Where would one place this encased book celebrating the GDR’s industrial output? We see a woman in a factory, evoking the Soviet hero worker. Beside it, a boat labeled “Lenin” in Cyrillic. A thrilling read? Doubtful. But in the GDR, art’s mission was to display a prosperous communist society and secure loyalty. As GDR’s Prime Minister Otto Grotewohl stated, “literature and fine arts must be subservient to politics.” The book’s worn cover and untouched pages hint at its actual purpose: an emblem of loyalty made for a bookcase or coffee table, a testament to the synthesis of art and politics in the GDR.