In Stasiland, Anna Funder recounts the challenges faced by East German citizens living in a communist dictatorship. In order to understand the extent of state surveillance and its impact upon ordinary people, Funder interviews a range of citizens, including accidental victims, unwilling informers and Stasi operators obsessed with power and control. As she personally sits in the torture rack, develops relationships with her interviewees, and organises “secret” meetings with former Stasi operators, Funder invites readers into their world to share their despair and triumph.
Funder suggests that the Stasi are particularly insidious/egregious (bad) because they separate families, pry on loved ones and manipulate partners.
As “Faustian bargain hunters”, Funder depicts Stasi operators as people who preyed upon people’s distress and vulnerabilities. This is particularly shocking because they are not held accountable for the consequences of their deeds.
Funder depicts the Stasi officers as “Faustian bargain hunters” who have trampled on the citizens’ rights with impunity.
Funder suggests that their logic is so perverse that in the attempt to keep the East uncontaminated they built a wall that locked up its people. By 1961, the GDR was “haemorrhaging” and according to orthodox communist philosophy, they had to protect their citizens from the “western disease of shallow materialism”. By 1961, just before the Wall was built, about “2000 people were leaving the east each day through West Berlin” (170).
This thinking, according to Funder, “obeys all the logic of locking up free people to keep them safe from criminals” (171)
The barbed wire was rolled out on 12 August 1961, and people were separated from each other (Frau paul from her son).
Funder compares the Stasi operation with a religion and one tended to make that “leap of faith” in order to survive. – the facts and figures of the extent of the surveillance (269)
Living in the GDR, despite being a democratic republic, was like “living in a dictatorship”. Everyone was subject to constant surveillance, particularly those deemed an “opponent” or “enemy”.
Many of the Stasi and the citizens still have the “Mauer im Kopf” syndrome (psychological barriers).
The Stasi men became “true believers” and leaders like Von Schnitzler adamantly believed that the Wall was “absolutely necessary” because it “prevented imperialism from contaminating the East”, like an insidious disease.
Herr Christian : Funder highlights the fact that he is still trying to find similar work as a “private detective”. Herr Christian states that he is “pretty much doing the same job as I did back then. In this, my second life”. (151).
The inability to uncover the “shredded” truth: Puzzle women: if the documents were laid “upright and end to end” they would “form a line 180 kilometres long.” (168) One of the puzzle workers, the “dark man”, explains the psychology of the Stasi operators. He notes that the Stasi “manipulated people” who “could be used against one another” . He says the Stasi used “people’s distress against them”. (They were masters at targeting people’s vulnerabilities.) The Stasi wields power over all aspects of one’s life. Herr Christian had an affair with his son’s teacher and was demoted, not because he was having an affair, but because he did not report it to the Stasi.
Victims: Julia, Miriam, Herr Koch, Frau Paul
Funder deliberately focuses on “ordinary people” to reinforce her point that mostly innocent people are forced into very difficult situations and yet they do not begin with an obvious anti-government stance. They often become “enemies of the state” despite themselves. For example, the Behrends “weren’t dissidents; we weren’t in church groups or environmental groups or anything life that … We were an ordinary family.” (95)
Funder depicts ordinary people such as Julia and Miriam to show that the unjust political situation motivated and compelled them to fight for their human rights.
Funder depicts real-life stories of individuals who become victims of a cruel system and who suffer terrible injustice.
Many of the targets were followed and required to report with the officers. “Every month or so [Miriam] would be called in to the Stasi for a chat”. They toyed with her life “like a mouse”.
References to Stasi – “Faustian bargain hunters”, “innovators”, “story-makers”. Most of the Stasi men were indoctrinated by the State about the virtues of socialism and were encouraged by Mielke, the “most feared man in East Germany” to “hang on to power at all costs”. (238) Many believed that, even despite the fall of the wall, that “capitalism will not last”.
Miriam was treated unjustly by the State. She loses her trust in authorities and her innocence. (Her “wall” becomes a barrier to trust and to friendship). She becomes angry and insecure at the lack of accountability by the Stasi operators. She becomes “an enemy” of the state after her participation in the Leipzig demonstrations in 1968.
Miriam and Ursula were angry that “the police doused people with fire hoses and made many arrests.” Miriam states, “you have an idea of justice and we just thought it was wrong.” Miriam made it to within four steps of the wall but fell on some trip wire. (23) The Stasi accused her of belonging to a secret escape organisation. She and Ursula were accused of “sedition” and were placed in solitary confinement. Miriam suffers the torture of sleep deprivation.
Miriam wants to find answers to Charlie’s death. “Underneath the need to know, is the need for justice” (280)
Miriam presumes that Charlie is one of the victims of Southern General Cemetery, for whom the cremator leaves the oven door open “so that the Stasi could do their business” (74.)
Positives: According to Funder, Miriam does manage to regain her dignity and her confidence. However, despite her reluctance to commit, there are signs that Miriam is ready to confront her future. During Funder’s first meeting with Miriam, she is a woman in her “mid forties” and wears “a long black sweater and pants” (15) During one of their final meetings she is “dressed entirely in white: loose pants and a flowing top”; (276). The transformation from black to white clothes metaphorically represents the emotional distance that Miriam has travelled in her journey to come to terms with her pain and loss of Charlie.
The Disruption To Normal Family Life And Relationships:
(Cost) Frau Paul loses her strong maternal bonds with her son. Frau Paul is a victim of the ‘faustian bargain hunters”. Protecting the identity of Herr Hinze, makes her a stranger to her son, which is particularly apparent when he calls her the formal “sie” rather than the familiar “du” form of address. Frau Paul was coincidentally separated from her son when he was ill in hospital. Frau Paul lives with a sense of regret that she was not able to provide her son, Torsten Ruhrdanz, with a decent home and loving parents. (To her extreme disappointment, her son is transferred from Charite, a hospital in the East, to Westend Hospital in West Berlin, the fateful night of the erection of the Berlin Wall (12-13 August 1961).
Frau Paul tries to escape to the West with the help of Michael Hinze. Her plan is exposed and, in order to protect Michael’s identity, she chooses “against her son”. (220) It was necessary to carry ID at all times, and Frau Paul, on the way to work one day, was “kidnapped off the street”. (218)
Frau Paul maintains her dignity and honour. She knew that if she betrayed Michael, even for just one visit to Torsten, “she would be theirs forever: a stool pigeon and a tame little rat”. (220) Hinze testifies to Frau Paul’s incredible courage when he names her the “bravest woman” he has ever met. (220) She suffers torture in Room 118 in Hohenschonhausen. This is where her soul is “buckled out of shape, forever”.
Frau Paul retains her pride: Even though Frau Paul was forced to “choose against her son”, she could at least sleep at night without the guilt of betraying her friend. “I can sleep at night with what I have done.” (220)
JULIA
Herr Behrend loses his peace of mind and his individual freedom. He is constantly angry and anxious. Julia describes her father, Dieter Behrend, as one who is defeated by the constant intrusion of the state. He is depressed and needs constant medication. “Living for so long in a relation of unspoken hostility but outward compliance to the state had broken him” (96)
They lose their peace of mind and ability to trust: Family members suffer considerable anxiety because of excessive state surveillance. Funder uses the symbolism of the “hermit” crab to depict this burden of anxiety. Julia has no “private sphere left at all” (113) As she recalls, “it was the loss of everything until I had disappeared too.” (115).
Julia loses her privacy, her peace of mind and her trust in authorities. Major N coerces Julia into informing on her Italian boyfriend. She feels completely disappointed in the “good father state”, and experiences an acute sense of anxiety and danger “without me having done anything at all”.
Funder suggests that Julia has been so severely traumatised and her trust so deeply betrayed that she will struggle to heal the psychological wounds. “I think I’m definitely psychologically damaged!. She laughs, but she means it.”
Cost: Julia is betrayed and feels violated by the State. Funder depicts the box of the love letters from her Italian boyfriend as an “aide memoire”. Like the “barricaded apartment”, the letters represent her fear of the state’s surveillance policies. It is full of “things she can’t leave, but can’t look at either”. (112) They represent the loss of trust and the violation of self. The fact that Julia can finally open the letters shows her emotional journey towards acceptance.
Julia does manage to protect her honour and her dignity. She refused to spy on and betray her Italian boyfriend. Against Major N’s orders, she told her family about Room 118 (114). Julia scores a small victory because she in turn threatens to write a letter to Erick Honecker. “We had never really known where the battle was … but we knew we’d won”. This is one of the rare occasions when the “bluff” had been called and it ends in her favour. Without really knowing why, she gains a job as a receptionist at a hotel. (117)
Herr Koch becomes angry at the near destruction of his marriage and the complete destruction of his career. He feels betrayed. (The circumstances of his marriage.)
(Problem with wife: ) The Stasi insinuate that there is something wrong with the couple’s sex life, and that Frau Koch has encouraged her husband to prepare “this pornography”. (174). They tell her, “that as the instigator of a pornographic scheme, the penalties for you are severe”. They threaten to remove her son from her presence if she does not distance herself from her husband. (174).
She must sign the application for a divorce .
Herr Koch states that “my world broke apart” when he saw the papers. He lives with a sense of pent up frustration and anger. Had it not been for his son, Frank, overhearing the conversation, he would have lost his wife forever (176). The Stasi attributed the remarriage to the “repeated negative influence of Frau Koch”.
Defiantly, he claims the plate. Herr Koch reclaims his dignity and his self-respect. Despite the harsh and dire situations, many citizens displayed remarkable strength and resilience resulting in small triumphs. Hagen Koch steals the plate as an act of defiance to express his frustration; it was his “little private revenge”. Although the authorities suspect his misdemeanour, Hagen Koch refuses to part with this symbolic token, despite its lack of financial value. The swift manner in which his legacy at the Stasi (as cartographer) has been forgotten, and the fact that “he would leave no mark”, prompts his defiance. His protection of the plate is conveyed to Funder as a “moment of glory”.
Julia migrates to San Francisco where she works in a feminist bookshop in Berkeley. She is thankful that they “honour their victims here” and in a sense feels “much more at home than in my own country”. SEE AIDE MEMOIRE
Return to Notes: STasiland and 1984