another, less violent way out. Implicit in this reading of the poem is also the idea that no one should ever reach for the door of suicide, an idea that may strike some as condescending and moralistic. Jean Améry, for example, deplored both psychological and sociological approaches to suicide, because they take the volition away from the person who commits suicide. Michel Foucault, furthermore, defends one's right to take one's own life. In other words: Who is Reiner Kunze to say that there are always other open doors? Such a debate, however, is about real, historical suicides. But such readings are not the only possible ones. After all, this is a poem.

Read somewhat differently, Kunze's poem provides an appropriate image for this study. The poem does not indicate where the door of suicide leads, nor does it indicate whether it is an exit, as most readers might assume, or whether it might be an entrance. Each door has two sides. For the study of GDR literature, fictional suicides are not only a way out but also a way in. The poem indicates, furthermore, that there are a myriad of such doors. Fictional suicides allow the scholar, as well as the writer and the reader, to enter into issues of memory and transtextuality in the GDR, as much as transtextuality provides a way into the idea of suicide. Suicide is one of many doors into GDR literature, but it is one that has, until now, remained largely shut.

This study has opened a door into suicide in GDR literature, but it has not knocked on all possible doors of suicide in GDR literature. There is no shortage of such texts. There are also GDR films that deal with suicide.