“What Should I Do”
Jürgen Fuchs, 1968, and the Eastern Part of Europe
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
The Prague Spring and its violent crushing sparked the political thinking of lyricist Jürgen Fuchs. He increasingly opposed the East German regime. Accused of “subversive incitement” and seeking to establish a “democratic socialism” along the lines of the Prague Spring, Fuchs was arrested and maltreated by the Stasi. Even after being deported to West Berlin, the Stasi continued to persecute him. Fuchs thought in dimensions of a united and free Europe and called for the observance of human rights in Eastern Europe. There, people read his poems. In Poland, his texts were published in unofficial “second circulation”; in Prague, his poems were set to music and played at illegal concerts.
(Osteuropa 7/2008, pp. 95–108)