dehumour1-6, Exercise 1: Nazi years and the GDR compared

Model answer (check the details):

Nazi years (1933 to 1945)
- Legal position: the Heimtückegesetz (1934) criminalised malicious statements about the regime; wartime measures punished remarks said to undermine morale.
- Allowed: light entertainment and comedies, controlled cabaret without real satire, and propaganda mockery of enemies.
- Risky: any joke about leaders, the Party, the war or the secret police; denunciation by neighbours or colleagues was a danger.
- Documented: whispered jokes in diaries, reports and memoirs; court and police records of cases; studies by historians (Gamm, Herzog).

GDR (1949 to 1990)
- Legal position: offences such as incitement against the state; censorship of texts and performances.
- Allowed: official satire in the Eulenspiegel magazine and in cabarets such as Die Distel, aimed at "shortcomings" and not at the system or leadership.
- Risky: jokes against the Party leadership or the Stasi, especially in public or in writing; the Stasi observed cabarets and recorded reports.
- Documented: Stasi records opened after 1990; cabaret archives; collections of political jokes and memoirs.

Common ground: humour was allowed so long as it supported or did not threaten the regime, and private jokes were the main way of expressing disagreement.

Difference: the Nazi regime used terror at greater scale, including death sentences in wartime, while the GDR's methods were more bureaucratic and varied, though still repressive.