Having come to her academic career relatively late in life, Voegt was bewildered that when she reached her sixtieth birthday in 1963 she was nevertheless required to retire from her university teaching post. An idea existed that she might return to Hamburg where she had spent her early decades, but by this times the political and philosophical division of Germany (reinforced by a formidable set of physical barriers) was at its most profound, and there was never any serious doubt that now, spiritually and politically, her true home was in the German Democratic Republic, in Leipzig. From here she continued to publish on her literary areas of expertise: late eighteenth century authors on whom she published books included Johann Heinrich Voß, , Johann Heinrich Merck, and Adolph Freiherr Knigge. A prolific letter writer, she also sustained scholarly friendships with academics and other comrades in Hamburg.