The GDR And The Stasi Movement

The Book Stasiland uses the interviews with victims and perpetrators to inform the reader on life in East Germany. To some extent, Anna Funder does paint a black a white picture of her views, separating the victims from the perpetrators. As she despises the GDR/Stasi, Funder still acknowledges that many of the officials were just doing what was told and were reluctant to react, in fear of falling under the stasis harsh rules. Despite this, many of the officials were strong believers in the system, and do not regret life damaged due to their job. The Stories of Miriam, Julia and Frau Paul do highlight how the Stasi’s tough rules, may devastate ones life and Funder recognizes this by sympathizing for the victims. By seeing the effect the

Throughout history there have been many totalitarian regimes where there is only one individual that controls all aspects of a society; the government, the economy, the military, and the day to day activities of citizens. The reason for the beginning of the Cold War was a clash of ideologies, democratic versus communist governments; where the communist government was totalitarian. Moreover, events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Berlin Airlift during the Cold War are prime examples of an ideological conflict, where two opposing sides were unwilling to stand down. Additionally, World War II also began because of an ideological conflict where Hitler was the totalitarian ruler of the German people. If embraced, the ideologies presented in the source will be detrimental to the world as it is known today.

The SS and Gestapo (secret police) acting under the orders of Himmler, made terror a regular occurrence and a matter of state policy. Any sort of opponents were beaten and regularly thrown

‘Stasiland’ is a non-fiction text written by Anna Funder and follows the personal recounts and experiences of those who lived throughout the GDR prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. While the book primarily revolves around the conversations and reflections which Funder holds in relation to these stories, it is the authors remarkable use of symbolism which enables her to go beyond mere conversation delve into the complexities of not just other’s but her own experience in Stasiland. The use of physical motifs such as Hagen Koch’s Stasi plate are representative of the unrelenting oppression and control

For more than a century, intelligence and security services have played a role within Russian foreign and domestic policy. The czars, General Secretaries of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and all post-Soviet leaders have viewed these services as crucial in coping with rebels and domestic terrorists, and gathering intelligence on both internal and external threats. One of the first official Russian Intelligence agencies created was the Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counterrevolution and Sabotage (CHEKA) in 1918 (Pringle, 2011). This agency was responsible for foreign intelligence, domestic security, counterintelligence, and border control until 1921 when it was disbanded. In 1922, its functions were transferred to the State Political Directorate (GPU), renamed in 1923 to the Unified State Political Directorate (OGPU), which was initially much less powerful than its predecessor. However, by 1932, the secret police again acquired vast punitive powers under party leader Joseph Stalin. In 1934 the secret police were renamed the People 's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD). No longer subject to control by the party or restricted by law, the NKVD became a direct instrument for Stalin to use against the country and opposing party members during the Great Terror of the 1930s (Library of Congress,

Germany was believed to be the cause of World War one, which made other European countries want to severely hurt Germany’s military and economy so that Germany couldn’t achieve future aggressions. The peace treaty called the Treaty of Versailles did just that. On June 28, 1919, the major powers in Europe, other than Germany, negotiated Germany’s punishment for the war. Germany’s military was limited to 100,000 men, they lost many of their colonies, they were forced to disarm their troops from the Rhineland, and worst of all they were forced to pay for all of the destruction caused by the war, which totaled to about 40 billion dollars. The Treaty of Versailles crushed Germany; they were weak and desperate, until Nazi Germany came to power.

Emerging victoriously from World War II, America became the leader of the free-market capitalist world, and proved to be a military, economic, and political powerhouse. However, as one major war came to a close, another battle was brewing between the democratic United States and the communist Soviet Union. As the Soviet Union expanded farther West into Europe, America as well as its NATO allies worked together in an effort to contain the USSR’s expanding communist party. The Cold War went far beyond a battle between different ideologies. Rather, it developed into a global conflict where espionage, treason, and massive propaganda campaigns were inflicted on all aspects of individuals’ lives internationally. The plausibility of communism seeping into the confinements of the United States caused nation-wide fear to erupt. American businesses feared the idea of a communistic revolution on the basis that it would disturb the very groundwork that holds capitalism together. As a result, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was formed to investigate communist and fascist organizations within America. Unfortunately, the controversial tactics used during the HUAC hearings contributed to the fear, blacklisting, and repression that existed from 1940 through the 1950s. In the midst of the Cold War, several American opinions materialized concerning the role of the HUAC, in which Americans either praised the committee for its patriotic ideals, applauded but recognized the

During the Cold War, lots of East Germans had rights taken from them. The main causes were the East German government and Russia, which built the Berlin Wall, the main restricting barrier for the East Germans. Some of the rights that they East Germans lost, as stated at www.lowyinterpreter.org, “Many regimes in Eastern Europe refused to allow their citizens freedom to travel, and prisoners of conscience were jailed for trying to exercise their rights of expression, association and religion.” However, the main rights that were taken away from the East Germans were the rights of travel, and the right of good government/stable economy. When the Berlin Wall went up, it prevented travel for East Germans to anyplace other than surrounding

In the Stasiland, Anna Funder explores the impact the Cold War has scared victims and enabled them to heal and move on. All the sufferers had different stories to tell and experienced different life traumas but they all had some sort of interrelationship with the East German regime. However, this novel was subjective therefore they may have been other victims we have not heard or felt sympathy for. The Stasiland was a well-written non-fiction

After the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, Germany was split between the Allies (France, Britain, and the United States) in the west and the Soviets in the East. Similarly, Berlin, although in East Germany, was split between the Allies and Soviets. In order to stop people from escaping the communist control of the “German Democratic Republic” (as the Soviets called East Germany), a wall was built around West Berlin seemingly overnight on August 13th, 1961. A secret police force known as the Staatssicherheitsdienst, (shortened to Stasi) kept information on every East German citizen through a vast network of spies, and also had the responsibility of discovering and ending plots to escape into the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). Anna Funder’s memoir, Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall takes a unique look at stories of both the victims, and the Stasi themselves, trying to piece together what really happened in behind the Wall.

The Weimar Constitution was a genuine attempt to create a perfect democratic country. In his book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960), American historian William L. Shirer described the Weimar Constitution as "on paper, the most liberal and democratic document of its kind the twentieth century had ever seen ... full of ingenious and admirable devices which seemed to guarantee the working of an almost flawless democracy.” The constitution guaranteed equal rights to the German people, yet also contained the fundamental structural flaws that would play a major part in the Republic 's downfall (and thus the Nazi Party’s rise). Two clear examples of such weaknesses were the use of an excessively proportional electoral system and the

For example, the thought police is one of them. ”There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the thought police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork”. This quote taken from the book describes how the thought police could watch individuals at any chosen time, and also had the power to listen to people’s thoughts. This was a way of controlling the people, by having their mind in control and to expose those who were in the opposition. In contrary to popular beliefs at the time, NKVD did not have the power to listen to the citizens of the soviet union’s thoughts. However, they did have spies working for Stalin, in order to listen to, and follow people who they suspected had political differences to their

Director Donnersmarch contrasts the beginning and the end of The Lives of Others in order to show us the change in Weisler’s character from an individual who is committed to responsibility and moral duty, to a man who is filled with passion and emotion. Cinematography and dialogue are effective methods of showing this change in Weisler’s character. The Lives of Others is set in 1984 East Berlin, five years before Gorbachev’s "glasnost" policies, and the fall of the Berlin Wall. The film centres on the East German Ministry for State Security, which is a secret police known as the Stasi, created by the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in an attempt to maintain its power and protect the survival of Socialism in East Berlin. In the film, loyal

On February 10, 1936 the Nazi Reichstag passed the “Gestapo Law” which said that the affairs of the Gestapo were not open to review by the administrative courts, The Gestapo was now above the law. Now any person at any time could be arrested and imprisoned for no reason whatsoever. Despite its small size of about 40,000 the Gestapo were extremely efficient at dealing with “enemies of Germany”. The problem for citizens living in Nazi occupied Europe was that no one knew who the Gestapo informants were,

One reason why Berlin was a flash point in 1957- 1963 was because of Khrushchev’s aim’s. one of his main aims was to Stop the brain drain. The brain drain was when many highly educated professional people ( such as doctors, teachers, lawyers etc.) left East Berlin for West Berlin in hopes of a better standard of living.They also moved because consumer good were extremely cheap, wages were much higher as well as there was a sense of Freedom. That played a critical role because from my own knowledge I know that in East Berlin there was the secret police who went by the name Stasi. The Stasi had more power than ordinary police and their main purpose was to spy on certain individuals and they would occasionally arrests people who they thought