Was the GDR a humanist country? At least, that’s how it was presented in its constitutions and legal texts, unlike any other country in the world. The SED's program proclaimed a grand cheer for a humanism that consciously distinguished itself from the conservative humanism in the Federal Republic. Horst Groschopp provides a detailed examination of the development of the East German concept of humanism, which began in Parisian exile and in German POW camps in Russia, and offers nuanced answers regarding the history of this debate. Karl Marx dissolved humanism into communism in 1845. During the Cold War, this interpretation was revised in the Soviet Occupation Zone/GDR. But why was this done so restrictively, so half-heartedly, so dogmatically? What was the specific German cultural socialism of Walter Ulbricht and Alfred Kurella? And why did it have to fail?.