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The Poisoned Madeleine: Stasi Files As Evidence and History

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The Poisoned Madeleine: Stasi Files As Evidence and History Faculty of Information Quarterly Vol 1, No 4 (August 2009) former East German government’s The Poisoned secret police agency, the Stasi. The Stasi records of mass surveillance and Madeleine: Stasi punishment of citizens serve as both a record of the East German people’s Files As Evidence oppression and a vital tool for coming to terms with the communist and History dictatorship in East Germany. Debates about opening versus sealing these files allowed Germans to analyze the disconnect between rights of privacy Rachel E. Beattie and rights of information. The success Rachel E. Beattie, a recent graduate of the laws created to both open and of University of Toronto’s Faculty of restrict the use of the Stasi files can be Information, has an interest in both attributed to the innovative way that Archives and Libraries. She combines these laws were able to these interests with her background in accommodate those who needed English and Film, which she hopes will the information as well as those lead her to a career in an audio-visual concerned about their privacy. archive or library. This paper builds on Further, the whole debate raises many the work of her Film Masters thesis that questions about the power of sensitive dealt with German reunification in documents. In the course of the 1989 and its representation in debate, the veracity of the files was contemporary German film. She is questioned repeatedly, and interested in how the German people individually they are highly suspect. use the tools of information, from However, taken as a group, they build historical records to fictional texts, to a very accurate picture of a repressive deal with their troubled history. police state. Additionally, the files work as a collective memory-building Abstract project for former East Germans. Through the files, they can This article examines the privacy acknowledge and work through the debates surrounding records from the trauma of the East German Page 1 of 11 Faculty of Information Quarterly Vol 1, No 4 (August 2009) government’s surveillance. Ultimately, to reinterpret his view of his former the German resolution to the problem government. These revelations throw Georg’s of the Stasi files serves as an example world into confusion as he learns that his deceased former lover had informed on him and for other governments struggling with that it was the Stasi agent assigned to watch him the disposal of extremely sensitive who removed incriminating evidence before a documents. Stasi search of his apartment. Through the collection of records that is his file, Georg learns “But what a gift to memory is a Stasi file. Far better the truth—that of the power of one man than a Madeleine” (Garton Ash, 1997, p. 12). resisting an unfair government. Thus, suspect records with questionable evidential value in the “Archives have the power to privilege and to marginalize. legal sense of the term come to stand for much They can be a tool of hegemony; they can be a tool of more. They mix with former East Germans’ resistance. They both reflect and constitute power personal memory, build identity, and create relations” (Schwartz and Cook, 2002, p. 13). catharsis for survivors of oppression. Through the Stasi lies, former East Germans can learn There is a moment at the end of the the truth about their government. film The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen , This article, through the example of the 2006) when, after German unification, the lead East German Stasi files, will examine the role of character, East German writer and cultural critic records from totalitarian regimes as objects of Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), goes to look power, evidence, and keys to memory. These at his Stasi file. Georg is shocked to find within records are automatically suspect, as they were his file the story of another man, Agent Gerd often filled with conjecture, errors, and straight- Wiesler (Ultich Mühe) . This scene demonstrates out lies. However, it is possible that these the incredible power of the ability to see the questionable records also act as evidence in a information collected by the secret police in that different, deeper sense of the word and in fact it positions the Stasi file as a method for are important agents of memory and identity— reclaiming identity. both of the criminal excesses of the system that The film neatly articulates the function created them and of the events they reflect. The of the Stasi record as evidence of not only the Stasi files are imperfect documents and would East German government’s oppression but also likely not be admissible as evidence in a court of the East German people’s defiance of it. In the law. However, they are vitally important for all film, a visibly shaken Georg reads a transcript of Germans, and especially former East Germans, surveillance on his house. Georg had thought he who seek to understand the communist regime, was free from Stasi surveillance, so this scene hold responsible individuals accountable, and acts as an important revelation and forces him incorporate their pasts into their identities. In Page 2 of 11 Faculty of Information Quarterly Vol 1, No 4 (August 2009) essence, the same records that once oppressed (Miller, 1999) informants (called IMs) in their can now free and facilitate healing. employ. Before analyzing the archival After the Berlin Wall was breached on implications of the Stasi files, it is first necessary November 9, 1989, there was widespread panic to examine the East German context. In 1989, among the Stasi elite. There was a mass the borders were opened for East Germans and destruction of files, with some shredded and West Germans to freely visit either side, and others burned (Adams, 2000; Funder, 2003). A eventually the repressive East German regime large-scale reconstruction project has taken was toppled. While that dictatorship is long place wherein the shredded files have been gone, massive traces are left of its oppression, reassembled and magnetic tape re-spooled not the least of which is the immense number of (Adams, 2000). However, East Germans feared documents kept by all levels of government. Of that the Stasi would destroy all traces of their those records, the ones that affect the most operations. In December 1989, the regional ordinary East Germans (Ossis, as they are called offices of Stasi headquarters, with the exception in the vernacular) were the records of the of the Berlin office, were occupied by protestors Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Ministry for State who prevented further destruction of records Security), known as the Stasi ( Economist, 2000). (Adams, 2000). Unfortunately, it was too late for This internal secret police force kept tabs on the some records, specifically those about foreign East German people from 1950 until 1990, political figures, thought most sensitive and thus when the East German government fell the highest priority for destruction. Thus, many (Funder, 2003). East Germany had a population Stasi files are now incomplete (Garton Ash, of roughly 16 million (12.5 million adults), and 1996; Miller, 1998). there were files on approximately six million Moving forward in time, there was great people (Miller, 1998). The Stasi, under the debate in 1990 and into 1991, approaching direction of the ruling Sozialistische Einheitspartei official unification with West Germany, about Deutschlands (Socialist Unity Party of Germany, what to do with the remaining files. West or SED), achieved this level of surveillance German archivists worried about people’s right through the use of a vast web of “volunteer” to privacy and argued the files should be locked informers. They bribed East Germans with away until those named in them had died travel privileges, favours, better jobs, and (Economist, 2000; Danielson, 2004). Others, immunity for transgressions in exchange for mostly East Germans, wanted the files open so information (Adams, 2000; Garton Ash, 1996; that those responsible for the surveillance and Miller, 1998). By the time the SED was defeated state-sanctioned terror would be held and Germany turned to democracy, it is accountable for their actions ( Economist, 2000). estimated that the Stasi had 90,000 full staff and Additionally, they argued sealing the files could between 170,000 (Miller, 1998) and 174,000 leave individuals open to blackmail. Indeed, Page 3 of 11 Faculty of Information Quarterly Vol 1, No 4 (August 2009) some files had already been used for this The StUG law is unique because the purpose (Danielson, 2004). In the end, those files are not completely open to all individuals. advocating for open access for victims won. The They are open and free to all those who have a resulting legislation, which was enacted in file and to other persons, such as researchers, December 1991, was called the Law on Documents journalists, and employers, wishing to perform of the State Security Service of the Former GDR (Stasi- background checks for Stasi collaboration Unterlagen-Gesetz, or StUG) (Miller, 1999). (Maddrell, 2004). Third party names are blacked One of the key outcomes of the law was that it out by the archivist on the reference copies stipulated a bipartisan democratically elected made for users (Miller, 1998). However, the official (the first of whom was Joachim Gauck) names of informers and those who had watched would govern an authority separate from the the user are not hidden, though the files often unified government and the federal archive, contain code names for both the victims and the where privacy laws dictate no access for 30 years perpetrators of the surveillance (Miller, 1998). In (this came to be known as the Gauck Authority, fact, the law states that archivists must make despite Gauck’s subsequent retirement) every effort to find the real name of the (Maddrell, 2004; Miller, 1998).
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