During its existence East Germany was probably the most watched society in the world. It’s been estimated that there was one informer for every six people in the population. The paranoia this induced meant that people could not speak up even within their own families for fear of informers in their midst. Self-censorship and a kind of psychological internal exile happened as a consequence, with some retreating into themselves. Of course, many supported the regime, and believed in the socialist experiment. They could see the unemployment and social problems in the West, not just in the propaganda fed to them by the state, but in their own illegal consumption of Western media.

The activities of the Stasi were many and varied and included torture, blackmail, killing, spying, watching people in their workplaces, homes, churches and kindergartens, the handling of informers, the destruction of careers, relationships and futures, and checking out which direction people’s TV antennae pointed in case they were watching West German television (which they invariably were).

One of the things that’s become clear about dictatorships is their sheer banal bureaucracy, their obsession with even the smallest details, which in turn generates huge amounts of paperwork, and utterly paranoid and bizarre assumptions and behaviour on the part of those working for the state. It can be seen in South America, the Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany. What’s interesting about East Germany is the extent to which it went further than Nazism in its control of a population. The GDR could be seen as a continuation of a dictatorship which simply functioned under a different political flag, and used almost the same means to get what it wanted. In fact, what is fascinating about the men who led the East German state is that some were precisely those Communist political opponents the Nazis fought on the streets of Weimar Germany during the first German democracy and its harsh freemarket economy. Not all German Communists were exterminated by the later Nazi regime. Some survived to lead the new dictatorship, built on the ashes of the old one. In spite of this, East Germans were taught to associate Nazism with West Germany. Consequently there is little guilt in the east regarding the country’s fascist past.

The East German state not only had its own people under surveillance, it had foreign states, particularly West Germany spied on, with Federal Republic politicians taking bribes and West German journalists acting as informers for the Stasi. At home, the Stasi had so many of their spies in opposition organisations like churches that they only made those groups look stronger and more popular than they actually were. But what’s most remarkable about the Stasi, given the unprecedented levels of surveillance, was their complete inability to foresee the death of their own country. Even in the final months and weeks, they failed to comprehend what was happening, and the old men who led the German Democratic Republic were desperately clinging on until the very last moment.

Anna Funder, an Australian, interviewed Stasi men as well as the victims themselves. The first interview is with a woman, Miriam, whose husband supposedly hung himself in prison. Mirian suspects he was killed, and wants to know the truth. But the story of her clash with the GDR state goes back further to when she was a sixteen year old girl who printed off protest leaflets. Arrested with her accomplice friend, she was imprisoned and placed in solitary confinement to extract a confession. Released later with a trial and imprisonment ahead of her, she decided to make her escape over the Berlin Wall. What’s amazing about her story is she almost made it. She climbed over a barbed wire fence, crawled across the street beyond where military vehicles and soldiers patrolled, was watched but otherwise left alone by a guard dog, and only fell at the last hurdle when she set off a trip wire. As soon as the alarm went off, the West German border guards turned their spotlights on her to prevent the East German guards from shooting her. This woman, decades later, is still suffering the effects of her subsequent imprisonment, with the added burden of wanting to know what happened to her husband, Charlie.

Funder’s landlady too has a story to tell. As a teenager she had an Italian boyfriend she corresponded with. The Stasi hauled her in and interrogated her, reading out her love letters. They wanted her to become an informer, but she refused. A bright student with a promising career ahead as a linguist, she found herself unable to get into university, nor could she get a job. Though her interviews went well, the employers always said later that someone else had just beaten her to it.

One of the things that inspired Funder to start collecting stories from East Germans was her experience of working at a West German TV station after reunification. Her job there was to read viewer letters and complaints to the station. The company made programmes for the foreign market and there were inquiries about a news item on the Puzzle Women at Nuremberg. These women (and men) were attempting to piece together the torn up and shredded documents and secret files of the former GDR, something that Funder would later learn might take, with 40 people employed, 375 years. When Funder started asking her boss questions, it became clear that not only was there a lack of interest in West Germany about the experiences of East Germans, but also a sense of embarrassment that 17 million fellow Germans had passively lived in a dictatorship for forty years. Incensed at this attitude, Funder decided to find out about life in the GDR.

She made contacts through museums and archives associated with preserving the memory of what happened in East Germany, and put an ad in the paper asking to meet with former Stasi men. Because she was a foreigner, a number of men came forward and told their stories. Often they are thoroughly unrepentant about their former work, and even bitter about the change in their fortunes. They provide a chilling glimpse into the mind of the Stasi. But many Stasi have done well for themselves in the unified Germany, in insurance, telemarketing and real estate, jobs Funder notes for which they are ideally suited having been “schooled in the art of convincing people to do things against their own self-interest.” Other former Stasi, outed for their previous activities, are now pariahs, as are those who have spoken up against their former Stasi employer (suffering death threats for doing so).

There are gruesome stories in ‘Stasiland’ from the victims, heartrending tales such as that of a mother separated from her dangerously ill baby who was sent to a West Berlin hospital around the time the city became divided. But there are also farcical tales, including the hilarious story of ‘The Plate,’ which has its own chapter.

Funder’s book is not without problems however. She casts herself as a character, interviewing people, reflecting on what they’re telling her, recounting bits of her own life. Her own thoughts and personal judgements interfere too often with the narrative. Her presence works up to a point because she is a stand in for the reader, sitting there having tea or coffee with someone on our behalf. We can inhabit her role, until she opens her mind and starts questioning and critiquing what she’s hearing. Too often people are telling her that life in the GDR was not all bad and that reunification has brought problems, not least of which are spiralling rents and cost of living, and unemployment. Unemployment existed in the GDR, despite hilarious anecdotes showing the way the state lied to itself about this, but reunification has left people used to free kindergartens, healthcare and education with a terrible culture shock they can’t escape from. And this is one of the reasons why many Ossis are nostalgic for the old GDR. It’s not that they approved of the Stasi, but many if not most of them believed in the ideals of socialism. Funder’s one-sided analysis in that respect is centred on the theme of her book: the Stasi. Immediately, we are dealing with the GDR’s apparatus of surveillance, intimidation, torture and imprisonment. This leaves very little room to explore why it is so many Ossis regret the passing of the socialist experiment. It’s clear from what they’re telling her that they see both Communism and Capitalism as having deep-rooted problems and injustices. But nobody is particularly interested in their opinions or their experiences. For many Germans, certainly in the former Federal Republic, the GDR is history, and ought to stay that way.

When Germany became unified, the old Stasi files were opened on an unprecedented scale. Nowhere else in the former Communist block were people allowed such access to the information collected on them by the state. Many feared reprisals and blood on the streets once informers were unveiled. But the demoralised GDR people looking for answers did not turn into vigilantes. They were merely trying to find out why they couldn’t get a university place or a particular job, why certain twists in their life, unexpected and unaccountable, had taken place. Towards the end of Funder’s investigations there appeared to be a change of attitude, a desire on the part of the authorities to backtrack, making the files less accessible.

After the Wende, Hitler’s bunker was uncovered, leaving the authorities with the dilemma of what to do with it. Should they destroy it thereby appearing to wipe out the darkest chapter of German history, and risk offending the victims and those who still sat in judgement, or should they preserve it, with the danger of it becoming a shrine to neo-nazis? Unable to make a decision, they reburied the bunker, leaving the decision to someone else in the future. It’s likely that the same thing could happen to the huge number of files left by the Stasi and other parts of the GDR state. The Puzzle Women and Men at Nuremberg might continue to piece together the endless bits of shredded papers, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, but in a generation, the GDR will be nothing but a distant memory. The Wall fell more than fifteen years ago. Already there are young adults who remember little or nothing of the old regime they were born into, but who ironically sport T-shirts and other memorabilia harking back to its past.

Kara Kellar Bell is a film and media graduate from the West of Scotland, with a passion for European novels, French films, silent cinema, and Brazilian music (everything from Daniela Mercury and other pop stars through to bossa nova). As a writer, she likes to have room to move around creatively, so she’s not located in one genre. She writes realism and also stories of a more fantastic nature, usually grounded to some extent in the real world. She also takes delight in writing across the sexual spectrum, and as a bisexual, considers it important to remind people that things are not always black and white, either/or, in sexuality or in gender. For a selection of Kara’s writing on the Showcase section of this site, click here

© 2004 Laura Hird All rights reserved.