Hans Modrow:
“I also have to say that Thomas Mann’s point of view is quite right: anticommunism is the disaster that creates this suffocating atmosphere which removes people’s ability to reason independently. I’m not disputing crimes during the Stalin era or in the postwar era in the Eastern European states. But whoever is unable to bear the burden of resisting anticommunism is unlikely to be able to do what’s necessary to achieve what they stand for in the here and now.”