What is the significance of Hagen Koch being the “lone warrior against forgetting?” Does it necessarily matter if one’s reasons for remembering are pure, or motivated by toxic ideology?

How does the book approach the difference between the psychological importance of remembering and the sociological/national importance thereof?

Orwell is evoked frequently by Funder and others in their discussion of life in East Germany. To what extent is East Germany Orwellian, and does it ever go beyond Orwell’s dystopian visions?