Ausgelacht: DDR-Witze aus den Geheimakten des BND. Kein Witz! Gab's wirklich!

Everything is strictly confidential: For years, agents of the Federal Intelligence Service diligently collected political jokes from the GDR, analyzed them, and even forwarded a selection to the Chancellor, marked with the stamp "Confidential - For Official Use Only." The editors of the joke collection describe in their introduction how political jokes served as a barometer for the mood in the real-existing socialism. They also inform about the harsh punishments that joke-tellers faced in the early years of the GDR, including imprisonment. And yet: The closer the end of the workers' and peasants' state approached, the more mercilessly Honecker and his comrades were laughed at by their own people.