This review study is dedicated to the work of the German philosopher Wolfgang Harich. In the light of a new edition of his collected works, the author situates Harich’s work in the philosophical and historical contexts out of which it grew. The edition under discussion shows the admirable scope of Harich’s philosophical legacy – its range, erudition and originality. His uniqueness arises especially in regards to the persecutions to which he was subjected in the former GDR and from which it inter alia emerges that a great part of his work in the collected edition is being published for the first time. The study shows the main features of Harich’s thinking to be a significant contribution to the systematic development of Marxist philosophy in the 20th century and interprets them with regard to the newly made available sources, probably for the first time in the Czech environment. and Tato recenzní studie je věnována dílu německého filosofa Wolfganga Haricha. Ve světle nové edice jeho pozůstalosti zasazuje Harichovo dílo do filosofických i historických kontextů, z nichž vyrůstalo. Recenzovaná edice dokazuje obdivuhodný záběr Harichova filosofického odkazu, jeho rozsah, fundovanost i originalitu. Jeho mimořádnost vyvstává zejména vzhledem k perzekucím, jimž byl Harich vystavován v bývalé NDR a z nichž mj. vyplynulo, že větší část jeho díla v pozůstalostní edici vychází vůbec poprvé. Studie ukazuje hlavní rysy Harichova myšlení jako významný příspěvek k systematickému rozvinutí marxistické filosofie ve 20. století a vykládá je s ohledem na nově zpřístupněné prameny. V českém prostředí se tak děje pravděpodobně poprvé.
While the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), under its new chairman Erich Honecker, focused on consumption and economic growth in the 1970s, some Marxist intellectuals in the GDR recognized the urgency of the ecological question. They took the warnings of the Club of Rome seriously and pleaded for a different communist way of life, one that would abandon the ever-prosperous industrial economic model. To this end, they independently formulated eco-socialist utopias. Wolfgang Harich was the first in 1975 with Communism without Growth?, followed by Rudolf Bahro with The Alternative from 1977, and Robert Havemann with his book Tomorrow, published in 1980. In this article, the three utopian texts and their authors are presented, analyzed and compared. Amberger shows that the oppositional thinking of Harich, Bahro, and Haveman does not only belong in the history books but can also be an inspiration for today’s debates on climate change and environmental destruction.