The rediscovery of East German avant-garde. Why is the memory of Eastern culture always caught between politicized analysis and apolitical Ostalgie? Marko Martin re-examines the East German avant-garde and shows what it can still tell us today. Engaging with the GDR past seems hopelessly trapped between clichés. Why do those who shaped the upheaval in 1989/90 find themselves today, with their youthful readings, intellectual influences, or musical preferences, in a kind of reference-less terra incognita, while Western 68er experiences have long entered the collective memory? This book does not claim to provide a definitive alternative history of the GDR; rather, it seeks to open a new, non-ideological perspective. What did literature or film art look like in the walled-in country that was neither politically oppositional nor state-supportive, but cleverly carved out its spaces of freedom? What role did jazz and punk play? "The Repressed Time" is a provocatively cheerful reminder of worldly cultural achievements that were not only well-intentioned but also well-executed – and which emerged not because of, but despite the regime.