State Security and Mapping in the GDR Map Falsification as a Consequence of Excessive Secrecy? Archiv zur DDR-Staatssicherheit on behalf of the Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former German Democratic Republic edited by Dagmar Unverhau Volume 7 LIT Dagmar Unverhau (Ed.) State Security and Mapping in the GDR Map Falsification as a Consequence of Excessive Secrecy? Lectures to the conference of the BStU from 8th –9th March 2001 in Berlin LIT Any opinions expressed in this series represent the authors’ personal views only. Translation: Eubylon Berlin Copy editor: Textpraxis Hamburg, Michael Mundhenk Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.ddb.de. ISBN 3-8258-9039-2 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library © LIT VERLAG Berlin 2006 Auslieferung/Verlagskontakt: Grevener Str./Fresnostr. 2 48159 Münster Tel.+49 (0)251–620320 Fax +49 (0)251–231972 e-Mail: [email protected] http://www.lit-verlag.de Distributed in the UK by: Global Book Marketing, 99B Wallis Rd, London, E9 5LN Phone: +44 (0) 20 8533 5800 – Fax: +44 (0) 1600 775 663 http://www.centralbooks.co.uk/acatalog/search.html Distributed in North America by: Phone: +1 (732) 445 - 2280 Fax: + 1 (732) 445 - 3138 Transaction Publishers for orders (U. S. only): Rutgers University toll free (888) 999 - 6778 35 Berrue Circle e-mail: Piscataway, NJ 08854 [email protected] FOREWORD TO THE ENGLISH EDITION My maternal grandmother liked maxims, especially ones that rhyme. One of her favorites was, ‘Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to de- ceive.’ As this clever little verse implies, even small lies can escalate, especially if they‘re the cartographic variety. And no web of cartographic lies is more tan- gled than the countless hoaxes perpetrated by the German Democratic Republic in the late 1970s but rooted in the Soviet Union‘s cartographic secrecy of the 1930s and its obsession with secrecy in the Communist-controlled buffer states on its western frontier. Well aware that detailed maps that fall into enemy hands can undermine a coun- try‘s defense, the Soviet Union and its satellite states in Eastern Europe practiced the strict cartographic security common throughout much of Europe until the early decades of the Enlightenment, and considered essential in some measure through- out the developed world in times of war. When war threatens, government cartographic establishments withdraw their most detailed topographic maps and nautical charts and suppress the plotting of mil- itary installations and other sensitive features on maps available to the public. We‘ve witnessed a number of examples recently in the United States, follow- ing the 11 September 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon: rooftop details on some public buildings in Washington, D.C. were blanked out on Web-enabled aerial photography, and in New York State, where I live, the provin- cial GIS clearinghouse has made it more complicated for researchers to obtain orthorectified digital imagery for areas considered plausible terrorist targets. The Soviets and their Warsaw Pact partners sensed a similar threat in the late 1950s, when American spy planes were known to be photographing military tar- gets from altitudes not easily defended by Russian interceptor aircraft. After a surface-to-air missile downed a U-2 reconnaissance plane in May 1960, the Amer- icans stepped up development of spy satellites that could not only operate safely hundreds of kilometers above the planet but also image the terrain far more ef- ficiently than the U-2. Although Soviet intelligence lacked the details of the top- secret CORONA program, they could infer its prowess from the successful launch of Sputnik-1 in October 1957. By demonstrating the feasibility of satellite plat- forms for remote imaging, Sputnik exposed the inadequacy of camouflaging sen- sitive features on topographic maps. i Ausdruck vom 28.2.2006 More ominous was knowledge that the United States was developing a global geodetic coordinate system, with which geospatial technology and electronically guided missiles could deliver atomic warheads with unprecedented precision. The precise geometric portrayal of even non-sensitive features could help Russia‘s Cold War adversary fix the precise position of military targets identified from space. Masking sensitive features on large-scale maps released for general use was no longer sufficient—unless displaced in an unpredictable way that under- mined the maps‘ geospatial credibility, cartographic symbols for other features became a threat to state security. In the words of Roland Lucht, Horst Henkel, and Wolfgang Scholz, the ‘secrecy of detail’ became less important than the ‘secrecy of the coordinate systems.’ The German Democratic Republic‘s tangled web of cartographic falsification can be traced to the 13 October 1965 National Defense Council resolution that re- sponded to Soviet pressure by severely restricting access to all detailed topo- graphic maps and removing grid coordinates and other geodetic information from large-scale maps intended for non-military users. These added restrictions proved a serious handicap for civilian agencies with responsibilities requiring large-scale maps. To accommodate civilian needs, the GDR modified specifications for the so-called ‘Edition for the National Economy’ by allowing a map grid. Although distribution was to be closely controlled, the possibility that the maps might fall into Western hands required a radical distortion of position and content. In addi- tion to the added expense of maintaining two sets of geospatial data, this official falsification undermined geological mapping, energy exploration, and the credi- bility of commercial map publishers who used the maps as sources. Examples in this well-illustrated book highlight an inherent conflict between the two principal uses of topographic mapping: military defense, which often re- quires secrecy, and economic development, which benefits from openness. Al- though most maps get by with comparatively harmless ‘white lies’, the deliberate falsifications implemented by the GDR in the name of state security not only ex- ploited fundamental processes of cartographic generalization (selection, classifi- cation, smoothing, displacement, aggregation, and enhancement) but also created totally fictitious geographic features. Dagmar Unverhau and her collaborators are to be congratulated for a fascinating exposé of the GDR‘s elaborate strategy for distorting positions and ‘recoding’ map symbols. Their scholarship is an impor- tant contribution to the history of cartography in the twentieth century. Mark Monmonier Syracuse, New York, USA August 2005 ii Ausdruck vom 28.2.2006 PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION In 1990, Christa Wolf wrote in her introduction to Walter Janka’s essay ’Schwierigkeiten mit der Wahrheit’ (’Troubles with Truth’) that the reappraisal of the GDR era through ’self-criticism’ and ’self-questioning’ was indispensable. The lively controversy the present volume has triggered in Germany over the last few years—it can be followed in the magazine Kartographische Nachrichten— shows how Wolf’s call to action has lost little of its pertinence. The book’s critics, first and foremost members of the former elites, complain that their voices as con- temporary witnesses had not been heard and that, not least for this reason, the influence exerted by the State Security on the production of maps has been thor- oughly misunderstood. However, the written sources on which this volume is based allow us, in fact, to counter the former rulers’ historically falsifying proclamations with a more complex view of history. The goal here is to encourage a critical examination of the nature of the GDR as a dictatorship, of its apparatuses of power, and of its elites. I am pleased that our volume about maps, which in Germany has already seen two editions—with a third under way—is now also appearing in English. This English edition will allow discourse across linguistic barriers. The influence of the state and the secret service on cartography, primarily on of- ficial cartography, which was under the political supremacy of the then-leading power, the Soviet Union, is by no means interesting only for German-speaking countries. A comparative study of the effects of the Cold War on cartography, for example, taking into consideration the United States of America, the second leading power of the time, promises interesting insights into the political systems in both the East and the West. With the publication of the English edition of this volume about maps we would like to encourage such international discussion. I would like to thank Professor Mark Monmonier of Syracuse University, New York, for his preface. Marianne Birthler The Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former GDR Berlin, August 2005 iii Ausdruck vom 28.2.2006 Ausdruck vom 28.2.2006 ABOUT THIS BOOK This volume in the series Archiv zur DDR-Staatssicherheit (Archive for Mate- rial on the GDR State Security) documents the contributions to the conference on ‘Map Falsification as a Consequence of Excessive Secrecy?’ that my agency ini- tiated and held in March 2001 in co-operation with the museum foundation Post und Telekommunikation (Post and Telecommunications). The idea and the initia- tive for this event came from Dr. Dagmar Unverhau. The workshop was possible due to support from and helpful co-operation with various scientists and institutes. We thank them all. In the past, not much attention was paid to the topic of map falsification. Never- theless, it is an interesting field of study, and not only for the specialist. Something that is bound to arouse interest is the fact that the GDR not only falsified maps for tourists and its own population but also ‘doctored’ the official topographic maps. How and why this took place is one of the questions that became a central theme during the workshop.