Representations of the Stasi in Literature and Film from Cold War to Present
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IN THE SHADOW: REPRESENTATIONS OF THE STASI IN LITERATURE AND FILM FROM COLD WAR TO PRESENT Everett T. King A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS May 2021 Committee: Douglas Forsyth, Advisor Kristie Foell © 2021 Everett T. King All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Douglas Forsyth, Advisor The East German Stasi stood among the most effective secret police forces in modern history, creating a surveillance apparatus that invaded all levels of society and affected many thousands of people, from ordinary citizens to the highest levels of the West German government. Artists and writers have long been preoccupied with the Stasi and have featured the organization in their productions since even the peak of the Cold War. Cultural productions like literature and film often serve as valuable “windows” into historical societies and the minds of those who dwelled therein, shedding light on values and norms that existed at the time, as well as the conditions that surrounded the publication of said productions. This study examines the portrayal of the Stasi in literature and film, starting during the Cold War in East German literature, moving to immediately after reunification, and ending in the twenty-first century. Specifically, it studies the general “character” of the organization as portrayed by various artists, and how these portrayals developed over time. This study draws on both history and German Studies as subjects, featuring intensive literature analysis and partial analysis of surveillance files, along with reference to a broad body of secondary research. This study shows that as time has passed, the portrayal of the Stasi in various media has become more nuanced and fact focused, owing to the increased amount of available information on the organization. Initially the organization is seen as a force of nature, with emphasis placed upon its mystery and influence. As time progressed, artists rejected the power of the Stasi by portraying them as human and fallible, occasionally as comedically incompetent. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to first thank my family for their unwavering support throughout the writing process. Thanks to my graduate colleagues: Robyn Perry, for her advice in formatting, and Kyle Rable, for acting as a third unofficial reader. I would like to sincerely thank my committee members, Dr. Douglas Forsyth and Dr. Kristie Foell, for their instrumental help in shaping this project and directing my research, as well as reading and offering editing suggestions. Special thanks to Dr. Christina Guenther, for her early help in defining a research area as well as her support throughout my time as a graduate student, as well as Dr. David Wildermuth, for helping me to foster my passion for German history and culture as an undergraduate at Shippensburg University. Finally, thank you to both of my graduate coordinators, Dr. Edgar Landgraf in German Studies and Dr. Benjamin Greene in History, for helping to keep me on track during the writing process. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 1 Historiography .............................................................................................................. 5 CHAPTER 1: THE STASI AND GDR LITERATURE PRE-WENDE .................................. 9 The Stasi’s Influence in GDR Literature ...................................................................... 9 Ausbürgerung of Wolf Biermann ................................................................................. 13 Stasi actions against Biermann ......................................................................... 16 Biermann’s portrayal of the Stasi in Die Stasi-Ballade .................................... 19 State Censorship in Monika Maron’s Flugasche .......................................................... 21 Censorship culture in Flugasche ....................................................................... 24 Portrayal of Stasi Surveillance in Christa Wolf’s Was bleibt ....................................... 29 Depiction of the Stasi in Was bleibt .................................................................. 31 Conclusions .............................................................................................................. 35 CHAPTER 2: THE STASI AND GERMAN LITERATURE POST-WENDE ....................... 37 The Success of the Revolution and the Failure of the Stasi .......................................... 37 The Literature Scene after the Wende ........................................................................... 39 The Stasi in Literature: post-Wende Developments...................................................... 42 The File and Journalistic Discovery ............................................................................. 43 State Surveillance and Memory in “Ich” ..................................................................... 48 vi Incompetence and Mundanity in Helden wie wir ......................................................... 53 Conclusions ............................................................................................................... 60 CHAPTER 3: THE LEGACY OF THE STASI IN THE 21ST CENTURY ............................. 62 Gregor Gysi and the Issue with Prosecution ................................................................. 62 The Stasi and Popular Culture in the 21st Century ........................................................ 66 The Firsthand Accounts of Stasiland ............................................................................ 67 The Divided Reception of Das Leben der Anderen ...................................................... 74 Story and themes ............................................................................................... 74 Reception among scholars and eyewitnesses .................................................... 81 Conclusions ............................................................................................................... 84 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................... 86 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 91 1 INTRODUCTION In late 1967, GDR (German Democratic Republic) cement worker Wolfgang Stieber contacted a refugee living in West Germany and shared his own plan of escape. Stieber was soon to be drafted into the National People’s Army but did not want to serve the country, and therefore planned to flee to the west. This letter was intercepted by East Germany’s Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Ministry of State Security), which is often derisively shortened to “Stasi.” Within seven months, the Stasi had initiated a full investigation against Stieber, collecting all his personal information including his address, job, family, and personal history. His acquaintances and colleagues were consulted, and opinions about him given. Wolfgang Stieber was now a full “hostile negative” in the GDR. He was arrested July 16, 1968 and had his residence fully searched. He was sentenced to one year imprisonment.1 The story of Wolfgang Stieber, drawn from the Stasi’s surveillance files against him, is just one of countless more that were harassed and persecuted by the Ministry during its forty- year existence. The Stasi was a secret police force founded in 1950 with the goal of securing the fledgling GDR during a time of great unrest, rife with increasing incidents of bombings and political attacks.2 As the state progressed, so too did the Stasi, eventually numbering among the largest and most powerful secret police forces of its kind. The Stasi was unique because of the enormous power and influence that it wielded within the state, as well as its deep level of intrusion into the personal lives of GDR citizens. Compared to the Gestapo, for example, the 1 In the clutches of the NKVD and the Stasi- behind the wall of shame and barbed wire: A Documentation: documentary evidence taken from NKVD/Stasi files with many photographs, ed. Gustav Rust, tr. Ro-Ho Enterprises (Bamberg: Difo-Druck, 1999) pp. 267-270 2 Jens Gieseke, The History of the Stasi: East Germany’s Secret Police, 1945-1990, tr. David Burnett (New York: Berghahn Books, 2014) pp. 25 2 Stasi employed hundreds of thousands more paid labor by 1989 and was 9,000 percent larger than its equivalent organization in present-day, unified Germany.3 Mary Fulbrook characterized the GDR as a country that fundamentally hated its citizens, and where hate exists, so too does fear.4 The goal of the Stasi was to protect the state against its own civilians, acting on constant suspicion borne of paranoia. Historian Gary Bruce states that the Stasi occasionally arranged the murder of those in opposition to the GDR, ruled by the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (Socialist Unity Party), or SED for short. However, this was not the norm. The MO of the Stasi usually involved more delicate and sophisticated means, such as extensive surveillance and behind-the-scenes maneuvering, disruption of the personal lives of opponents using psychological methods, extensive blackmail, and coercion; methods that became known as “Zerzetzungsmaßnahmen.”5 This was usually accomplished with the Stasi’s personal army of “Inofizielle Mitarbeiter (unofficial informants)”