 Her highly personal style of writing, and her strident political opinions, have stirred controversy within Germany, but Dahn, who considered herself a dissident within East Germany before 1989, advocates for a critical journalism that continues the democratic tradition of challenging the government and policies of reunified Germany.Dahn is the daughter of the journalist Karl-Heinz Gerstner and fashion journalist Sibylle Gerstner, founder of the East German fashion magazine "Sibyl", and the older sister of Sonja Gerstner, who famously documented her own mental illness and the professional treatment she received.Dahn was brought up in Kleinmachnow, Brandenburg in what was then East Germany.