Little research interest has been directed so far toward the way in which interviews represent a specific form of documentary literature. The study looks at a large, but entirely assimilable collection of texts qualifying as interview literature, stemming from autobiographical accounts by 'ordinary' East German citizens and reflecting life in the GDR and in post-GDR East Germany up to 1995. Its purpose is to demonstrate that the interview genre is a source of personal testimony which, like diaries or letters, can be of major and immediate value for many branches of scholarship.