Annette Simon was born in 1952 in Leipzig and grew
up in Halle and Kleinmachnow near Berlin. From 1970-
1975 she studied Psychology at the Humboldt-
Universität. For sixteen years she worked as a
psychotherapist in the Hospital for Neurology and
Psychiatry in Berlin-Lichtenberg. Since 1992 she has
lived and worked as a psychoanalyst in Berlin. Simon
has published several books of collected essays on East
German morals and identity, the most recent being
Bleiben will ich, wo ich nie gewesen bin (I want to stay
where I’ve never been) (2009).

Reinhard Weiβhuhn was born in Dresden in
1951. He studied architecture and urban planning,
and from 1973-1978 was a city planner in Berlin-
Prenzlauer Berg. Weiβhuhn was one of the
founders of the Initiative for Peace and Human
Rights in 1986, which he represented at the
Central Round Table in the talks of 1990.
Weiβhuhn was a s taff member o f B ündnis 9 0, a
key negotiator of the alliance with Bündnis 90/Die
Grünen (Alliance 90/The Greens) in 1993 and was
the party’s foreign policy staff person in the
Bundestag until 2013. He is a member of the
Board of Directors of the Robert-Havemann-
Gesellschaft, the leading archive of the GDR
opposition.

Dorothee Wierling is Deputy Director of the
Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte in Hamburg
(FZH) and Professor at Hamburg University. Her
research interests are in the sphere of social history
and the history of mentalities in the late 19th and
20th centuries, with special reference to the links
between gender, generation and class and the
relationship between biography and history. As an
“oral historian” she has looked in great detail at
the methodological and theoretical problems of
personal recollections and narratives as a historical
source. Her books include Born in Year One. 1949
as a Birth Year in the GDR. An Attempt at a
Collective Biography (Geboren im Jahr Eins. Der
Geburtsjahrgang 1949 in der DDR. Versuch einer
Kollektivbiographie); Eine Familie im Krieg.
Leben, Sterben und Schreiben 1914-1918.