Abstract
Lutz Rathenow has the dubious distinction of being the first East German writer to have been arrested for the crime of publishing a book abroad. His brief imprisonment in December 1980, under the laws enacted that same year, was based on his publishing a group of stories, Mit dem Schlimmsten wurde schon gerechnet (‘Prepared for the Worst’) with the West German publishing house Ullstein Verlag. The case established a potentially important precedent for the use of the 1980 laws on relations with foreigners, and more generally showed the lengths to which the government would go to harass a single, somewhat troublesome, citizen. In recent years, East European regimes have tended to replace exile and long-term imprisonment with subtler forms of punishment that are more difficult to document or protest against. Dissidents are likely to be imprisoned repeatedly for brief periods, deprived of work, interrogated and followed by government agents. The intent is to gradually wear down resistance by creating a feeling of insecurity, while at the same time avoiding direct confrontations. Although life is made difficult for him, an individual is, so far as possible, deprived of the opportunity to make symbolically meaningful gestures of protest.