This book objects to the idea that there is only one modernity - that of liberal capitalism. Starting from the simple conviction that whatever else East German socialism was, it was real, this book focuses on what made historical socialism different from social systems in the West. In this way, the study elicits the general question: what must we think in order to think an other system at all? To approach this question, the book turns to the writer Franz Fühmann, the East German who most single-mindedly dedicated himself to understanding what it means to transform from fascism to socialism.