Secrecy and Transparency

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Would you look? Would I look?

Every time I think about the opening of the Stasi files in 1992, I ask myself the question: If I had been a citizen of the GDR, would I have taken the opportunity to see if there was a file on me? And, if so, would I read it? About a week ago, our group had a chance to talk with Wolfgang Templin, one of the major dissidents in East Germany, someone who was of great interest - of course! - to the Stasi. He actually began his talk to us by reading out passages of his "biography" as expressed in the files. It was chilling. I asked him how he had felt reading the reams and reams (his file was massive) of documentation on his life and activities, in particular finding out who had informed on him. I've heard several crazy stories of people discovering that close friends, even spouses, had provided information to the Staatssicherheit (State Security, or simply Stasi for short). Would I want to know that? Why would anyone want to know that? Would it help one achieve closure? Or would it simply stir up thoughts of revenge? There are so many difficult questions. Templin said he'd been shocked the first time he read the files, but after he had returned to them, almost twenty years later and with more emotional distance, he no longer was bothered by them. But he also said he doesn't want to dwell on the reports either. Other than reading them to a group of US teachers, I guess!

When we went to the Stasi Museum (Forschungs-und Gedenkstatte Normannenstrasse), in what had once been part of the Stasi Headquarters, we got a first hand glimpse of all the ways the GDR monitored its citizens. There was even a birdhouse with a very obvious lens, but no camera. It was intended to make people think they were being watched, even though it was a fake! More about control than actual information gathering. We learned how pervasive the Stasi and their more informal networks of informers were in the GDR; indeed, with nearly 1-in-20 being some sort of informer, it was the largest "intelligence" gathering service in the Eastern Bloc. Eerily, the headquarters had been little changed since the days of the last secret police chief, Erich Mielke. We even sat in the original chairs in the cafe where the Stasi officials once took their breaks. I wondered if we were being bugged...

Someone asked our guide, who had grown up in the GDR, the same question I had asked Wolfgang Templin: What did you think and feel reading your file? He seemed even less concerned than Templin had been, but he did mention that he had been disturbed to find that one of the informers on his family (his brother had been involved in some peace movements) was their pastor. Most unsettling to our guide was the sense that the pastor had not been coerced into being an informer, like so many, but had done it out of conviction that he was doing the right thing!

When the Wall came down, there was an understandable desire for transparency after so many years of secrecy and covert (and not so covert!) monitoring of lives. But how transparent is transparent enough? Can one have too much transparency? Those questions are still being wrestled with in Germany - and elsewhere.

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The issue of transparency even came up with the design for the renovation of the Reichstag. A startling glass dome sets on top of the original nineteenth-century structure; every aspect of the dome is intended to symbolize openness and democracy. Besides the obvious clear view in and out of the dome itself, there is no charge to visit (i.e. full access to the public). There is a funnel of mirrors inside to "shed light on the workings of democracy" on the parliament chamber below. They even thought of a hole to let out "stale" air. Perhaps the Capitol in Washington needs such a ventilation system to let out the bombast of a congressional session!

Looking out of the dome, over the rooftops of Berlin and the wooded stretch of the Tiergartan, I asked myself again: Would I look?

And I still don't know.

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Comments

[Pranjal]

Awesome structure
I saw it in the delta magazine the first time. looks like a really cool structure!

[Sheldon]

eerie
This sent chills down my spine. To have your entire life monitored and always being treated like a potential traitor, I can't begin to imagine how I'd feel. I think I would look at my file out of some sordid sense of perversion. But that's just my masochistic nature.