Any citizen can access the files that were kept on them by the old East German secret police, the Stasi, but many choose not to, and for a variety of reasons
LINED UP in a row, the 111km of shelf space occupied by the files of East Germany’s secret police, the Stasi, would stretch from Dublin to Newry. Two decades have passed since those files were opened to the public, in hindsight a crucial and exemplary part of Germany’s unification process. Though the files are now yellowed and brittle, the appalling fascination of 40 years of Stasi secrets remains undiminished.
Over the years media attention has focused on spectacular Stasi spying cases, such as that of the civil rights campaigner Vera Lengsfeld. Her Stasi file revealed how in 1989 her own husband, after giving her a flask of coffee to take on protest marches, would compile lengthy reports of their conversations for his handlers.
Books and films, such as Stasilandand The Lives of Others,have analysed the often perverse motivations of fastidious Stasi surveillance officers, for whom everyone in East Germany was a potential suspect. In this cocktail of serious analysis and media titillation, however, two important facts are often overlooked: the banality of most Stasi files, and the apparent indifference of the vast majority of former East German citizens to seeing whether they have one.
And yet the files left unopened, 20 years on, are a crucial orientation point in the post-Stasi moral maze. For every Stasi file of cruel manipulation and sadistic blackmail, there are thousands of others documenting daily banalities with disturbing diligence, a lasting document to the criminal waste of energy and resources involved in spying on unexotic citizens such as chemistry professor Werner Schroth.
“That the files existed is a disgrace, but in the end the Stasi were victims of their own assiduousness by leaving behind so much damning material,” says Prof Schroth, now retired from Halle University. His initial lack of interest turned into curiosity in 2007 when an acquaintance familiar with Schroth’s file gave him a taste of its contents.
“He asked me if I knew how many people the Stasi had watching me. I said perhaps three or four. He said 25,” Schroth says. As he had no strong political views, his informants, including former students and colleagues, had little to report. Yet they filed enough dirt for the Stasi to thwart all of his applications to travel to academic conferences in the West.
And what of those who are not interested in their files? Attitudes appear to fall broadly into three categories.
First, there are the people who worked actively with the Stasi and know well that there is a damning file on them, which they would prefer to remain closed.
Then there are those with a niggling feeling that, for various reasons and in subtle ways, they accommodated themselves with the regime. Many fear that even passive acceptance of daily life in East Germany could, documented in bureaucratic Stasi language, seem more sinister than they themselves recall.
The third group includes people who don’t believe they came under surveillance or suffered any major problems at the hands of the Stasi. This group believes that there is little gain but potential pain in digging up the past.
Gerlinde Helm, a retired civil servant from the town of Penig, near Leipzig, was involved with her husband in the pre-1989 civil-rights movement but has no interest in the Stasi file she is relatively sure exists. “It’s a good thing that the files are open, but I’m afraid there could be such disappointment in the file’s contents that it’s better to let it go,” she says. “As perverse as it sounds, probably everyone was spied on in one way or another. That thought is unpleasant enough without getting involved in it again.”
This is a common position, but some question the need for peace of mind.
"I've heard a lot of white lies over the years from people who claimed to have no interest in wanting to view their file," says Gerard Praschl, chief correspondent at Super Illu,a magazine specialising in eastern German affairs. "In the end, it's like people who never get around to clearing out their attic or cellar. Is there no reason in particular or are they afraid, consciously or subconsciously, of what they might find?"
Former East German dissident Thomas Klingenstein believes that those with nothing to fear should apply to see if they have a file. In his own, he found reports of conversations that could only have been filed, he says, by Gregor Gysi, then a prominent lawyer and now a leader of the Left party. Gysi disputes the claims.
“I’m not interest in starting a crusade here,” says Klingenstein. “But those not interested in looking, that’s the grey population majority you can always depend on in a dictatorship. The ones who say, ‘It’s not that bad, it wasn’t that bad’.”
That’s a view contested by others who demonstrated against the regime in 1989. For some, the arguments for or against viewing one’s Stasi file overlook one crucial fact. “Just as a majority in East Germany never went out on the streets to demand reforms in 1989, a majority now is simply not interested in their files,” says Stefan Fleischer, a former dissident from Leipzig.
So is the simplest explanation – apathy – the best one? The moral dilemma with which German society grappled 20 years ago – whether to open the Stasi archives or not – is now a personal matter for all who lived in the Stasi era.
“This isn’t about revenge,” says former dissident Roland Jahn, today head of the institution that manages the Stasi files. He was one of the first people to view his file 20 years ago and encourages people to consider doing so today.
“Some people are only now able to take stock of what happened then. Only when you know what happened can you forgive, and then only when you know who to forgive.”
Stasi files: The numbers
* In 20 years, the Stasi file authority has processed 2.8 million applications. Stripping out multiple applications, this means 1.8 million people.
* Open to everyone, the archive does not have statistics on applicants’ backgrounds, though the majority are assumed to be former East German citizens.
* It is impossible to say how many Stasi files exist on individual people: six million names are recorded in the main index, though this does not necessarily mean that a personal surveillance file exists.
* Besides 91,000 staff on the payroll, about 250,000 East Germans worked as unofficial informers for the Stasi, out of a population of 16.7 million.
* Some 80,000 people applied to view a file last year.
