Partners in crime: Police advisers and the dramaturges of Polizeiruf 110 in the GDR

This article uses evidence from the Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv and Bundesarchiv to investigate the eighteen-year working relationship between GDR police advisers and the dramaturges of the crime series Polizeiruf 110. It demonstrates the difficulties of establishing working relationships in a censorial context, and it shows how police advisers and dramaturges learned not to overstep the implied boundaries of their actions. It explores the patterns of control, agency, and participation that evolved, and shows how rituals of sociability performed a sense of joint political-ideological purpose. Variations in these rituals can now be read as a weathervane for the state of the collaborative relationship.