My Relationship to the Stasi By Dietrich Stoyan

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My Relationship to the Stasi
By Dietrich Stoyan,
Professor, Technical University Bergakademie Freiberg

Summary of My Relationship to the Stasi:
The following article: "My relationship to the Stasi" written by Professor Stoyan is a personal statement on a chapter of GDR history. From a very personal point of view it treats with how people in the GDR dealt with the Stasi, the "State Security Service", even though they very often tried hard not to deal with the Stasi at all. First, Professor Stoyan explains how the Stasi operated and what exactly its functions were and then gives an inside view on what it meant for him and his
family as well as his friends to manage a life without being too much affected by the Stasi. Dietrich Stoyan tells the reader how he dealt with inspection and observation by the Stasi in his everyday life and describes what happened to Stasi
officials and employees after the GDR collapsed in 1989. Professor Stoyan describes in detail the experiences of reading his own Stasi file and shares the process of the disclosure of the Stasi files in general with his readers.

Professor Dietrich Stoyan:
During the GDR Era Like the majority of my compatriots, I tried to live as best I could within the GDR
system. I wanted to remain with my family in East Germany, where I had found a home after fleeing Silesia in 1945 and after a childhood bereft of the father killed at the end of the war. My thinking was thoroughly influenced by the ideology of the communist system. I was never in the opposition, but I tried, at first instinctively, later consciously, to stand apart from much of it and to follow my conscience. Joining the SED was never an issue. West Germans had a condescending
name for people like me: a "Nischen-Ossi" - which is an expression for an East German (the nickname for East Germans is: "Ossi") who had tried to survive by keeping a low profile in a 'niche' and who kept out of politics as far as possible,
did not take active part in the life of the community (in Stasi jargon, I was labeled an "only academic"), spoke freely only within a small circle of friends and -- seen from today's perspective - had a great deal of time for hobbies and his family.
Of course we all, I, my family, and my colleagues knew of the existence of the Stasi. ( "Stasi" is the German acronym for "State Security Service.") In the 1980's we made jokes about the newly constructed Stasi branch office in our city,
supposedly the only one in the entire city to boast an atom bomb-proof bunker. A prominent member of the gardening association we belonged to was known to be a full-time Stasi employee. Another professor in my department, an SED member, warned me about a woman we both knew, who was thought to be in the employ of the Stasi.
(Looking back today, I assume that was true, but I ignored the warning.) I cannot remember ever having discussed with my colleagues the possible identity of the spy at our institute with my colleagues. Nor was it a topic of conversation at home.

My wife and I believed, naively (or because it was easier), that nothing would happen to us if we were careful and if we followed the rules. We strove to give the state its due by working hard and well as a civil servant and an employee of a
state-owned enterprise. Only on very rare occasions, when I saw no risk in doing so or when I felt cornered, did I criticize party policy. Also, the fundamental underpinnings of socialism are attractive and compelling. The constant party propaganda did achieve one thing: we believed that we were fully cognizant of the many disadvantages of the capitalist system. (Today my view has been corrected through experience and I am annoyed at things I never thought about
before, like the western German bureaucracy and certain private television shows.) Openly anti-communist statements were unthinkable, in my youth because I didn't know any better, later because I understood the consequences. Even so, my caution had its limits. On the first work day after the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, I was provoked by a supervisor during a meeting and criticized the invasion. I still don't understand what got into me that morning, but I remember how sad and bitter I felt. My criticism was couched in the language of the time: "The imperialists will be glad that this happened. It weakens the socialist side morally." Several days later, all attendees at another job-related meeting, most of whom were comrades (i.e., Party members), were required to attest in writing that they welcomed and fully supported the invasion. This was such a clumsy and provocative tactic, however, that I and two other staff members had no choice but to refuse our signatures. I would have preferred it if the comrades had left us alone and simply drawn up! their declaration in their party group. One development led to another. A Czech colleague, with whose parents we had once spent a week's vacation, was expelled from the GDR because he had publicly protested the invasion. He and I lived in the same apartment building and so I saw the police picking him up. The police and some inconspicuous passersby were witness as I carried out the "heroic deed" of saying goodbye to him. It was obviously a situation where I would have been too ashamed to myself if I hadn't. Our naïve belief that caution and reserve would keep us safe was wrong, however, and in that sense as well it was lucky for us that the GDR, and with it the Stasi, ceased to exist when it did. At fault was my very active life as an academic. In 1980, when I was 40, our family suffered a severe blow. My younger brother was a computer scientist and after some years of trying to affirm GDR socialism, he correctly concluded that it held no future for him. He made less and less a secret of his rejection of the GDR system and began to seek contacts in the West. The Stasi apparently noticed that and decided that if they could not keep him in the GDR, then at least they could profit from his departure. His application to leave for West Germany was granted - or so it seemed. The day before he was to leave he was arrested. They tried to accuse him of espionage in order to ensure a stiff sentence and thus a high price to buy his freedom. (Yes, the GDR state sold human beings, political prisoners, selling their freedom to the West. The GDR needed western currency to prolong its existence, dollars or DM, and any means of getting
it were welcome.) The charge of espionage against my brother did not stand up in court, however. After six months in a Stasi prison in the town he lived in, he was convicted on the lesser charge of failing to notify the authorities of a colleague's plans to flee to the West, a charge he vehemently denied. (Conditions in the Stasi prison, incidentally, were not inhumane. He was never beaten or tortured physically and he was allowed two books per week; after a few weeks he even received the English grammar book he had requested.) He was freed before serving the entire sentence and
brought to the West; his family followed about a month later.

I was held jointly liable for my brother's actions, although the official response
was mild by GDR standards. I was called in for interrogation in the administrative
offices of my university. Two university officials questioned me while a stranger
took notes. I was asked for my opinion of my 36 year-old brother's plans to leave
the GDR and about how I might have been able to convince him to stay. I was not
prepared for the conversation and felt constantly on the defensive. After all, I
was facing representatives of the socialist state, which was my employer, landlord
and judge all in one. On the one hand, I knew any attempt to persuade my brother to
remain would have been a pointless interference in his plans. But I was also
convinced that the success of his plans would make my life more difficult. (As it
turned out, that was not the case; perhaps the sole consequence of the
interrogation was that it became harder for me to travel even to Eastern Europe.)
Nonetheless, I felt humiliated for a long time after that conversation.
Thus we learned that the Stasi could hurt members of our family as well. We
increased our caution, but still noticed certain changes. On the rare occasions
when we spoke to my brother on the telephone, the phone continued to emit noises
for hours after the call had ended, as if it wanted to tell us that everything was
being recorded and warn us to be careful. It didn't take very long, however, before
I was able to ignore that and work and live as before. I had no way of knowing at
the time that the Stasi would have similar plans for me for the summer of 1989.

After the "Wende"
With the revolution of 1989/90, something completely unexpected happened: in 1990,
the "Nischenossi" became one of the two vice presidents at our university and in
1991 the president. This allowed me to observe the proceedings against the former
Stasi at close range.

It was obvious that the high-ranking Stasi officials were well prepared for the
change. They disappeared quietly, almost unnoticed, finding good jobs in industry
and in the insurance companies established here by western Germany. Many suspected
Stasi employees left our university voluntarily. Those who had time to think about
it or the necessary knowledge drew the right conclusions. "Oh, him too," people
said, when a professor with good career chances suddenly resigned. Wild rumors
circulated and many innocent people were accused of Stasi collaboration silently or
in agitated conversations.

In my view, it was good that order was brought to this chaos. Personnel commissions
were founded to investigate the actions of university staff during the GDR period.
The commission members were elected in the departments; they were set up by the
East Germans themselves, in contrast to the Allies' denazification commissions
after the Second World War. The Gauck Commission (to investigate the Stasi, Gauck
was the initiator) was also founded and it must have been clear to everyone
concerned that all university staff would be "gaucked," that is, that their Stasis
files, if such existed, would be examined in view of possible collaboration. People
who worked in the "free" market economy, where many Stasi employees had received or
kept good jobs, were not investigated. Looking back today, I see this patently
unequal treatment as a viable compromise. It was not as necessary to rid the
private economy of collaborators as it was in civil service.
The prospect of being "gaucked" and the clever offer of early retirement made by
the Bonn government led many older staff members, guilty or not, to leave the
university. That saved us a great deal of discord.
Then the state bared its teeth. All university staff had been required in 1991 to
sign a statement about Stasi collaboration. It was coupled with the threat of
dismissal if false information was given. Some admitted their cooperation with the
Stasi, but many more did not or gave vague, evasive answers that could be
interpreted one way or the other, depending upon what came to light about them. In
their view, that was the right thing to do: After all, the harshness toward Stasi
spies had decreased, partially because the initial anger had simply cooled and
partially because one saw prominent former Stasi collaborators become successful
politicians or win their cases in courts.
As university president, I was constantly being shown the files of particularly
egregious cases among the staff. I never took notes and my remembrances in the
following text are formulated so that I do not commit libel. In general, I feel
queasy when I think of these spies. There are many things I can speak of only in
cynical tones, even today.
The files I was shown were written in pathetic German full of grammatical errors
and were either typed on old-fashioned typewriters or written by hand. Names had
been blacked out. The best text of this type, in which a spy reported on a
colleague's private life, ran as follows: "Although colleague XXX (name blacked
out) has an intense love relationship with XXX, he continues to live with his XXX
and his XXX." The spies reported on the furnishings, on the purchase of new
clothing, on plans to have relatives in the West send a new car, on extra-marital
relationships and the like. The information was collected at gatherings such as
weekly card games at the victim's apartment.
These trivial reports fell into two groups. In some cases, one sensed the pressure
to report something, anything, and so the spy noted things he or she felt were
harmless. It was less often the case that the reports were really intended to harm
the victim, that they questioned his or her commitment to the GDR system and tried
to hurt his career or violate his personal life.
A similar differentiation can be made with reports on the victims' political stance
toward the GDR system. Most of the IM's (the German abbreviation for "unofficial
employee" of the Stasi) tried to portray their colleague in a generally good light
by using formulations like: "He remains committed to our state, but has occasional
doubts about individual party decisions."
It was sad to see the tactics that were used to recruit many Stasi IM's. Some were
recruited while they served in the military, a time that many found difficult. They
were asked to report on officers' conduct toward soldiers that violated military
regulations and on less-than-comradely behavior by older soldiers toward younger
ones. (There were in fact unpleasant occurrences in the NVA or "National People's
Army," where some of the older and more experienced "comrades" systematically
exploited and humiliated new recruits. Unfortunately, this was silently tolerated
by a number of officers.) As a reward, they were promised easier military service
and an easier start on their future career in civilian life.
I heard as well the attempts of some exposed spies to justify their actions. Most
of my information came from members of the personnel commission, but I sometimes
spoke directly with former spies. Many formerly prominent people were suffering
tremendous crises of confidence and sought contact with those who were now in
important positions, in order to try to justify their actions. These attempts often
followed the same pattern.
If they hoped that little was known about them, they declared their innocence: "No,
I never worked for the Stasi." When presented with proof to the contrary, they
retreated and said something like: "Oh, right, now I remember, there was a stranger
who approached me around 1983 and asked some really strange questions. I didn't
know who he was or what it was all about. But I didn't tell him anything
important." Then, when the former spy was shown the reports he had written: "Oh
yeah, I forgot all about that. But I never said anything bad, I never hurt
anybody." Finally, when he or she was shown proof that his statements had damaged
or could have damaged the victim's career, one heard that the former spy didn't
mean to do it, had been put under pressure or hadn't been mature enough at the time
to resist. Very occasionally someone felt so cornered that he or she said: "Yes, I
did write those reports and I'm proud of it. That was necessary for the GDR and
after all, I am a Socialist."
The IM statements reflected envy, sometimes malice, and very frequently an inflated
sense of importance or the proud feeling of having been allowed to be part of a
game of "Indians." (What interesting secret names some of them gave themselves!)
There were details that touched me, for example, when I heard that an IM had
sacrificed one whole room (including key!) in his cramped 60 square meter
three-room apartment for use as a conspirative meeting place. Since everybody knew
the Stasi office, it was desirable to have secret meetingplaces.
Our apartment house, typical prefabricated GDR housing with 15 units, also had such
a secret apartment. The mailbox identified it as "committee," ( this name was
another cynic word used by the Stasi: the "K" in KGB [the former Soviet secret
service] means "committee") but there was nothing on the door, and no one seemed to
really live there. My wife made inquiries. She was told that because of the
scarcity of hotel beds, the apartment was used for guests of the mayor. She was not
to tell others about it because of the shortage of apartments. It was partly the
truth, because around the 1st of May and the 7th of October (the day of the
founding of the GDR) the apartment was occupied for about a week by the man who had
been the Soviet commander of the city after the Second World War and his wife.
Other than that, the regular tenants noticed only that strangers sometimes entered
the apartment, singly and one after another. They left it again singly and quietly.
I want to use the following cynical formulation to describe what I see from today's
perspective as the "optimal strategy" for an IM who wanted to remain at the
university of at least receive significant severance pay: deny everything;
explain that you consider the work of the personnel commission to be illegal;
wait to be fired, immediately protest it and generate as much public protest
through the media as you can;
file a lawsuit before an administrative court, supported by a western German lawyer.
Serious mistakes while pursuing this strategy included an early, voluntary departure
from the university and publicly and personally attacking the new holders of power,
because they felt provoked to take harsh measures. It was useful, if but not
absolutely necessary, to make frequent references to the terms "basic rights" and
"rule of law."

The Stasi Files
In November 1993 I was able to read my own Stasi file. That was very early for a
53-year-old and had to do with my position as university president. The atmosphere
in the Gauck office in Chemnitz had the hush of a secondary school during an
important written exam. I sat in a large room with others who had likewise come to
read their files. In front of me were a few sheets of white paper and a pen, next
to me a stack of files. Mine was not large, under 300 pages. In front of us sat a
"teacher," the Gauck office representative who served as supervisor. Just like in
school, we could raise our hands and ask the teacher for help, whereupon she gave
whispered explanations of the mysterious abbreviations or terms of Stasi jargon. I
heard murmured curses, not over too-difficult examinations but about the contents
of the files: "those pigs," "I can't believe it" and the like.
I read my file, laughed at some passages, shook my head and asked for copies of
many of the pages. I left with a feeling of relief, glad no one I cared deeply
about had proven to be a spy; also, my administrative duties demanded my attention.
At home, though, after I had received the copies I had ordered (with names blocked
out) and had spoken with my wife, I began to understand how lucky we had indeed
been that the "Wende" had taken place at this particular time. Without it, I might
very well have been tried for espionage and spent several months in prison before
being deported (sold) to the West.
I actually found a notation in my file that I had "played a dishonorable role
during the CSSR events of 1968." I was supposedly "an enthusiastic supporter (i.e.,
an opponent) against the measures that were carried out against" (they really wrote
"against" twice) my Czech colleague. The file also contained a report on the
interrogation about my brother, reminding me of that sad day.
There were a number of reports about my personality and habits as a consumer. (I
was and still am a frugal man and not a particular friend of the consumer society.)
One report noted (correctly) my naivete in political matters. The comrades also
noticed my attempts to make contact with foreign academics. (Although, as far as I
know, discussion with colleagues is important to every academic.)
A nice Stasi employee (a shame I don't know who it was) tried to help me by
describing what at a success I had been at a large international conference that
took place in the Soviet Union in 1986, and pleaded for greater trust in me, in
fact, that I be made a "Reisekader," a person with extended travel privileges.
Copies of many scientific papers awakened memories of the 1970's and 80's. Even the
title pages of reprints had been copied. The Stasi's customs investigation division
in the Karl-Marx-Stadt district (Karl- Marx -Stadt was Chemnitz's communist or GDR
name and Freiberg was part of the same district) was very industrious and always
informed the Freiberg local office immediately. I found a copy of a letter that
included a photo of the participants of a meeting in Paris, together with a copy of
a form indicating that the letter had been classified as "intelligentsia-contact."
That sounded less hateful than simply bureaucratic.
My increasing importance was indicated in the following notice: "A tall corpulent
man in a Ford automobile with Swiss license plates drove Dr. Stoyan to the
administration building of the university on September 26, 1984 at approximately 6
p.m. Before Dr.Stoyan left the car, the two men conversed for about 10 minutes. The
driver jotted down some notes, then they parted." In fact, the personable heavy-set
man had just given me a copy of Orwell's "1984." His license plate was still the
same in 1993. Later he gave an example how these memories of the 1980's remain
important even today to the western academics who once traveled frequently through
the Iron Curtain. In a journal review of a book I had co-authored, he wrote:
"Thanks to a formerly very active authority called 'Stasi," we now have evidence
that one of the authors and this reviewer met in Freiberg on some day during the
Eighties. How else would we have been able to prove it?"
The Stasi compiled a complete personal description of me as early as 1975. My eyes,
they said, were blue-gray, my nose and ears large, my lips thick. Already then, I
had only a fringe of hair, my posture was "stooped" and I was described as having
"nervously twitching eyes" and being dressed "correctly." The presence of an
"accompanying object: bicycle" was noted.
I read that I had been described at a Stasi meeting in the Karl-Marx-Stadt
(Chemnitz) administration on July 25, 1989 as a particularly dangerous
"Reisekader." The Stasi swung into action, with only a small delay that was
probably due to the summer vacation season, and approved a personal surveillance
procedure against me on September 19, 1989 in the Stasi district office in my home
town. "Regarding St., significant indications have been found that he facilitates
the flow of scientific data to persons suspected of intelligence activity or
connections to enemy organizations." The Stasi pledged to "collect operatively
significant information as well as carry out short-term surveillance of operatively
significant connections with the goal of opening an OV" (an "operative procedure,"
according to a glossary published by the Gauck office on Stasi jargon.)
Clarity about my activities and me was to be achieved by placing false friends
("appropriate contact persons") into "the arenas of work and residence." A time
schedule had been drawn up for this and other tasks the Stasi had set itself for
me. Indeed, surprisingly I had become a so-called "Reisekader" in the summer 1989. I
now had the opportunity (and really took advantage of it September 30, 1989), after
a series of long bureaucratic procedures, to travel to the NSW (Non-Socialist
Economic Region). The Stasi noted the following: "For economic reasons, the
university applied for S. to receive the status of NSW-Reisekader in March 1989,
although he did not meet the requirements. This was due especially to a negative
political outlook, but also because of operatively significant NSW connections.
Motivated by economic pressures, the district office approved the application."
All my years of caution had come to naught: I was still considered "politically
negative" and the cynical remarks I had been unable to stop myself from making had
indeed been heard and registered. It wouldn't have been as bad if they had
classified me as "not positive" or "cannot be assessed." By "economic pressures"
they meant the GDR's financial crisis; the government hoped that even the modest
sums I brought back to the GDR (and dutifully turned in) would help postpone the
looming economic collapse.
All of my supposed contacts with enemies were the normal contacts of an active
academic, such as data I had requested from abroad in order to test a statistical
procedure I had developed. They were otherwise of no political importance
whatsoever.
The Stasi wrote about me: "Personality characteristics such as striving for
material and intellectual recognition open windows of opportunity for the enemy."
The Stasi's goal was clearly and precisely formulated: "Gathering of operatively
significant information and evidence of known NSW connections and personal contacts
with the goal of quick initiation of an OV according to Section 97 of the Criminal
Code." This section concerns espionage and conviction is punishable by sentences
ranging from under 5 years to death (the death penalty was no longer being imposed
in 1989, however). It was the same pattern as that of my brother.

Translated by Susan Steiner
November 1998