Anna Seghers
As professor of German literature, Stephan focused on the modern period. His publications covered the history of German exile literature, the Weimar Republic, and the literature of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). He was the author of books, among others, on Anna Seghers, Christa Wolf, Max Frisch, and Peter Weiss. Stephan was also the first researcher who obtained access to the documents which the FBI kept on German exile writers such as Bertolt Brecht, Lion Feuchtwanger, Thomas Mann and Anna Seghers.