Stasiland

Anna Funder

Australian-born Anna Funder is the author and narrator of Stasiland. She makes three trips to Berlin for work and begins to investigate life in Germany, wondering what it would have been like on both sides of history. She is an integral part of Stasiland, not a neutral bystander, and brings her own character and beliefs to her writing. The book’s opening, which is an account of Funder’s hangover, somewhat departs from the non-fiction style in that it indicates Funder will not be hiding herself in the background but will personally lead the reader on their journey into Stasiland while also revealing information about herself. Her role as narrator also allows the reader to know how she feels—to see events and people from her point of view; Funder sheds tears as she talks to Miriam, Julia and Frau Paul, feels uncomfortable with Herr Bock, feels some sympathy for Herr Bohnsack and dislikes von Schnitzler. Funder also reacts to the physical environments of the places she visits. Her obvious curiosity, detailed descriptions, and point of view towards the people she meets, engage the reader, who sees what she sees, smells what she smells and learns what she learns. However, when considering the accuracy and neutrality of the given account, it is important to understand that Funder controls the narrative.

Anna Funder Quotes

But I liked the sticklebrick nature of it, building long supple words by putting short ones together. (Funder about the German language) Chapter 1

Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to be German. (Funder) Chapter 2

I am curious about what it must have been like to be on the inside of the Firm, and then to have that world and your place in it disappear. (Funder) Chapter 5

After she died, grief came down on me like a cage. It was another eighteen months before I could focus on anything outside an immediate small area of sadness, or could imagine myself into anyone else’s life. All up it was nearly three years before I came back to Berlin. (Funder after her mother passes) Chapter 24

Miriam

Miriam’s story is ever-present in Stasiland, its lingering presence a reminder of the ongoing impact of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The first sign of Miriam’s ongoing trauma is the reference to her apartment. She lives on the top floor with views over Leipzig from where ‘you could see anyone coming’. Miriam became an enemy of the state at age sixteen, when her and a friend, Ursula, produced leaflets contrary to the state propaganda, and when she attempted to escape over the Wall. Miriam’s story of her drastic attempt to leave the GDR is full of tension and angst, as she comes so close to succeeding. The older Miriam’s hands still show the barbed wire scars emblematising the continuity of her past pain.

After spending time in prison, where she was subjected to sleep deprivation and torture, Miriam was released and met Charlie Weber. Charlie gave new meaning to Miriam’s life even though the Stasi regularly harassed both of them. His death in Stasi custody shattered Miriam, her grief and anger fuelling her desire to find out the truth behind both his death and his fabricated funeral. Despite the dramatic content, Miriam’s stories are littered with black humour, such as in her account of the guard dog ignoring her and in her caricature of the Stasi efforts to control the fabricated story of Charlie’s death. However, her grief is still profound, and the glimmer of hope she holds that the puzzle women (a group of women who put shredded documents back together) will find evidence to explain Charlie’s death, is likely to be a false hope given Funder’s awareness of the time this process will take.

Miriam Quotes

‘But eventually,’ Miriam says, ‘they break you.’ Chapter 2

‘When I got out of prison, I was basically no longer human.’ (Miriam) Chapter 4

For Miriam, the past stopped when Charlie died. Chapter 4

Julia Behrend

Julia is Funder’s landlord and has a story of her own to tell that Funder eventually records. Julia is the same age as Funder, which serves as a parallel between the two lives. While Funder’s life in Australia seemed uneventful, Julia was introduced to the persistent and invasive nature of the Stasi when she was dating an Italian man and they intervened to try and force her to become an informant. She resisted by threatening the handler, Major N, with a report to his superior and, while she was let go, she was constantly interrogated, victimised, and denied education and employment by the Stasi. Her story becomes more tragic when, after the fall of the Wall and the accidental release of criminals as part of the amnesty deal, she was raped. Julia’s future was further derailed in that she developed anxiety and depression, and became disoriented and detached from the world around her, unable to reclaim her identity. She eventually moved to San Francisco, suggesting her past damage was irreparable and all that remained was to try and start again in an entirely new environment.

Julia Behrend Quotes

Like her father, Julia believed in East Germany as an alternative to the west. Chapter 9

‘I lived with this sort of scrutiny as a fact,’ she says. ‘I didn’t like it but I thought: I live in a dictatorship, so that’s just how it is. It was clear to me as a simple act of GDR-logic: I am with a western foreigner; now I will be under observation.’ (Julia) Chapter 10

‘That was when it got hard for me.’ (Julia) Chapter 10

Klaus Jentzsch

A work friend and drinking companion of Funder, Klaus, like Julia, reminds the reader that you don’t have to go far to hear a complex tale of life under the GDR regime. Klaus is a musician. His old band, The Klaus Renft Combo, was the most popular band in the GDR, and Klaus had enjoyed his reputation as the ‘bad boy’ or ‘Mik Jegger’ of the Eastern Bloc. He recalls his time as heady days of ‘sex drugs and rock n roll’, although the drugs were only alcohol and cigarettes under the GDR. The band ran into serious problems with the regime when they started singing about the ‘holy things’ of the GDR, such as the army and the Wall. They wanted to ‘scratch the GDR at its marrow’ with songs such as ‘The Chains Are Getting Tighter’. They underwent constant surveillance and their song lyrics had to be screened and approved by the committee. Eventually, he and the band were summoned to the Ministry for Culture and told that they ‘no longer existed’. Klaus, who had secretly recorded the interview with the Ministry, said the tape would be played on western radio if anything happened to the band. Two members of the band were ‘purchased’ (their freedom was paid for) by the West and Klaus left to become a sound engineer. Funder observes that Klaus ‘seems incapable of regret, and anger evaporates off him like sweat’. This is what stops him being ‘bound to the past and carrying it around like a wound’ and which contrasts the experiences of Miriam and Julia, whose wounds are still present and raw.

Klaus Jentzsch Quotes

Klaus Renft was the legendary ‘Mik Jegger’ of the Eastern Bloc. Chapter 8

He was grumpy and friendly at the same time, just warming up. (About Klaus) Chapter 19

‘… GDR wasn’t just Stasi, Stasi, Stasi. It was “Sex und Drugs und Rock’n’Roll”,’ he says in English. By drugs he means alcohol and cigarettes … (Klaus) Chapter 19

Frau Paul

Frau Paul is a complex character who talks to Funder but retains part of her story, partly out of an ongoing sense of having to hide the truth and, partly because she sees herself to be a criminal because of her role in escape attempts. She was separated from her sick infant, Torsten, when the barbed wire wall was rolled out overnight and the Stasi had refused her access to the West. Frau Paul represents the ability of the human spirit to triumph over political oppression but at the cost of personal guilt. She had been pressured by the Stasi to lure a man, Michael Hinze, so they could kidnap him, but she refused and paid the price emotionally. Imprisoned at Hohenshonhausen prison for five months for allegedly smuggling people out of the GDR, Funder refers to her as ‘a soul buckled out of shape, forever’. Later, she had been employed as a guide at the very prison in which she had been detained, and she takes Funder there. Frau Paul is described as brave, an honourable title given the circumstances, although she does not see herself as the hero of the story.

Frau Paul Quotes

Everything here is, as my mother would say, ‘spic and span’, and so was Sigrid Paul. Chapter 21

‘The Wall Went Straight through My Heart.’ (Heading on Frau Paul’s notes) Chapter 21

‘I went to see him that time and of course I wanted more,’ she says. ‘I wanted more.’ (Frau Paul) Chapter 21

She seems to have, in fact, very little distance from what happened to her. Things remain close, and hard. (About Frau Paul) Chapter 21

Erich Mielke and Erich Honecker

Erich Mielke was the Minister for State Security, and one of the most influential figures in making East Germany the rigorous police state that it was. Mielke ran the Stasi surveillance force, and was responsible for ordering the surveillance of tens of thousands of German citizens. Admired or at least feared by those interviewed by Funder, Mielke failed to change course and ran the GDR aground. He was imprisoned on minor charges and later released. On his death, ‘the headlines read, “Most hated man now dead’’’.

Erich Honecker was the Secretary-General of East Germany for most of its existence and, with Mielke, the driving force behind its dictatorial state structure. In the final days of East Germany, Honecker tried to prosecute and incarcerate demonstrators and, when this failed and revolutionaries tore down the Berlin Wall, he fled to Chile where he died of cancer.

Erich Mielke and Erich Honecker Quotes

But the men running the GDR were ossified. They were not interested in reform. Chapter 6

‘… And there was Erich Mielke at the top, a living example of the most humane human being.’ (Von Schnitzler on Mielke) Chapter 13

At one point Mielke asked his officers in Leipzig, ‘Why can’t you just grab them? Why aren’t they liquidated?’ (Mielke about Klaus’ band) Chapter 19

Mielke died this week. He was ninety-two. The headlines read, ‘Most hated man now dead.’ Chapter 26

Hagan Koch

Still attached to the wall that gave his life meaning, Hagan Koch was a product of the communist regime. His father, Heinz Koch, was made to choose ‘wife and life’ or a labour camp unless he joined the Socialist Unity Party. He then had to teach the doctrine of Communism to his students, including his own son, Hagen. Hagan was one of the first to wear the kerchief showing loyalty and became a ‘Musterknabe, a poster boy for the new regime’.

Hagan became the state cartographer and drew the white chalk line across the street marking the place where the Berlin Wall was to be constructed. Often asked why he did not just step over to the other side, Hagan explained that he was in the same position his father had been. As a newly married man, he had to choose whether to go West and be free or to stay East and live with his new bride. Like his father he chose love.

After his resignation, the Stasi fabricated charges that Hagan had been making pornography because he had drawn a cartoon for a friend’s wedding in fun. They pressured his wife to leave him and she signed divorce papers to keep custody of her son. Koch was devastated and described his reaction: ‘At that moment my world broke apart.’ He was forced to retract his resignation and renewed his pledge of lifelong service to the Party. Eighteen months later, he remarried his wife after he had cooled down and could comprehend what happened. In present times, Hagan Koch runs tours to the Wall sites and aims to preserve a part of it by giving a man residence in a tower in order to subvert a law that would see it torn down. His apartment is covered with maps and memorabilia as he is comfortable in the past and his place within it.

Hagan Koch Quotes

‘No, no, no, no. It didn’t work like that. You had to be chosen.’
Apparently this was one of the fundamentals of the system: don’t call us, we’ll call you. (Hagan Koch to Funder) Chapter 16

‘My upbringing was so…’ he searches for the words, ‘so… GDR.’ (Hagan Koch) Chapter 16

‘You have to understand,’ he says, ‘in the context of my father, and of the propaganda of the Cold War-the GDR was like a religion. It was something I was brought up to believe in…’ (Hagan Koch) Chapter 16

‘I chose my wife by her outside, not her political convictions.’ (Hagan Koch) Chapter 17

‘My little private revenge,’ he says. ‘That plate’-he looks straight at me-‘was all I had the courage for.’ (Hagan Koch) Chapter 18

Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler

Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler was a television presenter in the GDR. Although Julia mockingly called him ‘von schni-‘, as this is all he was able to say before she changed the channel, von Schnitzler’s formidable reputation had already been well established for prior to Funder’s interview with him. A committed Communist, and the host of ‘The Black Channel’, he was the face of GDR propaganda, and spent his time happily debunking Western influence and promoting communist ideals. His manner had been aggressive and unapologetic, and he was convinced of his own importance in combating Western imperialism. There is a moment of unintended irony when he points out the flaws in Western television, but uses the Big Brother programme as his example. He remains unapologetic about his role in the regime and remarks that he thinks Mielke was a ‘humane human’. Funder does little to veil her contempt for him but diplomatically gifts him with a small badge containing an Australian and German flag.

Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler Quotes

‘The Black Channel’ was broadcast in the east from 1960. It was intended as a countermeasure to the western program ‘Das Rote Optik’ (The Red View), a critique of socialism being broadcast into the east from West Germany. Chapter 12

‘What makes me sorry,’ he says in a withering tone, ‘was what was dished up to people today on that piece-of-filth television. For instance that, that idiotic program-whatsit called?’ (Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler ironically referencing the Big Brother TV) Chapter 13

‘More! Than! Ever!’ He brings his fist down. … ‘I did not “consider” it necessary. It was absolutely necessary! It was an historical necessity. It was the most useful construction in all of German history! In European history!’ Von Schnitzler answering Funder about the Wall.’ Chapter 13

Herr Christian

Herr Christian worked for the Stasi in border control and in monitoring communication, and has a more light-hearted attitude to his work as a Stasi employee than some of the other Stasi spies introduced by Funder. He takes Funder to sites and details how the spies worked to uncover those fleeing from the East. He was a dedicated Stasi man with a sense of justice but his loyalty to his work did not prevent him from being locked up in solitary confinement for three days and being demoted for failing to disclose an affair he had been having. The skills he acquired transferred successfully into his work as a detective.

Herr Christian Quotes

‘I’ve always had an acute sense of duty to obey the law,’ he says, ‘and I thought it was the right thing to do.’ (Herr Christian) Chapter 15

Herr Bock

A member of division X, Herr Bock was a passionate expert in the science of recruiting informers, and knew the skills of handling them. Herr Bock lives in the ubiquitous brown and beige house and dresses in the drab colours that Funder has come to view as representing the regime. He still seems steeped in Stasi life; his remark that it never occurred to the Stasi ‘that our country could somehow cease to be. Just like that’ shows hope that perhaps it could re-emerge just as easily.

Herr Bock Quotes

‘It would not have occurred to anyone that our country could somehow cease to be. Just like that.’ (Herr Bock) Chapter 20

‘And I don’t mind telling you that some of us actually thought the paragraphs became a little too wide.’ I nod. If, by the mere fact of investigating someone you turn them into an Enemy of the State, you could potentially busy yourself with the entire population. (Herr Bock) Chapter 20

Herr Bohnsack

Herr Bohnsack is different from the others in that he outed himself after the Wall came down. His expertise had been in disinformation, the leaking of rumours, manufactured and spliced conversations that never took place and working against West Germany. He relates anecdotes about Mielke and the last days of the regime, describing his apprehension that he may be asked to fire at his own countrymen who were now protesting. As they down a beer in a café, Herr Bohnsack tells Funder about his efforts to burn incriminating files in his family’s old baker’s oven, watched by a neighbour who knew exactly what he was up to. He describes how he suffered after the Wall fell as he decided to ‘out’ himself after hearing of a magazine that had gained access to an old Stasi database in which his name appeared. His old Stasi colleagues felt he’d broken their code of honour, and he became a traitor to them because he went to the media. His own community also shunned him and for several years he felt unwelcome in the café in which he was speaking with Funder.

Herr Bohnsack Quotes

‘For me,’ Bohnsack says, ‘that was the most terrifying thing. That instead of shooting cardboard figures we’d have to shoot our own people. And we knew, just like under Hitler, that if we refused we’d be taken off and shot ourselves.’ Chapter 24

‘I destroyed everything, all day long.’ There was so much paper to burn the oven nearly collapsed. A cloud of black smoke hung over him in the sky. Chapter 24

‘I can’t stand here before you all and undo it, take it all back.’ After that I sat down. I drank a beer and I just sat there.’ (Herr Bohnsack to the pub crowd after the fall) Chapter 24