While at first the film was broadly advertised in East-Germany and drew great anticipation, opposition within the Ministry of Culture (Ministerium für Kultur) grew shortly before its planned release. Posters and other advertisements were removed without further ado, and the conservative newspaper Neues Deutschland was the only one allowed to publish a review. The film's premiere (the show was sold out and Frank Bayer and the main cast were present) was disrupted by audience members shouting denounciations during the screening. The same was true for most of the screenings in Berlin and other cities. It is believed that these protests were secretly organized by the Ministry of Culture, as they resulted in the film disappearing from theaters within three days. "Spur der Steine" was classified as hostile to the party (the SED) and to East-Germany as a whole and was not screened again until October 1989.
Frank Beyer was planning on including songs by the famous East-German songwriter Wolf Biermann in the opening scene and the trailer (one of which had been written especially for the movie). However, Biermann fell from grace with the GDR's government due to his political stance, and a collaboration became out of the question.
In order for the film to be approved Beyer had to re-cut the film. He later stated that the editing was minor and that he did not compromise on any of the scenes that were important to him.
Director Frank Beyer originally planned to cast 'Armin Müller-Stahl' as Werner Horrath and Jutta Hoffmann as Kati Klee. However, both were involved in other projects at the time. Thus, the Polish actress Krystyna Stypulkowska got the role as Kati Klee and Jutta Hoffmann did the German voice-over for her. Beyer was happy with this decision for he believed that lending Klee's character a less well-known face would make her and her lovers' characters more ambiguous.