"Proponents of totalitarianism theory seem to fail to realise that to discuss anything more or other than repression and brutality, opposition and the fight for freedom, is not in some way to pretend that those aspects were not important. Of course they were central. But they do not tell the whole story; and in leaving out the rest, such an approach ultimately distorts rather than clarifies the picture."

--- The people's state: East German society from Hitler to Honecker / Mary Fulbrook