The political ideas put forward in adolescent literature in the GDR from 1979 until the fall of the East German society in 1989 have been studied. Comparisons have been made with important adolescent literature from the founding period of the GDR, as well as with children's books and adult literature from different periods of the short history of the GDR, and occasionally with adolescent literature from the late 19th century and some decades onwards.

Adolescent literature appeared to be strongly polarized, with, on the one hand, conformist books in the service of the government, on the other, books calling upon protest against the prevailing political conditions. The message of the conformist books to the young readers was that, in the GDR, the socialist ideals of solidarity and justice were, to a large extent, carried out, whereas the critical ones, on the contrary, maintained that these ideals had been betrayed by the political leadership and that a class society had been reerected. The East German society had become thoroughly corrupt, and in order to conceal the decay, hypocrisy was commanded. The press was criticized for idealizing the society, the school system for forcing the pupils to repeat current political slogans, if they wanted to be admitted to higher education. What the critical authors objected to, however, was the practice of socialism, not to socialism in itself as a political system.