Magazine / Current / Dictatorships in Retrospect / Interview | 29/10/2008

"Many people want to read their own file”

Even nearly twenty years after the end of the GDR there is still great interest in Germany in what life was like under the SED [Socialist Unity Party] dictatorship. An interview with the Federal Commissioner for the Inspection of the Records of the Ministry for State Security Marianne Birthler.

euro|topics: Frau Birthler, the Office of the Federal Commissioner for the Records of the Ministry of State Security of the former German Democratic Republic (BStU) was founded on 3 October 1990. It is considered an exemplary institution of its kind in Europe. Is there a special German way of reviewing the records [of the former East German secret police, the Stasi]?

One of the most important differences between Germany and other former communist-ruled countries is that the Ministry for State Security of the GDR was dissolved and not replaced, and its records were transferred to an institution specially created for this purpose. The files of the GDR secret police were opened very early on. Therefore, we have not lost as many documents as other countries have. Unlike in 1945, we did not want in the early 1990s to wait a whole generation again before beginning a public debate.

Marianne Birthler, born in Berlin in 1948, became head of the German agency charged with examining the archives of the GDR secret police, the Stasi, in 2000.

Photo: Die Hoffotografen

In other countries of the former Eastern Bloc today's secret services have been formed out of parts of the old apparatus. Only some countries, like Poland and the Czech Republic, have created their own laws and institutions for preserving the records of the former secret police. In Albania and Ukraine, for example, the records are administered by the current secret services.

euro|topics: What are the obstacles to reviewing the records?

That varies so much from country to country that I can hardly generalise. Of course it always depends whether there are still people in positions of political responsibility who were part of the old power structures. Resistance stems from fear of the truth, sometimes out of fear of the pain that confronting the past will bring or fear of social conflict.

euro|topics: Since the BStU was founded you have received more than 6 million applications. Of those some 2.5 million were from people wanting to look at their personal files. Aren't the Germans afraid of their past?

Nowadays many people regard the opportunity to read their own file as a natural right without any of the feared conflicts or acts of revenge occurring. Our work has become a matter of course.

euro|topics: In the 18 years that the office has existed, have the kind of questions addressed to you changed?

Attention has shifted away from what was at times a rather one-sided focus on revelations and sensational stories. The questions have become more precise and more profound. Many people want to know how the dictatorship functioned in detail and how people behaved under these conditions.

euro|topics: It has even become possible to win an Oscar with this subject, as Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck did in 2007 with his film "Das Leben der Anderen” [The Lives of Others]. The Germans want to know more about life in the GDR and in the SED regime.

Yes, the subject has gained social recognition. Of course, there is still resistance in Germany to confronting the past. Some people had links with the former SED system and do not wish to see it criticised: others think it would be better to spread a merciful cloak of oblivion over everything. I am therefore very glad that on the political level– on the part of the Bundestag [the German parliament] and the German federal government – and in the media there is a major consensus that a lid should not be put on discussions.

euro|topics: The Czech author Milan Kundera is currently facing accusations of having denounced an anti-communist oppositionist to the Czechoslovak secret service. How important are individual cases in reviewing the files?

I am not familiar with the files on Kundera, because it is a Czech case. I hope that the Czech public will discuss this case with an appropriate degree of objectivity. In our experience each case is different. We have very strict rules governing what information may be made public and about whom. The Stasi Records Act makes a distinction between victims and employees of the state security, including unofficial informers, known as IMs. The names of the latter may be made public if there is absolute certainty that they collaborated with the state security authorities. Otherwise files or personal data can only be made public with the permission of the people in question.

euro|topics: So confronting the past would not function without the media as a public domain?

The media play a prominent role. I can't imagine commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the democratic revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe next year without the media. The fiftieth anniversary of the popular uprising in the GDR in June 1953, for example, which we commemorated in 2003, received the attention of a broad public not least thanks to the media.

euro|topics: What do you think the next generation will do with the files?

The files of the authority for state security will continue to be a very important source for contemporary history in the future as well. Of course, every generation will ask its own questions, and new research topics will inform the debate. Today, large financial resources are being used to keep the archives open and to support civil society projects to come to terms with the past. It is often small societies or private museums that address the subject in very different ways and try to provide educational material for the next generation.

Interview: Nikola Richter

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