Klaus is Anna’s personal friend and their relationship, which is centred upon drinking together, seems to be used by both of them as a balm against loneliness. Klaus is a minor celebrity who once fronted the biggest rock’n’roll band in the GDR: Klaus Renft Combo, which was eventually made to “disappear” by the authorities for promoting anti-GDR messages. Although the GDR took away his fame, his music (although, ironically, the band became a cult classic) and his band members, Klaus is remarkably calm about his losses, although it is implied that he could perhaps be overly dependent upon alcohol and other vices. As Funder words he “seems incapable of regret, and anger evaporates off him like sweat.” Klaus’s resilience and courage allowed him to make a small gesture of resistance like Koch’s plate – the secret recording and distribution of the recording of the licensing hearing where the band were told that they were to “disappear”, and now, he says, “I can look at myself in the mirror in the morning and say “Klaus, you did alright... ” I didn’t let them get to me.” He symbolises the theme of emotional resistance against oppression, as Funder deems, in reference to Klaus, that “if there was ‘internal emigration’ in the GDR, there was also, perhaps, internal victory.”
