Zensur im modernen deutschen Kulturraum

Censorship as a transhistorical phenomenon is a communicative process in which ideologically motivated, authoritarian attempts to assert control over what can be publicly communicated leads to reactions on the part of culturally creative agents and their recipients. The dispute over communication, publicity and power is a 'social game' involving gambits with a common tradition from the Vormärz to the GDR, despite the major differences in political complexion. This is true of such things as legitimacy discourses on the part of censors, esthetic practices employed by authors subject to censorship, and the market opportunities open to those censored.