Chapter IX. Anarchists in the Makhnovshchina

(GDR) - counterintelligence and intelligence (since 1952) state body of the GDR. It was formed in April 1950 on 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

Links

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See what "Stasi" is in other dictionaries:

- [it. Stasi, abbr. Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

Multiple and. State security agency in the GDR. Explanatory Dictionary of Efremova. T. F. Efremova. 2000... Modern explanatory dictionary of the Russian language Efremova

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This term has other meanings, see Ministry of State Security. STAZI Ministry of State Security of the GDR ... Wikipedia

Books

• Secrets of the Stasi. History of the famous GDR secret service, John Keller. In the forty years of the existence of the German Democratic Republic, its secret service, known throughout the world under the name of the Stasi, has earned a reputation as the most sinister and effective organization in the series ...

In blessed memory of my father, who received in 1949-1956. participation in the creation of the state security agencies of the GDR, as well as thousands of other Chekists, this essay is dedicated to.

"Stasi" - the Ministry of State Security of the German Democratic Republic - was formed in April 1950 and eventually became one of the most highly effective intelligence agencies 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 appropriate to take a retrospective look at the history of the GDR's foreign intelligence, which, according to foreign experts, was among the top five intelligence services in the world. Along with the KGB of the USSR, the Israeli Mossad, the American CIA and the British MI6.

How fair such an assessment is, we will leave it to the readers themselves to judge.

According to the 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 security regiment named after F.E. Dzerzhinsky, and 102 thousand of them were on staff at the end 1989 The foreign intelligence network of the main department "A" - the foreign intelligence of the MGB of the GDR, consisted of more than 38 thousand agents, mostly citizens of West Germany. 4,286 employees worked in this department itself.

The main targets of the penetration of the intelligence of the GDR, in addition to government agencies and diplomatic missions of the FRG, 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 FRG in the reconnaissance aspirations of the GDR and the USSR is explained by the fact that 600,000 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 the FRG 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 consisted of 380 thousand military personnel. Germany accounts for about 80% of the intelligence operations carried out by the Stasi.

In turn, the GDR was also seen as an operational prefield for possible future battles, which made it the object of active intelligence and subversive influence on the part of the secret services of Western states.

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

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

For example, we point out that only one 513 reconnaissance group of "CIC" - American military intelligence - consisted of about 3 thousand officers in the early 50s, while the MGB of the GDR - only about 4 thousand employees. However, the Stasi, relying on the experience accumulated by the KGB and with the help of Soviet colleagues, rapidly increased operational experience and skill.

It is easy to imagine what a shock the US Department of Defense Intelligence Agency, another body that conducted intelligence and subversive work against the GDR and its allies, received on May 21, 1956, a message that from the office of the head 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.

The active intelligence activity of the Western allies against the GDR, the incessant 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". Recall that the initiative for its construction was outlined in the well-known speech of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on March 6, 1946. in Fulton.

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

As well-informed intelligence historians N. Polmer and T. Allen admitted, the erection 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 agencies against the GDR. And at the same time, it did not affect the effectiveness of the intelligence activities of the Stasi.

By revealing the military plans of the USA and NATO towards the USSR and the countries of the Warsaw Pact, 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 unspoken assistants "spies of the world", the title of which they rightfully deserve.

The public usually learns about the successes of intelligence from noisy scandals connected precisely with the failures of intelligence officers. Although already in the 60s, the MGB of the GDR had many major achievements in its assets. Let us briefly name only some of these successes, which then became public.

On July 20, 1954, Dr. Otto Jon moved to the GDR, since December of the previous year he had been acting director of the BFF - the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, that is, counterintelligence of the FRG.

On August 15, 1985, 48-year-old Hans Joachim Tiedge, who also headed this service, in which he had 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 decided to break with his past, starting a new life in the GDR. Later at the University of Berlin Humboldt Tiedge defended his doctoral thesis "Counterintelligence functions of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany", describing the activities of the BFF, including the operations of the electronic surveillance service. In 1989 Tidge left for the Soviet Union.

And if the previously named scandals directly concerned only the FRG, then the foreign intelligence service of the Ministry of State Security of the GDR also appeared in the subsequent ones.

In November 1961, Heinz Felfe was exposed as a "double agent" who worked not only for his own secret service, but also for the Ministry of State Security of the GDR.

However, one of the most prominent "spies 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 up the career ladder (since 1972) to the post of one of the 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 Ostpolitik" ceased to be a secret for the leadership of the GDR.

However, already on May 24, 1973, the head of the West German counterintelligence Nolau was presented with a report on the suspicions that had arisen regarding Guillaume, who was identified as the source of "Georg", whose radiograms from the Berlin radio center of the MGB 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, Attorney General Siegfried Boubak, later killed by terrorists from the "red army faction", refused to sanction Guillaume's arrest due to the understatement of the charges against him. At 6:30 a.m. on April 24, 1974, he shocked the police officers who arrested him with the following confession:

I am an officer of the National People's Army of the GDR and an employee of the Ministry of State Security. Please respect my honor as an officer.
On the 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 comrade-in-arms, 45-year-old Christel, received 8 years for high treason and complicity in espionage.

Before the announcement of the verdict, Judge Hermann Müller stated that "this spy, with courteous manners, endangered the entire Western defensive 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 already in October 1981, exchanging him for 8 West German agents convicted in the GDR, and his wife Kristel was released in exchange for 6 exposed agents of the FRG. 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 capture of the Stasi headquarters in Berlin with the participation of representatives of the BND, this fact is recognized even by former CIA officer John Koehler in the recently published book in Russian "Secrets of the Stasi. The history of the famous GDR special service" (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 court - in most cases due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. In 1998, another 130 criminal cases were under investigation on suspicion of espionage in favor of the Ministry of State Security of the GDR.

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

For three years, starting from October 3, 1990, numerous arrests of officials of various ranks were carried out in the FRG. “The scale of infiltration (by agents of the intelligence service of the GDR. - O.Kh.), - emphasized J. Koehler, - exceeded all the worst expectations. It became clear that the entire government, like all political parties, industry, banks, the church and Media: The Stasi tentacles even penetrated the BND (West German intelligence service), the BFF (counterintelligence - the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution), the MAD (military intelligence).

One of the Stasi agents, who had worked for the MGB of the GDR for 17 years, was even instructed to prepare a daily intelligence report for Chancellor Kohl. Needless to say, how much this fact paralyzed the activities of not only the BND, but 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 that its "peace intelligence" made a significant contribution to development of the process of strengthening stability in Europe.

In addition to the mentioned fact of the existence of a mass 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"), head of the 4th department of this department, who oversaw work with doubles - agents of the Ministry of State Security of the GDR, who decided for one reason or another to work for the West. On February 7, 1992, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Announcing the verdict, the judge said that due to Kuron, the activities of the German counterintelligence were almost completely paralyzed. Koehler wrote that agents of the GDR MGB were infiltrated in all 11 land administrations of the BFF.
Another dangerous "mole" in Germany turned out to be Colonel Joachim Krause, who served as chief of staff of the MAD, who collaborated with the Stasi for 18 years. By virtue of his official position, Krause passed on to Berlin information about the cooperation of the MAD with the CIA residency in Germany.

In 1988, Krause died of cancer. His funeral was attended by many high-ranking officials of various West German intelligence services, as well as the head of the CIA station in Bonn. The discovery later of the fact of his work for the Stasi caused, according to Koehler, 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 Gabriela Gast, Doctor of Political Sciences, who had collaborated with the Stasi since 1973. It was she who prepared intelligence reports for Chancellor Kohl. Given the disinterested - based on ideological considerations - the nature of her work for the GDR, in December 1991, Gast was sentenced to 6 years and 9 months in prison.

Since 1972, Alfred Spuler collaborated with the main department "A" of the MGB, who came to the conclusion that the intensive remilitarization of West Germany threatened peace. For his disinterested and dangerous work, he was awarded by the government of the GDR with the medal "For Merit to the Fatherland" of the second and first degree. Just like Gast, he was extradited by one of the defectors from the Stasi (G. Bush), who sought 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 MGB of the GDR worked A. Dams, director of the federal border service.
Since 1963, as it became known from a number of lawsuits in the mid-90s in Germany, a number of MGB agents were introduced into NATO headquarters, which made its activities "transparent". As the German Attorney General noted at the trial in the case of one of these “peace spies”, thanks to the activities of the 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 take advantage of this assessment in crisis situations.

The partially deciphered archives of the Stasi allowed the German counterintelligence, which did not look the best in this whole story, to "recoup" on 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 already mentioned by us N. Polmer and T. Allen,
"If we evaluate the confrontation between the intelligence services of the FRG and the GDR during the years of the Cold War, we will have to admit that the latter emerged victorious" (Encyclopedia of espionage - M. - 1999 - p. 179).

Confining 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 also 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 agents of the CIA and the US DIA and 4,000 agents of the BND were operating on the territory of the GDR.

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

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

In this regard, it is impossible not to touch on another 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 intelligence agents of the GDR. However, the corresponding condition was not put forward by the Soviet side at 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 MS Gorbachev during their informal meeting in the Stavropol Territory. As the magazine "Der Spigel" (1993, no. 39, p. 196) testified, Gorbachev replied in the spirit that "the Germans are a civilized nation" and would deal with this problem themselves. And, after a series of demonstrative criminal trials against the leaders of East German intelligence, the German authorities really "sorted it out": May 23, 1995. The Constitutional Court 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 for many years, and the future policy of the state, which could henceforth be characterized by only one In other words, unpredictable. Although, perhaps, there were other motives and reasons for this.

What conclusion can be drawn from the history of the "Stasi"?

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 result of the collapse of the USSR, the socialist community and the Warsaw Pact, not only the number of intelligence services unfriendly to us, the number of intelligence officers working in their residencies in Moscow, has increased, but also about a dozen powerful operational bases of the strongest intelligence services around the world have appeared, working from the territory of new states of the near and far abroad. As you know, domestic intelligence services were going through this time painful processes of separation and reform, which, of course, did not affect their potential, prestige and reputation in the best way.

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

Oleg KHLOBUSTOV, senior researcher at the Academy of the FSB

The opening of the Stasi archives and the process of lustration in a united Germany

This article presents an attempt to review the complex of legal and legal measures taken by the united Germany in relation to the crimes of the communist regime of the GDR and the reaction of society to them. Considered in detailthe history of the creation of the legal foundations for such practices as providing public access to the archives of state security and checking civil servants for cooperation with the secret services of the GDR, or the lustration process. These are, first of all, 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, the German Unification Treaty of August 31, 1990, as well as the Stasi Documentation Law of December 20, 1991.

Peaceful Revolution” and the agenda of the East German protest

The question of measures of "transitional justice" and responsibility for the crimes of the GDR regime was 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 special services was especially acutely felt - the Ministry of State Security (MGB) of the GDR, known throughout the world as the Stasi (Stasi, short for the German name of the department Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, MfS). The desire to change this state of affairs and the active search for ways to comprehend the dictatorship turned the state security agencies into the main object of public criticism and concern. There was a need to change the public atmosphere, saturated with fear and distrust due to the long-term destruction of the foundations of social solidarity by repressive state bodies.

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 turned over the years of its existence into a powerful tool of suppression and control, becoming one of the key factors in maintaining the totalitarian regime and maintaining the monopoly power of the ruling Socialist United Party Germany (SED; Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, SED). The secret services were perceived as the most repressive and closed East German institution. This perception, in turn, coexisted with ideas of the omnipotence of the secret police, their ability to infiltrate and control all spheres of public and private life through a network of informants that, by common sense, covered and permeated the whole country.

The system of mass denunciation, successfully institutionalized by the state security agencies, really lay at the heart of the repressive policy of the regime. Having a staff of many thousands, constantly growing and strengthening throughout the existence of the GDR, the department relied in its activities, first of all, on a huge army of so-called unofficial employees ( inoffizielle Mitarbeiter, IM). Unofficial employees of the Stasi were, as a rule, ordinary citizens who agreed (and signed the corresponding agreement) to "inform" the authorities about the activities, conversations, moods of their environment - relatives, colleagues, friends or acquaintances. Focusing on the principles of the work of the Soviet special 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 instruction of the Ministry of State Security of the GDR of 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 should be achieved by improving the quality and efficiency of the work of informal employees - the main weapon in the fight against the enemy” Ibid. S. 305. .

With the help of informants, the secret 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 informers infiltrated businesses, schools and universities, churches and grassroots associations of citizens.

Although the network of informants by no means included all East Germans (as many felt), the total number of unofficial employees during the existence of the MGB was more than twice the number of full-time employees ( hauptamtlicher Mitarbeiter, HM). So, in October 1989, the staff of the MGB was 91,015 people, and the total number of official employees for the period from 1950 to 1989 reached 274,000. existence of the GDR, 189,000 people continued to secretly and unofficially work for state security (which was about 2.5% of the population of East Germany aged 18 to 60 years, 10,000 informers 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, the state security agencies opened a dossier on more than 6 million citizens. This meant that more than a third (37.5%) of the population of the GDR, which had a population of 16.4 million at the time of unification, was under surveillance by the secret services.

The most common methods of the Stasi's work were surveillance, installation of listening devices and video surveillance in apartments and workplaces, wiretapping, perusal of mail, etc. no arrests, no lengthy prison terms. In addition, there were frequent cases of kidnapping, persecution of dissidents up to physical destruction. Over time, however, in addition to open repressions, the secret services of the GDR 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 of 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, the state security agencies caused or provoked conflicts between members of various groups, tried to weaken or disrupt the 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 Ministry of State Security of the GDR No. 1/76 of January 1, 1976, the most effective forms of demoralization were:

• The systematic discrediting of public reputation, dignity and prestige by combining truthful, verifiable and infamous information with false but plausible, undeniable and also damaging information.
• 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., generating doubts in a personal point of view.
• Generation of 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.
• Facilitating the concentration of groups, associations and organizations on their internal problems in order to limit their hostile-negative actions.
• Spatial and temporal suppression or restriction of interactions of members of groups, associations or organizations through existing legal provisions, for example, by binding to workplaces, assignments to work in remote places, etc.

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

• The introduction or use of unofficial employees, provided with legends that they are confidants of group leaders, couriers of the central administration, superiors, representatives of official authorities from the area of ​​operations, other types of liaison, etc.
• Using anonymous or pseudonymous letters, telegrams, telephone calls, etc.; compromising photographs, for example, from real or staged meetings.
• Purposeful dissemination of rumors about specific individuals from a given group, association or organization.
• Purposeful disclosure of secrets or simulation of exposure of protective measures of the MGB.
• Summoning persons to state 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 the case of operational development”, contributed to the formation in society of an atmosphere of general suspicion, lies, fear and distrust. Although intelligence informers were not physically ubiquitous, concentrating in their activities mainly on suppressing real dissent, they contributed to strengthening the foresight of citizens who were afraid to express their own views and critical moods because of the constant fear of becoming the object of denunciations to higher authorities. This prevailing atmosphere of secrecy also contributed to the fact that the protest activity in the GDR could not develop publicly for a long time, it 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. 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 soon began to demand the liquidation of the secret services and the establishment of civilian control over the archives of the Ministry of State Security of the GDR. Massive demands for the abolition of the Stasi, the preservation and opening of archives, the exposure of whistle-blowers 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: "Criminals from the Stasi, get out of politics" , “A sleeping people is 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 to my file”, etc.

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

On November 17, by decision of the People's Chamber of the GDR, the Ministry of State Security officially ceased to exist. Instead, 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 cadres, but public pressure and the demand to liquidate the special services continued to intensify.

On December 1, the People's Chamber of the GDR (Volkskammer) ruled to repeal the first article of the GDR constitution, which spoke of the leading role of the SED, and on December 3, members of the Politburo and the SED Central Committee 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 buildings of the MGB, and trucks full of papers were constantly moving in the direction of paper mills), civil committees (Bürgerkommitteen) began to be created throughout the country, designed to preserve the archives. From the beginning of December 1989, thousands of residents of East German cities stormed the district and district centers of the MGB in an attempt to prevent the destruction of archives by the Stasi. The first "capture" of the MGB unit took place on December 4 in Erfurt, and in the evening of the same day, activists occupied the departmental buildings of the special services in Leipzig and Dresden. Spontaneously formed civilian committees elsewhere took control of the state security, prosecutor's office, and police offices.

The Modrov government was forced to negotiate with the opposition within the framework of the "round table", the first meeting of which was held on December 7, 1989 (in total, 16 meetings were held before the parliamentary elections in March 1990). From the opposition, 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 New Forum opposition platform, took part in the negotiations. Founded by several dozen leading opposition social activists, the New Forum was conceived as "a political platform for the entire GDR, which will make it possible for people of all professions, strata, parties and groups to participate in discussions and influence on the solution of vital social problems." One of the key issues that the activists focused on 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 Agency, which had been created less than a month ago. 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 the Normannenstrasse 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 secret service of the GDR. Stones and bricks rattled against the iron gates. The appeals of the representatives of the national committees to keep order and calm were drowned in the roar of the crowd, chanting: “We are the people!”. The small police force inside the building capitulated, and the gates were opened at about five o'clock in the evening. The crowd rushed inside and rushed to various buildings, knocking out doors and windows and systematically freeing office rooms from the former tormentors of the people. Kehler, John. Secrets of the Stasi. History of the famous secret service of the GDR. Per. from English. Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. S. 585-586. .

As it turned out that day, the MGB officers still managed to destroy or seize part of the archive: data related to intelligence and belonging to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the MGB were especially affected ( Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung, HVA). Some of the papers were found in sacks torn or finely cut. However, thanks to the activity of citizens, 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 on the eve of the March parliamentary elections.

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

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

There were many supporters of the liquidation of the Stasi archives both in East and West Germany. Moreover, not only those who were afraid of exposing the facts of their own cooperation with the special services or were afraid of disclosing other compromising information were in favor of destroying the dossier. The archives, according to many, were in principle potentially “explosive”: disclosure of information about numerous denunciations and betrayals among close people and like-minded people could threaten mass settling of scores, lynching, and “witch hunts”. 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, as a rule, was collected illegally, and could contain false, unreliable, and therefore untrustworthy information. According to the supporters of this position, the documents of the special services, drawn up on the basis of denunciations of informants, could not be trusted, and even more so, no decisions could be made on their basis. This was a dubious argument, since the state security agencies could not function effectively if they constantly relied on on inaccurate, fabricated data. Although the intelligence services actively resorted to falsification and fabrication in their activities, they were extremely scrupulous about ensuring that the information they received through agents and informants was “true, complete, relevant, original and verifiable.” Since the dossiers were the most important instrument of the Stasi's work, they were kept very carefully. The collected information had to be rechecked many times. In addition, information was collected crosswise, 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 level. Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany Helmut Kohl, in particular, pointed to the irritating effect of the dossier, emphasizing that these documents were potential sources of malicious rumors S. 1. . The Minister of the Interior in the Kohl government and one of the key figures in the German reunification process, Wolfgang Schäuble, also shared the view 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 do not burden the restoration and future of the new federal states too much" Cit. on: Schäuble wollte Stasi-Akten vernichten lassen// Die Welt, 01/12/2009. .

A situation developed in which the main victims of the communist dictatorship, the East German dissidents, were in favor of preserving the archives. From the very beginning of public discussions, they insisted on an open settlement with the past by preserving and opening the archives of the secret services, calling for the 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 own past: at least, about the right to finally find out about those who for many years were engaged in denunciation and persecution of civilians. Secondly, with the help of archival documents, it was possible to determine the degree of guilt of the Stasi employees, to understand what crimes were committed and, if possible, to 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 on the repressive apparatus of the MGB and its role in the system of East German authorities. .

Gradually, the position that in order to comprehend history, as well as to carry out the rehabilitation of the victims of the communist dictatorship, it is necessary to catalog and use the archives of the former state security agencies, gained more and more popularity. In a situation where part of the archive was destroyed or simply disappeared, and part ended up on the black market, there was a growing awareness of the importance of providing controlled access to surviving documents. Under such conditions, the competent management of archives 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 March 18, established a special committee to oversee the dissolution of the East German intelligence services. Joachim Gauck, a member of the civil movement, a former dissident and Lutheran pastor from Rostock on the Baltic coast, became the head of the committee. Gauk later described the problems that confronted him and his associates in the following way:

“The question was how to deal with this terrible legacy. On the one hand, it was necessary to prevent a further catastrophe that this explosive material could provoke. On the other hand, there was a desire to expose the crimes and the functioning of the repressive apparatus. But, mainly, many victims demanded an explanation of the machinations of which they became 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 passed the Law on the Protection and Use of Personal Data of the MGB / VNB ( Gesetzüber 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 Stasi commissioner for archives in the central office and commissioners in the regional state security offices. The law governing access to the Stasi archives was expected to come into force in the Federal Republic immediately after unification.

However, during the negotiations on the foundations of the unification of the two states in the summer of 1990 (negotiations continued until August 31), the provisions of the law of the People's Chamber of the GDR regarding the use and access to the archives of the MGB were not included in the draft Unification Treaty. The leadership of the FRG intended to send these documents to the Federal Archives, thereby completely stopping all their use 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 could mean at least a 30-year limitation period as long as they could be declassified. In addition, the Federal Government, under the leadership of Chancellor Helmut Kohl, advocated the complete destruction of a significant part of the archive, and orders have already been given to destroy some documents, in particular, phone records of leading politicians that ended up in the offices of the 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 press for the inclusion in the Treaty of legislation passed by the People's Chamber of the GDR. In response, on August 30, 1990, the East German parliament almost unanimously adopted a declaration, protesting that the provisions of the August 24 Data Protection Act were not included in the unification agreement under pressure from the West German side. The deputies demanded that this law become "an integral part of the subsequent legislation" 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 German Unification Treaty of August 31, 1990. In particular, a procedure was envisaged for the storage and preservation of acts by an independent special representative of the Federal Government, as well as a centralized storage of archives in the new federal states. But the documents were to remain largely confidential, and their use was only to a limited extent, only in cases of extreme necessity and urgency.

These concessions, however, absolutely did not satisfy the public of the GDR 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 Normannenstrasse, starting a hunger strike demanding unlimited access to the archives for all victims of state security. Widespread media coverage of the event increased pressure on the governments of both countries. As a result, the leadership of the GDR and the FRG managed to agree on the inclusion of a paragraph in the Unification Treaty, which, although it did not directly transfer the legislation of the GDR to German law, nevertheless stipulated the beginning of the development of a new law by a single German parliament, taking into account the principles set forth in the Data Protection Law There. .

An additional agreement on the application and interpretation of the Unification Treaty, adopted on September 18, 1990 under pressure from civic activists, included a requirement for the all-German legislator to continue to 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 - with the necessary preservation of the interests of third parties - will be implemented as quickly as possible." The relevant legislative work was planned to start immediately after German reunification on October 3, 1990 Vereinbarung zwischen der BRD und der DDR zur Durchführung und Auslegung des am 31. August 1990 in Berlin unterzeichneten Vertrages zwischen der BRD und der DDR über die Herstellung der Einheit Deutschlands vom 18. September 1990.

With regard to other primary provisions, the Unification Treaty included, inter alia, 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 right-wing state guided by the rule of law, it was possible to exclude or dismiss from the civil service those who abused their powers under the East German regime and who could not contribute to the strengthening of the democratic constitutional systems. According to paragraph 2 of article 33 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 seen as a top priority.

According to the procedure set forth in Appendix I $3 to the Unification Agreement, the civil service could be dismissed, firstly, by those who were unfit for it “due to lack of professional qualifications or personal ability” (paragraph 4 of Article III, Section A, Chapter XIX $3 of Appendix I $3 to the Association Agreement). In addition, pursuant to paragraph 5 of Schedule I $3 to the Treaty, there were “sufficient grounds for an early dismissal, in particular if the employee: firstly, violated the principles of humanity and the rule of law, especially the 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 Ministry of State Security of the GDR (since 1989 - the VNB of the GDR) and if, therefore, it cannot be reasonably assumed that a civil servant can continue his labor activity "Vertrag zwischen der BRD und der DDR über die Herstellung der Einheit Deutschlands (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 the reunification of Germany, all civil servants must re-apply for employment.

Simultaneously with the signing of the Unification Treaty on October 3, 1990, a special body was established to control 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 to check civil servants. 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 that came into force a little over a year later - on December 20, 1991. 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 (CDU / CSU), the Free Democratic Party of Germany (FDP) and the Socialist Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), replaced several provisional provisions included in or related to the Unification Treaty. First of all, the law was supposed to provide a clear procedure for granting 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 Stasi Archives Officer, became the first head of the Stasi Records Management Office (Die Bundesbehörde für die Stasi-Unterlagen, BS tU), which later became widely known as the "Gauck Office" (Gauck-Behörde).

The main goals of the law (and, consequently, the goals of the work of the Office) were, firstly, "to facilitate the individual access of citizens to personal data collected about them by the MGB / VNB, in order to clarify the impact that the state security service had on their personal fate." The second purpose of the law was "to protect the individual 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 also had to "ensure access of public and private organizations to the information necessary to achieve the goals specified in the Law" Gesetz über die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen DDR (Stasi-Unterlagen-Gesetz - StUG) Ausfertigungsdatum 12/20/1991. § 1.1. .

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

“Victims”, according to the law, include “injured persons” ( Betroffene), as well as "third parties" ( Dritte). "Victims" are citizens who were the object of deliberate information gathering (provided that they themselves were not employees or informants of the Stasi). In order to recognize a particular person as a “victim”, there should have been a directive or an order to open the 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 accidentally).

The other two categories are “employees” ( Mitarbeiter) and "privileged persons" ( Begunstigte) - also usually appear side by side in the law and have similar rights. "Employees" refers to either former staff members or MGB informants. The Stasi kept official lists of their informants and, as a rule, tried to obtain from them written confirmation of their readiness to provide information. The category of "favored 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 dossiers

Under the Stasi Documentation Act, all German citizens were given the opportunity to find out whether the special services had filed a case against them personally and to familiarize themselves, if any, with their personal file. This decision caused a huge response: in the first three years of operation, the Office received about a million inquiries from citizens who wanted to find out if they were being monitored during the GDR.

Since the law clearly spelled out the procedure for accessing the dossier and provided for comprehensive protection of the rights of victims and third parties, the victims of the GDR regime could not be afraid of leakage of unwanted information. For example, if a particular dossier contained personal data about victims other than the applicant, such information had to be “anonymized” (glued or crossed out) in copies shown and issued upon request. In addition, after the expiration of the prescribed period, the victims were given the right to apply for the deletion of 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 terminally ill.

Originally, the Stasi Documentation Act was 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 the changes made to the law, since January 1, 2012, the circle of relatives who have the right to receive information on family members has increased: now their parents, spouses, children, grandchildren, brothers and sisters have the right to request information about the victims. These changes led to a significant increase in the number of requests: in 2012, there were 7,620 more requests than a year earlier 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 familiarization with the dossier (against 80,611 in 2011), bringing the total number of applications filed since 1992 to over 2,918 million BS tU in Zahlen. Stand 31. December 2012. Quelle: BS tU. .

Throughout the existence of the Office, there has been, although with varying degrees of intensity, a high interest of citizens in archival information; familiarization with the dossier entered into everyday life, becoming part of personal and family history. The implementation of one of the most popular slogans of the East German Peace Revolution, "Free my file!" is still perceived in Germany as a key achievement of the protest movement.

Lustration: testing elites and civil servants

Another important area of ​​work of the Office was the verification of civil servants for cooperation with the state security agencies 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 all those wishing to take some prominent position in the FRG - "become a member of the state or federal government, a member of parliament, a high-ranking official or employee of the ministry, a judge, a staff officer or a military attache in a German embassy abroad, the editor-in-chief of one of the structures of public-legal broadcasting, a functionary of the National Olympic Committee, a representative of German sports in some international organization or a coach of the national team " In Germany, only big bosses can be checked for communication with the Stasi// Deutsche Welle, 08.12.2009. . Paragraph 6 of article 20 of the law lists the following persons subject to mandatory verification for official or unofficial cooperation with the Ministry of State Security of the GDR (upon reaching the age of 18):

• members of the federal government or governments of the states, as well as persons with 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 officers 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 the leaders 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, between 1991 and 2012, the Office received 1,754,838 applications for verification of civil servants, the largest number of which fell on the first three years of operation: in 1991, the number of applications 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 followed, as a rule, the following scheme. All civil servants after the reunification of Germany had to re-apply 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 about their contacts with the MGB. Special lustration commissions formed in many institutions were called upon to develop recommendations regarding the further retention in the service or dismissal of employees. At the first stage, the members of the commissions compared personal data with personal files and other available sources, and if no evidence of misconduct was found, they recommended that the employment relationship with the candidate be maintained, making the reservation that the fact of non-cooperation with the MGB must be confirmed by the Office for the management of the Stasi archives. Employees against whom allegations were made or for whom special information was available were invited to individual interviews to be able to comment on the evidence against them or respond to the allegations.

After receiving an application from a candidate, the employer, as a rule, sent a request to the Office for the management of the Stasi archives in order to check whether this or that civil servant or applicant for a position was a full-time or unofficial employee of the secret services of the GDR. The department, in turn, considered the request and notified the employer about whether the archives contained evidence of cooperation with the MGB - official or unofficial - of one or another candidate. Where interactions with the Stasi have taken place, the standardized reports provided information on the type of cooperation, its most likely motives and duration. If possible, the report was also accompanied by information on compensation, the reasons for the termination of cooperation, as well as copies of selected documents clarifying the nature of relations with the MGB. In cases of unofficial employees, the Office usually attached to the notifications copies of reports compiled by informants for the Stasi. Wilke, Christiane. The Shield, the Sword, and the Party: Vetting the East German Public Sector. In: Mayer-Rieckh, Alexander; DeGreiff, 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 applications, the verification processes in the Gauk Office often dragged out, 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 the civil service will be higher. .

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

On the basis of the notification received from the Office, the employer was free to decide what the consequences of the response to his request would be. In the event of an unfavorable decision, the applicant for the position could challenge the employer's decision in court. It was the courts that were empowered to determine whether a dismissal was justified or not. Since neither the Unification Treaty nor the Stasi Documentation Act stipulated in which specific cases dismissal from civil service could be considered justified, no clarifications were made about the duration and intensity of interaction with the state security agencies, no distinction was made depending on the type of activity that one or another employee or informant acted 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 review by the Federal Labor Court ( Bundesarbeitsgericht).

For example, in a decision of the Federal Labor Court dated June 11, 1992, the review bodies were called upon to consider the case of each candidate for office on an individual basis ( Einzelfallprufung). As a result of numerous litigations, a certain legal criterion has been developed in the form of a question: whether the retention of an employee will be presented ( Erschein) unreasonable? In other words, what mattered was what it would look like to the public if a government agency retained a man with a tainted past in its service. The primary guidance for decision-making, presented by the Federal Labor Court in June 1992, was: the higher the position in the MGB or the greater the degree of involvement ( Verstrickung) in the activities of state security agencies, the higher the likelihood that a person is not suitable for public service. Extraordinary (extraordinary) dismissal was also in the order of things, when it turned out that in the course of work at the MGB of the GDR, the principles of humanity were violated by an employee. Decision of the Federal Labor Court of June 11, 1992. BAG, 06/11/1992 - 8 AZR 537/91. .

Although the lustration processes were governed by the general rule stipulated in the Unification Treaty and the Stasi Documentation Act, however, the practice was not the same in different sectors, federal and administrative departments, and also in different federal states. The general trend, as studies show, was as follows: the more an institution needed public legitimation and depended on public trust, the more thoroughly and radically the personnel verification procedures were carried out in it. On the other hand, in more closed and bureaucratic structures that experienced less need for legitimation, checks were given less importance and they 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 trust in their moral authority and seeking to regain their lost legitimacy, these institutions have typically been in greater need of renewal and have resorted to more complex vetting procedures. It can be said that they used the lustration process to distance themselves as much as possible from institutional cooperation with the former regime. Lustration commissions at universities and the judiciary 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 honesty of the verification process. The scope of their investigations was broader and the standards were stricter than in other state institutions. According to Christiane Wilke, a researcher of East German lustration practices,

“the reason for the commitment of universities to the verification of employees lay in their self-perception: as centers of intellectual discussion, taking on the responsibility of shaping the future elite, universities needed to increase their moral authority, which could only be achieved through careful selection of employees (judicial authorities had similar concerns who also carried out thorough inspections of judges and prosecutors)” Ibid. .

However, even in these sectors the practice was rather 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 alive, only 10% of judges and prosecutors have been reappointed. (According to the press secretary of the Minister of Justice, 370 people applied, of which 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 taken up their positions again. Blankenburg, Erhard. Lustration and "excommunication" after the fall of the East German totalitarian regime. Per. from English. V. V. Boitsova and L. V. Boitsova // Constitutional Law: Eastern European Review. M.: Publishing House of the Institute of Law and Public Policy, No. 4 (29), 1999. S. 29-36. .

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

Although, due to the large decentralization of lustration processes, it is rather 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 around 55,000. 42,046 people lost their civil service. This figure was based, firstly, on the fact that 6.3% of the 1,420,000 people tested were 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 dismissed on the basis of the provisions of the German Unification Treaty: 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; Milardovic, Anđelko (eds.) Lustration and Consolidation of Democracy and the Rule of Law in Central and Eastern Europe. Zagreb, 2007. P. 208-209. .

Despite standardized verification procedures, a certain part of the former employees and informants of the state security agencies still managed to remain in the civil service. For example, in 2000 it was found that 7,300 or 12% of the 62,680 police officers employed by the governments of the new federal states 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 resonance 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 in Berlin, 2,942 in Brandenburg, 2,247 in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, 4,101 in Saxony, 4,400 in Saxony-Anhalt, and 800 in Thuringia Forderung nach Offenlegung: Tausende Ex-Stasi-Spitzel arbeiten im öffentlichen Dienst // Financial Times Deutschland, 9. Juli 2009. .

Initially, according to the Stasi Documentation Law, checks of civil servants were to be completed 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, it was again extended until the end of 2019. Moreover, this time the possibility of carrying out inspections was again extended to mid-level civil servants.

There is no consensus on whether it is worth continuing to check the representatives of the elites and civil servants for their cooperation with the state security agencies in Germany. In 2006, which according to the original plan was to be the last year of inspections, the Institute of Social Sciences. Leibniz GESIS asked respondents to comment on whether they should stop asking German citizens whether they worked for the Stasi during the GDR. As a result, 64.8% of the citizens surveyed in March-July fully or partially supported this idea, and only 35.2% expressed their opposition 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 checking officials, a survey commissioned by the TNS Forschung Institute for the magazine Der Spiegel showed a much higher level of support for the idea itself. Thus, when asked by sociologists in April 2008, “Do you think it is fair to continue exposing former unofficial Stasi employees, or should a line be drawn under this process?” % found it difficult to answer Enttarnung von Stasi-Mitarbeiter// Der Spiegel, April 2008. .

Access of journalists and researchers to archives

The controversy over media access to the MGB archives erupted at a very early stage in the discussions leading up to the Stasi Documents Act. Initially, the opportunity for media representatives to use the archives was not provided, but this decision met with strong opposition from the journalistic community (in particular, Rudolf Augstein, the publisher of the authoritative weekly Der Spiegel, actively opposed him). As a result, at the very last moment, the deputies agreed to open access for 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 unification of Germany, a lot of information about the agent network and the organizational structure of the MGB was made public. Since from the beginning of the work of the Office, researchers and journalists were also given unhindered access to dossiers related to the so-called "persons of modern history" ( Personen der Zeitgeschichte), often a wave of revelations affected well-known and influential citizens - artists, athletes and politicians. For example, many major party candidates who ran in the first free elections in the GDR in March 1990 were later accused of collaborating with the secret services.

There have been cases when checks on high-ranking politicians have led to serious scandals and public trials. Especially great public attention was attracted by the stories of the revelations of the Prime Minister ( ministerpräsident) Brandenburg Land, SPD member Manfred Stolpe and the most famous representative of the successor party of the East German SED - the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) - Gregor Gysi. In both cases, at the request of the parliamentary committees, reports were prepared by the Federal Commissioner, which contained evidence that Stolpe and Gyzi were at one time informants for the MGB. At the same time, neither Gizi nor Stolpe received a written agreement on cooperation (the secret services often resorted to this practice when it came to influential or high-ranking persons).

In the case of Stolpe, the state parliament of Brandenburg convened a committee of inquiry, which never managed to come to a final decision. Despite the high-profile scandal, Stolpe continued as Prime Minister of Brandenburg until 2002, and later joined the cabinet of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, taking the post of Federal Minister of Transport.

Another controversial figure, East German lawyer and SED member since 1967, Gregor Gisi, once defended East German dissidents in East German courts (his clients included, 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 unification of the country, it became known about the cooperation of Gregor Gysi with the Stasi, the Bundestag immunity committee demanded his expulsion from parliament. Gisi was forced to leave the post of party chairman, but shortly after his resignation, when a coalition of PDS and SPD came to power following the results of municipal elections in Berlin, he took the post of vice-burgomaster and member of the municipal government for economics, labor and women's affairs in the government of Klaus Wowereit . Gizi 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, the Left Party. PDS". The party achieved considerable success at the federal level, and later in the state elections. After another unification of the left forces of Germany into the Left party took place on July 16, 2007, Gizi again acted as one of its main leaders and turned out to be co-chairman of its parliamentary faction.

Despite the fact that in the examples cited the fact of exposure did not seriously affect the political careers of Stolpe and Gisi, it is important that their situations became the subject of high-profile public hearings as a result of the consensus formed in German society. So, to the question: “Should, in your opinion, politicians (like Gregor Gysi) leave their posts if it turns out that they collaborated with the Stasi?” years, 56% of respondents answered in the affirmative, 35% gave a negative answer and 8% found it difficult to answer Rücktritt von Politiker wegen Stasi-Vergangenheit// Stern.de, June 2008. .

Although there were cases after the reunification of Germany when politicians or celebrities opposed the release of their dossiers (such protests were made by Gregor Gysi and figure skater Katerina Witt, for example), until the late 1990s, the provision of such information was common practice. However, in early 1999, a scandal erupted in Germany in connection with the illegal financing of the CDU / CSU campaign, and the Stasi Archives Office opened access to some documents, including transcripts of intercepted telephone conversations of leading party politicians, intending to release similar data regarding directly former CDU chairman Helmut Kohl. Caught in the center of the scandal, the former chancellor went to court to prevent the publication of the recordings of his telephone conversations. Kohl stated that information about him "was collected as a result of serious violations of human dignity through criminal activity", so the publication of the dossier is an illegal act. On July 4, 2001, the Administrative Court of Berlin (Verwaltungsgericht Berlin) upheld Kohl's position, ruling that the publication of the secret service dossier against his will was illegal and caused him moral damage. The Stasi Federal Commissioner for Archives, Marianne Birtler, who succeeded Joachim Gauck in 2000, challenged the ruling. Birtler reminded the public and the court that her "documentation practice has never been objected to either by the Bundestag, which receives the Office's annual reports, or by 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 decision of the court of first instance, confirming that all the state security files collected on Kolya were not subject to publication. As a result of this decision, the access of journalists and historians to the archives was almost completely closed.

After the court's ruling, it became clear that either the Office would have to reconsider its cooperation with academic researchers and journalists, or the law would need 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, however, access to the dossiers of "persons of modern history" was now possible only on the basis of a personal decision of the Federal Commissioner. At the same time, the archive staff 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 wiretapped telephone conversations, as a result of perusal of mail or during secret searches) , the publication of documents could be prohibited. The archive staff also had to take into account the interests of keeping the personal secrets of the persons mentioned in the documents. The amendments to the law were adopted by the votes of the ruling "red-green" coalition and the FDP (CDU / CSU opposed, 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 Administrative Court of Berlin ruled that the ban on the publication of materials collected by the East German Stasi intelligence on former German chancellor Helmut Kohl should be lifted. However, Kohl filed an appeal, and in June 2004 the Federal Administrative Court issued a compromise decision regarding the publication of materials related to "persons of modern history." According to the legal body, the new wording of the law, allowing researchers access to the dossiers collected by the Stasi on all known German politicians, lifts the ban on access to the archives. At the same time, the court also ruled that information about the private lives of public figures could not be made public. The Court imposed this restriction on all audio recordings and verbatim records of illegal wiretapping in private or official premises and - this was an innovation - on all internal Stasi reports, analyzes and interpretations based on such records; access to all information collected through espionage was also restricted. In addition, the court tightened restrictions on persons entitled to access such information: only researchers involved in 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 communicated to the media without the written consent of the affected person himself 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 the dossiers of the former secret services. 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.

findings

Even before the reunification of Germany, starting in the autumn of 1989, activists of the East German civil opposition movement demanded the liquidation of the Ministry of State Security, the identification of state security informants and the open study of the past, the opening of archives and lustration in order to restore confidence in the public sphere. It is fundamentally important that the main goal of the protesters was not to carry out retribution, but to restore the confidence of citizens in their elected representatives. The protest leaders proceeded from the fact that in a democratic system, trust is a fundamental principle, so the 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 task was not to deprive former communists of their positions, but there was a need to meet the minimum demand of 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 struggle of the opposition for the elimination of the Stasi and for the preservation and opening of the archives was not limited to slogans and demands during rallies and demonstrations, but became the fundamental motive of civil action. As a result of this struggle, the archives of the state security were largely preserved, and the possibility of access to the personal files of people who had been under the supervision 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 well-protected from the interference of various interested parties, almost completely preserved state security archives.

The rescue of the archives symbolized the self-liberation of German society from the atmosphere of fear and distrust, which was a direct consequence of comprehensive control, continuous surveillance by the secret services. Assessing retrospectively the decision taken in united Germany to open these special services, it can be stated that the main fears and concerns of skeptics turned out to be 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 was officially registered 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 abolition of the state security agencies and the lack of an actual successor to the Stasi.

Historians and journalists got access to the dossiers of socially significant persons, the so-called "persons of modern history". Since access to the archives was not limited by statute of limitations, researchers and journalists were able to conduct independent and credible 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 Office for the Work with Archives, a lustration was also carried out in united Germany - 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 MGB of the GDR on the basis of the Stasi Documentation Law. Noting the importance of the timely adoption of this legal document, Joachim Gauck wrote:

“We badly needed this law. It is logically inconceivable that those who served this apparatus of oppression would still continue to occupy leadership positions. We need to convince our people that they are now free, and make sure that people are imbued with confidence in the authorities at all levels. on: Kehler, John. Secrets of the Stasi. History of the famous secret service of the GDR. Per. from English. Smolensk: Rusich, 2000. S. 44. .

The decision to hide the truth about the past contained in the dossier would, according to Gauk, lead to "great 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 familiarize themselves with their contents were an antidote to nostalgia: without them, “the lies of those in power would have been much greater, as well as the degree of retrospective glorification 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. .