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In his contribution, Thomas Lindenberger proposes to go beyond the dual structuring of GDR historiography caught between, on the one hand, a political history focused on the repressive machinery, based on party and secret police, and, on the other hand, social and cultural history based on documents pertaining to “mass organisations”, companies, etc. Indeed, approaches that attempt to combine these two general orientations have proved more fruitful for the actual writing of the social and political history of the GDR. For the historian, the choice implies working on as wide a variety of archive collections as possible, which must not be limited to the legacy of the Stasi alone. The author goes on to discuss the example of the regime’s fear of young people. He shows how this view would remain distorted without the contribution of the archives of the “popular police” ( Volkspolizei), which provide a far more qualified, differentiated perception than those of the Stasi, not only from the standpoint of repression but also that of a history of young people under dictatorship.