Setting of from the concept of the silencing discussed by Cheryl Glenn in her book Unspoken: A Rhetoric of Silence (2004), we discuss Astrid Lindgren’s children’s book Pippi Longstocking in East Germany (GDR). The GDR-edition is particularly interesting because of its creative and anti-authoritarian approach to the Swedish original from 1945. Parts of the text were deleted so that the stores would better reflect the ideological ideals of the time. For example, Pippi decides not to leave the small village for a trip to the South Sea, realising the benefits of being part of a larger social community. The book is also interesting because of the negotiations that preceded its publication to position Pippi within a socialist framework. Pippi does not resemble a typical GDR hero like Gerhard Holtz Baumert's Alfons Zitterbacke or Peter Hack's Meta Morfoss. The presentation will focus on changes in the text, but also on the strategic negotiations that preceded the publication. In this context, we want to develop a concept of censorship as a dispositive of political rule in the field of cultural production that not only follows the top-down direction, but also has inherent acts of negotiation despite all the asymmetry of power. Silence can be linked to what is left unsaid, what is explicitly censored. In other words, which subjects are tabooed and banned. But it is not just a discursive practice for silencing. It can also be a tool for empowerment (see Glenn 2003, Jangbar 2018, Joosen 2021).