Stasiland

When I was a kid, there were two countries split by Communism: Korea and Germany.  Germany was always a country of great interest to me since my grandparents came from Germany.  Although East Germany was part of the Soviet-controlled Eastern Bloc, it didn’t regularly make headlines like the Soviet Union did (or, at least, not ones that a kid like me heard about).  I knew it was oppressive and that people tried to get out.  The movie Night Crossing, about a couple families’ daring escape from East Germany in a hot air balloon, was one of my favorites.  I first saw it thanks to the Disney Sunday Night Movie (or some similar title), which we had recorded on VHS and watched more than once.  The escape was harrowing and courageous, and I couldn’t believe that there was a country that was so intent on controlling its own people.  Even though I was so young, I thought the reunification of Germany was a really cool event.

Stasiland: Stories from behind the Berlin Wall by Anna Funder (ISBN: 978-1-84708-355-7) is a book written in a journalistic style that tells a variety of stories from East Germany: former Stasi, dissidents, people who tried to escape, and just regular people.  The book, because of its style, also followed the author’s journey through East Germany and dealing with the psychological damage being so close to it dealt her.  The people interviewed included a woman who was not political at all, but one day, found herself close to the border, saw a possibility, and went for it.  She was caught, imprisoned, and forever scarred by the traumatic experience.  She later married a guy who was punished for an escape attempt simply because he swam out toward a boat that was Swedish while at an East German beach.  Endless trouble from the state eventually killed him.  Another was a neighbor of the author, a rock musician who was famous throughout the country.  Eventually, the authorities decided he and his group were just too much, though, and they were informed they no longer existed.  The state disbanded the group.  One of the most heart-rending stories came thanks to a woman who essentially traded her freedom for that of others.  She and her husband had a very sick baby that was being treated in a West German hospital because the East Germans didn’t have the right medicines and abilities.  The parents were only allowed a couple visits, and never together, in an effort to prevent defection.  Later, the parents prepared to make an escape attempt via a tunnel.  The Stasi, East Germany’s brutal secret police, found out about the tunnel, though, and the escape attempt was called off.  That didn’t prevent the parents of the sick boy from being persecuted.  Eventually, the mother was told she could go to the West and see her son, but there were conditions.  One of the conditions would’ve sold out some of the others who had been involved in the escape attempt.  In an amazing act of heroism, she didn’t give in.  The boy grew up in the West under the care of nurses and doctors.  The interviews with the former Stasi were less exciting.  Most seemed to lament, in one way or another, the passing of the former East Germany and the power, authority, and privilege many of them had, usually at the expense of others.  The reunification wasn’t kind to everyone, resulting, in some cases, in increased crime and poverty for those who struggled to adapt to the new order.

The book was interesting, but also disappointing in some ways.  The stories about the former East Germans were great.  Funder found a variety of people, a nice cross-section of society that helped present a fuller picture for the reader.  The stories from those who were oppressed and persecuted or who had resisted in some way were both exhilarating and depressing.  They fought, but often it cost them dearly.  A few of the stories were genuinely inspiring.  Some of the more logistical or mechanical stuff involved was also interesting from a strictly historical point of view.  The book was disappointing because of the inclusion of so much of Funder’s journey.  Even some of the more gripping stories were told from the author’s first-person point of view, which I thought greatly detracted from the book and its potentially strong message.  The author was affected by the stories and people she came in contact with in a profound way that impacted her psychologically.  She had to come to grips with that, and the reader is taken along for part of that journey.  Finally, the book, although almost twenty years old, succumbs to that odd rule of modern publishing in which publishers seem to think that if a word doesn’t use the F-word a few times, people won’t take it seriously.  Although prevalent in today’s society, I find that it detracts from literature that is trying to be serious.

This work, including all text, photographs, and other original work, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License and is copyrighted © MMXXI John Pruess.