Censorship in East Germany

As with many Soviet-allied countries prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the government of the former German Democratic Republic (German: Deutsche Demokratische Republik) applied wide censorship during its existence from 1949 to 1990.

Soviet Military Administration in Germany organised Censorship in East Germany in 1945. Its president was Sergei Ivanovich Tiulpanov. The list of banned books (Liste der auszusondernden Literatur) was published in 1946, 1947 and 1948.

The original 1949 version of the East German constitution did not provide for censorship of the press, but did guarantee in article 9, section 2 that "censorship of the media is not to occur"[1]. This provision was removed in the 1968 revision of the document, and expanded to become article 27, reflecting the modernization of technology:

Despite this, both official and unofficial censorship occurred throughout the history of the GDR, although to a lessened extent during its later years. Because the GDR was effectively a one-party state under the command and guidance of the SED, the freedom of the press and other printing industries was at the will of the ruling party, the regime, and the ideological desires of the people in command.

Although this apparently contradicts the above provisions, the fact that expression had to be "in accordance with the principles of the constitution" allowed the government to call on issues such as national security, public decency, and other issues covered in national law in order to enforce censorship.

All publications in the media, the arts, or culture were governmentally controlled. To ensure that the system of censorship was complete, potential publications had to pass through different instances of censorship. Two stages were the outer and the inner (governmental and SED party censorship) censorship.

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