Chapter IX. Anarchists in Makhnovshchina

(GDR) - counterintelligence and intelligence (since 1952) state agency of the GDR. It was formed in April 1950 according to the model and with the participation of the USSR Ministry of State Security.

Ministers of State Security of the GDR

• Wilhelm Zeisser (1950-1953)
• Ernst Wollweber (1953-1957)
• Erich Mielke (1957-1989)

Notes

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See what "Stasi" is in other dictionaries:

- [German] Stasi, abbr. Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language Neskl. and. State security agency in the GDR. Ephraim's explanatory dictionary. T. F. Efremova. 2000...

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Books

• Secrets of the Stasi. The history of the famous intelligence service of the GDR, John Keller. Over the forty years of the existence of the German Democratic Republic, its intelligence service, known throughout the world as the Stasi, has earned a reputation as the most sinister and effective organization in the series...

In loving memory of my father, who hosted in 1949-1956. participation in the creation of the state security organs of the GDR, as well as thousands of other security officers, this essay is dedicated to.

The Stasi - the Ministry of State Security of the German Democratic Republic - was formed in April 1950 and over time became one of the highly effective intelligence services in the world. And although the activities of the Stasi ceased more than fifteen years ago, they still excite and interest many to this day.

In recent years, a lot has been written about the Stasi both in our country and abroad. At the same time, attempts were not always made to present an objective history of this special service, which was both a reliable ally of our country - then the USSR, and an important factor in stabilizing the situation on the European continent.

In this regard, it seems advisable to take a retrospective look at the history of the foreign intelligence of the GDR, which, according to foreign experts, was one of the five best intelligence services in the world. Along with the KGB of the USSR, the Israeli Mossad, the American CIA and the British MI6.

How fair this assessment is - we will let the readers judge for themselves.

According to archival data of the former GDR, from April 1950 to January 15, 1991, 274 thousand employees served in the MGB, including the border guard, as well as the F.E. Dzerzhinsky security regiment, and 102 thousand of them were on staff at the end 1989 The foreign intelligence network of the main directorate "A" - foreign intelligence of the GDR MGB, numbered more than 38 thousand agents, mainly citizens of West Germany. This department itself employed 4,286 employees.

The main targets of GDR intelligence penetration, in addition to the government agencies and diplomatic missions of the Federal Republic of Germany, were NATO, the US Embassy and the American intelligence agencies of this country in West Germany, as well as the diplomatic corps in Bonn.

The important place of the Federal Republic of Germany in the intelligence aspirations of the GDR and the USSR is explained by the fact that 600 thousand American, British, French, Canadian and Belgian troops were stationed here. At the same time, both sides - NATO and members of the Warsaw Pact - equally assessed the role of Germany as a springboard and vanguard in a possible armed conflict. For comparison, we note that at the same time, the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany numbered 380 thousand military personnel. The Federal Republic of Germany accounts for about 80% of the intelligence operations carried out by the Stasi.

In turn, the GDR was also considered as an operational foreground for possible future battles, which made it the object of active intelligence and subversive influence from the intelligence services of Western states.

Objectively, the history of the Stasi began after the proclamation of the Federal Republic of Germany in August 1949 on the territory of three western - American, French and English - occupation zones.

From this territory, especially after the famous speech of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Fulton on March 6, 1946, active reconnaissance and subversive work against the “Soviet occupation zone” was carried out not only by the group of former Wehrmacht Lieutenant General Reinhard Gehlen, but also by the British, French and American military intelligence.

As an example, let us point out that only one 513 reconnaissance group of the CIS - American military intelligence - numbered about 3 thousand officers in the early 50s, while the MGB of the GDR had only about 4 thousand employees. However, the Stasi, drawing on the experience accumulated by the KGB and with the help of their Soviet colleagues, rapidly increased their operational experience and skill.

It is easy to imagine the shock experienced by the US Defense Intelligence Agency, another body that carried out reconnaissance and subversive work against the GDR and its allies, when they received a message on May 21, 1956 that from the office of the chief of the 522nd military intelligence battalion there were two safes (!) of top secret documents were stolen. On their basis, within 5 days the MGB arrested 137 American agents, although nine more managed to escape to the West.

Active intelligence activities of the Western allies against the GDR, continuous provocations from the territory of West Berlin against the capital of socialist Germany forced its leadership to take unusual measures of self-defense.

In one night on August 13, 1961. A three-meter concrete wall was erected between the western and eastern sectors of Berlin, which for many years became a symbol of the notorious “Iron Curtain”. Let us recall that the initiative for its construction was outlined in the famous speech of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on March 6, 1946. in Fulton.

This political and engineering action, designed to strengthen border control and security of the GDR border, came as a complete surprise to both the BND and the US CIA.

As the very informed intelligence historians N. Polmer and T. Allen recognized, the construction of the wall and the strengthening of counterintelligence
The regime in the GDR, if not paralyzed, then significantly hampered the reconnaissance and subversive activities of Western intelligence services against the GDR. And at the same time, it did not affect the effectiveness of the Stasi’s intelligence activities.

By revealing the military plans of the USA and NATO towards the USSR and the Warsaw Pact countries, the intelligence services of the GDR and our country contributed to strengthening their security, as well as maintaining peace on the continent. That is why the former head of department “A” of the MGB, Colonel General Markus Wolf, calls his secret assistants “intelligence officers of the world,” a title they have rightfully earned.

The public usually learns about intelligence successes from noisy scandals related precisely to the failures of intelligence officers. Although already in the 60s, the MGB of the GDR had many major achievements. Let us briefly name just a few of these successes that became public at that time.

On July 20, 1954, Dr. Otto John, who had been acting director of the BFF, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, that is, counterintelligence of the Federal Republic of Germany, moved to the GDR.

On August 15, 1985, 48-year-old Hans Joachim Thidge, also the head of this service, in which he worked for 19 years, mysteriously disappeared. However, already on August 19, Tiedge gave a press conference in East Berlin, from which it became clear that he had decided to break with his past, starting a new life in the GDR. Later at the University of Berlin. Humboldt Thidge defended his doctoral dissertation “Counterintelligence functions of the agency for the protection of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany,” which described the activities of the BFF, including the operations of the electronic surveillance service. In 1989, Tidge went to the Soviet Union.

And if the previously mentioned scandals directly concerned only the Federal Republic of Germany, then the subsequent ones also involved the foreign intelligence service of the MGB of the GDR.

In November 1961, Heinz Felfe was exposed as a “double agent” working not only for his intelligence service, but also for the GDR MGB.

However, one of the most prominent “intelligence officers of the world” were the spouses Gunther and Christel Guillaume, who left the GDR in 1956 under the guise of refugees. On January 28, 1970, Guillaume began working in the office of the Federal Chancellor, rising through the ranks (since 1972) to the post of one of three personal assistants to Chancellor Willy Brandt. From that moment on, all the activities of the Chancellor, including his plans, the essence and content of his so-called “new Eastern policy” ceased to be a secret for the leadership of the GDR.

However, already on May 24, 1973, the head of West German counterintelligence Nolau was presented with a report on suspicions that had arisen regarding Guillaume, who was identified as the source “Georg,” whose radiograms from the Berlin MGB radio center were deciphered by the West German radio interception service. But, despite the fact that Guillaume was under surveillance for 11 months, counterintelligence was never able to catch him red-handed, although during these months he held a number of meetings with an East German intelligence courier.

In January 1974, Prosecutor General Siegfried Buback, who was later killed by terrorists from the Red Army Faction, refused to authorize the arrest of Guillaume due to the unsaid charges brought against him. At 6:30 a.m. on April 24, 1974, he stunned the police officers who arrested him with the following confession:

I am an officer in the National People's Army of the GDR and an employee of the Ministry of State Security. Please respect my honor as an officer.
That same morning, Chancellor Brandt was informed of Guillaume's confession. On December 15, 1975, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison, and his wife and ally, 45-year-old Christel, received 8 years for high treason and complicity in espionage.

Before announcing the verdict, Judge Hermann Müller said that “this politely mannered spy endangered the entire Western defense alliance...”. If only he, like other politicians and even the heads of the German intelligence services, as well as their colleagues from the CIA and MI6, knew how wrong he was! Guillaume was by no means the only “peace intelligence officer” in the military-political apparatus of the alliance of Western states. However, Guillaume was released in October 1981, exchanged for 8 West German agents convicted in the GDR, and his wife Christel was released in exchange for 6 exposed German agents. Before retiring, Guillaume taught at the Stasi intelligence school, and in 1995 he died of a heart attack.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the seizure of the Stasi headquarters building in Berlin with the participation of BND representatives, this fact is recognized even by former CIA officer John Koehler in the book “Secrets of the Stasi. The History of the Famous Special Service of the GDR,” recently published in Russian (Smolensk, 2000). ), - during which a number of materials on ongoing intelligence operations were seized, the German prosecutor's office in 1996 opened 6,641 criminal cases on charges of espionage. 2,431 of them were not brought to trial - in most cases due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. In 1998, another 130 criminal cases on suspicion of espionage for the GDR MGB were under investigation.

But it is much more difficult for German counterintelligence to identify agents of the intelligence department of the GDR Ministry of National Defense. Because the last minister, Rainer Eppelmann, a former priest and prominent dissident in the GDR, ordered the destruction of several tons of secret documents.

Over the course of three years, starting from October 3, 1990, numerous arrests of officials of various ranks were made in Germany. “The scale of infiltration (by agents of the GDR intelligence service. - O.H.),” emphasized J. Köhler, “exceeded all the worst expectations. It became clear that the entire government was affected by this ulcer, as were all political parties, industry, banks, the church and Media. The tentacles of the Stasi even penetrated the BND (West German intelligence service), the BFF (counterintelligence - Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution), and the MAD (military intelligence).

One of the Stasi agents, who worked for the GDR MGB for 17 years, was even tasked with preparing a daily intelligence report for Chancellor Kohl. Is it worth mentioning how much this fact paralyzed the activities of not only the BND, but also the entire system of NATO intelligence services?

According to modern estimates, in general, more than 20 thousand West Germans worked for the intelligence of the GDR, who never came to the attention of counterintelligence, which indicates both the highest professionalism of the employees of the MGB of the GDR, and the fact that its “peace intelligence officers” made a significant contribution to development of the process of strengthening stability in Europe.

In addition to the indicated fact of the presence of a massive intelligence network of the GDR MGB in the most important sectors of the West German state, which objectively indicates the low efficiency of its counterintelligence activities, another failure of the BFF was the arrest in 1989 of Klaus Kuron pseudonym "Stern"), the head of the 4th department of this department, who oversaw the work with doubles - agents of the GDR MGB who, for one reason or another, decided to work for the West. On February 7, 1992, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Announcing the verdict, the judge said that because of Kuron, the activities of German counterintelligence were almost completely paralyzed. Köhler wrote that all 11 land departments of the BFF were infiltrated by agents of the GDR MGB.
Another dangerous “mole” in Germany turned out to be Colonel Joachim Krause, who served as chief of staff of the MAD and collaborated with the Stasi for 18 years. Due to his official position, Krause also transmitted information to Berlin about the cooperation of the MAD with the CIA station in Germany.

In 1988, Krause died of cancer. His funeral was attended by many high-ranking employees of various West German intelligence services, as well as the head of the CIA Bonn station. The later discovery of the fact of his work for the Stasi caused, according to Köhler, a shock in the Chancellor's Administration, the Ministries of Defense and Internal Affairs, and the Prosecutor General's Office.

Another valuable “peace intelligence officer” in the BND was Doctor of Political Science Gabriela Gast, who had been collaborating with the Stasi since 1973. It was she who prepared intelligence reports for Chancellor Kohl. Given the disinterested - based on ideological considerations - nature of her work in the GDR, in December 1991 Gast was sentenced to 6 years and 9 months in prison.

Since 1972, Alfred Spuhler collaborated with the main directorate "A" of the MGB, who came to the conclusion that the intensive remilitarization of West Germany threatened peace. For his selfless and dangerous work, he was awarded by the government of the GDR the medal "For Services to the Fatherland" of the second and first degrees. Like Gast, he was extradited by one of the Stasi defectors (H. Bush), who was seeking refuge in the West, in October 1989. One can easily imagine the shock of the Bonn leadership when they learned that 24 years in the GDR MGB A. Dams, director of the federal border service, worked.
Since 1963, as it became known from a number of trials in the mid-90s in Germany, a number of MGB agents were introduced into NATO headquarters, which made its activities “transparent.” As the German Prosecutor General noted at the trial of one of these “world intelligence agents,” thanks to the activities of Stasi agents in NATO, the Warsaw Pact command “had timely and reliable information about the plans of this organization, which made it possible to correctly assess the military potential of its members and use this assessment in crisis situations.”

Partially decrypted Stasi archives allowed the German counterintelligence, which did not look the best in this whole story, to “get even” on the politicians. For example, she stated that for 14 years, Bundestag deputy William Borm worked for the GDR, although he died in 1987, and was one of the largest “agents of influence” of the GDR at the political level.
As N. Polmer and T. Allen, already mentioned by us, emphasized,
“if we evaluate the confrontation between the intelligence services of Germany and the GDR during the Cold War, we will have to admit that the latter emerged victorious” (Encyclopedia of Espionage - M. - 1999 - p. 179).

Limiting ourselves to the examples given, we will talk about the final pages of the history of the Stasi and try to give it a retrospective assessment. It can be considered that the history of the East German intelligence service officially ended on May 31, 1990, when the all clear signal was sent to agents operating abroad. On May 25, the military intelligence of the National People's Army of the GDR transmitted a similar command to its agents.

For comparison, we note that according to officially announced data, on August 1 of the same year, 250 CIA and US Department of Defense agents and 4 thousand BND agents were operating on the territory of the GDR.

Of course, the GDR MGB also had setbacks and setbacks, just like any other intelligence service in the world. West German and American intelligence services also actively tried to persuade the citizens of the GDR to betray and espionage throughout the 50 years of its existence. And sometimes they succeeded. Thus, in 1984, W. Reif, State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the GDR, was exposed and arrested for espionage. In the 80s, GDR counterintelligence arrested from 30 to 50 foreign intelligence agents annually, and only in 1985-1989. 11 of them were identified. At the same time, as noted by Doctor of Historical Sciences I. N. Kuzmin, who at one time headed the analytical department of the KGB representative office in the GDR, in the republic itself the role of the MGB was somewhat exaggerated, which was manifested in total control over the course of social processes, sometimes reaching the point of a paranoid “search” witches,” allegedly responsible for failures, and persecution for criticizing existing shortcomings, which only increased the number of “dissidents” and opponents of the socialist system.

A number of MGB employees defected to the West in 1989-1990. But the vast majority of their colleagues demonstrated a high sense of duty and professional ethics, refusing to tell the investigators of the German prosecutor's office the names of individuals who collaborated with the GDR intelligence service.

In this regard, one cannot help but touch upon one more fact directly related to the history of the East German intelligence service.

The leadership of the Federal Republic of Germany, and, in particular, Chancellor G. Kohl, was ready to grant immunity from criminal prosecution to GDR intelligence officers. However, the Soviet side did not put forward the corresponding conditions during the negotiations on the procedure and stages of the unification of the two German states. Then Kohl, on his own initiative, raised this issue with M.S. Gorbachev during their informal meeting in the Stavropol Territory. As the magazine “Der Spigel” testified (1993, no. 39, p.196), Gorbachev responded in the spirit that “the Germans are a civilized nation” and will deal with this problem themselves. And, after a series of show criminal trials of the leaders of East German intelligence, the German authorities really “sorted it out”: May 23, 1995. The Constitutional Court has ruled that citizens of the former GDR are not subject to criminal liability for working for the Stasi.

Unfortunately, by betraying its allies, the then Soviet leadership either really did not understand, or only pretended not to understand, thereby discrediting both itself and its successors, as well as the future policy of the state, which could henceforth be characterized only by one thing: in a word - unpredictable. Although, perhaps, there were other motives and reasons for this.

What conclusion does the history of the Stasi allow us to draw?

Our country has lost a powerful and effective allied intelligence service, which could not but affect the state of Russia's defense capability and the state of its national security. As a consequence of the collapse of the USSR, the socialist commonwealth and the Warsaw Pact Organization, not only the number of intelligence services unfriendly to us and the number of intelligence officers working in their stations in Moscow increased, but also about a dozen powerful operational bases of the strongest intelligence services of the whole world appeared, working from the territory of new states of the neighboring and far abroad. As you know, domestic intelligence services were going through painful processes of division and reform during this time, which, of course, did not have the best effect on their potential, prestige and reputation.

Readers who wish to express their opinion on the material can address it to the author: [email protected]

Oleg KHLOBUSTOV, senior researcher at the FSB Academy

Opening of the Stasi archives and the lustration process in a united Germany

This article represents an attempt at a review analysis of the complex of legal measures taken by the united Germany in relation to the crimes of the communist regime of the GDR and society's reaction to them. Reviewed in detailthe history of the creation of the legal basis for such practices as ensuring public access to state security archives and checking civil servants for cooperation with the intelligence services of the GDR, or the lustration process. We are talking, first of all, about the Law on the Protection and Use of Personal Data of the Ministry of State Security, adopted by the People's Chamber of the GDR on August 24, 1990, about the Treaty of German Unification from August 31, 1990, as well as about the Stasi Documentation Law from December 20, 1991.

Peaceful revolution" and the agenda of East German protest

The issue of “transitional justice” measures and responsibility for the crimes of the GDR regime appeared at the center of the East German agenda quite early - even before the unification of the two German states. One of the first and main problems that emerged at the very beginning of the democratization process was the problem of reckoning with the legacy of the communist regime. At this stage, the damage inflicted on the public sphere and the freedom of citizens by the East German intelligence services - the Ministry of State Security (MGB) of the GDR, known throughout the world as the Stasi (Stasi, an abbreviation for the German name of the department) was especially acutely felt. Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, MfS). The desire to change this state of affairs and the active search for ways to understand the dictatorship turned the state security agencies into the main object of public criticism and concern. There was a need to change the social atmosphere, saturated with fear and mistrust due to many years of destruction of the foundations of social solidarity by repressive government agencies.

Created in 1950 on the model of the Soviet Ministry of State Security (and since 1954 - the State Security Committee), the MGB of the GDR has become over the years of its existence a powerful instrument of suppression and control, becoming one of the key factors in maintaining the totalitarian regime and preserving the monopoly power of the ruling Socialist Unity Party Germany (SED; Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, SED). The intelligence services were perceived as the most repressive and closed East German institution. This perception, in turn, coexisted with ideas about the omnipotence of the secret police, their ability to penetrate everywhere and control all spheres of public and private life through a network of informants that, according to the general feeling, covered and permeated the entire country.

The system of mass denunciation, successfully institutionalized by the state security agencies, indeed lay at the heart of the regime’s repressive policy. The department, which had a staff of many thousands and was constantly growing and strengthening throughout the existence of the GDR, relied in its activities, first of all, on a huge army of so-called unofficial employees ( inoffizielle Mitarbeiter, I.M.). Unofficial Stasi employees were, as a rule, ordinary citizens who agreed (and signed the corresponding agreement) to “inform” the authorities about the activities, conversations, and moods of their environment - relatives, colleagues, friends or acquaintances. Focusing on the principles of work of the Soviet intelligence services, the secret services of the GDR considered the institution of informing as a key tool in exercising public control and combating dissent. Thus, the instructions of the GDR MGB from 1958, in particular, contained the statement that “unofficial employees are the most important factor in the fight against the secret activity of the class enemy” Müller-Enbergs, Helmut. Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter des Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit: Richtlinien und Durchführungsbestimmungen. Berlin: Ch. Links, 1996. S. 198. . And a later instruction from 1979 read:

“The desired political and social impact of our political operational work must be achieved by improving the quality and efficiency of the work of unofficial employees - the main weapon in the fight against the enemy.” Ibid. S. 305. .

With the help of informants, intelligence services managed to penetrate various spheres of public and private life, controlling the lives of citizens at work and at home, on vacation and while traveling. Stasi agents and informants infiltrated businesses, schools and universities, churches and grassroots citizen associations.

Although the network of informants did not by any means include all East Germans (as many felt), the total number of unofficial employees throughout the existence of the MGB was more than twice the number of regular employees ( hauptamtlicher Mitarbeiter, H.M.). Thus, in October 1989, the MGB employed 91,015 people, and the total number of official employees for the period from 1950 to 1989 reached 274,000. At the same time, about 624,000 informants were registered with the department during the same period, and in the last year existence of the GDR, 189,000 people continued to work secretly and unofficially for state security (which amounted to about 2.5% of the East German population aged 18 to 60 years, 10,000 informants were under 18 years old) Tantzscher, Monika. Die Hauptabteilung VI : Grenzkontrollen, Reise- und Touristenverkehr. Hg. BS tU. Berlin 2005 (MfS-Handbuch, Teil III/14). S. 3, 5. . With their help, state security agencies created dossiers on more than 6 million citizens. This meant that more than a third (37.5%) of the population of the GDR, which at the time of unification had a population of 16.4 million, was under surveillance by the secret services.

The most common methods of work of the Stasi were surveillance, installation of listening devices and video surveillance in apartments and workplaces, wiretapping of telephone conversations, mail inspection, etc. In the event that those who disagreed could not count on the support of the West or the protection of the church, the intelligence services did not hesitate neither arrests nor long terms of imprisonment. In addition, there were frequent cases of kidnappings and persecution of dissidents, even to the point of physical destruction. Over time, however, in addition to open repression, the GDR intelligence services increasingly resorted to secret methods of “neutralizing” civil activists and citizens who wanted to leave the country. In order not to attract too much attention from the Western public with high-profile arrests, in the 1960s - 1980s, MGB officers carefully improved the methods of “operational psychology” - the so-called measures of demoralization or decomposition ( Zersetzung) “enemies” of the regime. With their help, state security agencies caused or provoked conflicts between members of various groups, tried to weaken or disrupt interaction between church organizations, limit or destroy the activity (or, rather, potential activity) of opposition groups by interfering in the personal and professional lives of their members Gieseke, Jens. Die DDR -Staatssicherheit. Schild und Schwert der Partei. 2. Auflage. Berlin, 2006. S. 44-45. .

According to the special directive of the GDR MGB No. 1/76 of January 1, 1976, the most effective forms of demoralization were:

• Systematic discreditation of public reputation, dignity and prestige by combining information that is true, verifiable and likely to bring disrepute with information that is false but plausible, irrefutable and also discreditable.
• The systematic organization of professional and social failures in order to undermine people's self-confidence.
• Purposeful destruction of beliefs associated with certain ideals, role models, etc., creating doubts in a personal point of view.
• Generating mistrust and mutual suspicion within groups, associations and organizations.
• Creation, or use and strengthening of rivalry within groups, associations and organizations through the targeted use of the personal weaknesses of their individual members.
• Promoting the concentration of groups, associations and organizations on their internal problems in order to limit their hostile and negative actions.
• Spatial and temporal suppression or restriction of interactions between members of groups, associations or organizations through existing legal provisions, for example, through assignment to workplaces, assignments to work in remote locations, etc.

Informants were also actively involved in the implementation of such measures. Among the effective means and methods of demoralization, the instructions highlighted:

• The introduction or use of unofficial employees, equipped with legends that they are proxies of group leaders, couriers of the central administration, superiors, representatives of official authorities from the area of ​​​​operation, other types of liaisons, etc.
• Use of anonymous or pseudonymous letters, telegrams, telephone calls, etc.; compromising photographs, for example, from real or staged meetings.
• The purposeful spread of rumors about specific individuals from a given group, association or organization.
• Purposeful disclosure of secrets or simulation of exposure of MGB protective measures.
• Summoning persons to government departments or public organizations using plausible or implausible justifications MfS-Richtlinie Nr. 1/76 zur Entwicklung und Bearbeitung Operativer Vorgänge (OV). 1. Januar 1976. Quelle: BS tU, MfS, BdL-Dok. 3234 – Druck, 59 S. .

The active use of such methods, which, according to the directive, were to “be used, improved and developed creatively and differentiated depending on the specific conditions of operational development,” contributed to the formation in society of an atmosphere of general suspicion, lies, fear and mistrust. Although intelligence service informants were not physically ubiquitous, concentrating their activities primarily on suppressing real dissent, they contributed to the increased caution of citizens who were afraid to express their own views and critical sentiments for fear of being the subject of denunciations to higher authorities. This prevailing atmosphere of secrecy also contributed to the fact that protest activity in the GDR for a long time was practically unable to develop publicly and was forced to remain underground. It was precisely because of the extreme repressiveness of the East German regime that the protest accumulating in the depths of an unfree society could only come to the surface in the last months of the existence of the GDR. For more information about the activities of Stasi informants and their influence on GDR society, see Miller, Barbara. Narratives of Guilt and Compliance in Unified Germany: Stasi Informer and Their Impact on Society. London, New York: Routledge, 1999. Kowalczuk, Ilko-Sascha. Stasi konkret. Überwachung und Repression in der DDR. Verlag C. H. Beck, 2013.

When this finally happened, during the peaceful revolution of 1989–1990, the East German protest movement quickly began to demand the elimination of the secret services and the establishment of civilian control over the archives of the GDR Ministry of State Security. Mass demands for the abolition of the Stasi, the preservation and opening of archives, the exposure of informants and the restoration of trust in the public sphere were reflected in the main slogans of hundreds of thousands of protesting citizens who took to the main squares of East German cities starting in the autumn of 1989: “Stasi criminals, get out of politics.” , “Waking people are the best state security”, “We demand the immediate deprivation of power and the dissolution of the Ministry of State Security”, “Not a single German Stasi Mark”, “Freedom for my dossier”, etc.

In the situation of mass exodus of citizens from the GDR after the opening of the border between Hungary and Austria, as well as the growth of protest sentiments and the consolidation of the opposition in the fall of 1989, the SED regime found itself in a deep crisis. Under public pressure, significant institutional changes took place in the country in October–December 1989. On October 17, the Politburo of the SED Central Committee decided to relieve Eric Honecker from his duties as General Secretary, and on October 18, the plenum of the Central Committee approved this decision. Egon Krenz, former editor-in-chief of the SED central press organ Neues Deutschland, was elected the new General Secretary of the SED Central Committee. On November 7, Willy Stof's government was dismissed in its entirety. Before the People's Chamber elected the first Secretary of the Dresden district committee of the SED, Hans Modrow, as the new prime minister, the Politburo adopted a new regulation on traveling abroad. When Politburo member and SED Central Committee Secretary Günter Schabowski announced this at a press conference on the evening of November 9, crowds of thousands rushed to the checkpoints on the border with West Berlin. So on that day the Berlin Wall, which had divided Europe for many decades, fell.

On November 17, by decision of the People's Chamber of the GDR, the Ministry of State Security officially ceased to exist. In its place, the National Security Office (VNB; Amt für Nationale Sicherheit, ANS) was created under the leadership of Erich Mielke's former deputy, Wolfgang Schwanitz. With this replacement, Prime Minister Modrow hoped to preserve the old structures and personnel, but public pressure and the demand to eliminate the intelligence services continued to intensify.

On December 1, the People's Chamber of the GDR (Volkskammer) decided to abolish the first article of the GDR constitution, which stated the leadership role of the SED, and on December 3, members of the Politburo and the Central Committee of the SED were forced to resign.

When, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it became clear that state security officers were hastily destroying archival documents (clouds of smoke hung everywhere over the MGB buildings, and trucks full of papers were constantly moving towards paper mills), citizens' committees (Bürgerkommitteen) began to be created throughout the country, designed to ensure the safety of archives. Since the beginning of December 1989, thousands of residents of East German cities stormed the district and regional centers of the MGB, trying to prevent the destruction of archives by Stasi officers. The first “capture” of an MGB unit occurred on December 4 in Erfurt, and in the evening of the same day, activists occupied departmental buildings of the special services in Leipzig and Dresden. Spontaneously formed civilian committees in other places took control of the offices of state security, prosecutors and police.

The Modrow government was forced to negotiate with the opposition within the framework of a round table, the first meeting of which was held on December 7, 1989 (a total of 16 meetings were held before the parliamentary elections in March 1990). Representatives of the church, the leadership of old and new parties, as well as members of the democratic movement, united since the beginning of autumn within the framework of the opposition platform “New Forum,” took part in the negotiations from the opposition. Founded by several dozen leading opposition social activists, the "New Forum" was conceived as "a political platform for the entire GDR, which will make possible the participation of people of all professions, classes, parties and groups in discussing and influencing the solution of vital public problems." One of the key issues that was the focus of the activists was the dissolution and establishment of civilian control over the state security organs “Die Zeit ist reif!” Gründungsaufruf des Neuen Forums “Aufbruch 89”. 10. September 1989. Quelle: Robert-Havemann-Gesellschaft. .

Under public pressure, on December 14, 1989, the Council of Ministers of the GDR was forced to issue a resolution dissolving the National Security Office, which had been created less than a month earlier. However, even this decision did not stop the wave of popular protest. On January 15, 1990, citizens stormed and eventually took control of the MGB headquarters on Normannstrasse in the Lichtenberg district of East Berlin. Associated Press Berlin correspondent John Koehler described the events of that day as follows:

“On the cold evening of January 15, hundreds of thousands of Berliners - mostly young people - gathered near the huge, fortress-like complex of buildings that housed the main intelligence service of the GDR. Stones and bricks rattled against the iron gates. Calls from representatives of national committees to maintain order and calm were drowned out by the roar of the crowd, chanting: “We are the people!” The small force of police inside the building capitulated, and the gates were opened around 5 p.m. The crowd rushed inside and rushed towards various buildings, breaking down doors and windows and systematically clearing the offices of the former tormentors of the people.” Koehler, John. Secrets of the Stasi. The history of the famous intelligence service of the GDR. Per. from English Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. P. 585-586. .

As it turned out that day, MGB officers nevertheless managed to destroy or confiscate part of the archive: data related to intelligence and belonging to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the MGB were especially damaged ( Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung, HVA). Some of the papers were found in bags, torn or finely cut. However, thanks to the activity of citizens and their desire to timely establish control over the archives, most of the documents (more than 95%) were saved. Their further fate became one of the main topics discussed that winter in the run-up to the March parliamentary elections.

Initiatives of the People's Chamber of the GDR and the Unification Treaty of 1990

After the elections on 18 March 1990, the new government, led by the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union of the GDR, Lothar de Maizières, formally assumed responsibility for the preservation of the archives, sharing these powers with citizens' committees. But the question of the further fate of the saved documents still remained open. Opinions here were divided between supporters of the idea of ​​complete destruction of state security files and those who insisted on their transfer to citizens who suffered from the SED regime.

There were many supporters of the liquidation of the Stasi archives in both East and West Germany. Moreover, the destruction of the dossier was advocated not only by those who were afraid of exposing the facts of their own cooperation with the intelligence services or feared the disclosure of other compromising information. The archives, in the opinion of many, were, in principle, potentially “explosive”: the disclosure of information about numerous denunciations and betrayals among close people and like-minded people could threaten mass settling of scores, lynching, and a “witch hunt.” There were fears that the publicity of such information could significantly poison rather than restore public life. In addition, the information contained in the archives was collected, as a rule, illegally, and could contain false, unreliable, and therefore not trustworthy information. According to supporters of this position, intelligence service documents compiled on the basis of informant denunciations could not be trusted, much less make any decisions on their basis. This was a dubious argument, since state security agencies could not function effectively if they constantly relied on to unreliable, fabricated data. Although the intelligence services actively resorted to falsification and fabrication in their activities, they were extremely scrupulous in ensuring that the information they received through agents and informants was “true, complete, current, original and verifiable.” Since the files were the most important tool of the Stasi's work, they were kept very carefully. The collected information had to be double-checked many times. In addition, information was collected cross-sectionally, which made it possible to compare data from different sources and reconstruct facts. See Suckut, Siegfried. (Hrsg.) Das Wörterbuch der Staatssicherheit: Definitionen zur „politisch-operativen Arbeit”. Berlin: Ch. Links, 1996. S. 171. .

In West Germany, the idea of ​​destroying the Stasi archives found support at the highest levels. Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany Helmut Kohl, in particular, pointed out the irritating impact of the dossier, emphasizing that these documents were potential sources of evil rumors. S. 1. . The Minister of the Interior in the Kohl government and one of the key figures in the process of German unification, Wolfgang Schäuble, also shared the opinion that the archives should be completely destroyed. As Schäuble explained in an interview in 2009: “I recommended this option, as did Helmut Kohl, so that disagreements related to the past would not overly burden the restoration and future of the new federal states.” Quote. By: Schäuble wollte Stasi-Akten vernichten lassen// Die Welt, 01/12/2009. .

A situation developed in which the main victims of the communist dictatorship, East German dissidents, advocated for the preservation of the archives. From the outset of public debate, they pushed for an open reckoning with the past by preserving and opening intelligence archives, and called for a cleansing of the public sector by removing former Stasi employees and informants from public service. In this case, it was, firstly, about the need to restore the truth about one’s own fate and one’s past: at least, about the right to finally find out about those who for many years were engaged in informing and persecuting civilians. Secondly, with the help of archival documents it was possible to determine the degree of guilt of Stasi employees, understand what crimes were committed and, if possible, bring the perpetrators to justice. Thirdly, thanks to the archives, it was possible to prevent former agents and informants from occupying prominent government or public positions, as well as to clear educational institutions and government bodies of them. Finally, with the help of the Stasi archives, it was possible to conduct research into the repressive apparatus of the MGB and its role in the system of East German authorities. From the speech of Stasi Archives Commissioner Marianne Birtler during a meeting with Ukrainian human rights activists in Berlin // Hro.org, 02.26.2010. .

Gradually, the position according to which, in order to understand history, as well as to carry out the rehabilitation of victims of the communist dictatorship, it is necessary to catalog and use the archives of the former state security agencies, became increasingly popular. In a situation where part of the archive was destroyed or simply disappeared, and part ended up on the black market, awareness grew of the importance of ensuring controlled access to surviving documents. In such conditions, competent archive management could become a reliable means of combating speculation, myth-making, leaks and slander. Miller, John. Settling Accounts with the Secret Police. The German Law on the Stasi Records // Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 50, No. 2, 1998. P. 308. .

In May 1990, the People's Chamber of the GDR, to which some representatives of civil rights groups were elected in free elections on 18 March, established a special committee to oversee the dissolution of the East German intelligence services. The head of the committee was a deputy from the ranks of the civil movement, a former dissident and Lutheran pastor from the city of Rostock on the Baltic coast, Joachim Gauck. Gauk later described the problems facing him and his associates at that time:

“The question was how to deal with this terrible legacy. On the one hand, it was necessary to prevent a further disaster that this explosive material could provoke. On the other hand, there was a desire to expose crimes and the functioning of the repressive apparatus. But, mainly, many victims demanded an explanation of the frauds of which they had become victims, as well as the exposure of the criminals.” Gauck, Joachim. Das Erbe der Stasi-Akten // German Studies Review. Vol. 17, 1994. S. 189. .

On August 4, 1990, the People's Chamber adopted the Law on the Protection and Use of Personal Data of the MGB/VNB ( Gesetz über die Sicherung und Nutzung der personenbezogenen Daten des ehemaligen MfS/AfNS). The law provided for the creation of institutions to oversee the use of archives: a special commissioner for Stasi archives at the central office and commissioners in regional state security offices. The law regulating access to the Stasi archives was expected to come into force in the Federal Republic immediately after reunification.

However, during negotiations on the basis of the unification of the two states in the summer of 1990 (negotiations were carried out until August 31), the provisions of the law of the People's Chamber of the GDR regarding the use and access to MGB archives were not included in the draft Treaty of Unification. The German leadership intended to send these documents to the Federal Archives, thereby completely stopping all use of them by private individuals and the media. In such a case, the Stasi archives, as part of the Federal Archives, would be subject to the same rules as other archival documents: for most papers this would mean at least a 30-year limitation period until they could be be removed from the classification of secrecy. In addition, the Federal Government, under the leadership of Chancellor Helmut Kohl, advocated the complete liquidation of a significant part of the archive, and an order has already been given to destroy some documents, in particular, recordings of telephone conversations of leading politicians that ended up in the offices of West German counterintelligence Legner, Johannes. Commissioner for the Stasi Files. Washington, D.C.: American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, Johns Hopkins University, 2003. P. 11-12. .

The East German government, in turn, did not insist on including legislation adopted by the People's Chamber of the GDR in the Treaty. In response, on August 30, 1990, the East German parliament almost unanimously adopted a declaration, protesting that the provisions of the Data Protection Law adopted on August 24, under pressure from the West German side, were not included in the unification agreement. Deputies demanded that this law become “an integral part of the legislation in force hereafter” of the Ausführliche Chronologie des Stasi-Unterlagen-Gesetzes (StUG). Quelle: BstU. .

As a result, some preliminary agreements regarding the archives of the MGB of the GDR were nevertheless added to the Treaty of German Unification of August 31, 1990. In particular, a procedure was provided for storing and ensuring the safety of acts by an independent special representative of the Federal Government, as well as centralized storage of archives in the new federal states. But the documents were to remain largely closed and their use was to be limited only in cases of extreme necessity and urgency.

These concessions, however, did not satisfy the public of the GDR at all and led to a new mobilization of the leaders of the East German civil movement. In early September 1990, civil activists again occupied several rooms in the former central office of the MGB on Normannstrasse, starting a hunger strike demanding unrestricted access to archives for all victims of state security. Widespread media coverage of this event increased pressure on the governments of both countries. As a result, the leadership of the GDR and the Federal Republic of Germany managed to agree on the inclusion in the Unification Treaty of a paragraph, which, although it did not directly transfer the legislation of the GDR into German law, nevertheless stipulated the beginning of the development of a new law by a single German parliament, taking into account the principles set out in the Data Protection Law Right there. .

The Additional Agreement on the Application and Interpretation of the Unification Treaty, adopted on September 18, 1990 under pressure from civil society activists, included a requirement for the all-German legislator to henceforth comprehensively take into account the principles set out in the law of August 24. It was expected that “the right of victims to receive information – while necessary preserving the interests of third parties – will be implemented as quickly as possible.” The corresponding legislative work was planned to begin immediately after the reunification of Germany on October 3, 1990. September 1990. .

As for other primary provisions, the Unification Agreement included, in particular, special conditions relating to civil servants. Since the civil servants of the GDR were part of a system that did not meet the requirements of a rule-of-law state, it was possible to exclude or dismiss from the civil service those who abused their powers within the East German regime and who could not contribute to the strengthening of the democratic constitutional system. systems. According to Article 33(2) of the German Basic Law, loyalty to the constitution is one of the key requirements for civil servants, and their duty to strengthen a free democratic system in the spirit of the constitution is considered a top priority.

According to the procedure enshrined in Appendix I $3 to the Unification Agreement, those who turned out to be unsuitable for it “due to lack of professional qualifications or personal ability” could be dismissed from the civil service (paragraph 4 of Article III of Section A of Chapter XIX $3 of Appendix I $3 to the Unification Agreement). In addition, according to paragraph 5 of Annex I $3 to the Agreement, there were “sufficient grounds for extraordinary dismissal, in particular if the employee: firstly, violated the principles of humanity and the rule of law, especially human rights guaranteed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and /or violated the principles contained in the International Declaration of Human Rights; secondly, if he collaborated with the MGB of the GDR (since 1989 - VNB of the GDR) and if, therefore, it cannot be reasonably assumed that the civil servant can continue his working activity. (Einigungsvertrag) vom 31. August 1990 (BGB l. 1990 II S. 889). Anlage I KapXIX $3 A III AnlageI $3 Kapitel XIX . Sachgebiet A – Recht der im öffentlichen Dienst stehenden Personen Abschnitt III. . The Treaty specifically stipulated that after German reunification, all civil servants must reapply for employment.

Simultaneously with the signing of the Unification Treaty on October 3, 1990, a special body was established to monitor the archives of the MGB - the Special Commissioner (Sonderbeauftragter) of the Federal Government, designed to ensure the safety of the archives and use them in a limited form for checking government officials. This post was taken by Joachim Gauck, who was entrusted with the mission of creating a functioning archive management system.

Stasi Documentation Act 1991

After the reunification of Germany, the German Bundestag began to develop a special law, which came into force a little more than a year later - on December 20, 1991. The Documentation Act of the Ministry of State Security of the former GDR (Gesetz über die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen DDR, StuG), adopted by a broad coalition of the Christian Democratic and Christian Social Union bloc (CDU/CSU), the Free Democratic Party of Germany (FDP) and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), replaced several temporary provisions included in or related to the Unification Treaty. First of all, the law had to provide a clear procedure for providing access to personal files and protection against unauthorized use of information.

The law placed the Stasi archives under the authority of the Federal Commissioner (Bundesbeauftragter), an independent official elected by the Bundestag for a five-year term, renewable once. Joachim Gauck, who retained his role as chief manager of the Stasi archives, became the first head of the Stasi Document Management Office (Die Bundesbehörde für die Stasi-Unterlagen, BS tU), which later became widely known as the “Gauck-Behörde Office”.

The main goals of the law (and therefore the goals of the Department’s work) were, firstly, “facilitating individual access of citizens to personal data collected in relation to them by the MGB/VNB, in order to clarify the impact that the state security service had on their personal destiny.” The second purpose of the law was “to protect individuals from violations of their rights to privacy caused by the use of personal data collected by the MGB/VNB.” Thirdly, the law was intended to “contribute to the historical, political and legal reassessment of the activities of the MGB/VNB.” It was also to “ensure access by public and private organizations to the information necessary to achieve the objectives specified in the Law” Gesetz über die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen DDR (Stasi-Unterlagen-Gesetz – StUG) Ausfertigungsdatum 20.12.1991. § 1.1. .

The Stasi Documentation Law is directly related to certain categories of persons who can be conditionally divided into two groups - victims and accomplices of the activities of the intelligence services. At the same time, the law strictly regulates the rights and principles of access of representatives of these categories of citizens to archival data: if information about victims is available only to the victims themselves, information about employees and informants of state security agencies can be made public.

According to the law, “victims” include “affected persons” ( Betroffene), as well as “third parties” ( Dritte). “Victims” are citizens who were the target of deliberate collection of information (provided that they were not themselves employees or informants of the Stasi). To recognize a person as a “victim,” there had to be a directive or order to open a corresponding state security file. As “third parties,” the law refers to citizens whose information, although contained in the dossier, was not the object of a targeted collection of information (as a rule, information about third parties was collected along with other tasks or by accident).

The other two categories are “employees” ( Mitarbeiter) and "privileged persons" ( Begünstigte) - also usually appear side by side in the law and have similar rights. "Employees" include either former staff members or MGB informants. The Stasi kept official lists of its informants and, as a rule, tried to obtain written confirmation from them of their willingness to provide information. The category of "privileged persons" includes those who received significant benefits from the Stasi, usually in the form of material or non-material compensation (for example, in the form of promotion, protection from persecution, etc.) Miller, John. Op. cit. P. 312-313. .

Access to personal files

According to the Stasi Documentation Law, all German citizens have the opportunity to find out whether the intelligence services have opened a case against them personally and to familiarize themselves, if there is one, with their personal dossier. This decision caused a huge response: in the first three years of operation, the Office received about a million requests from citizens who wanted to find out whether they were being monitored during the GDR era.

Since the law clearly spelled out the procedure for accessing dossiers and provided for comprehensive protection of the rights of victims and third parties, victims of the GDR regime could not fear the leakage of unwanted information. For example, if a particular file contained personal information about victims other than the complainant, such information should have been “anonymized” (sealed or blacked out) in the copies shown and issued upon request. In addition, after the expiration of the established period, victims were given the right to submit an application to remove information about themselves from the original dossier. Priority in the processing of archival data was given to applications necessary for legal proceedings, for rehabilitation or compensation, as well as applications concerning persons placed in prisons or psychiatric institutions of the former GDR or those who were terminally ill.

Initially, the Stasi Documentation Law was supposed to expire 20 years after its adoption, in 2011. However, by decision of the Bundestag on September 30, 2011, the law was extended until 2019. Thanks to changes made to the law, from January 1, 2012, the circle of relatives who have the right to receive information about family members has increased: now their parents, spouses, children, grandchildren, brothers and sisters have the right to request information about victims. These changes resulted in a significant increase in the number of requests: in 2012, 7,620 more requests were submitted than in the previous year. More and more Germans are turning to the Stasi archives// Deutsche Welle, 03/16/2012. . In total, in 2012 the Office received 88,231 personal applications for examination of dossiers (compared to 80,611 in 2011), thus the total number of applications submitted since 1992 exceeded 2,918 million BS tU in Zahlen. Stand 31. December 2012. Quelle: BS tU. .

Throughout the existence of the Department, the high interest of citizens in archival information remained, although with varying degrees of intensity; familiarization with the dossier became part of everyday life, becoming part of personal and family history. The implementation of one of the most popular slogans of the East German peaceful revolution, “Freedom for my dossier!” is still perceived in Germany as a key achievement of the protest movement.

Lustration: checking the elite and government officials

Another important area of ​​the Department’s work was the inspection of civil servants for cooperation with the state security authorities of the GDR. By law, all state and municipal institutions, as well as a limited number of private institutions, are required to check employees. The law also provides for mandatory verification of everyone who wants to take up any prominent position in Germany - “to become a member of the state or federal government, a member of parliament, a high-ranking official or employee of a ministry, a judge, a staff officer or military attache in the German embassy abroad, the editor-in-chief of one structures of public and legal television and radio broadcasting, a functionary of the National Olympic Committee, a representative of German sports in some international organization or coach of the national team" In Germany, only big bosses can be checked for connections with the Stasi.// Deutsche Welle, 08.12.2009. . Paragraph 6 of Article 20 of the law lists the following persons who are subject to mandatory verification for official or unofficial cooperation with the GDR MGB (upon reaching the age of 18):

• members of the Federal Government or state governments, as well as persons holding the status of civil servants;
• members of parliament, members of local representative bodies, local elected officials, as well as honorary burgomasters and representatives of individual communities;
• professional and honorary judges;
• military personnel holding leadership positions, as well as staff officers holding positions of great influence in complex areas (at home and abroad), serving in the office of military attachés and in other institutions abroad;
• members of the presidium and executive committee, as well as heads of the German Olympic Federation, its central associations and Olympic venues, representatives of German sports in international bodies, as well as coaches and responsible organizers of members of the German national team.

​ In total, from 1991 to 2012, the Department received 1,754,838 requests for inspection of civil servants, the largest number of them were in the first three years of work: in 1991 the number of requests was 343,519, in 1992 - 521,707, in 1993 - 300 657 Anzahl der Ersuchen bei der Bundesbehörde für die Stasi-Unterlagen zur Überprüfung von Mitarbeitern des öffentlichen Dienstes von 1991 bis 2012. Januar 2013. Quelle: BS tU. .

The verification procedure generally followed the following scheme. All civil servants after German reunification had to reapply for employment. Along with the application, applicants for a particular position had to fill out a questionnaire containing questions about their political functions in the GDR and whether they had contacts with the MGB. Special lustration commissions formed in many institutions were called upon to develop recommendations regarding the continued retention or dismissal of employees. At the first stage, commission members compared personal data with personal files and other available sources, and if no evidence of misconduct was found, they recommended maintaining the employment relationship with the candidate, making the reservation that the fact of non-cooperation with the MGB must be confirmed by the Stasi Archives Office. Employees who had been accused or had specific information about them were invited to individual interviews to have the opportunity to comment on the evidence presented to them or respond to the allegations.

Having received an application from a candidate, the employer, as a rule, sent a request to the Stasi Archives Office in order to check whether a particular civil servant or applicant for a position was a full-time or unofficial employee of the intelligence services of the GDR. The department, in turn, reviewed the request and notified the employer whether the archives contained evidence of cooperation with the MGB - official or unofficial - of a particular candidate. Where interaction with the Stasi did take place, reports drawn up on a standard form contained information about the type of cooperation, its most likely motive and duration. If possible, the report also included information about compensation, reasons for termination of cooperation, as well as copies of selected documents clarifying the nature of relations with the MGB. In cases involving unofficial employees, the Office usually attached to the notifications copies of reports compiled by informants for the Stasi See. Wilke, Christiane. The Shield, the Sword, and the Party: Vetting the East German Public Sector. In: Mayer-Rieckh, Alexander; De Greiff, Pablo (eds.) Justice as Prevention: Vetting Public Employees in Transitional Societies. New York: Social Science Research Council, 2007. pp. 354, 356. Since due to the large number of requests, verification processes in the Gauck Office were often delayed, many former employees and informants of the MGB decided to take advantage of this situation, not unreasonably believing that over time the likelihood of their retention in civil service will be higher. .

Most often, the employer first learned about the facts of cooperation with the MGB from the Department’s reports. As experience has shown, statistically incorrect testimony in questionnaires, that is, the number of agents or informants of special services who did not admit to actual interaction with state security agencies, reached 90%. Ibid. . At the same time, not all former staff members and secret informants of the Stasi applied for employment in the civil service: some voluntarily resigned or retired, or prudently found employment in the private sector.

Based on the notification received from the Office, the employer had the right to independently decide what consequences the response to his request would have. In the event of an unfavorable decision, the job applicant could challenge the employer's decision in court. It was the courts that were empowered to determine whether the dismissal was justified or not. Since neither the Unification Treaty nor the Stasi Documentation Act stipulated in what specific cases dismissal from public service could be considered justified, there were no clarifications regarding the duration and intensity of interaction with the state security authorities, no distinction was made depending on the type of activity that this or that employee or informant carried out on behalf of the Stasi, the answers to these questions had to be worked out by the courts. Gradually, lustration decisions became more standardized, mainly due to the consideration of cases in the Land Courts for labor disputes ( Landesarbeitsgericht) and their revisions in the Federal Labor Court ( Bundesarbeitsgericht).

For example, in the decision of the Federal Labor Court of June 11, 1992, the inspection authorities were called upon to consider the case of each candidate for a position on an individual basis ( Einzelfallprüfung). As a result of numerous legal proceedings, a certain legal criterion was developed in the form of a question: whether the retention of a particular employee will be subject to ( Erschein) unreasonable? In other words, what mattered was what it would look like to the public if a government agency retained a person with a tarnished past in its service. The primary decision-making guidance provided by the Federal Labor Court in June 1992 was: the higher the position in the MGB or the greater the degree of involvement ( Verstrickung) into the activities of state security agencies, the higher the likelihood that a person is not suitable for public service. Extraordinary (extraordinary) dismissal was also the order of the day when it became clear that while working for the MGB of the GDR, an employee violated the principles of humanity. Decision of the Federal Labor Court of June 11, 1992. BAG, 06/11/1992 – 8 AZR 537/91. .

Although lustration processes were regulated by a general rule stipulated in the Treaty of Unification and in the Stasi Documentation Act, the practice was nevertheless uneven in different sectors, federal and administrative departments, as well as in different federal states. The general trend, as research shows, was as follows: the more an institution needed public legitimation and depended on public trust, the more carefully and radically the personnel verification procedures were carried out in it. On the other hand, in more closed and bureaucratic structures, which had less need for legitimation, checks were given less importance and were carried out according to more simplified schemes Wilke, Christiane. Op. cit. P. 391. .

The first category included mainly universities and judicial institutions. Demanding a high level of public confidence in their moral authority and seeking to regain lost legitimacy, these institutions typically felt a greater need for renewal and resorted to more complex personnel review procedures. It can be said that they used the lustration process to distance themselves as much as possible from institutional cooperation with the previous regime. Lustration commissions in universities and judicial bodies were formed not only from employees of these institutions, but also from representatives of civil society and third-party lawyers capable of ensuring the impartiality and integrity of the verification process. Their investigative scope was wider and their standards were stricter than in other government agencies. According to Christiane Wilke, a researcher of East German lustration practices,

“The reason for universities' commitment to vetting their staff lay in their self-perception: as centers of intellectual debate that had accepted the responsibility of shaping the future elite, universities needed to increase their moral authority, which could only be achieved through careful selection of employees (similar concerns were with the judiciary , who also conducted thorough checks of judges and prosecutors)” Ibid. .

However, even in these sectors the practice was quite heterogeneous. Thus, Erhard Blankenburg provides data on significant differences in the practice of inspections and dismissals in the justice system of the federal states:

“In Berlin alone, where memories of the Cold War are still vivid, only 10% of judges and prosecutors were reappointed. (According to the press secretary of the Minister of Justice, 370 people filed applications, of whom 37 judges and 9 prosecutors were reappointed, some were given the opportunity to reapply to the neighboring state of Brandenburg). In other East German states, 35% of former judges and 45% of prosecutors have returned to their positions." Blankenburg, Erhard. Lustration and “excommunication from the profession” after the fall of the East German totalitarian regime. Per. from English V. V. Boytsova and L. V. Boytsova // Constitutional Law: Eastern European Review. M.: Publishing House of the Institute of Law and Public Policy, No. 4 (29), 1999. pp. 29-36. .

In other public sector institutions, for example, in city administrations or the police, inspection processes were differentiated depending on the level of responsibility of employees and on the degree of publicity, the presence of a particular structure in the field of public attention. In more closed bureaucratic structures, commissions were formed within institutions without electoral procedures and viewed their work as purely administrative. Ibid. .

Although, due to the large decentralization of lustration processes, it is quite difficult to calculate the exact number of employees dismissed for interaction with the Stasi, the total figure, according to rough estimates of experts, may be about 55,000. Thus, according to the Office for the Management of Stasi Archives in 1997, their positions at 42,046 people lost their civil service. This figure was based, firstly, on the fact that 6.3% of the 1,420,000 people screened were found to be former Stasi agents or informants, and, secondly, 47% of them were fired. To this number we can add investigations outside the civil service: for example, in March 1991, the government reported 1,883 dismissals based on the provisions of the Treaty of German Unification: 65 people for violations of the principles of humanity, 1,818 for cooperation with the MGB (233 people protested these decisions in the courts) McAdams, James A. Op. cit. P. 73. Crossley-Frolick, Katy A. Sifting Through the Past: Lustration in Reunified Germany // Dvořáková, Vladimira; Milardović, Anđelko (eds.) Lustration and Consolidation of Democracy and the Rule of Law in Central and Eastern Europe. Zagreb, 2007. P. 208-209. .

Despite standardized screening procedures, a certain number of former employees and informants of state security agencies still managed to remain in the government service. For example, in 2000, it was revealed that 7,300, or 12%, of the 62,680 police officers recruited into public service by the new state governments were former Stasi employees or informants. Carstens, Peter. Helfer der Diktatur und des Rechtsstaates Die ostdeutsche Polizei übernahm Tausende Stasi-belastete Volkspolizisten // Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Nr. 37, 02/14/2000. S. 4. . According to later data, the publication of which in July 2009 caused a great stir in Germany, about 17,000 former employees of the GDR MGB continued to work in the administrations of the new federal states. Of these, 2,733 people are in Berlin, 2,942 in Brandenburg, 2,247 people in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, 4,101 in Saxony, 4,400 in Saxony-Anhalt, and 800 in Thuringia. im öffentlichen Dienst // Financial Times Deutschland, 9. July 2009. .

Initially, according to the Stasi Documentation Law, checks of civil servants were supposed to end on December 29, 2006. However, on November 30, an amendment was made to the law extending the possibility of checks against high-ranking politicians, representatives of sports and business for 5 years - until 2011. After this period expired, it was extended again until the end of 2019. Moreover, this time the possibility of carrying out inspections was again expanded to mid-level civil servants.

There is no consensus on whether it is worth continuing to check elites and government officials for their cooperation with state security agencies in Germany. In 2006, which according to the original plan was supposed to be the last year of inspections, the Institute of Social Sciences named after. Leibniz GESIS asked respondents to weigh in on whether they should stop asking German citizens whether they worked for the Stasi during the GDR. As a result, 64.8% of citizens surveyed in March-July fully or partially supported this idea, and only 35.2% were against it to varying degrees (the combination of answers “rather disagree” and “completely disagree”) Meinung zu einem Schlussstrich unter eine mögliche Stasi-Vergangenheit. Infratest Sozialforschung; März bis Juli 2006. GESIS, Februar 2007. .

However, two years later, when the law had already been amended to continue inspections of officials, a survey carried out by the TNS Forschung Institute commissioned by the magazine Der Spiegel showed a much higher level of support for the idea itself. Thus, to the question, “Do you think it is fair to further expose former unofficial Stasi employees or should a line be drawn under this process?” asked by sociologists in April 2008, 49% of respondents were in favor of continuing the disclosures, 46% were in favor of stopping them, 5 % found it difficult to answer Enttarnung von Stasi-Mitarbeiter// Der Spiegel, April 2008. .

Access for journalists and researchers to archives

The dispute over media access to MGB archives broke out at a very early stage in the discussions leading up to the adoption of the Stasi Documentation Law. Initially, the opportunity for media representatives to use the archives was not provided, but this decision met with strong resistance from the journalistic community (in particular, the publisher of the authoritative weekly Der Spiegel, Rudolf Augstein, actively opposed it). As a result, the deputies, at the very last moment, agreed to open access to researchers and journalists to all archive documents relating to the work of former Stasi employees and informants (at the same time, personal data affecting the interests, first of all, of affected citizens and third parties had to be strictly preserved).

Thanks to this decision, immediately after the reunification of Germany, a lot of information about the agent network and organizational structure of the MGB was made public. Since from the beginning of the work of the Department, researchers and journalists were also provided with unhindered access to dossiers related to the so-called “persons of modern history” ( Personen der Zeitgeschichte), often a wave of revelations affected famous and influential citizens - artists, athletes and politicians. For example, many of the major party candidates who participated in the first free elections in the GDR in March 1990 were later accused of collaborating with the intelligence services.

There have been cases when checks of high-ranking politicians led to serious scandals and public proceedings. Stories involving revelations about the Prime Minister attracted especially great public attention ( Ministerpräsident) of Brandenburg, SPD member Manfred Stolpe and the most famous representative of the successor party to the East German SED - Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) - Gregor Gysi. In both cases, at the request of parliamentary committees, the Federal Commissioner prepared reports that contained evidence that Stolpe and Gysi were at one time MGB informants. At the same time, no written agreement on cooperation was received from either Gisi or Stolpe (the secret services often resorted to such a practice when it came to influential or high-ranking persons).

In the case of Stolpe, the Brandenburg state parliament convened an investigative committee, which was never able to reach a final decision. Despite the scandal, Stolpe continued to serve as Prime Minister of Brandenburg until 2002, and later joined Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's cabinet as Federal Minister of Transport.

Another controversial figure, East German lawyer and member of the SED since 1967, Gregor Gysi, once defended East German dissidents in the courts of the GDR (among his clients were, for example, Robert Havemann and Rudolf Baro), and in the late 1980s joined protest movement in the GDR. In 1990, Gysi was elected chairman of the reformed SED–PDS, and in March 1990 became a member of the People's Chamber of the GDR. When, after the reunification of the country, Gregor Gysi's collaboration with the Stasi became known, the Bundestag Immunity Committee demanded his expulsion from parliament. Gysi was forced to resign as party chairman, but soon after his resignation, when a coalition of the PDS and SPD came to power following the results of municipal elections in Berlin, he took up the post of vice-burgomaster and member of the municipal government for economics, labor and women's affairs in the government of Klaus Wowereit . Gysi held this position until the summer of 2002, and in May 2005 he became one of the leaders of the PDS election campaign and a participant in the unification of part of the left political spectrum into a single party “Left Party. PDS." The party achieved considerable success at the federal level, and later during the state elections. After another unification of the left forces of Germany into the Left Party took place on July 16, 2007, Gysi again acted as one of its main leaders and found himself co-chairman of its parliamentary faction.

Despite the fact that in the examples given, the fact of exposure did not seriously affect the political careers of Stolpe and Gysi, it is important that their situations became the subject of high-profile public proceedings as a consequence of the consensus formed in German society. Thus, to the question: “In your opinion, should politicians (like Gregor Gysi) resign from their posts if it turns out that they collaborated with the Stasi?”, asked by the Society for Social Research and Statistical Analysis Forsa, commissioned by Stern magazine in June 2008 year, 56% of respondents answered affirmatively, 35% gave a negative answer and 8% were undecided Rücktritt von Politiker wegen Stasi-Vergangenheit// Stern.de, Juni 2008. .

Although after German reunification there were cases where politicians or celebrities objected to the release of their files (such protests were made, for example, by Gregor Gysi and figure skater Katerina Witt), until the late 1990s the provision of such information was common practice. However, at the beginning of 1999, a scandal broke out in Germany in connection with the illegal financing of the CDU/CSU election campaign, and the Stasi Archives Office opened access to some documents, including transcripts of intercepted telephone conversations of leading party politicians, intending to publish similar data concerning directly from the former chairman of the CDU, Helmut Kohl. Finding himself at the center of the scandal, the former chancellor went to court to prevent the publication of recordings of his telephone conversations. Kohl said the information about him “was collected as a result of serious violations of human dignity through criminal activity,” making the release of the dossier illegal. On July 4, 2001, the Berlin Administrative Court (Verwaltungsgericht Berlin) supported Kohl's position, ruling that the publication of the secret service dossier against his will was illegal and caused him moral damage. The Federal Commissioner for Stasi Archives, Marianne Birtler, who replaced Joachim Gauck in this post in 2000, appealed the court decision. Birtler reminded the public and the court that her “practice of providing documents has never raised objections either from the Bundestag, which receives the annual reports of the Office, or from the Federal Government, which is legally responsible for the Office.” Bullion, Constanze. ‘Dieses Urteil ist ein Schritt zurück’. Der frühere Behördenchef Joachim Gauck zeigt sich enttäuscht, die meisten Politiker in Berlin aber sehen ihre Auffassung bestätigt // Süddeutsche Zeitung, 9. März 2002. . However, in March 2002, the German Federal Administrative Court ( Bundesverwaltungsgericht, BV erwG) upheld the ruling of the trial court, confirming that all state security dossiers collected on Kolya are not subject to publication. As a result of this decision, access to the archives for journalists and historians was almost completely closed.

After the court's decision, it became clear that either the Office would have to reconsider its cooperation with academic researchers and journalists, or the law would have to be amended. The ruling coalition of the SPD and the Greens decided to change the law. Its new edition returned to scientists and journalists the right to work with documents, but access to the dossier of “persons of modern history” was now possible only on the basis of a personal decision of the Federal Commissioner. At the same time, archive employees first had to check how certain information was collected: if human rights were violated during the collection of information (for example, if the information was obtained from overheard telephone conversations, as a result of mail inspection, or during secret searches) , publication of documents could be prohibited. Archive staff also had to take into account the interests of maintaining the personal secrets of the persons mentioned in the documents. Amendments to the law were adopted by the votes of the ruling “red-green” coalition and the FDP (the CDU/CSU opposed, the PDS abstained) Sabrow, Martin. The Quarrel over the Stasi Files. In: Eckert, Astrid M. (ed.) Institutions of Public Memory. The Legacies of German and American Politicians. Washington, D.C.: German Historical Institute/Sheridan Press, 2007. P. 46-52. Legner, Johannes. Op. cit. P. 23. .

In September 2003, the Berlin Administrative Court ruled that the ban on the publication of materials collected by the East German intelligence service Stasi on former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl should be lifted. However, Kohl appealed, and in June 2004 the Federal Administrative Court made a compromise decision regarding the publication of materials related to “persons of modern history.” According to the legal body, the new version of the law, which allows researchers access to dossiers collected by Stasi employees on all famous German politicians, lifts the ban on access to archives. At the same time, the court also ruled that information about the private lives of public figures cannot be made public. The court imposed this restriction on all audio recordings and transcripts of illegal wiretapping in private or official premises and - this was an innovation - on all internal Stasi reports, analytical notes and interpretations based on such records; access to all information collected through espionage was also limited. In addition, the court tightened restrictions on who has rights to access such information: only researchers working on the history of the Stasi could request it. At the same time, they had to guarantee that the information received would not be published or transferred to third parties. Personal information could no longer be published for educational purposes or transmitted to the media without the written consent of the affected person. Ibid. .

Despite the tightening of rules, both journalists and researchers actively use the right of access to archives. In the last twenty years, a huge amount of scientific work has been published that could not have been created without the use of former secret service files. Archival documents are also widely used for writing biographies. For example, all biographies of the current Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel contain links to information contained in the Stasi archives.

conclusions

Even before German reunification, starting in the fall of 1989, activists in the East German civil opposition movement demanded the abolition of the Ministry of State Security, the identification of state security informants and an open examination of the past, the opening of archives and lustration in order to restore trust in the public sphere. Crucially, the protesters' primary goal was not to exact retribution, but to restore citizens' trust in their elected representatives. The protest leaders believed that in a democratic system, trust is a fundamental principle, therefore elected authorities and officials must enjoy the trust of citizens. As Joachim Gauck, who became the first head of the Stasi Archives Office and was elected President of Germany in March 2012, put it,

"the objective was not to strip former communists of their positions, but there was a need to meet the minimum demand of the East Germans that people who were part of the former regime be declared unfit for public positions of trust" Gauck, Joachim. Dealing with a Stasi Past // Daedalus, Vol. 123, No. 1, Winter 1994. P. 279. .

It is also important that the opposition’s struggle for the liquidation of the Stasi and for the preservation and opening of archives was not limited to slogans and demands during rallies and demonstrations, but became a fundamental motive for civic action. As a result of this struggle, state security archives were largely preserved, and the possibility of access to the personal files of people who had been under the surveillance of the secret services for many years was created. In the wake of this movement, the most important public institution was formed - the Office of the Federal Commissioner for Document Management of the MGB of the GDR, which still retains its influence in the social and political life of Germany. Thanks to these actions and the measures taken, the united Germany received at its disposal state security archives, well protected from interference by various interested parties, and almost completely preserved.

The rescue of the archives symbolized the self-liberation of German society from the atmosphere of fear and mistrust, which was a direct consequence of comprehensive control and continuous surveillance by the intelligence services. Assessing in retrospect the decision made in united Germany to open the data of the special services, it can be stated that the main fears and concerns of skeptics were in vain: despite the fact that citizens’ access to the state security file revealed many facts of betrayal, denunciations among family members, friends, associates and colleagues, Not a single case of revenge crime has been officially recorded in Germany. Most likely, the key role in the fact that the opening of the archives was generally peaceful, not justifying the worst fears of skeptics, was played by the fact of the abolition of state security agencies and the absence of an actual successor to the Stasi.

Historians and journalists gained access to the files of socially significant persons, the so-called “persons of modern history.” Because access to archives was not limited by statute of limitations, researchers and journalists were able to conduct independent and reliable investigations into political persecution and its consequences in the GDR, thus playing a special role in the transition to democracy.

With the help of the Archives Office in reunified Germany, lustration was also carried out - a restriction on the occupation of certain positions in the political sphere and in the civil service for former staff members and informants of the GDR MGB on the basis of the Stasi Documentation Law. Noting the importance of the timely adoption of this legal document, Joachim Gauck wrote:

“We desperately needed this law. It is logically inconceivable that those who served this apparatus of oppression would still continue to occupy positions of power. We need to convince our people that they are now free, and make sure that people have confidence in government at all levels.” Quote. By: Koehler, John. Secrets of the Stasi. The history of the famous intelligence service of the GDR. Per. from English Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. P. 44. .

The decision to hide the truth about the past contained in the dossier would have led, according to Gauk, to “enormous frustration and dissatisfaction.” Gauck, Joachim. Die Stasi-Akten, Das unheimliche Erbe der DDR. Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1991. S. 91. . The preservation of the archives and the opportunity to become familiar with their contents represented an antidote to nostalgia: without them, “the lies of those in power would have been much greater, as would the degree of retrospective praise of the [GDR] regime by the majority of the population.” Leithäuser, Johannes. Als die Bürger die Stasi-Ämter stürmten: Erinnerung zum 5. Jahrestag // Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 5. December 1994. S. 4. .