Stasi archives: a place of hurt and healing

In January, Germans commemorated 20 years’ access to the archives of the Stasi – the secret police of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). It is estimated that the Stasi gathered information from about 90,000 staff members and 200,000 informal collaborators – friends, neighbours, spouses and others - about anyone who criticised the government of the day.

As the regime collapsed, the question arose: what to do with this potentially explosive archive? Anna Funder, writing in ‘Stasiland’, says, “From 1989 to October 1990 debate raged hot in Germany as to what to do with the Stasi files. Should they be opened or burnt? Should they be locked away for fifty years and then opened, when the people in them would be dead, or possibly forgiven? What were the dangers of knowing? Or the dangers of ignoring the past and doing it all again, with different coloured flags or neckerchiefs or helmets? ” (page 70)

Mass destruction of records

In late 1989, officers began to destroy evidence of their activities; shredding and burning thousands of documents and film footage.  In January 1990, as Berliners saw the smoke billowing from the chimneys that protested, building a symbolic wall of bricks and stone around the archive until eventually, the doors were opened.

The extent of the archive

The sheer extent of the archive is staggering. It is estimated that there are almost 1.6 million photographs, videos and audio recordings, and 39 million index cards included in the files that fill 111 kilometres of shelving. These records document the Stasi’s investigations into about 6 million people, almost one third of the GDR’s population!

Opening the archive: making the records accessible

The questions remained. Those who had been in power, or were informers, argued against making the files accessible. In August 1990 the first and only elected parliament of the GDR passed a law granting people the right to see their own files, but the West German government, in its draft Unification Treaty prescribed that the files be delivered to the Federal Archives. Protestors occupied the archive and embarked on a hunger strike.  On 2 January, 1992, in compliance with Germany’s Stasi Document Law, the Stasi Archives were officially opened to the public.

Author and poet Lutz Rathenow, state commissioner for the Stasi documents in the state of Saxony, was one of the first to visit the archives on the day they opened. Due to his criticism of the East German State, Rathenow was a target of Stasi espionage for a long time. Rathenow was arrested for his critical remarks in 1976, and the next year, three months before he was to take his final exams in German and History, Rathenow was thrown out of the University of Jena. “I waited fervently for that day, January 2, 1992, when the truth would finally become public,”, Rathenow remembers. 

Former East German dissident, and now commissioner for the Stasi archives, Roland Jahn, in an interview on the public radio station Detuschlandfunk,  explains his initial reaction to seeing his own files: “The first time I had access to my files was on January 2, 1992, almost 20 years ago, and that was a shock. Reading what friends had spied on me really got under my skin. Of course, you’re excited at that point. But over the years, you adopt a more relaxed attitude about how to approach the problem and especially concerning what you’ve learned about how the system worked. What made an individual become a spy? How did it work? That’s what it really comes down to: we want to understand how it worked.”  In the same interview, Jahn explains that Stasi victims did not resort to acts of revenge against those who spied on them because, “we managed to develop a method of allowing people access to the files, and we gave it a legal basis. In the one hand, we managed to make the Stasi’s actions transparent; on the other hand, we managed to protect the data the secret police gathers, in violation of human rights, on East Germans – that is crucial.”

Demand for access to the archive has not waned over time. In 2011 alone, 80,611 new requests were lodged. 

Piecing together the Stasi files

Files destroyed by the officers in 1989 were, at first, passed through mechanical shredders. As these broke under the strain, officials took to ripping up documents by hand, intending that the remnants be pulped or burnt. When citizens stormed the building they seized about 15,500 bags, each containing between 50,000 and 80,000 bits of paper.

A group of workers, dubbed “the puzzlers” or “the puzzle people”, have been working with these fragments since 1995 and, to date, have managed to piece together the contents of 500 bags. The Guardian reports that, while many question the worth of this Herculaean task, Andreas Petter, an archivist from Zindorf, explains that, “Victims of the Stasi have the right to decide whether they want to know what happened to them under the dictatorship. They also have the right to ignore it. But people who say we should throw the sacks into the river Spree and be done with it are trying to prescribe how other people live.”

Harald Lettner, one of “the puzzlers”, says that his work is important because it brings peace and sometimes material benefits too. “Because of the files I have assembled, former East German citizens have been able to prove they deserve higher pensions,” he said. “Whenever I find a scrap of paper with a victim’s name on it, I think how they will feel when they read their reassembled file.”

Now help is at hand to speed up the task; a computer system which can digitally recreate documents by scanning bits of paper is nearing the end of its test phase. Since 2007, the contents of 70 bags have been digitised and the process is due to begin in earnest in the next year or so.

Former Stasi officials to be banned from working in the archive

In September 2009, Deutsche Welle reported that the Stasi Records Act that came into effect on 1 January, 2012 includes a clause precluding anyone who officially or unofficially worked for the Stasi from working in the archive.

Dealing with an uncomfortable past: parallels with South Africa

In an article on the Stasi archives Rachel Beattie remarks on the similarities – and differences - in the approach to “troublesome” records. “There are parallels between the handling of the Stasi records and other successful attempts to come to terms with traumatic history. The assessment of records by South African judge and victim of apartheid, Albie Sachs, and the Truth and Reconciliation trials in South Africa has resonance with the compromised files of the Stasi. Sachs argues that records themselves are important but do not constitute the entire picture. Documents must mix with memories from people to fill out what really happened (2006). Therefore, the Truth and Reconciliation trials were so important because they mixed documentary evidence with the responsible parties actually acknowledging what they had done (Sachs, 2006). Thus, it was the combination of documents and discussion that made the experience so cathartic. While the unfettered access for victims to their files in Germany did not constitute the same kind of reconciliation that happened in South Africa, it did allow the victims of the Stasi to confront their betrayers, and it gave them evidence. Additionally, victims of the Stasi were allowed to publish information from their files, which fostered public debate about the legacy and implications of the Stasi (Miller, 1998). Access to the files also allowed those who would be the victims of slander to clear their name.”

The archive: a place of wound and healing

Access to the Stasi archive might reveal unexpected acts of betrayal, breaches of confidence and trust; or expose uncomfortable pasts. But, it may also bring healing and put an end to uncertainty and suspicions.As Rathnow says, “the files must remain open to that people can gain closure on the GDR chapter ... it’s not a stain you can just wipe away”.

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