He wrote some chapters, dealing with the international linkages of the German NSDAP, in the widely read 1933 Braunbuch über Reichstagsbrand und Hitlerterror ('Brown Book on Reichstag Fire and Hitler Terror').

[4] In 1949, he was assigned as head of the Press Section of the Information Department of Ministerial Council of the German Democratic Republic, working under Gerhart Eisler.

In December 1952, he was purged from his position in the Press Department, but obtained a professorship at Humboldt University.

[5] In June 1965 Norden suggested that regional elections in the German Democratic Republic should be open for alternate candidates.

In April 1981, the then ailing Norden was left out of the Central Committee and Politburo at the 10th SED party congress.

[5][10] After the war Norden argued in several publications, articles and speeches that there was a direct continuation between the Hitler and Adenauer governments.

The book became a reference in the West German New Left, which increasingly had begun to question the official historiography on the Nazi period.