Horst Pehnert

Unlike many who later became journalists in East Germany, he did not hasten to sit the exams that would have enabled him to progress directly to university, but undertook between 1947 and 1950 a traineeship in printing and book production.

[2] Soon after the war, which ended in May 1945, Pehnert joined the Free German Youth ("Freie Deutsche Jugend" / FDJ), which within the Soviet occupation zone was being built up as the youth wing of the zone's newly emerged ruling Socialist Unity Party ("Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands" / SED).

A close working partnership developed between Pehnert and Harder, to the point where one commentator described their relationship as "symbiotic".

[6] Pehnert's time in office saw an exodus of national stars such as Manfred Krug after the government stripped Wolf Biermann of his citizenship and expelled him from the country.

[6] After the upheavals of 1989 and the ensuing demise of the German Democratic Republic as a separate state, Pehnert took early retirement in 1990.

Horst Pehnert remained a member, participating in local government as a town councillor for Zeuthen where he was now living.

A reviewer writing in the Berliner Zeitung was disappointed, stating that the book appeared primarily to be "a justification for his own thirteen ministerial years" ("eine Rechtfertigungsschrift für seine eigenen dreizehn Ministerjahre").