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Wednesday, August 10, 2016

The Stasi’s Sad Footprint

The Stasi's Sad Footprint / Hablemos Press, Armando Soler Hernández

Hablemos Press, Armando Soler Hernández, 1 August, 2016 — Timothy Garton
Ash is a well-known journalist, editorial writer and British researcher.
His books on history are notable, above all for their distinctive focus
on recent contemporary history.

During the 1970s, Ash became interested in researching the period of
anti-Hitler resistance in Nazi Germany. While seeking firsthand
information, he resided for a considerable time in what were the two
halves of that European nation divided at the time.

Years later, following the fall of the so-called "Socialist Camp" and as
details began to be known in the West about the police control and
espionage waged on the populations hidden behind the "Iron Curtain," the
British historian had the idea of again visiting the territory of the
former German Democratic Republic (GDR) and verifying those facts with
his own experience.

In 1992 the infamous archives of the Ministry for State Security in East
Germany, the Stasi, were made publicly available. The revelations
contained within the enormous cache of documents ignited old and new
controversies within a population already in the throes of massive
social and political upheaval.

Knowing full well the gigantic number of citizens of the GDR who were
spied-on and on whom files were kept, Ash had an idea: what if, being a
suspicious individual from "Western Capitalism," he had also been
watched? Was there a file on him?

The historian went to the center where the files were gathered (in a
quantity equivalent to 178 km), having been salvaged from the massive
intentional destruction carried out by the political police following
the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989. When the civilian
preservation agency in charge of the archives, which is headed by a
Protestant pastor, receives an information request, it first confirms
whether a Stasi file on the applicant exists. If so, a photocopy is made
for the applicant, redacting information on any other person that may
appear there but who has no bearing on the applicant's case.

When the British researcher requested the file that had been created
about him, he received the chilling confirmation that he, too, had been
spied-on. The code name used by the totalitarian espionage services for
him was "Roman."

What was noteworthy was that the copy of the file contained a high
number of reports. All were filled with intelligence about him covering
all spheres of his activity while living in the GDR, painstakingly
detailed by "extra-official employees," which is how the Stasi would
refer to their informants.

Ash was amazed at the number of documents about him, especially because,
as a visitor, he had resided for a relatively short time in the GDR. But
the most surprising thing he found was that the majority of the reports
concerned persons whom he had known and spent time with, i.e. who became
friends, and participated in his researches or socialized with him.

Faced with this incontrovertible evidence, and making a 180-degree turn
from his original purpose, he decided to embark on an unusual
investigation for his new book: he would interview every one of the
informants and functionaries who spied on him. The book he published
about this experience is entitled, "The File."

In conducting interviews, Ash was not seeking to reveal the identity of
these persons nor reproach them for what they did. He simply was
interested in discovering what motivated them to serve, for the most
part, as informants for the despotic regime that also oppressed them,
and to know the course their lives took after the years elapsed from the
end of the GDR.

The reactions of each member of this long list of ex-"collaborators"
upon newly encountering the subject of their spying varied greatly, too
much to relate here in this brief space. Suffice it to know that the
motives of most of them, arising from the oppressive atmosphere of a
totalitarian regime as well as the pressure on them to "collaborate,"
were ridiculous and pitiful: to obtain permission to travel to the West;
a better job; a special scholarship for a disabled child, and so forth.

The most interesting part was when the British historian interviewed
ex-officials of the Stasi who guided and monitored the surveillance they
maintained on him the whole time without raising his suspicions. Their
justifications for having secretly trailed him for being a suspected spy
were absurd and exceeded all such operations they were masterminding,
resulting in an enormous cumulative waste of personnel, time and money.

This book will be of great interest to readers concerned with the
enjoyment of liberty—those who do not consider it normal to live one's
whole lifetime being watched over by a state and its repressive
apparatus, when what is common, natural and right is the other way around.

Facts about the Stasi:

The headquarters occupied 41 buildings. The organization utilized 1,181
houses for its agents, 305 vacation homes; 98 sports facilities; 18,000
apartments for meetings with spies. There were 97,000 agents working for
this repressive institution: 2,171 read mail; 1,486 tapped telephones;
8,426 listened-in on telephone conversations and radio transmissions.
The Stasi had more than 100,000 active, extra-official "collaborators,"
and one million other persons provided information on a sporadic basis.
There were secret files on 6 million persons, and being that there is no
chip worse than the block, there was a section devoted exclusively to
watching the members of the Stasi itself.

Comparative data:

During the period between the two world wars (1933-1939), the Gestapo
employed only 7,000 agents. However, the population of Nazi Germany (60
million) was more than three times that of the GDR (17 million).

Sources:

The File: A Personal History (Timothy Garton Ash, Random House, 1997).

The Firm: The Inside History of the Stasi (Gary Bruce, Oxford University
Press, 2010).

The History of the Stasi: East Germany's Secret Police 1945-1990 (Gens
Gieseke, Berghahn Books, 2014).

Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison

Source: The Stasi's Sad Footprint / Hablemos Press, Armando Soler
Hernández – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/the-stasis-sad-footprint-hablemos-press-armando-soler-hernandez/

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