Stratfor about Gemany and the STASI

Bernd Pulch BERND PULCH, CYBER-STASI, SPIES July 22, 2012 40 Minutes

Investigative Partnership organised by WikiLeaks – the Data was obtained by WikiLeaks.

Re: east german stasi

Text
Date	2010-10-05 00:41:28
From	marko.papic@stratfor.com
To	sean.noonan@stratfor.com
Others	InReplyTo: 4CAA55EA.2070401@stratfor.com
Interesting thing is that George talked about how in Southern Europe people trust the “clan” over the society/government. So in Serbia shit like this never went to this extreme. A husband spying on his wife? Unheard off…But Germans are so freaking orderly and loyal. They are a society where family links are not more important than those between a citizen and a state.Would hate to have married a German.Sean Noonan wrote:man this is fucked up. still can’t imagine what it would’ve been like.The Spy in My Bed by Bob Jamieson Info Bob Jamieson http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-10-02/the-spy-in-my-bed/full/ Vera Lengsfeld was arrested and tortured by the East German government. Only years later, did she discover it was her husband who informed on her. Bob Jamieson reports. Hohenschoenhausen Prison in Berlin is the sinister reminder that even now, on the 20th anniversary this Sunday, the work to reunify Germany is still unfinished. The complex of drab buildings was the secret detention jail for East Germany’s Ministry of State Security-Stasi-the vast and brutal internal army used to control the population. And Hohenschoenhausen, left untouched since Stasi agents fled when the wall came down, was the center of interrogation and torture. “This was my cell,” said Vera Lengsfeld, who spent a month there awaiting trial as Stasi agents tried to force a confession to opposing the state. She did not know then that the man who betrayed her was her husband. In the 1980s Vera Lengsfeld was a modest civil-rights activist in the Communist state, with three children and, friends say, very much in love with her husband, a poet. Today she is a trim 58-year-old with a blond bob who has become an influential member of the German Parliament, often at odds with Chancellor Angela Merkel (also a former East German) over individual liberty. She is no longer married. Walking in what is now a museum, under harsh fluorescent light on long-faded brown linoleum, Lengsfeld stops outside another door. “This was where they did the water torture that made you think you were drowning,” she says without emotion. “And the one next to it was for the Chinese water torture.” “Doesn’t being a guide here revive bitter memories?” I ask. “No, it doesn’t,” she says. “I give the tours to teach the truth about East Germany, especially to the young.” In East Germany, there was nowhere Stasi agents or their informers weren’t watching or listening and reporting back to headquarters. Homes were bugged, telephones tapped, mail opened, neighbors spied on neighbors. According to German federal records, there were almost 100,000 Stasi agents and an estimated 500,000 informers under contract to the ministry in a country of 16 million people. Some informed to curry favor with the regime and others were induced with threats. Article – Jamieson Stasi Vera Lengsfeld was arrested and tortured by the East German government. Only years later, did she discover it was her husband who informed on her. (Jockel Finck / AP Photo) In Hitler’s Germany, there was one Gestapo agent for every 2,000 citizens. In East Germany, there was one Stasi agent or informer for every 63 citizens, records show. Lengsfeld was under constant surveillance and harassment. She was expelled from the science academy where she worked and then made her living as a beekeeper and translator. Finally, in 1988, she was arrested for carrying a sign in a government parade. It quoted the first line of the East German constitution: “Every citizen has the right to express his opinion freely and openly.” The charge was riotous behavior. She remembers that on her arrival at Hohenschoenhausen. “I was fingerprinted and then had to sit on a piece of fabric. That was then placed in a jar to collect my smell.” (Thousands of such jars were found after the wall came down but there has never been an explanation of forensic value, bizarre or otherwise.) Convicted by a Communist court she was later thrown out of the country, leaving her husband, and her three children behind. But the worst for Vera Lengsfeld was yet to come. Tens of thousands of Stasi victims, whose lives were destroyed; who were beaten, tortured, kidnapped or killed, have never seen anyone who was responsible punished. Thomas Habicht, a leading German journalist who was a target of Stasi agents in West Berlin, says that still casts a shadow over reunification. “The generation of Stasi criminals is still alive, behaves aggressively, and in some cases even has gained influential positions again.” Many of the former agents and officials, Habicht says, still live in the privileged housing built for them by the East German government “which adds insult to serious injury.” On this subject, Lengfeld’s eyes flash for the first time this day. “I’m angry,” she snaps. While the first and only freely elected East German parliament moved to punish the Stasi agents, she and others believe that to speed reunification, the West German government of Helmut Kohl swept the issue under the rug and subsequent governments have kept it there. “Just look at pensions,” she says. “Because (the Stasi agents’) wages were two or three times higher than the average East German, their pensions now are two or three times higher” than most of the retirees. “East Germany,” she says, “had both victims and perpetrators and we cannot forget that.” In November, 1989, as chaotic protests against the repressive regime grew, Lengsfeld wanted to return from her exile in Britain to be with her family. On November 9 she arrived in West Berlin and through confusion at the Friedrichstrasse checkpoint, she was able to slip back into East Berlin. Her timing was exquisite: that night the Berlin Wall fell. The Stasi learned from her husband not only about her opposition to the government but intimate details of dinner table conversations, pillow talk, even their sex life. In the aftermath, six million files on East German citizens were discovered in Stasi archives. Laid end to end they would be 125 miles long. In 1991, the files were opened for the Stasi victims. It was then that Vera Lengsfeld learned that that the Stasi informer code named “Donald” was her husband, Knud Wollenberger. In 1984, Wollenberger signed a Stasi contract agreeing to inform on Lengsfeld and her son from a previous marriage. The Stasi learned from her husband not only about her opposition to the government but intimate details of dinner table conversations, pillow talk, even their sex life. She divorced “Donald” in 1992. Today, she says, “I will never again talk about this.” But those who saw her then described a shattered woman, someone who felt violated in a way she could not at first fully comprehend like, say adultery. Wollenberger, who suffers from advanced Parkinson’s disease, does not give interviews. But a decade ago when a television interviewer asked why he agreed to spy on his wife he said, “I didn’t think you could say no.” Was he forced to do it? “No.” Well, asked the interviewer, was it voluntary? Wollenberger answered with a question. “What is voluntary?” There are certain echoes to this story in The Lives of Others, the Oscar winning movie about the Stasi and its victims. In the film-the only serious one on the subject-a playwright’s lover is induced to spy on him with tragic consequences. The playwright has long made his accommodation with the regime, but then turns against it. Sebastian Koch, who portrayed the playwright, believes many in Germany, like his character, find the Stasi excesses too easy to ignore. “He refused to see it because things were too perfect and he was too productive,” Koch says, “but it will always be there, underneath the surface.” At the end of the film Koch’s character meets the former minister of state security, still smug and arrogant. “And to think,” the playwright says, “that people like you once ruled a country.” Habicht, the journalist, says, so far, that question has not been fully answered. “We still have thousands of Stasi victims who, 20 years after reunification, want to learn the truth from their files.” According to Germany’s Federal Commission, which manages the Stasi archives, two and a half million people have read their personal files. Another six thousand are applying each month to gain access to theirs. Many former East Germans still do not know who spied on them, what was reported and the consequences. At the same time, Sebastian Koch says Germans should never forget people like Vera Lengsfeld. “There is a larger truth here. You have to commit yourself and face the consequences. You have this moment when you have to react or surrender.” Bob Jamieson has worked as a correspondent for NBC News and ABC News, reporting from all seven continents during his 40-year career. He has received five national Emmys as well as DuPont and Peabody awards. — Sean Noonan Tactical Analyst Office: +1 512-279-9479 Mobile: +1 512-758-5967 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. http://www.stratfor.com — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Marko Papic Geopol Analyst – Eurasia STRATFOR 700 Lavaca Street – 900 Austin, Texas 78701 USA P: + 1-512-744-4094 marko.papic@stratfor.com

Re: east german stasi

Text
Date	2010-10-05 00:47:04
From	marko.papic@stratfor.com
To	sean.noonan@stratfor.com
Others	InReplyTo: 4CAA5876.1040705@stratfor.com
I was both joking and serious…In Yugoslavia there were a lot of people who you knew were informing on you. Lots of school teachers would do that, inform on what the kids said about the parents. But again, the end result would be nuissance, not imprisonment and torture.You might get fired… but in truth everyone knew somoeone so you could always work the networks to get off.Serbia/Yugoslavia is an inherently corrupt, family oriented system.The danger with these authoritarian regimes is when they rule an ordered, technocratic and bureaucratized society like the Germans… When you can’t work your connections to alleviate the harm. That is what is so dangerous about the Germans. Sean Noonan wrote: is that serious or a joke? I have no idea why they’d do that. Reminds me of the nazi science experiments you always hear about. Obviously my experience in China is nothing compared to actually living it—but I think general surveillance is a bit different than this complete infiltration of informants. In China, at least, you can get a bit of an idea of who’s watching. Not sure how Yugoslavia/Serbia compares, but constantly wondering who around you, including your family, is informing on you! Fuck! Marko Papic wrote: “I was fingerprinted and then had to sit on a piece of fabric. That was then placed in a jar to collect my smell.” (Thousands of such jars were found after the wall came down but there has never been an explanation of forensic value, bizarre or otherwise K-9 death squads? Sean Noonan wrote: man this is fucked up. still can’t imagine what it would’ve been like. The Spy in My Bed by Bob Jamieson Info Bob Jamieson http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-10-02/the-spy-in-my-bed/full/ Vera Lengsfeld was arrested and tortured by the East German government. Only years later, did she discover it was her husband who informed on her. Bob Jamieson reports. Hohenschoenhausen Prison in Berlin is the sinister reminder that even now, on the 20th anniversary this Sunday, the work to reunify Germany is still unfinished. The complex of drab buildings was the secret detention jail for East Germany’s Ministry of State Security-Stasi-the vast and brutal internal army used to control the population. And Hohenschoenhausen, left untouched since Stasi agents fled when the wall came down, was the center of interrogation and torture. “This was my cell,” said Vera Lengsfeld, who spent a month there awaiting trial as Stasi agents tried to force a confession to opposing the state. She did not know then that the man who betrayed her was her husband. In the 1980s Vera Lengsfeld was a modest civil-rights activist in the Communist state, with three children and, friends say, very much in love with her husband, a poet. Today she is a trim 58-year-old with a blond bob who has become an influential member of the German Parliament, often at odds with Chancellor Angela Merkel (also a former East German) over individual liberty. She is no longer married. Walking in what is now a museum, under harsh fluorescent light on long-faded brown linoleum, Lengsfeld stops outside another door. “This was where they did the water torture that made you think you were drowning,” she says without emotion. “And the one next to it was for the Chinese water torture.” “Doesn’t being a guide here revive bitter memories?” I ask. “No, it doesn’t,” she says. “I give the tours to teach the truth about East Germany, especially to the young.” In East Germany, there was nowhere Stasi agents or their informers weren’t watching or listening and reporting back to headquarters. Homes were bugged, telephones tapped, mail opened, neighbors spied on neighbors. According to German federal records, there were almost 100,000 Stasi agents and an estimated 500,000 informers under contract to the ministry in a country of 16 million people. Some informed to curry favor with the regime and others were induced with threats. Article – Jamieson Stasi Vera Lengsfeld was arrested and tortured by the East German government. Only years later, did she discover it was her husband who informed on her. (Jockel Finck / AP Photo) In Hitler’s Germany, there was one Gestapo agent for every 2,000 citizens. In East Germany, there was one Stasi agent or informer for every 63 citizens, records show. Lengsfeld was under constant surveillance and harassment. She was expelled from the science academy where she worked and then made her living as a beekeeper and translator. Finally, in 1988, she was arrested for carrying a sign in a government parade. It quoted the first line of the East German constitution: “Every citizen has the right to express his opinion freely and openly.” The charge was riotous behavior. She remembers that on her arrival at Hohenschoenhausen. “I was fingerprinted and then had to sit on a piece of fabric. That was then placed in a jar to collect my smell.” (Thousands of such jars were found after the wall came down but there has never been an explanation of forensic value, bizarre or otherwise.) Convicted by a Communist court she was later thrown out of the country, leaving her husband, and her three children behind. But the worst for Vera Lengsfeld was yet to come. Tens of thousands of Stasi victims, whose lives were destroyed; who were beaten, tortured, kidnapped or killed, have never seen anyone who was responsible punished. Thomas Habicht, a leading German journalist who was a target of Stasi agents in West Berlin, says that still casts a shadow over reunification. “The generation of Stasi criminals is still alive, behaves aggressively, and in some cases even has gained influential positions again.” Many of the former agents and officials, Habicht says, still live in the privileged housing built for them by the East German government “which adds insult to serious injury.” On this subject, Lengfeld’s eyes flash for the first time this day. “I’m angry,” she snaps. While the first and only freely elected East German parliament moved to punish the Stasi agents, she and others believe that to speed reunification, the West German government of Helmut Kohl swept the issue under the rug and subsequent governments have kept it there. “Just look at pensions,” she says. “Because (the Stasi agents’) wages were two or three times higher than the average East German, their pensions now are two or three times higher” than most of the retirees. “East Germany,” she says, “had both victims and perpetrators and we cannot forget that.” In November, 1989, as chaotic protests against the repressive regime grew, Lengsfeld wanted to return from her exile in Britain to be with her family. On November 9 she arrived in West Berlin and through confusion at the Friedrichstrasse checkpoint, she was able to slip back into East Berlin. Her timing was exquisite: that night the Berlin Wall fell. The Stasi learned from her husband not only about her opposition to the government but intimate details of dinner table conversations, pillow talk, even their sex life. In the aftermath, six million files on East German citizens were discovered in Stasi archives. Laid end to end they would be 125 miles long. In 1991, the files were opened for the Stasi victims. It was then that Vera Lengsfeld learned that that the Stasi informer code named “Donald” was her husband, Knud Wollenberger. In 1984, Wollenberger signed a Stasi contract agreeing to inform on Lengsfeld and her son from a previous marriage. The Stasi learned from her husband not only about her opposition to the government but intimate details of dinner table conversations, pillow talk, even their sex life. She divorced “Donald” in 1992. Today, she says, “I will never again talk about this.” But those who saw her then described a shattered woman, someone who felt violated in a way she could not at first fully comprehend like, say adultery. Wollenberger, who suffers from advanced Parkinson’s disease, does not give interviews. But a decade ago when a television interviewer asked why he agreed to spy on his wife he said, “I didn’t think you could say no.” Was he forced to do it? “No.” Well, asked the interviewer, was it voluntary? Wollenberger answered with a question. “What is voluntary?” There are certain echoes to this story in The Lives of Others, the Oscar winning movie about the Stasi and its victims. In the film-the only serious one on the subject-a playwright’s lover is induced to spy on him with tragic consequences. The playwright has long made his accommodation with the regime, but then turns against it. Sebastian Koch, who portrayed the playwright, believes many in Germany, like his character, find the Stasi excesses too easy to ignore. “He refused to see it because things were too perfect and he was too productive,” Koch says, “but it will always be there, underneath the surface.” At the end of the film Koch’s character meets the former minister of state security, still smug and arrogant. “And to think,” the playwright says, “that people like you once ruled a country.” Habicht, the journalist, says, so far, that question has not been fully answered. “We still have thousands of Stasi victims who, 20 years after reunification, want to learn the truth from their files.” According to Germany’s Federal Commission, which manages the Stasi archives, two and a half million people have read their personal files. Another six thousand are applying each month to gain access to theirs. Many former East Germans still do not know who spied on them, what was reported and the consequences. At the same time, Sebastian Koch says Germans should never forget people like Vera Lengsfeld. “There is a larger truth here. You have to commit yourself and face the consequences. You have this moment when you have to react or surrender.” Bob Jamieson has worked as a correspondent for NBC News and ABC News, reporting from all seven continents during his 40-year career. He has received five national Emmys as well as DuPont and Peabody awards. — Sean Noonan Tactical Analyst Office: +1 512-279-9479 Mobile: +1 512-758-5967 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. http://www.stratfor.com — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Marko Papic Geopol Analyst – Eurasia STRATFOR 700 Lavaca Street – 900 Austin, Texas 78701 USA P: + 1-512-744-4094 marko.papic@stratfor.com — Sean Noonan Tactical Analyst Office: +1 512-279-9479 Mobile: +1 512-758-5967 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. http://www.stratfor.com — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Marko Papic Geopol Analyst – Eurasia STRATFOR 700 Lavaca Street – 900 Austin, Texas 78701 USA P: + 1-512-744-4094 marko.papic@stratfor.com

Re: east german stasi

Text
Date	2010-10-05 00:36:34
From	marko.papic@stratfor.com
To	sean.noonan@stratfor.com
Others	InReplyTo: 4CAA55EA.2070401@stratfor.com
We had similar surveillance systems in Yugoslavia. However, detention and torture ceased in the ealy 1960s. It was far less serious stuff, but could still cost you a promotion or a raise because someone in your appartment bloc snitched that you were doing A, sympathizing with B or singing C.Sean Noonan wrote:man this is fucked up. still can’t imagine what it would’ve been like.The Spy in My Bed by Bob Jamieson Info Bob Jamieson http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-10-02/the-spy-in-my-bed/full/ Vera Lengsfeld was arrested and tortured by the East German government. Only years later, did she discover it was her husband who informed on her. Bob Jamieson reports. Hohenschoenhausen Prison in Berlin is the sinister reminder that even now, on the 20th anniversary this Sunday, the work to reunify Germany is still unfinished. The complex of drab buildings was the secret detention jail for East Germany’s Ministry of State Security-Stasi-the vast and brutal internal army used to control the population. And Hohenschoenhausen, left untouched since Stasi agents fled when the wall came down, was the center of interrogation and torture. “This was my cell,” said Vera Lengsfeld, who spent a month there awaiting trial as Stasi agents tried to force a confession to opposing the state. She did not know then that the man who betrayed her was her husband. In the 1980s Vera Lengsfeld was a modest civil-rights activist in the Communist state, with three children and, friends say, very much in love with her husband, a poet. Today she is a trim 58-year-old with a blond bob who has become an influential member of the German Parliament, often at odds with Chancellor Angela Merkel (also a former East German) over individual liberty. She is no longer married. Walking in what is now a museum, under harsh fluorescent light on long-faded brown linoleum, Lengsfeld stops outside another door. “This was where they did the water torture that made you think you were drowning,” she says without emotion. “And the one next to it was for the Chinese water torture.” “Doesn’t being a guide here revive bitter memories?” I ask. “No, it doesn’t,” she says. “I give the tours to teach the truth about East Germany, especially to the young.” In East Germany, there was nowhere Stasi agents or their informers weren’t watching or listening and reporting back to headquarters. Homes were bugged, telephones tapped, mail opened, neighbors spied on neighbors. According to German federal records, there were almost 100,000 Stasi agents and an estimated 500,000 informers under contract to the ministry in a country of 16 million people. Some informed to curry favor with the regime and others were induced with threats. Article – Jamieson Stasi Vera Lengsfeld was arrested and tortured by the East German government. Only years later, did she discover it was her husband who informed on her. (Jockel Finck / AP Photo) In Hitler’s Germany, there was one Gestapo agent for every 2,000 citizens. In East Germany, there was one Stasi agent or informer for every 63 citizens, records show. Lengsfeld was under constant surveillance and harassment. She was expelled from the science academy where she worked and then made her living as a beekeeper and translator. Finally, in 1988, she was arrested for carrying a sign in a government parade. It quoted the first line of the East German constitution: “Every citizen has the right to express his opinion freely and openly.” The charge was riotous behavior. She remembers that on her arrival at Hohenschoenhausen. “I was fingerprinted and then had to sit on a piece of fabric. That was then placed in a jar to collect my smell.” (Thousands of such jars were found after the wall came down but there has never been an explanation of forensic value, bizarre or otherwise.) Convicted by a Communist court she was later thrown out of the country, leaving her husband, and her three children behind. But the worst for Vera Lengsfeld was yet to come. Tens of thousands of Stasi victims, whose lives were destroyed; who were beaten, tortured, kidnapped or killed, have never seen anyone who was responsible punished. Thomas Habicht, a leading German journalist who was a target of Stasi agents in West Berlin, says that still casts a shadow over reunification. “The generation of Stasi criminals is still alive, behaves aggressively, and in some cases even has gained influential positions again.” Many of the former agents and officials, Habicht says, still live in the privileged housing built for them by the East German government “which adds insult to serious injury.” On this subject, Lengfeld’s eyes flash for the first time this day. “I’m angry,” she snaps. While the first and only freely elected East German parliament moved to punish the Stasi agents, she and others believe that to speed reunification, the West German government of Helmut Kohl swept the issue under the rug and subsequent governments have kept it there. “Just look at pensions,” she says. “Because (the Stasi agents’) wages were two or three times higher than the average East German, their pensions now are two or three times higher” than most of the retirees. “East Germany,” she says, “had both victims and perpetrators and we cannot forget that.” In November, 1989, as chaotic protests against the repressive regime grew, Lengsfeld wanted to return from her exile in Britain to be with her family. On November 9 she arrived in West Berlin and through confusion at the Friedrichstrasse checkpoint, she was able to slip back into East Berlin. Her timing was exquisite: that night the Berlin Wall fell. The Stasi learned from her husband not only about her opposition to the government but intimate details of dinner table conversations, pillow talk, even their sex life. In the aftermath, six million files on East German citizens were discovered in Stasi archives. Laid end to end they would be 125 miles long. In 1991, the files were opened for the Stasi victims. It was then that Vera Lengsfeld learned that that the Stasi informer code named “Donald” was her husband, Knud Wollenberger. In 1984, Wollenberger signed a Stasi contract agreeing to inform on Lengsfeld and her son from a previous marriage. The Stasi learned from her husband not only about her opposition to the government but intimate details of dinner table conversations, pillow talk, even their sex life. She divorced “Donald” in 1992. Today, she says, “I will never again talk about this.” But those who saw her then described a shattered woman, someone who felt violated in a way she could not at first fully comprehend like, say adultery. Wollenberger, who suffers from advanced Parkinson’s disease, does not give interviews. But a decade ago when a television interviewer asked why he agreed to spy on his wife he said, “I didn’t think you could say no.” Was he forced to do it? “No.” Well, asked the interviewer, was it voluntary? Wollenberger answered with a question. “What is voluntary?” There are certain echoes to this story in The Lives of Others, the Oscar winning movie about the Stasi and its victims. In the film-the only serious one on the subject-a playwright’s lover is induced to spy on him with tragic consequences. The playwright has long made his accommodation with the regime, but then turns against it. Sebastian Koch, who portrayed the playwright, believes many in Germany, like his character, find the Stasi excesses too easy to ignore. “He refused to see it because things were too perfect and he was too productive,” Koch says, “but it will always be there, underneath the surface.” At the end of the film Koch’s character meets the former minister of state security, still smug and arrogant. “And to think,” the playwright says, “that people like you once ruled a country.” Habicht, the journalist, says, so far, that question has not been fully answered. “We still have thousands of Stasi victims who, 20 years after reunification, want to learn the truth from their files.” According to Germany’s Federal Commission, which manages the Stasi archives, two and a half million people have read their personal files. Another six thousand are applying each month to gain access to theirs. Many former East Germans still do not know who spied on them, what was reported and the consequences. At the same time, Sebastian Koch says Germans should never forget people like Vera Lengsfeld. “There is a larger truth here. You have to commit yourself and face the consequences. You have this moment when you have to react or surrender.” Bob Jamieson has worked as a correspondent for NBC News and ABC News, reporting from all seven continents during his 40-year career. He has received five national Emmys as well as DuPont and Peabody awards. — Sean Noonan Tactical Analyst Office: +1 512-279-9479 Mobile: +1 512-758-5967 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. http://www.stratfor.com — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Marko Papic Geopol Analyst – Eurasia STRATFOR 700 Lavaca Street – 900 Austin, Texas 78701 USA P: + 1-512-744-4094 marko.papic@stratfor.com

Re: east german stasi

Text
Date	2010-10-05 00:37:35
From	marko.papic@stratfor.com
To	sean.noonan@stratfor.com
Others	InReplyTo: 4CAA55EA.2070401@stratfor.com
“I was fingerprinted and then had to sit on a piece of fabric. That was then placed in a jar to collect my smell.” (Thousands of such jars were found after the wall came down but there has never been an explanation of forensic value, bizarre or otherwiseK-9 death squads?Sean Noonan wrote: man this is fucked up. still can’t imagine what it would’ve been like. The Spy in My Bed by Bob Jamieson Info Bob Jamieson http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-10-02/the-spy-in-my-bed/full/ Vera Lengsfeld was arrested and tortured by the East German government. Only years later, did she discover it was her husband who informed on her. Bob Jamieson reports. Hohenschoenhausen Prison in Berlin is the sinister reminder that even now, on the 20th anniversary this Sunday, the work to reunify Germany is still unfinished. The complex of drab buildings was the secret detention jail for East Germany’s Ministry of State Security-Stasi-the vast and brutal internal army used to control the population. And Hohenschoenhausen, left untouched since Stasi agents fled when the wall came down, was the center of interrogation and torture. “This was my cell,” said Vera Lengsfeld, who spent a month there awaiting trial as Stasi agents tried to force a confession to opposing the state. She did not know then that the man who betrayed her was her husband. In the 1980s Vera Lengsfeld was a modest civil-rights activist in the Communist state, with three children and, friends say, very much in love with her husband, a poet. Today she is a trim 58-year-old with a blond bob who has become an influential member of the German Parliament, often at odds with Chancellor Angela Merkel (also a former East German) over individual liberty. She is no longer married. Walking in what is now a museum, under harsh fluorescent light on long-faded brown linoleum, Lengsfeld stops outside another door. “This was where they did the water torture that made you think you were drowning,” she says without emotion. “And the one next to it was for the Chinese water torture.” “Doesn’t being a guide here revive bitter memories?” I ask. “No, it doesn’t,” she says. “I give the tours to teach the truth about East Germany, especially to the young.” In East Germany, there was nowhere Stasi agents or their informers weren’t watching or listening and reporting back to headquarters. Homes were bugged, telephones tapped, mail opened, neighbors spied on neighbors. According to German federal records, there were almost 100,000 Stasi agents and an estimated 500,000 informers under contract to the ministry in a country of 16 million people. Some informed to curry favor with the regime and others were induced with threats. Article – Jamieson Stasi Vera Lengsfeld was arrested and tortured by the East German government. Only years later, did she discover it was her husband who informed on her. (Jockel Finck / AP Photo) In Hitler’s Germany, there was one Gestapo agent for every 2,000 citizens. In East Germany, there was one Stasi agent or informer for every 63 citizens, records show. Lengsfeld was under constant surveillance and harassment. She was expelled from the science academy where she worked and then made her living as a beekeeper and translator. Finally, in 1988, she was arrested for carrying a sign in a government parade. It quoted the first line of the East German constitution: “Every citizen has the right to express his opinion freely and openly.” The charge was riotous behavior. She remembers that on her arrival at Hohenschoenhausen. “I was fingerprinted and then had to sit on a piece of fabric. That was then placed in a jar to collect my smell.” (Thousands of such jars were found after the wall came down but there has never been an explanation of forensic value, bizarre or otherwise.) Convicted by a Communist court she was later thrown out of the country, leaving her husband, and her three children behind. But the worst for Vera Lengsfeld was yet to come. Tens of thousands of Stasi victims, whose lives were destroyed; who were beaten, tortured, kidnapped or killed, have never seen anyone who was responsible punished. Thomas Habicht, a leading German journalist who was a target of Stasi agents in West Berlin, says that still casts a shadow over reunification. “The generation of Stasi criminals is still alive, behaves aggressively, and in some cases even has gained influential positions again.” Many of the former agents and officials, Habicht says, still live in the privileged housing built for them by the East German government “which adds insult to serious injury.” On this subject, Lengfeld’s eyes flash for the first time this day. “I’m angry,” she snaps. While the first and only freely elected East German parliament moved to punish the Stasi agents, she and others believe that to speed reunification, the West German government of Helmut Kohl swept the issue under the rug and subsequent governments have kept it there. “Just look at pensions,” she says. “Because (the Stasi agents’) wages were two or three times higher than the average East German, their pensions now are two or three times higher” than most of the retirees. “East Germany,” she says, “had both victims and perpetrators and we cannot forget that.” In November, 1989, as chaotic protests against the repressive regime grew, Lengsfeld wanted to return from her exile in Britain to be with her family. On November 9 she arrived in West Berlin and through confusion at the Friedrichstrasse checkpoint, she was able to slip back into East Berlin. Her timing was exquisite: that night the Berlin Wall fell. The Stasi learned from her husband not only about her opposition to the government but intimate details of dinner table conversations, pillow talk, even their sex life. In the aftermath, six million files on East German citizens were discovered in Stasi archives. Laid end to end they would be 125 miles long. In 1991, the files were opened for the Stasi victims. It was then that Vera Lengsfeld learned that that the Stasi informer code named “Donald” was her husband, Knud Wollenberger. In 1984, Wollenberger signed a Stasi contract agreeing to inform on Lengsfeld and her son from a previous marriage. The Stasi learned from her husband not only about her opposition to the government but intimate details of dinner table conversations, pillow talk, even their sex life. She divorced “Donald” in 1992. Today, she says, “I will never again talk about this.” But those who saw her then described a shattered woman, someone who felt violated in a way she could not at first fully comprehend like, say adultery. Wollenberger, who suffers from advanced Parkinson’s disease, does not give interviews. But a decade ago when a television interviewer asked why he agreed to spy on his wife he said, “I didn’t think you could say no.” Was he forced to do it? “No.” Well, asked the interviewer, was it voluntary? Wollenberger answered with a question. “What is voluntary?” There are certain echoes to this story in The Lives of Others, the Oscar winning movie about the Stasi and its victims. In the film-the only serious one on the subject-a playwright’s lover is induced to spy on him with tragic consequences. The playwright has long made his accommodation with the regime, but then turns against it. Sebastian Koch, who portrayed the playwright, believes many in Germany, like his character, find the Stasi excesses too easy to ignore. “He refused to see it because things were too perfect and he was too productive,” Koch says, “but it will always be there, underneath the surface.” At the end of the film Koch’s character meets the former minister of state security, still smug and arrogant. “And to think,” the playwright says, “that people like you once ruled a country.” Habicht, the journalist, says, so far, that question has not been fully answered. “We still have thousands of Stasi victims who, 20 years after reunification, want to learn the truth from their files.” According to Germany’s Federal Commission, which manages the Stasi archives, two and a half million people have read their personal files. Another six thousand are applying each month to gain access to theirs. Many former East Germans still do not know who spied on them, what was reported and the consequences. At the same time, Sebastian Koch says Germans should never forget people like Vera Lengsfeld. “There is a larger truth here. You have to commit yourself and face the consequences. You have this moment when you have to react or surrender.” Bob Jamieson has worked as a correspondent for NBC News and ABC News, reporting from all seven continents during his 40-year career. He has received five national Emmys as well as DuPont and Peabody awards. — Sean Noonan Tactical Analyst Office: +1 512-279-9479 Mobile: +1 512-758-5967 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. http://www.stratfor.com — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Marko Papic Geopol Analyst – Eurasia STRATFOR 700 Lavaca Street – 900 Austin, Texas 78701 USA P: + 1-512-744-4094 marko.papic@stratfor.com

Re: east german stasi

Text
Date	2010-10-05 00:43:02
From	sean.noonan@stratfor.com
To	marko.papic@stratfor.com
Others	InReplyTo: 4CAA572F.3040506@stratfor.com
is that serious or a joke?=C2= =A0 I have no idea why they’d do that.=C2=A0 Reminds me of the nazi science experiments you always hear about.=C2=A0Obviously my experience in China is nothing compared to actually living it—but I think general surveillance is a bit different than this complete infiltration of informants.=C2=A0 In China, at least, you can get a bit of an idea of who’s watching.=C2=A0 Not sure how Yugoslavia/Serbia compares, but constantly wondering who around you, including your family, is informing on you! Fuck! Marko Papic wrote: =E2=80=9CI was fingerprin= ted and then had to sit on a piece of fabric. That was then placed in a jar to collect my smell.=E2=80=9D (Thousands of such jars were found after the wall came down but there has never been an explanation of forensic value, bizarre or otherwise K-9 death squads? Sean Noonan wrote: man this is fucked up.=C2= =A0 still can’t imagine what it would’ve been like. The Spy in My Bed by Bob Jamieson Info Bob Jamieson http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-10-02/= the-spy-in-my-bed/full/ Vera Lengsfeld was arrested and tortured by the East German government. Only years later, did she discover it was her husband who informed on her. Bob Jamieson reports. Hohenschoenhausen Prison in Berlin is the sinister reminder that even now, on the 20th anniversary this Sunday, the work to reunify Germany is still unfinished. The complex of drab buildings was the secret detention jail for East Germany=E2=80=99s Ministry of State Security=E2=80=94Stasi=E2=80=94the vast= and brutal internal army used to control the population.=C2=A0 And Hohenschoenhausen, left untouched since Stasi agents fled when the wall came down, was the center of interrogation and torture. =E2=80=9CThis was my cell,=E2=80=9D said Vera Lengsfeld, who spent a month = there awaiting trial as Stasi agents tried to force a confession to opposing the state. She did not know then that the man who betrayed her was her husband. In the 1980s Vera Lengsfeld was a modest civil-rights activist in the Communist state, with three children and, friends say, very much in love with her husband, a poet. Today she is a trim 58-year-old with a blond bob who has become an influential member of the German Parliament, often at odds with Chancellor Angela Merkel (also a former East German) over individual liberty. She is no longer married. Walking in what is now a museum, under harsh fluorescent light on long-faded brown linoleum, Lengsfeld stops outside another door. =E2=80=9CT= his was where they did the water torture that made you think you were drowning,=E2=80=9D she says without emotion. =E2=80=9CAnd the one next to i= t was for the Chinese water torture.=E2=80=9D=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 =E2=80=9CDoesn=E2=80=99t being a guide here revive bitter memories?=E2=80= =9D I ask. =E2=80=9CNo, it doesn=E2=80=99t,=E2=80=9D she says.=C2=A0 =E2=80=9CI give the tours to teac= h the truth about East Germany, especially to the young.=E2=80=9D=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 In East Germany, there was nowhere Stasi agents or their informers weren=E2=80=99t watching or listening and reporting back to headquarters. H= omes were bugged, telephones tapped, mail opened, neighbors spied on neighbors. According to German federal records, there were almost 100,000 Stasi agents and an estimated 500,000 informers under contract to the ministry in a country of 16 million people. Some informed to curry favor with the regime and others were induced with threats.=C2=A0=C2= =A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 Article – Jamieson Stasi Vera Lengsfeld was arrested and tortured by the East German government. Only years later, did she discover it was her husband who informed on her. (Jockel Finck / AP Photo) In Hitler=E2=80=99s Germany, there was one Gestapo agent for every 2,000 citizens. In East Germany, there was one Stasi agent or informer for every 63 citizens, records show.=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 Lengsfeld was under constant surveillance and harassment.=C2=A0 She was expelled from the science academy where she worked and then made her living as a beekeeper and translator. Finally, in 1988, she was arrested for carrying a sign in a government parade. It quoted the first line of the East German constitution: =E2=80=9CEvery citizen has the right to express his opinion freely and open= ly.=E2=80=9D The charge was riotous behavior.=C2=A0 She remembers that on her arrival at Hohenschoenhausen. =E2=80=9CI was fingerprinted and then had to sit on a pi= ece of fabric. That was then placed in a jar to collect my smell.=E2=80=9D (Thousands of such jars were found after the wall came down but there has never been an explanation of forensic value, bizarre or otherwise.)=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 Convicted by a Communist court she was later thrown out of the country, leaving her husband, and her three children behind. But the worst for Vera Lengsfeld was yet to come. Tens of thousands of Stasi victims, whose lives were destroyed; who were beaten, tortured, kidnapped or killed, have never seen anyone who was responsible punished.=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 Thomas Habicht, a leading German journalist who was a target of Stasi agents in West Berlin, says that still casts a shadow over reunification. =E2=80=9CThe generation of Stasi criminals is still alive, behaves aggressively, and in some cases even has gained influential positions again.=E2=80=9D Many of the former agents and officials, Habicht says, still live in the privileged housing built for them by the East German government =E2=80=9Cwhich adds insult to serious injury.=E2=80=9D On this subject, Lengfeld=E2=80=99s eyes flash for the first time this day. =E2=80=9CI=E2=80=99m angry,=E2=80=9D she snaps.=C2=A0 While the first and o= nly freely elected East German parliament moved to punish the Stasi agents, she and others believe that to speed reunification, the West German government of Helmut Kohl swept the issue under the rug and subsequent governments have kept it there. =E2=80=9CJust look at pensions,=E2=80=9D she says. =E2= =80=9CBecause (the Stasi agents=E2=80=99) wages were two or three times higher than the average East German, their pensions now are two or three times higher=E2=80=9D than most of the retirees. =E2=80=9CEast Germany,=E2=80=9D she says, =E2=80=9Cha= d both victims and perpetrators and we cannot forget that.=E2=80=9D In November, 1989, as chaotic protests against the repressive regime grew, Lengsfeld wanted to return from her exile in Britain to be with her family. On November 9 she arrived in West Berlin and through confusion at the Friedrichstrasse checkpoint, she was able to slip back into East Berlin.=C2=A0 Her timing was exquisite: that night the Berlin Wall fell.=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 The Stasi learned from her husband not only about her opposition to the government but intimate details of dinner table conversations, pillow talk, even their sex life. In the aftermath, six million files on East German citizens were discovered in Stasi archives. Laid end to end they would be 125 miles long. In 1991, the files were opened for the Stasi victims. It was then that Vera Lengsfeld learned that that the Stasi informer code named =E2=80=9CDonald=E2=80=9D was her husband, Knud Wollenberger.=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2= =A0=C2=A0 In 1984, Wollenberger signed a Stasi contract agreeing to inform on Lengsfeld and her son from a previous marriage. The Stasi learned from her husband not only about her opposition to the government but intimate details of dinner table conversations, pillow talk, even their sex life. She divorced =E2=80=9CDonald=E2=80=9D in 1992.=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0= =C2=A0 Today, she says, =E2=80=9CI will never again talk about this.=E2=80=9D But = those who saw her then described a shattered woman, someone who felt violated in a way she could not at first fully comprehend like, say adultery. Wollenberger, who suffers from advanced Parkinson=E2=80=99s disease, does n= ot give interviews. But a decade ago when a television interviewer asked why he agreed to spy on his wife he said, =E2=80=9CI didn=E2=80=99t think y= ou could say no.=E2=80=9D Was he forced to do it?=C2=A0 =E2=80=9CNo.=E2=80=9D Well, aske= d the interviewer, was it voluntary?=C2=A0 Wollenberger answered with a question.=C2=A0 =E2=80=9CWhat= is voluntary?=E2=80=9D=C2=A0 There are certain echoes to this story in The Lives of Others, the Oscar winning movie about the Stasi and its victims.=C2=A0 In the film=E2= =80=94the only serious one on the subject=E2=80=94a playwright=E2=80=99s lover is ind= uced to spy on him with tragic consequences. The playwright has long made his accommodation with the regime, but then turns against it.=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0= Sebastian Koch, who portrayed the playwright, believes many in Germany, like his character, find the Stasi excesses too easy to ignore.=C2=A0 =E2= =80=9CHe refused to see it because things were too perfect and he was too productive,=E2=80=9D Koch says, =E2=80=9Cbut it will always be there, under= neath the surface.=E2=80=9D At the end of the film Koch=E2=80=99s character meets the former minister of state security, still smug and arrogant.=C2=A0 =E2=80=9CAnd to think,=E2=80= =9D the playwright says, =E2=80=9Cthat people like you once ruled a country.=E2=80= =9D=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 Habicht, the journalist, says, so far, that question has not been fully answered. =E2=80=9CWe still have thousands of Stasi victims who, 20 years a= fter reunification, want to learn the truth from their files.=E2=80=9D According to Germany=E2=80=99s Federal Commission, which manages the Stasi archives, two and a half million people have read their personal files. Another six thousand are applying each month to gain access to theirs. Many former East Germans still do not know who spied on them, what was reported and the consequences.=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 At the same time, Sebastian Koch says Germans should never forget people like Vera Lengsfeld. =E2=80=9CThere is a larger truth here.=C2=A0 Yo= u have to commit yourself and face the consequences. You have this moment when you have to react or surrender.=E2=80=9D Bob Jamieson has worked as a correspondent for NBC News and ABC News, reporting from all seven continents during his 40-year career. He has received five national Emmys as well as DuPont and Peabody awards. — Sean Noonan Tactical Analyst Office: +1 512-279-9479 Mobile: +1 512-758-5967 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. http://www.st= ratfor.com — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – -=C2=A0 Marko Papic Geopol Analyst – Eurasia STRATFOR 700 Lavaca Street – 900 Austin, Texas 78701 USA P: + 1-512-744-4094 marko.papic@stratfor.com — Sean Noonan Tactical Analyst Office: +1 512-279-9479 Mobile: +1 512-758-5967 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. http://www.stratfor.com

east german stasi

Text
Date	2010-10-05 00:32:10
From	sean.noonan@stratfor.com
To	marko.papic@stratfor.com
Others	InReplyTo: 4CAA1B87.6020905@stratfor.com
man this is fucked up.=C2=A0 still can’t imagine what it would’ve been like. The Spy in My Bed by Bob Jamieson Info Bob Jamieson http://www.thedailybeast= .com/blogs-and-stories/2010-10-02/the-spy-in-my-bed/full/ Vera Lengsfeld was arrested and tortured by the East German government. Only years later, did she discover it was her husband who informed on her. Bob Jamieson reports. Hohenschoenhausen Prison in Berlin is the sinister reminder that even now, on the 20th anniversary this Sunday, the work to reunify Germany is still unfinished. The complex of drab buildings was the secret detention jail for East Germany=E2=80=99s Ministry of State Security=E2=80=94Stasi=E2=80=94the vast= and brutal internal army used to control the population.=C2=A0 And Hohenschoenhausen, left untouched since Stasi agents fled when the wall came down, was the center of interrogation and torture. =E2=80=9CThis was my cell,=E2=80=9D said Vera Lengsfeld, who spent a month = there awaiting trial as Stasi agents tried to force a confession to opposing the state. She did not know then that the man who betrayed her was her husband. In the 1980s Vera Lengsfeld was a modest civil-rights activist in the Communist state, with three children and, friends say, very much in love with her husband, a poet. Today she is a trim 58-year-old with a blond bob who has become an influential member of the German Parliament, often at odds with Chancellor Angela Merkel (also a former East German) over individual liberty. She is no longer married. Walking in what is now a museum, under harsh fluorescent light on long-faded brown linoleum, Lengsfeld stops outside another door. =E2=80=9CT= his was where they did the water torture that made you think you were drowning,=E2=80=9D she says without emotion. =E2=80=9CAnd the one next to i= t was for the Chinese water torture.=E2=80=9D=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 =E2=80=9CDoesn=E2=80=99t being a guide here revive bitter memories?=E2=80= =9D I ask. =E2=80=9CNo, it doesn=E2=80=99t,=E2=80=9D she says.=C2=A0 =E2=80=9CI give the tours to teac= h the truth about East Germany, especially to the young.=E2=80=9D=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 In East Germany, there was nowhere Stasi agents or their informers weren=E2=80=99t watching or listening and reporting back to headquarters. H= omes were bugged, telephones tapped, mail opened, neighbors spied on neighbors. According to German federal records, there were almost 100,000 Stasi agents and an estimated 500,000 informers under contract to the ministry in a country of 16 million people. Some informed to curry favor with the regime and others were induced with threats.=C2=A0=C2= =A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 Article – Jamieson Stasi Vera Lengsfeld was arrested and tortured by the East German government. Only years later, did she discover it was her husband who informed on her. (Jockel Finck / AP Photo) In Hitler=E2=80=99s Germany, there was one Gestapo agent for every 2,000 citizens. In East Germany, there was one Stasi agent or informer for every 63 citizens, records show.=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 Lengsfeld was under constant surveillance and harassment.=C2=A0 She was expelled from the science academy where she worked and then made her living as a beekeeper and translator. Finally, in 1988, she was arrested for carrying a sign in a government parade. It quoted the first line of the East German constitution: =E2=80=9CEvery citizen has the right to express his opinion freely and open= ly.=E2=80=9D The charge was riotous behavior.=C2=A0 She remembers that on her arrival at Hohenschoenhausen. =E2=80=9CI was fingerprinted and then had to sit on a pi= ece of fabric. That was then placed in a jar to collect my smell.=E2=80=9D (Thousands of such jars were found after the wall came down but there has never been an explanation of forensic value, bizarre or otherwise.)=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 Convicted by a Communist court she was later thrown out of the country, leaving her husband, and her three children behind. But the worst for Vera Lengsfeld was yet to come. Tens of thousands of Stasi victims, whose lives were destroyed; who were beaten, tortured, kidnapped or killed, have never seen anyone who was responsible punished.=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 Thomas Habicht, a leading German journalist who was a target of Stasi agents in West Berlin, says that still casts a shadow over reunification. =E2=80=9CThe generation of Stasi criminals is still alive, behaves aggressively, and in some cases even has gained influential positions again.=E2=80=9D Many of the former agents and officials, Habicht says, still live in the privileged housing built for them by the East German government =E2=80=9Cwhich adds insult to serious injury.=E2=80=9D On this subject, Lengfeld=E2=80=99s eyes flash for the first time this day. =E2=80=9CI=E2=80=99m angry,=E2=80=9D she snaps.=C2=A0 While the first and o= nly freely elected East German parliament moved to punish the Stasi agents, she and others believe that to speed reunification, the West German government of Helmut Kohl swept the issue under the rug and subsequent governments have kept it there. =E2=80=9CJust look at pensions,=E2=80=9D she says. =E2= =80=9CBecause (the Stasi agents=E2=80=99) wages were two or three times higher than the average East German, their pensions now are two or three times higher=E2=80=9D than most of the retirees. =E2=80=9CEast Germany,=E2=80=9D she says, =E2=80=9Cha= d both victims and perpetrators and we cannot forget that.=E2=80=9D In November, 1989, as chaotic protests against the repressive regime grew, Lengsfeld wanted to return from her exile in Britain to be with her family. On November 9 she arrived in West Berlin and through confusion at the Friedrichstrasse checkpoint, she was able to slip back into East Berlin.=C2=A0 Her timing was exquisite: that night the Berlin Wall fell.=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 The Stasi learned from her husband not only about her opposition to the government but intimate details of dinner table conversations, pillow talk, even their sex life. In the aftermath, six million files on East German citizens were discovered in Stasi archives. Laid end to end they would be 125 miles long. In 1991, the files were opened for the Stasi victims. It was then that Vera Lengsfeld learned that that the Stasi informer code named =E2=80=9CDonald=E2=80=9D was her husband, Knud Wollenberger.=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2= =A0=C2=A0 In 1984, Wollenberger signed a Stasi contract agreeing to inform on Lengsfeld and her son from a previous marriage. The Stasi learned from her husband not only about her opposition to the government but intimate details of dinner table conversations, pillow talk, even their sex life. She divorced =E2=80=9CDonald=E2=80=9D in 1992.=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0= =C2=A0 Today, she says, =E2=80=9CI will never again talk about this.=E2=80=9D But = those who saw her then described a shattered woman, someone who felt violated in a way she could not at first fully comprehend like, say adultery. Wollenberger, who suffers from advanced Parkinson=E2=80=99s disease, does n= ot give interviews. But a decade ago when a television interviewer asked why he agreed to spy on his wife he said, =E2=80=9CI didn=E2=80=99t think y= ou could say no.=E2=80=9D Was he forced to do it?=C2=A0 =E2=80=9CNo.=E2=80=9D Well, aske= d the interviewer, was it voluntary?=C2=A0 Wollenberger answered with a question.=C2=A0 =E2=80=9CWhat= is voluntary?=E2=80=9D=C2=A0 There are certain echoes to this story in The Lives of Others, the Oscar winning movie about the Stasi and its victims.=C2=A0 In the film=E2= =80=94the only serious one on the subject=E2=80=94a playwright=E2=80=99s lover is ind= uced to spy on him with tragic consequences. The playwright has long made his accommodation with the regime, but then turns against it.=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0= Sebastian Koch, who portrayed the playwright, believes many in Germany, like his character, find the Stasi excesses too easy to ignore.=C2=A0 =E2= =80=9CHe refused to see it because things were too perfect and he was too productive,=E2=80=9D Koch says, =E2=80=9Cbut it will always be there, under= neath the surface.=E2=80=9D At the end of the film Koch=E2=80=99s character meets the former minister of state security, still smug and arrogant.=C2=A0 =E2=80=9CAnd to think,=E2=80= =9D the playwright says, =E2=80=9Cthat people like you once ruled a country.=E2=80= =9D=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 Habicht, the journalist, says, so far, that question has not been fully answered. =E2=80=9CWe still have thousands of Stasi victims who, 20 years a= fter reunification, want to learn the truth from their files.=E2=80=9D According to Germany=E2=80=99s Federal Commission, which manages the Stasi archives, two and a half million people have read their personal files. Another six thousand are applying each month to gain access to theirs. Many former East Germans still do not know who spied on them, what was reported and the consequences.=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 At the same time, Sebastian Koch says Germans should never forget people like Vera Lengsfeld. =E2=80=9CThere is a larger truth here.=C2=A0 Yo= u have to commit yourself and face the consequences. You have this moment when you have to react or surrender.=E2=80=9D Bob Jamieson has worked as a correspondent for NBC News and ABC News, reporting from all seven continents during his 40-year career. He has received five national Emmys as well as DuPont and Peabody awards. — Sean Noonan Tactical Analyst Office: +1 512-279-9479 Mobile: +1 512-758-5967 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. http://www.stratfor.com

Published July 22, 2012