Nadja Klier was just 14 years old when she was exiled from East to West Germany in 1988, on account of her mother’s pro-democracy activism. One thing from that time that sticks in her memory is the delight she felt on seeing long shelves of magazines in shops. “I stood in newspaper stores,” she says. “There were hundreds of magazines, and I read them there because I couldn’t buy them all. I soaked them up like a sponge.” 

She was especially keen on the advice columns, even though the questions — “Does he love me?”, “How do I get him to notice me?” — were pretty much the same in every magazine she read. She liked the idea that people could confess their secrets, and that others would listen and respond. 

In East Berlin, Klier had, like many other teenagers, grown up reading Neues Leben (New Living), the only mainstream monthly teen magazine published in the German Democratic Republic. While Western publications were banned from the country, Neues Leben was published by the Free German Youth (FDJ), the official youth organization of the Communist Party, which set out to instill the values of the state in young people. 

The magazine, which ran from 1953 to 1992, was modeled on West Germany’s trashy teen title, Bravo. However, it was also under strict instructions to make state youth projects look appealing to teens. So while it featured articles about sex, relationship advice columns and profiles of pop stars, it also included glowing reports of young workers who gave up their weekends to participate in FDJ initiatives, such as volunteer home-building and recycling projects.