TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/020392/0203002.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.8 KB | 130 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 32

GERMANY

Fear and Betrayal In the Stasi State


As the vast archives of the secret police are opened, former
East Germans are finding ugly evidence of a pervasive system
of deceit

By JAMES O. JACKSON/BONN -- With reporting by Daniel Benjamin
and Clive Freeman/Berlin


    In April 1988 a tiny organization called the Initiative
for Peace and Human Rights gathered in the East Berlin
apartment of Gerd and Ulrike Poppe to draft a letter protesting
the deportation of two of the group's members. The 15 people at
the meeting had been close friends for years. Most were involved
in Lutheran church activities; two were pastors. And at least
four of the 15 were also paid informers of the East German
Ministry for State Security, the Stasi.

    The Poppes, who were denied educational opportunities and
adequate housing during the Stasi's reign, have now been allowed
to see the reports prepared by those former friends, and to
learn the depth of their betrayal. The documents, which also
revealed Stasi attempts to break up the Poppes' marriage, are
part of the secret archives opened Jan. 1 for inspection by the
6 million eastern Germans -- one-third of the population -- on
whom dossiers were compiled. More than 300,000 have applied to
read their files.

    Many are appalled at what they find: treachery by friends,
parents, brothers, sisters, spouses -- some 200,000 "unofficial
co-workers" in all. The custodian of the files, Joachim Gauck,
warns former citizens of the east to "think twice before
applying -- the shock could cause family catastrophes. One
should look deeply inside oneself before making this decision."

    What file readers discover is just how pervasive the
network of betrayal was. Stasi tentacles extended into the
schoolroom, the pulpit, the bedroom, even the confessional:
Roman Catholic authorities are investigating indications that
penitents' confessions reached the Stasi through hidden
microphones or corrupted priests. Stasi technicians bugged
homes, telephones, cars and seats in concert halls. The Stasi's
"Section 8" dealt with children, requiring principals of every
school in the country to keep a file of "dangerous persons" in
their classrooms. Teachers filled out forms on "conspicuous"
children, some as young as 9, who expressed views critical of
the state or favorable to the West. The information went into
the archives, and years later was used to block youngsters from
jobs or higher education. The teachers dared not refuse to
report. "We had 30 pairs of eyes focused on us," said one. "We
had to be careful."

    Some who have seen their files are astounded less by the
contents than by the sheer volume of a record so large that even
the 90,000-member Stasi force could not handle it. "They were
drowning in their own paper," said Werner Fischer, a former
dissident who supervised the archives in early 1990 during the
dismantlement of the hated ministry. In the Stasi's beige
concrete former headquarters on East Berlin's Normannenstrasse,
files lie in folders, binders, boxes and brown paper bags,
stacked in five floors of rotating shelves a total of 125 miles
long. Some papers are baled and tied with twine, some are
scattered loose, some are stuffed unsorted into canvas bags. "We
found letters we never received," said Gerd Poppe. "There were
pictures taken through our window, transcripts of taped
telephone calls. There was such a mass of information that it
simply could not be evaluated."

    As huge as it was, the surveillance operation was a
failure in the end. It never fully gauged the true depth of
disaffection for the regime or predicted its collapse. By trying
to know everything, the Stasi apparatus knew nothing. Barbel
Bohley, an artist and organizer of the New Forum movement that
led the popular rebellion against the communist regime in 1989,
found the information in her dossier ludicrous. "I have never
read so much boring nonsense," she said after viewing 25
folders, less than half her file. "If that was my life, then for
heaven's sake what did they make of it?"

    Ultimately, those who helped create the archives may feel
the most devastating effects. Revelations of collaboration have
already ruined dozens of individuals, including most of the
political figures who rose to prominence as the old regime
sought to reform. Among them were Ibrahim Bohme, a founder of
the eastern Social Democratic Party; Lothar de Maiziere, the
first democratically elected East German Prime Minister; and
Wolfgang Schnur, founding leader of Democratic Awakening, a once
burgeoning political party that collapsed after Schnur's
exposure as an informant. Gregor Gysi, head of the Party of
Democratic Socialism, which succeeded the old Communist Party,
is under suspicion.

    Even Manfred Stolpe, the premier of Brandenburg and the
east's most respected political figure, has been accused of
having Stasi contacts when he worked as a church leader and
civil rights advocate before the Wall fell. Stolpe readily
concedes that he met with secret police officers. But, he says,
the ministry was ubiquitous, and any attempt to reform the
system or protect its victims involved negotiations with it. "I
tried to use the opportunities I had to win more freedom at a
time when I could not know that the Soviet empire would set us
free," he said. "I would have met with the devil if it would
have helped us."

    Stolpe is likely to survive the charges, but others may
not. One of the informers at the meeting in the Poppes'
apartment attempted suicide when his betrayal was exposed. "That
is too bad," said Ulrike Poppe. "But this is a catharsis. It is
necessary for us to go through it."