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The man who created the Stasi. The real story of Erich Milke. Legendary head of the Stasi Ministry of State Security of the GDR

Stasi anarchists

Relations between the Stasi and the Red Army Faction began in March 1978 after intense West German police action resulted in a series of arrests that forced the remaining terrorists to flee West Germany. When several terrorists managed to escape in Paris, Inge Vit decided to head to the GDR. Crossing the East German border was not too difficult. The West German authorities did not check on anyone who traveled to the East, maintaining the myth of free movement throughout Germany. This was indeed a myth, since the entry control by the communist GDR was the strictest in the world.

Wit arrived in East Germany through the Laueberg checkpoint, about 25 miles southeast of Hamburg, armed with a pistol. Here she asked permission to speak with a Stasi representative and was detained until Colonel Dahl arrived from Berlin. Dahl spoke with the terrorist and received permission from General Nyber to let her into the GDR. Wit spent several days as a guest of the GDR MGB in a villa near Berlin. She then flew to South Yemen, where many members of the Red Army Faction were trained in camps set up by South Yemen and the Palestine Liberation Organization scouts. She received the plane ticket from the Stasi staff. Vit continued to maintain contact with Dahl and subsequently took part in the resettlement of the “retirees” of the Faction, of which she became a member in 1983.

On April 18, 1991, Prosecutor Alexander von Stahl prepared for decisive action. Based on statements by fugitives - former Stasi employees and incarcerated terrorists, as well as files from the GDR MGB found in East Berlin, von Stahl issued six arrest warrants on charges of incitement to premeditated murder and terrorism.

Five days later, on April 23, detectives from the federal crime department, based in the eastern part of Berlin, received five more arrest warrants. In addition to Nyber and Dahl, they arrested Gunter Jekel, a former MGB colonel and deputy head of the anti-terrorism department; Gerhard Plomann - a former lieutenant colonel in charge of personnel in the MGB apparatus; former Major Gerd Seimseil from the Anti-Terrorism Directorate, who took care of the "pensioners" - "Red Army men" by order of the leadership. The sixth warrant was “intended” for the head of the GDR MGB, Erich Milke, who was subsequently imprisoned in Berlin's Pletzensee prison, where he had been held since the winter of 1990, after being charged with two murders. The seventh suspect was former Lieutenant Colonel Helmut Voigt, who for more than ten years taught and took care of West German terrorists in every possible way. He managed to escape to Greece, where he was arrested in 1994. He was sent to Germany, where he was convicted and sent to prison for 4 years.

Particularly appalling was the participation of former Stasi officers in the Stern-1 and Stern-2 training camps, where members of the Red Army Faction were trained in the use of anti-tank grenade launchers, weapons and the handling of explosives. In these camps, MGB instructors - explosives experts demonstrated to them the action of grenade launchers equipped with a laser sight, which was powered by batteries and was intended to more accurately engage moving targets. The contact of the target with the laser beam led to the detonation of the explosive device.

On November 30, 1989, a shell containing about six kilograms of explosives pierced the side of the armored Mercedes in which Alfred Herrhausen was. The 59-year-old head of Deutsche Bank, one of the brilliant West German entrepreneurs and chief adviser to Helmut Kohl, was killed. The terrorists used the same grenade launcher that specialists from the Stasi trained the "Red Army" terrorists with. The shot was fired from a motorcycle parked on the side of the road near Herrhausen's house in Bad Homburg, near Frankfurt, on the only stretch of the road that Herrhausen usually took to his Frankfurt office.

The charge was tuned and installed in such a way that, like an anti-tank round, it pierced the right rear door of the car and, having exploded in the passenger compartment, knocked out all four armored doors.

Responsibility for the incident was claimed by "Wolfgang Beer's group", who reported this in a letter to the police. The letter also contained an image of a five-pointed star, inside which were drawn an assault rifle and the letters RAF (Rote Armee Faction). It was the Faction logo used when terrorists claimed responsibility for their violent actions.

Wolfgang Beer, the Faction terrorist, died in a car accident in 1980. His brother Henning showed up in East Germany shortly thereafter and made a confession of his involvement with the Red Army.

Less than a year later, the Faction struck another blow. Her next victim was Hans Neusel, 63-year-old State Secretary of the West German Ministry of the Interior, who was in charge of domestic security issues. On June 27, 1990, a powerful rocket projectile pierced the starboard side of an armored BMW as it turned onto the Autobahn near Bonn. Neusel that day gave his chauffeur a day off and got behind the wheel himself - this saved his life. He received only minor injuries. The terrorists used exactly the same as in the case of Herrhausen, a grenade launcher with a laser sight, And again the responsibility for the attack was claimed by the "Red Army Faction".

Specialists from the Stasi trained terrorists in the use of such weapons as the West German-made 9mm Heckler & Coch assault rifle, as well as the GZ automatic rifle, the standard weapon of the FRG army; American revolver "Magnum-357" "Smith and Wesson" and Soviet Kalashnikov assault rifle AK-47. Shooting training, which took place in March 1981, was followed by practice - the "Red Army" learned how to handle the Soviet RPG grenade launcher, which for a long time was the favorite weapon of terrorists all over the world. During interrogations conducted by detectives of the federal criminal department, former Stasi major Hans-Dieter Gaudich said that during these practical exercises they somehow placed dummies made of cloth stuffed with sawdust and a German shepherd in a Mercedes - the instructors wanted to bring the training situation as close as possible to real, combat. Three volleys from the RPG-7 tore the mannequins and the dog to shreds.

In addition, the "trainees" were trained to plant bombs and explained the most vulnerable places for explosions near cars. And finally, the terrorists from the Red Army Faction learned how to make explosives from drugs sold in any pharmacy. The explosives were put into fire extinguishers, which were placed under the front and rear fenders of automobiles and detonated. According to Inge Vit, these classes took place in March 1982.

Five months later, on August 31, 1981, a bomb was detonated in front of the European Headquarters of the United States Air Force, located southwest of the German city of Ramstein. The explosion thundered at seven o'clock in the morning, when personnel had just started arriving at the base. Twenty people were injured, including Brigadier General Joseph Moore, Deputy Chief of Operations and Chief of Staff Lt. Col. Douglas Young. Experts from the Federal Agency for the Investigation of Criminal Crimes found that the bomb was “quite professionally” planted in a Volkswagen car. Another bomb was in another car, but did not detonate. Two days after the explosion, the West German news agency DPA received a letter from the Red Army Faction, which reported that the explosion was carried out by a "unit of the Sigurd Debus Command." Debus was a member of the Faction who died in a Hamburg prison in April 1981 as a result of a hunger strike.

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Chapter IX. Anarchists in the Makhnovshchina

The "Stasi", the Ministry of State Security of the GDR, for almost a third of a century terrified the ill-wishers of socialism both in East Germany and abroad. The secret service directly influenced not only the lives of citizens, but also politics.

For some, the employees of this intelligence and counterintelligence structure have become frightening symbols of total control over an individual, as if they embodied the worst pages of Orwell's dystopias. For others, they are romantic heroes who have been leading the best CIA agents by the nose for many years. What were the Stasi in reality?

Archive hunt

On December 14, 1989, by a decision of the GDR government, the Ministry of State Security was liquidated. The "showcase of socialism" itself, as the propaganda called the democratic republic, ceased to exist a little less than a year later. This was preceded by well-known historical events: the socio-economic crisis of the socialist camp; the weakening of its leader, the USSR, during "perestroika"; mass demonstrations that led to the fall of the regimes of Eastern Europe (and it is good if after a little blood, as in Romania, and not after the civil war, as in Yugoslavia).

Over the past months, sensing the inevitable, Stasi employees have been destroying archives. For 29 years, so much material has accumulated that knives in the first-class German shredders have become blunt and broken. Documents were torn by hand, tearing fingers into blood. Every day, trucks left the offices of the MGB for the incineration plants ... But, perhaps, that was the only task that the Bundes special service could not cope with.

In late 1989 - early 1990, during the "peaceful revolution", the buildings of the Ministry of State Security in Berlin and the regions were seized by angry citizens. Everyone tried to get to the legendary filing cabinet, the publication or destruction of which became a matter of continuing a career (and sometimes preserving freedom) for many Germans. Indeed, according to some statements, every fourth adult resident of the GDR managed to visit the number of employees or informers of the Stasi. Of course, such a figure is largely a figment of the imagination of publicists who like to exaggerate the unsightly aspects of the communist system. However, it is reliably known that the "authorities" had classified files on practically every adult citizen of the republic, not to mention the majority of big businessmen and politicians in capitalist Europe. Today, the total length of the shelves where reports, audio recordings, microfilms are stored (and this is counting only what they were able to preserve and decipher), exceeds 150 kilometers.

Under reliable care

In West Germany alone, there were about 38 thousand secret agents of the GDR. In the post-war confusion, when many archives burned down in the flames of World War II, and thousands of Germans, for obvious reasons, concealed the facts of their cooperation with the Nazis, it was quite easy to come up with a "trustworthy" biography and impersonate a respectable burgher.

This is exactly what Gunther Guillaume did when he moved from East Berlin to Frankfurt am Main in 1956. An ambitious young man joins the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Making a political career. Demonstrating outstanding talents, he successfully leads the election campaigns of West German politicians. In 1972 he becomes personal assistant to Federal Chancellor Willie Brandt. And he greatly appreciates his referent, not knowing that his brilliant analytical notes were not compiled without the help of the best minds of the Stasi, whose agent Guillaume had been Genosse since 1950. Needless to say, the secret documents, with which the "mole" dealt on duty, fell into the possession of his eastern curators almost earlier than on the table of the head of the West German government. A huge scandal that erupted after the exposure of Guillaume in 1974 cost Willie Brandt his resignation from the post of chancellor.

Special means

There are allegations that Stasi agents secretly treated the clothes of dissidents with low-level radioactive substances so that in the future any KGB officer equipped with a portable Geiger counter could identify "enemies of the regime", say, at a street demonstration.

There were also enough "traditional" technical means. Miniature cameras that can shoot silently through a millimeter hole. Tiny microphones located in the apartment's telephone network sockets and transmitting sound right along the telephone wires where it should go. Sensitive voice recorders hidden in a ballpoint pen or ladies' watch. And, of course, the world famous service nurseries of German shepherds, able to follow the trail for many kilometers.

According to the precepts of Lavrenty Pavlovich

The structure of the "Stasi" repeated the Soviet MGB (if someone does not remember, until 1954, this was the name of the all-powerful KGB). The German intelligence service consisted of three main directorates: counterintelligence; sabotage; and subversion.

“Informal employees are the most important factor in the struggle against the class enemy,” read the 1959 instruction. This elegant term was used for informants who knocked on acquaintances, colleagues, and sometimes even family members. Over the 29 years of the existence of the MGB of the GDR in its card index, only according to official information, data on 624 thousand of such "sexot" have settled, about 10 thousand of which at the time of the beginning of "unofficial cooperation" were under 18 years old. Moreover, the recruitment of informants was not always carried out on the initiative of the authorities: many became "unofficial employees" themselves and free of charge, sincerely wishing to help the construction of the socialist system.

Can such hopes be considered unfounded? .. In East Germany there were 4 times fewer crimes per 100 thousand people than in West. In terms of economic indicators per capita, the country took one of the first places in the world. At almost every Olympic Games, the 16 millionth GDR was among the top three, second only to the USSR and the USA in the overall medal standings. Whether all this justifies the state policy of total control over the individual is up to you.

Bees against honey, or Generals for peace

It should be admitted that in the days of "developed socialism", from the 60s to the early 80s, the key to the success of the Stasi was often the true spiritual superiority of communist values ​​over Western ones. The ten-year nightmare of the Vietnam War unleashed by America, economic crises constantly appearing in the "first" world, and finally, the traditionally left sympathies of European intellectuals created a favorable information background for a secret and explicit struggle of ideas.

For example, in 1980, Professor at the University of Hamburg Gerhard Kade created the international movement Generals and Admirals for Peace, which included high-ranking retired military personnel from various NATO countries. As you might guess, veterans of local conflicts advocated the reduction of strategic weapons, in particular, American medium-range missiles deployed on the territory of the FRG.

Funding for Generals for Peace was carried out by non-profit organizations, as well as personal donations from civil activists who sincerely supported anti-war ideas. However, the fiery pacifist speeches of retired officers were written by Stasi analysts, of course, in secret from the former. And the liberal professor Gerhard Kade, as you know, was an agent of the MGB of the GDR.

Nostalgia for the GDR

These days, following the revelations of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, the Stasi toolkit looks like children's toys. In fact, the history of the East German intelligence service shows how even absolute control over words and deeds cannot limit the freedom of our spirit. For neither total wiretapping, nor powerful border fortifications prevented thousands of "Ozzies" from fleeing from communist Berlin to the West. And any undercover policeman is powerless if the real causes of discontent are fueled - inequality, weak social mobility, lack of civil liberties.

However, many emigrants who nevertheless deceived the Stasi agents and escaped to “freedom”, in fact, deceived only themselves, voluntarily ending their lives with alcoholism, depression, creative impoverishment, unable to find a place in the longed-for market economy. Since the real, real West was sometimes very different from our dreams of it.

The opening of the Stasi archives and the lustration process in a unified Germany

This article presents an attempt at an overview analysis of the complex of legal and legal measures taken by the united Germany in relation to the crimes of the communist regime of the GDR and the reaction of society to them. Considered in detailthe history of the creation of the legal framework for such practices as ensuring public access to state security archives and checking civil servants for cooperation with the GDR secret services, or the lustration process. These are, first of all, the Law on the Protection and Use of Personal Data of the Ministry of State Security, adopted by the People's Chamber of the GDR on August 24, 1990, on the Treaty on the unification of Germany of August 31, 1990, as well as on the Stasi Documentation Law of December 20, 1991.

Peaceful revolution "and the agenda of the East German protest

The question of measures of "justice transition period”And responsibility for the crimes of the GDR regime was at the center of the East German agenda quite early - even before the unification of the two German states. One of the first and main problems that emerged at the very beginning of the democratization process was the problem of calculating with the legacy of the communist regime. At this stage, the damage caused to the public sphere and the freedom of citizens by the East German special services - the Ministry of State Security (MGB) of the GDR, known throughout the world as the Stasi (Stasi, short for the German name of the department Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, MfS). The desire to change this state of affairs and the active search for ways to comprehend the dictatorship turned the state security agencies into the main object of public criticism and concern. There was a need to change the public atmosphere saturated with fear and mistrust as a result of years of destruction of the foundations of public solidarity by repressive state bodies.

Created in 1950 on the model of the Soviet Ministry of State Security (and since 1954 - the State Security Committee), the MGB of the GDR has become over the years of its existence a powerful tool of suppression and control, becoming one of the key factors in maintaining the totalitarian regime and maintaining the monopoly power of the ruling Socialist United Party Germany (SED; Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, SED). The secret services were perceived as the most repressive and closed East German institution. This perception, in turn, coexisted with the idea of ​​the omnipotence of the secret police, its ability to penetrate everywhere and control all areas of public and private life through a network of informants, which, by general perception, covered and permeated the entire country.

The system of mass denunciations, successfully institutionalized by the state security authorities, did indeed underlie the regime's repressive policies. Possessing many thousands of staff, constantly growing and strengthening throughout the existence of the GDR, the department relied in its activities, first of all, on a huge army of so-called unofficial employees ( inoffizielle Mitarbeiter, IM). Unofficial employees of the Stasi were, as a rule, ordinary citizens who agreed (and signed the corresponding agreement) to "inform" the authorities about the activities, conversations, moods of their entourage - relatives, colleagues, friends or acquaintances. Guided by the principles of the work of the Soviet special services, the secret services of the GDR viewed the institution of informing as a key tool in exercising public control and combating dissent. So, the instruction of the Ministry of State Security of the GDR from 1958, in particular, contained the statement that "unofficial employees are the most important factor in the fight against the secret activity of the class enemy." Müller-Enbergs, Helmut... Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter des Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit: Richtlinien und Durchführungsbestimmungen. Berlin: Ch. Links 1996 S. 198. And a later instruction from 1979 read:

“The desired political and social impact of our political operational work must be achieved by improving the quality and efficiency of the work of unofficial employees - the main weapon in the fight against the enemy” Ibid. S. 305..

With the help of informants, the special services managed to penetrate various spheres of public and private life, controlling the lives of citizens at work and at home, on vacation and while traveling. Stasi agents and informers infiltrated businesses, schools and universities, churches and grassroots associations.

While the informant network did not include all East German residents (as many felt), the total number of unofficial employees throughout the MGB's existence was more than double the number of full-time employees ( hauptamtlicher Mitarbeiter, HM). So, in October 1989, the MGB staff numbered 91,015 people, and the total number of official employees for the period from 1950 to 1989 reached 274,000. At the same time, about 624,000 informers were registered in the department, and in the last year of the existence of the GDR, 189,000 people continued to work secretly and unofficially for the state security (which was about 2.5% of the population of East Germany between the ages of 18 and 60, 10,000 informants were under the age of 18) Tantzscher, Monika... Die Hauptabteilung VI: Grenzkontrollen, Reise- und Touristenverkehr. Hg. BS tU. Berlin 2005 (MfS-Handbuch, Teil III / 14). S. 3, 5.. With their help, the state security authorities have established a dossier for more than 6 million citizens. This meant that more than a third (37.5%) of the population of the GDR, in which 16.4 million lived at the time of unification, was under the supervision of the secret services.

The most common methods of the Stasi's work were surveillance, installation of wiretapping devices and video surveillance in apartments and workplaces, wiretapping of telephone conversations, mail perturbation, etc. neither arrests, nor lengthy prison terms. In addition, there were frequent cases of kidnapping, persecution of dissidents, up to physical destruction. Over time, however, in addition to open repression, the secret services of the GDR increasingly resorted to secret methods of "neutralizing" civil activists and citizens who wanted to leave the country. In order not to attract too much attention to the Western public with high-profile arrests, in the 1960s - 1980s, MGB officers carefully improved the methods of "operational psychology" - the so-called measures of demoralization or decomposition ( Zersetzung) "Enemies" of the regime. With their help, the state security bodies caused or provoked conflicts between members of various groups, tried to weaken or disrupt interaction between church organizations, limit or destroy the activity (or, rather, potential activity) of opposition groups by interfering in the personal and professional life of their members. Gieseke, Jens... Die DDR -Staatssicherheit. Schild und Schwert der Partei. 2. Auflage. Berlin, 2006. S. 44-45. ...

According to the special directive of the Ministry of State Security of the GDR No. 1/76 of January 1, 1976, the most effective forms of demoralization were:

  • The systematic discrediting of public reputation, dignity and prestige by combining truthful, verifiable and infamous information with false but believable, irrefutable and also defamatory information.
  • The systematic organization of professional and social failures in order to undermine people's self-confidence.
  • Purposeful destruction of beliefs associated with certain ideals, role models, etc., the generation of doubts in a personal point of view.
  • Generation of mistrust and mutual suspicion within groups, associations and organizations.
  • Creation, or use and strengthening of rivalry within groups, associations and organizations through the purposeful use of the personal weaknesses of their individual members.
  • Promoting the concentration of groups, associations and organizations on their internal problems in order to limit their hostile negative actions.
  • Spatial and temporary suppression or restriction of interactions between members of groups, associations or organizations through existing legal provisions, for example, by binding to jobs, assignments to work in remote places, etc.

In the course of applying such measures, informants were also actively involved. Among effective means and methods of demoralization, the instruction stood out:

  • The introduction or use of unofficial employees, equipped with legends that they are confidants of the leaders of the groups, couriers of the central administration, superiors, representatives of official instances from the area of ​​operations, other types of liaisons, etc.
  • Use of anonymous or pseudonymous letters, telegrams, phone calls, etc .; compromising photographs, for example, from real or staged meetings.
  • The purposeful spread of rumors about specific individuals from a given group, association or organization.
  • Purposeful disclosure of secrets or simulation of exposing the protective measures of the MGB.
  • Calling persons to government departments or public organizations using plausible or implausible justifications MfS-Richtlinie Nr. 1/76 zur Entwicklung und Bearbeitung Operativer Vorgänge (OV). 1. Januar 1976. Quelle: BS tU, MfS, BdL-Dok. 3234 - Druck, 59 S.

The active use of such methods, which, according to the directive, should have been "used, improved and developed creatively and differentiated depending on the specific conditions of the operational development", contributed to the formation in society of an atmosphere of general suspicion, lies, fear and mistrust. Although intelligence informants were not physically ubiquitous, focusing mainly on suppressing real dissent, they served to increase the foresight of citizens who feared expressing their own views and critical sentiments due to the constant fear of becoming the target of denunciations to higher authorities. This prevailing atmosphere of secrecy also contributed to the fact that protest activity in the GDR for a long time practically could not develop in public, it was forced to remain in the underground. It is precisely because of the extreme repressiveness of the East German regime that the protest accumulating in the bowels of a non-free society could only surface in the last months of the existence of the GDR. Miller, Barbara... Narratives of Guilt and Compliance in Unified Germany: Stasi Informer and Their Impact on Society. London, New York: Routledge, 1999. Kowalczuk, Ilko-Sascha... Stasi konkret. Überwachung und Repression in der DDR. Verlag C. H. Beck, 2013..

When this finally happened, during the peaceful revolution of 1989-1990, the East German protest movement soon began to demand the elimination of the secret services and the establishment of civilian control over the archives of the GDR Ministry of State Security. Massive demands for the abolition of the Stasi, the preservation and reopening of archives, the exposure of whistleblowers and the restoration of confidence in the public sphere were reflected in the main slogans of hundreds of thousands of protesters who took to the main squares of East German cities since the fall of 1989: "Stasi criminals, get out of politics." , "People who are not sleeping are the best state security", "We demand the immediate removal of power and the dissolution of the Ministry of State Security", "Not a single German Stasi mark", "Free my dossier", etc.

In a situation of mass exodus of citizens from the GDR after the opening of the border between Hungary and Austria, as well as the growth of protest moods and the consolidation of the opposition in the fall of 1989, the SED regime found itself in a deep crisis. Under pressure from society, in October - December 1989, significant institutional changes took place in the country. On October 17, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED decided to release Eric Honecker from his duties as general secretary, and on October 18, the plenum of the Central Committee approved this decision. Egon Krenz, former editor-in-chief of the central press organ of the SED, Neues Deutschland, was elected the new General Secretary of the SED Central Committee. On November 7, the government of Willie Stoff was dismissed in full force. Before the People's Chamber elected the first Secretary of the Dresden District Committee of the SED, Hans Modrow, as the new Prime Minister, the Politburo adopted a new regulation on travel abroad. When Politburo member and secretary of the SED Central Committee Gunter Schabowski made the announcement on the evening of November 9 at a press conference, crowds of thousands rushed to the checkpoints on the border with West Berlin. This is how the Berlin Wall fell on that day, dividing Europe for many decades.

On November 17, by the decision of the People's Chamber of the GDR, the Ministry of State Security officially ceased to exist. Instead, the National Security Office (NSS; Amt für Nationale Sicherheit, ANS) was created under the leadership of Erich Milke's former deputy, Wolfgang Schwanitz. With this replacement, Prime Minister Modrov hoped to preserve the old structures and personnel, but public pressure and the demand to eliminate the special services continued to intensify.

On December 1, the People's Chamber of the GDR (Volkskammer) decided to abolish the first article of the GDR constitution, which spoke of the leading role of the SED, and on December 3, members of the Politburo and the Central Committee of the SED were forced to resign.

When, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it became clear that state security officials were hastily destroying archival documents (clouds of smoke hung everywhere over the MGB buildings, and trucks full of papers were constantly moving in the direction of paper mills), civil committees (Bürgerkommitteen) began to be created throughout the country. designed to ensure the safety of archives. Since the beginning of December 1989, thousands of residents of East German cities have stormed the district and regional centers of the MGB, trying to prevent the destruction of archives by Stasi officers. The first "seizure" of an MGB unit took place on December 4 in Erfurt, and in the evening of the same day, activists occupied the departmental buildings of the special services in Leipzig and Dresden. Spontaneously formed civic committees in other places took control of state security offices, prosecutors and police.

The Modrow government was forced to negotiate with the opposition within the framework of a round table, the first meeting of which took place on December 7, 1989 (in total, 16 meetings were held before the parliamentary elections in March 1990). Representatives of the church, leaders of old and new parties, as well as members of the democratic movement, united since the beginning of autumn within the framework of the opposition platform “ New forum". Founded by several dozen leading opposition civic activists, the New Forum was conceived as "a political platform for the entire GDR, which will make it possible for people of all professions, strata, parties and groups to participate in discussions and influence the solution of vital social problems." One of the key issues in the center of the activists' attention was the dissolution and establishment of civilian control over the state security organs “Die Zeit ist reif!” Gründungsaufruf des Neuen Forums “Aufbruch 89”. 10. September 1989. Quelle: Robert-Havemann-Gesellschaft. ...

Under pressure from society, on December 14, 1989, the Council of Ministers of the GDR was forced to issue a decree on the dissolution of the Department of National Security, created less than a month ago. However, even this decision did not stop the wave of popular protest. On January 15, 1990, citizens stormed and eventually took control of the MGB headquarters on the Normannenstrasse in the Lichtenberg district of East Berlin. The Associated Press Berlin correspondent John Koehler described the events of the day as follows:

“On the cold evening of January 15, hundreds of thousands of Berliners - mostly young people - gathered outside the huge fortress-like complex of buildings that housed the main intelligence service of the GDR. Stones and bricks clattered against the iron gates. The calls of the representatives of the national committees to maintain order and calm were drowned in the roar of the crowd, chanting: "We are the people!" A small detachment of police officers inside the building surrendered, and at about five o'clock in the evening, the gates were opened. The crowd rushed inside and rushed to various buildings, knocking out doors and windows and systematically freeing offices from the former torturers of the people. " Koehler, John... Stasi secrets. The history of the famous secret service of the GDR. Per. from English Smolensk: Rusich, 2000.S. 585-586. ...

As it turned out that day, the MGB officers still managed to destroy or seize part of the archive: data related to intelligence and belonging to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the MGB ( Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung, HVA). Some of the papers were found in bags, torn or finely cut. However, thanks to the activity of citizens, their desire to establish control over the archives in a timely manner, most of the documents (over 95%) were saved. Their further fate that winter became one of the main topics discussed on the eve of the March parliamentary elections.

Initiatives of the People's Chamber of the GDR and the 1990 Unification Treaty

After the elections on March 18, 1990, the new government, headed by the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union of the GDR, Lothar de Mezières, formally assumed the obligation to preserve the archives, sharing these powers with civil committees. But the question of the further fate of the preserved documents was still open. Opinions here were divided between the supporters of the idea of ​​the complete destruction of the state security dossiers and those who insisted on their transfer to citizens affected by the SED regime.

There were many supporters of the liquidation of the Stasi archives in both East and West Germany. Moreover, the destruction of the dossier was advocated not only by those who were afraid of exposing the facts of their own cooperation with the special services or were afraid of disclosing other compromising information. The archives, in the opinion of many, were, in principle, potentially "explosive": the disclosure of information about numerous denunciations and betrayals among loved ones and like-minded people could threaten mass settling of accounts, lynching, and "witch hunts." There were fears that the publicity of such information could significantly poison, rather than restore public life. In addition, the information contained in the archives was collected, as a rule, illegally, and could contain false, unreliable, and therefore not trustworthy information. According to the supporters of this position, the documents of the special services, drawn up on the basis of denunciations of informants, could not be trusted, and even more so to make any decisions on their basis.This was a dubious argument, since the state security bodies could not function effectively if they constantly relied on on inaccurate, fabricated data. Although the secret services actively resorted to falsifications and fabrications in their activities, they were extremely scrupulous about ensuring that the information they received through agents and informants was "truthful, complete, relevant, original and verifiable." Since the dossiers were the most important tool in the work of the Stasi, they were kept very carefully. The information collected had to be rechecked many times. In addition, information was collected cross-sectionally, which made it possible to compare data from different sources and reconstruct the facts. Cm. Suckut, Siegfried... (Hrsg.) Das Wörterbuch der Staatssicherheit: Definitionen zur "politisch-operativen Arbeit". Berlin: Ch. Links 1996 S. 171..

In West Germany, the idea of ​​destroying the Stasi archives found support at the highest level. Federal Chancellor of Germany Helmut Kohl, in particular, pointed to the irritating effect of the dossier, emphasizing that these documents were potential sources of evil rumors Kontroverse über Äußerungen Kohls zu den Stasi-Akten // Der Tagesspiegel, 05.11.1993. S. 1.. The interior minister in Kohl's government and one of the key figures in the process of German unification, Wolfgang Schäuble, also shared the view that the archives should be completely destroyed. As Schäuble explained in an interview in 2009: “I recommended this option, as did Helmut Kohl, so that disagreements related to the past would not overburden the restoration and future of the new federal states.” on: Schäuble wollte Stasi-Akten vernichten lassen// Die Welt, 12.01.2009. ...

A situation developed in which the main victims of the communist dictatorship - East German dissidents - were in favor of preserving the archives. From the very beginning of public discussions, they insisted on an open calculation with the past by preserving and opening the archives of the secret services, called for the purification of the public sector by removing former employees and informants of the Stasi from public service. In this case, it was, firstly, about the need to restore the truth about one's own destiny and about one's own past: at least, about the right to finally learn about those who for many years have been informing and persecuting civilians. Secondly, with the help of archival documents, it was possible to determine the degree of guilt of the Stasi employees, to understand what crimes were committed and, if possible, bring the perpetrators to justice. Third, thanks to the archives, it was possible to prevent former agents and informants from occupying prominent government or public posts, as well as to clear them of educational institutions and authorities. Finally, with the help of the Stasi archives, it was possible to conduct research on the MGB repressive apparatus and its role in the system of East German authorities ...

Gradually, the position according to which, in order to comprehend history, as well as to carry out the rehabilitation of the victims of the communist dictatorship, it is necessary to catalog and use the archives of the former state security organs, gained more and more popularity. In a situation where part of the archive was destroyed or simply disappeared, and some ended up on the black market, there was a growing awareness of the importance of ensuring controlled access to preserved documents. In such conditions, competent management of archives could become a reliable means of combating speculation, myth-making, leaks and slander. Miller, John... Settling Accounts with the Secret Police. The German Law on the Stasi Records // Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 50, No. 2, 1998. P. 308..

In May 1990, the People's Chamber of the GDR, where some civil rights groups were elected in free elections on 18 March, established a special committee to oversee the dissolution of the East German intelligence services. Joachim Gauck, a former dissident and Lutheran pastor from Rostock on the Baltic coast, became the head of the committee. Later, Gauck described the problems then faced him and his associates:

“The question was how to deal with this terrible legacy. On the one hand, it was necessary to prevent further catastrophe, which could provoke this explosive material. On the other hand, there was a desire to expose the crimes and the functioning of the repressive apparatus. But, mainly, many victims demanded an explanation of the machinations of which they became victims, as well as the exposure of the criminals. " Gauck, Joachim... Das Erbe der Stasi-Akten // German Studies Review. Vol. 17, 1994, S. 189.

On August 4, 1990, the People's Chamber adopted the Law on the Protection and Use of Personal Data of the MGB / VNB ( Gesetz über die Sicherung und Nutzung der personenbezogenen Daten des ehemaligen MfS / AfNS). The law provided for the creation of institutions to oversee the use of archives: a Stasi archives commissioner at the headquarters and commissioners at the regional security offices. The law governing access to the Stasi archives was expected to enter into force in the Federal Republic immediately after unification.

However, during the negotiations on the foundations of the unification of the two states in the summer of 1990 (negotiations were conducted until August 31), the provisions of the law of the People's Chamber of the GDR on the use and access to the archives of the MGB were not included in the draft Unification Treaty. The FRG leadership intended to send these documents to the Federal Archives, thereby completely stopping all their use by individuals and the media. In such a case, the Stasi archives, as part of the Federal Archives, would be subject to the same rules as other archival documents: for most papers, this could mean at least a 30-year limitation period as long as they could to be removed from the classification. In addition, the Federal Government, under the leadership of Chancellor Helmut Kohl, advocated the complete liquidation of a significant part of the archive, and an order has already been given to destroy some documents, in particular, records of telephone conversations of leading politicians that ended up in the offices of the West German counterintelligence Legner, Johannes... Commissioner for the Stasi Files. Washington, D.C .: American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, Johns Hopkins University, 2003. P. 11-12. ...

The East German government, in turn, did not insist on the inclusion in the Treaty of legislation adopted by the People's Chamber of the GDR. In response, the East German parliament almost unanimously adopted a declaration on 30 August 1990, protesting that the provisions of the 24 August Data Protection Act were not included in the merger agreement under pressure from the West German side. The MPs demanded that this law become "an integral part of the legislation in force in the future" Ausführliche Chronologie des Stasi-Unterlagen-Gesetzes (StUG). Quelle: BstU. ...

As a result, some preliminary agreements concerning the archives of the MGB of the GDR were nevertheless added to the Treaty on the unification of Germany of August 31, 1990. In particular, a procedure was provided for the storage and preservation of acts by an independent special representative of the Federal Government, as well as for the centralized storage of archives in the new federal states. But the documents were to remain largely closed and their use was provided only to a limited extent, only in cases of extreme necessity and urgency.

These concessions, however, did not satisfy the GDR public at all and led to a renewed mobilization of the leaders of the East German civil movement. In early September 1990, civic activists reoccupied several rooms in the former MGB headquarters on Normannenstrasse, starting a hunger strike demanding unrestricted access to archives for all victims of state security. Extensive media coverage of the event increased pressure on the governments of both countries. As a result, the leadership of the GDR and the Federal Republic of Germany managed to agree on the inclusion of a paragraph in the Unification Treaty, which, although it did not directly transfer the legislation of the GDR to German law, nevertheless stipulated the beginning of the development of a new law by a single German parliament, taking into account the principles set forth in the Data Protection Law In the same place. ...

The Supplementary Agreement on the Application and Interpretation of the Unification Treaty, adopted on September 18, 1990 under pressure from civil society activists, included a requirement for the all-German legislator to continue to take comprehensive account of the principles set out in the August 24 law. It was expected that "the right of victims to receive information - with the necessary preservation of the interests of third parties - will be implemented as quickly as possible." It was planned to start the corresponding legislative work immediately after the unification of Germany on October 3, 1990 Vereinbarung zwischen der BRD und der DDR zur Durchführung und Auslegung des am 31. August 1990 in Berlin unterzeichneten Vertrages zwischen der BRD und der DDR über die Herstellung der Einheit 18. September 1990..

With regard to other primary provisions, the Unification Treaty included, inter alia, special conditions for civil servants. Since the civil servants of the GDR were part of a system that did not meet the requirements of the rule of law governed by the rule of law, it was possible to exclude or dismiss those who abused their powers under the East German regime and who could not contribute to the strengthening of a democratic constitutional systems. According to paragraph 2 of Article 33 of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany, loyalty to the constitution is one of the key requirements for civil servants, and their duty to strengthen a free democratic system in the spirit of the constitution is seen as a top priority.

According to the procedure set forth in Appendix I $ 3 to the Unification Agreement, civil service could be dismissed, firstly, those who turned out to be unfit for it “due to a lack of professional qualifications or personal ability” (paragraph 4 of Article III of Section A of Chapter XXIX $ 3 of Appendix I $ 3 to the Unification Agreement). In addition, according to paragraph 5 of Appendix I $ 3 to the Treaty, there were “sufficient grounds for extraordinary dismissal, in particular if the employee: firstly, violated the principles of humanity and the rule of law, especially human rights guaranteed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and / or has violated the principles contained in the International Declaration of Human Rights; secondly, if he collaborated with the Ministry of State Security of the GDR (since 1989 - VNB of the GDR) and if, therefore, it cannot be reasonably assumed that a civil servant can continue his labor activity "Vertrag zwischen der BRD und der DDR über die Herstellung der Einheit Deutschlands (Einigungsvertrag) vom 31. August 1990 (BGB l. 1990 II S. 889). Anlage I KapXIX $ 3 A III AnlageI $ 3 Kapitel XIX. Sachgebiet A - Recht der im öffentlichen Dienst stehenden Personen Abschnitt III. ... The Treaty specifically stipulated that after the unification of Germany, all civil servants must re-apply for employment.

Simultaneously with the signing of the Unification Treaty on October 3, 1990, a special body was established to monitor the archives of the MGB - the Federal Government's Special Commissioner (Sonderbeauftragter), designed to ensure the preservation of the archives and to use them in a limited form for checking civil servants. This post was taken by Joachim Gauck, who was entrusted with the mission of creating a functioning archive management system.

Stasi Documentation Act 1991

After the unification of Germany, the German Bundestag began to develop a special law, which entered into force a little over a year later - on December 20, 1991. The Law on Documentation of the Ministry of State Security of the Former GDR (Gesetz über die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen DDR, StuG), adopted by a broad coalition of the Christian Democratic and Christian Social Union (CDU / CSU), Free Democratic Party of Germany (FDP) and Social- Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), replaced several interim provisions included in or related to the Unification Treaty. First of all, the law was supposed to provide a clear procedure for providing access to personal files and protection from unauthorized use of information.

The law placed the Stasi archives under the jurisdiction of the Federal Commissioner (Bundesbeauftragter), an independent official elected by the Bundestag for a term of five years, with the possibility of re-election once. Joachim Gauck, who retained his role as General Manager of the Stasi archives, became the first head of the Stasi Records Management Office (Die Bundesbehörde für die Stasi-Unterlagen, BS tU), which later became widely known as the Gauck-Behörde.

The main goals of the law (and hence the goals of the Department's work) were, firstly, “to facilitate individual access of citizens to personal data collected in relation to them by the MGB / VNB, in order to clarify the influence that the state security service had on their personal fate”. The second goal of the law was “to protect individuals from violations of their rights to privacy caused by the use of personal data collected by the MGB / VNB”. Thirdly, the law was intended to "facilitate a historical, political and legal reassessment of the activities of the MGB / VNB." It was also supposed to “ensure that public and private organizations have access to the information necessary to achieve the goals specified in the Law” Gesetz über die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen DDR (Stasi-Unterlagen-Gesetz - StUG) Ausfertigungsdatum 20.12.1991. § 1.1. ...

The Stasi Documentation Law is directly related to certain categories of persons, which can be conditionally divided into two groups - victims and accomplices in the activities of the special services. At the same time, the law strictly regulates the rights and principles of access of representatives of these categories of citizens to archival data: if information about the victims is available only to the victims themselves, information about the employees and informants of the state security bodies can be made public.

According to the law, “victims” are “affected persons” ( Betroffene), as well as "third parties" ( Dritte). “Victims” are citizens who have been the target of deliberate information gathering (provided that they were not themselves employees or informants of the Stasi). For the recognition of a person as "victim" there should have been a directive or prescription on the opening of the relevant state security dossier. As "third parties" in the law, we are talking about citizens, information about whom is contained in the dossier, but who was not the object of targeted information collection (as a rule, information about third parties was collected along the way with other tasks or by accident).

The other two categories are "employees" ( Mitarbeiter) and "privileged persons" ( Begünstigte) - also usually appear side by side in the law and have similar rights. “Employees” are either former staff members or informers of the MGB. The Stasi kept official lists of its informants and, as a rule, tried to obtain from them written confirmation of their willingness to provide information. The category of “privileged persons” includes those who have received substantial benefits from the Stasi, usually in the form of material or non-material compensation (for example, in the form of promotion, protection from harassment, etc.) Miller, John... Op. cit. P. 312-313. ...

Access to personal files

Under the Stasi Documentation Act, all German citizens had the opportunity to find out whether the special services had opened a case against them personally and to familiarize themselves, if any, with their personal dossier. This decision caused a huge response: in the first three years of work, the Office received about a million inquiries from citizens who wanted to find out whether they were being monitored during the GDR era.

Since the law clearly defined the procedure for accessing the dossier and provided for comprehensive protection of the rights of victims and third parties, victims of the GDR regime did not have to fear leakage of unwanted information. For example, if a particular dossier contained personal data about victims other than the applicant, such information should have been “anonymized” (pasted over or crossed out) in copies shown and issued upon request. In addition, after the expiry of the established period, the victims were given the right to submit an application to remove information about themselves from the original dossier. Priority in the processing of archived data was given to applications necessary for legal proceedings, for rehabilitation or obtaining compensation, as well as applications concerning persons imprisoned or psychiatric institutions of the former GDR or terminally ill.

Initially, the Stasi Documentation Act was supposed to expire 20 years after its adoption - in 2011. However, by the decision of the Bundestag on September 30, 2011, the law was extended until 2019. Thanks to the amendments made to the law, since January 1, 2012, the circle of relatives who have the right to receive information on family members has increased: now their parents, spouses, children, grandchildren, brothers and sisters have the right to request information about victims. These changes led to a significant increase in the number of requests: in 2012, 7,620 requests were filed more than a year earlier. More and more Germans are turning to the Stasi archives// Deutsche Welle, March 16, 2012. ... In total, in 2012, the Office received 88,231 personal applications for acquaintance with the dossier (against 80,611 in 2011), thus the total number of applications filed since 1992 exceeded 2,918 million BS tU in Zahlen. Stand 31. Dezember 2012. Quelle: BS tU. ...

Throughout the existence of the Office, there was a high interest of citizens in archival information, albeit with varying degrees of intensity; familiarization with the dossier became part of everyday life, becoming a part of personal and family history. Implementation of one of the most popular slogans of the East German Peaceful Revolution "Freedom to my dossier!" is still perceived in Germany as a key achievement of the protest movement.

Lustration: checking elite representatives and civil servants

Another important area of ​​work of the Department was the verification of civil servants for cooperation with the state security bodies of the GDR. By law, all state and municipal institutions as well as a limited number of private institutions. The law also provides for a mandatory check of all those wishing to occupy any prominent post in the Federal Republic of Germany - “to become a member of the state or federal government, a member of parliament, a high-ranking official or a ministry employee, a judge, a staff officer or military attaché at the German embassy abroad, the editor-in-chief of one of the structures of public and legal television and radio broadcasting, a functionary of the National Olympic Committee, a representative of German sports in some international organization or a coach of the national team " In Germany, only big bosses can be checked for communication with the Stasi// Deutsche Welle, 08.12.2009. ... Clause 6 of Article 20 of the law lists the following persons subject to mandatory verification for official or unofficial cooperation with the MGB of the GDR (upon reaching the age of 18):

  • members of the Federal or Länder governments, as well as persons with the status of civil servants;
  • members of parliament, members of local representative bodies, local elected officials, as well as honorary burgomasters and representatives of individual communities;
  • professional and honorary judges;
  • military, holding leadership positions, as well as staff officers holding positions that have great influence in complex areas (domestically and abroad), serving in the office of military attachés and in other institutions abroad;
  • members of the presidium and executive committee, as well as the heads of the German Olympic Federation, its central associations and Olympic facilities, representatives of German sports in international bodies as well as the coaches and responsible organizers of the members of the German national team.

In total, in the period from 1991 to 2012, the Department received 1,754,838 applications for the inspection of civil servants, the largest number of them fell on the first three years of work: in 1991 the number of applications was 343,519, in 1992 - 521,707, in 1993 - 300 657 Anzahl der Ersuchen bei der Bundesbehörde für die Stasi-Unterlagen zur Überprüfung von Mitarbeitern des öffentlichen Dienstes von 1991 bis 2012. Januar 2013. Quelle: BS tU. ...

The verification procedure followed, as a rule, the following scheme. All civil servants after the reunification of Germany had to reapply for employment. Along with the application, applicants for a particular position had to fill out a questionnaire containing questions about their political functions in the GDR and about the presence of contacts with the MGB. Formed in many institutions, special lustration commissions were called upon to develop recommendations for further retention or dismissal of employees. At the first stage, the members of the commissions compared the personal data with personal files and other available sources, and, if no evidence of misconduct was found, they recommended maintaining an employment relationship with the candidate, making the proviso that the fact of non-cooperation with the MGB must be confirmed by the Stasi Archives Management Office. Employees with allegations or specific information were invited to face-to-face interviews in order to be able to comment on the evidence presented to them or respond to allegations.

After receiving an application from a candidate, the employer usually sent a request to the Stasi Archives Office in order to check whether a particular civil servant or applicant for the position was a full-time or unofficial employee of the GDR special services. The department, in turn, considered the request and informed the employer whether the archives contained evidence of cooperation with the MGB - official or unofficial - of one or another candidate. In the event that interaction with the Stasi took place, the reports, drawn up in a standard format, contained information about the type of cooperation, its most likely motives and duration. Whenever possible, the report also included information on compensation, reasons for the termination of cooperation, as well as copies of selected documents clarifying the nature of relations with the MGB. In cases of informal employees, the Office would normally attach copies of reports drawn up by informants to the Stasi with the notifications. Wilke, Christiane... The Shield, the Sword, and the Party: Vetting the East German Public Sector. In: Mayer-Rieckh, Alexander; De Greiff, Pablo (eds.) Justice as Prevention: Vetting Public Employees in Transitional Societies. New York: Social Science Research Council, 2007. pp. 354, 356. Since due to the large number of appeals, the verification processes in the Gauck Office were often delayed, many former employees and informants of the MGB decided to take advantage of this situation, reasonably believing that over time the likelihood of their retention in the civil service will be higher. ...

Most often, the employer first learned about the facts of cooperation with the MGB precisely from the reports of the Office. Experience has shown that statistically incorrect testimony in questionnaires, that is, the number of agents or informants of the special services who did not admit to actually interacting with the state security bodies, reached 90% there. ... At the same time, not all former staffers and secret informants of the Stasi applied for admission to the civil service: someone voluntarily resigned or retired, or prudently found a job in the private sector.

Based on the notification received from the Office, the employer had the right to independently decide what consequences the response to his request would have. In the event of an unfavorable decision, the applicant for the position could challenge the employer's decision in court. It was the courts that were empowered to determine whether the dismissal was justified or not. Since neither the Unification Treaty nor the Stasi Documentation Law stipulated in which specific cases the dismissal from the civil service could be considered justified, there was no clarification about the duration and intensity of interaction with the state security agencies, no distinction was made depending on the type of activity that this or that employee or informant carried out on behalf of the Stasi, the answers to these questions had to be worked out by the courts. Gradually, lustration solutions became more standardized, mainly due to the consideration of cases in the Land Courts for Labor Disputes ( Landesarbeitsgericht) and their revisions in the Federal Labor Court ( Bundesarbeitsgericht).

For example, in the decision of the Federal Labor Court of June 11, 1992, the inspection bodies were called upon to consider the case of each candidate for the position on an individual basis ( Einzelfallprüfung). As a result of numerous legal proceedings, a certain legal criterion was developed in the form of a question: will the retention of this or that employee be represented ( Erschein) unreasonable? In other words, it mattered how it would look to the public if a government agency retained a person with a tarnished past in its service. The initial guidance for decision-making provided by the Federal Labor Court in June 1992 was as follows: the higher the position in the MGB or the greater the degree of involvement ( Verstrickung) in the activities of state security bodies, the higher the likelihood that a person is not suitable for public service. An extraordinary (extraordinary) dismissal was also in the order of things, when it turned out that in the course of work at the MGB of the GDR, an employee violated the principles of humanity. The decision of the Federal Labor Court of June 11, 1992. BAG, 11.06.1992 - 8 AZR 537/91. ...

Although lustration processes were governed by a general rule stipulated in the Unification Treaty and the Stasi Documentation Act, the practice nevertheless varied across sectors, federal and administrative departments, and across federal states. general trend studies show that the more an institution needed public legitimation and depended on public trust, the more thoroughly and radically its personnel verification procedures were carried out. On the other hand, in more closed and bureaucratized structures that felt less need for legitimation, checks were given less importance and they were carried out according to more simplified schemes. Wilke, Christiane... Op. cit. P. 391..

The first category consisted mainly of universities and judicial institutions. Demanding a high level of public confidence in their moral authority and seeking to restore their lost legitimacy, these institutions usually felt a greater need for renewal and resorted to more complex personnel screening procedures. We can say that they used the lustration process to distance themselves as much as possible from institutional cooperation with the previous regime. Lustration commissions in universities and the judiciary were formed not only from employees of these institutions, but also from representatives civil society and third-party lawyers who are able to ensure the impartiality and integrity of the review process. They had broader investigative frameworks and stricter standards than others. government institutions... According to the researcher of East German lustration practices Christiane Wilke,

“The reason for the universities' commitment to vetting staff lay in their self-image: as centers of intellectual debate that assumed responsibility for shaping the future elite, universities needed to increase their moral authority, which could only be achieved through careful selection of staff (similar concerns were with the judiciary , who also carried out thorough checks of judges and prosecutors) ”Ibid. ...

However, even in these sectors, practice was rather heterogeneous. So, Erhard Blankenburg provides data on significant differences in the practice of checks and dismissals in the justice system of the federal states:

“In Berlin alone, where memories of the Cold War are still alive, only 10% of judges and prosecutors received reappointments. (According to the press secretary of the Minister of Justice, 370 people applied, of which 37 judges and 9 prosecutors were reappointed, some were able to reapply to the neighboring state of Brandenburg). In other East German states, 35% of former judges and 45% of prosecutors have resumed their positions. " Blankenburg, Erhard. Lustration and "excommunication" after the fall of the East German totalitarian regime. Per. from English V. V. Boytsova and L. V. Boytsova // Constitutional Law: An Eastern European Review. M .: Publishing house of the Institute of Law and Public Policy, No. 4 (29), 1999. S. 29-36. ...

In other institutions of the public sector, for example, in city administrations or in the police, the verification processes were differentiated depending on the level of responsibility of employees and on the degree of publicity, the presence of a particular structure in the field of public attention. In more closed bureaucratic structures, commissions were formed within institutions without electoral procedures and viewed their work as purely administrative in the same place. ...

Although, due to the large decentralization of lustration processes, it is rather difficult to calculate the exact number of employees dismissed for interacting with the Stasi, total figure, according to rough estimates of experts, could be about 55,000. Thus, according to the Office for the Management of Stasi Archives for 1997, 42,046 people lost their positions in the civil service. This figure was based, firstly, on the fact that 6.3% of the 1,420,000 people who were investigated turned out to be former Stasi agents or informers, and, secondly, 47% of them were fired. To this number can be added investigations outside the sphere of public service: for example, in March 1991, the government reported 1,883 dismissed on the basis of the provisions of the Treaty on the unification of Germany: 65 people - for violations of the principles of humanity, 1,818 - for cooperation with the MGB (233 people protested these decisions in the courts) McAdams, James A... Op. cit. P. 73. Crossley-Frolick, Katy A. Sifting Through the Past: Lustration in Reunified Germany // Dvořáková, Vladimira; Milardović, Anđelko (eds.) Lustration and Consolidation of Democracy and the Rule of Law in Central and Eastern Europe. Zagreb, 2007. P. 208-209. ...

Despite the standardized verification procedures, a certain part of the former employees and informants of the state security bodies still managed to remain in the civil service. For example, in 2000 it was revealed that 7,300, or 12%, of the 62,680 police officers recruited into the civil service by the governments of the new federal states were former employees or informers of the Stasi. Carstens, Peter. Helfer der Diktatur und des Rechtsstaates Die ostdeutsche Polizei übernahm Tausende Stasi-belastete Volkspolizisten // Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Nr. 37, 02.14.2000. S. 4.. According to later data, the publication of which in July 2009 caused a great resonance in Germany, about 17,000 former employees of the MGB of the GDR continued to work in the administrations of the new federal states. Of these, 2,733 in Berlin, 2,942 in Brandenburg, 2,247 in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, 4,101 in Saxony, 4,400 in Saxony-Anhalt, and 800 in Thuringia Forderung nach Offenlegung: Tausende Ex-Stasi-Spitzel arbeiten im öffentlichen Dienst // Financial Times Deutschland, 9. Juli 2009.

Initially, under the Stasi Documentation Act, inspections of civil servants were to be completed on December 29, 2006. However, on November 30, an amendment was made to the law, extending the possibility of inspections against high-ranking politicians, representatives of sports and business for 5 years - until 2011. After this period, it was extended again until the end of 2019. Moreover, this time, the ability to carry out inspections was again expanded to include mid-level civil servants.

There is no consensus on whether it is worth continuing to check elite representatives and civil servants for their cooperation with the state security authorities in Germany. In 2006, which according to the original plan was to be the last year of inspections, the Institute of Social Sciences named after Leibniz GESIS asked respondents to comment on whether or not to stop asking German citizens the question, they worked during the GDR for the Stasi. As a result, 64.8% of citizens surveyed in March-July fully or partially supported this idea, and only 35.2% were against to varying degrees (the combination of answers “rather disagree” and “completely disagree”) Meinung zu einem Schlussstrich unter eine mögliche Stasi-Vergangenheit. Infratest Sozialforschung; März bis Juli 2006. GESIS, Februar 2007..

However, two years later, when the law had already been amended to continue inspections of officials, a poll commissioned by the TNS Forschung Institute for the magazine Der Spiegel showed a much higher level of support for the idea itself. So, when asked by sociologists in April 2008, 49% of respondents were in favor of continuing the disclosures, 46% were in favor of stopping them, when asked, “Do you consider it fair to further disclose the former unofficial Stasi employees, or should a line be drawn under this process?” % found it difficult to answer Enttarnung von Stasi-Mitarbeiter// Der Spiegel, April 2008.

Access of Journalists and Researchers to Archives

The controversy over media access to MGB archives broke out at a very early stage in the discussion leading up to the adoption of the Stasi Documentation Act. Initially, the possibility for media representatives to use the archives was not provided, but this decision met with strong resistance from the journalistic community (in particular, it was actively opposed by the publisher of the authoritative weekly Der Spiegel, Rudolf Augstein). As a result, at the very last moment, the deputies agreed to open access to researchers and journalists to all archive documents related to the work of former employees and informants of the Stasi (at the same time, personal data concerning the interests of primarily affected citizens and third parties had to be strictly preserved).

Thanks to this decision, immediately after the unification of Germany, a lot of information about the agent network and organizational structure MGB. Since from the beginning of the work of the Office, researchers and journalists were also provided with unhindered access to dossiers related to the so-called "persons of modern history" ( Personen der Zeitgeschichte), often a wave of revelations affected famous and influential citizens - artists, athletes and politicians. For example, many of the major party candidates who ran in the first free elections in the GDR in March 1990 were later accused of collaborating with the secret services.

There have been cases when checks by high-ranking politicians led to serious scandals and public proceedings. The stories of the revelations of the prime minister ( Ministerpräsident) the state of Brandenburg, member of the SPD Manfred Stolpe and the most famous representative of the successor party of the East German SED - the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) - Gregor Giesi. In both cases, at the request of parliamentary committees, the Federal Commissioner prepared reports containing evidence that Stolpe and Gizi were at the time informers of the MGB. At the same time, no written cooperation agreement was received from either Gizi or Stolpe (the secret services often resorted to such a practice when it came to influential or high-ranking officials).

In the case of Stolpe, the Brandenburg State Parliament called a committee of inquiry, which was never able to reach a final decision. Despite the high-profile scandal, Stolpe continued to serve as Prime Minister of Brandenburg until 2002, and later became a member of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's cabinet, taking over as Federal Minister of Transport.

Another controversial figure - a lawyer from East Germany and a member of the SED since 1967 Gregor Gysi - once defended East German dissidents in the courts of the GDR (among his clients were, for example, Robert Havemann and Rudolf Baro), and in the late 1980s he joined protest movement in the GDR. In 1990, Gizi was elected chairman of the reformed SED - PDS, and in March 1990 he became a member of the People's Chamber of the GDR. When, after the unification of the country, it became known about the cooperation of Gregor Gizi with the Stasi, the immunity committee of the Bundestag demanded his expulsion from parliament. Gizi was forced to leave the post of chairman of the party, but soon after his resignation, when, according to the results municipal elections In Berlin, a coalition of the PDS and the SPD came to power, he took the post of vice mayor and member of the municipal government for economics, labor and women's affairs in the government of Klaus Wowereit. Gizi held this position until the summer of 2002, and in May 2005 he became one of the leaders of the PDS electoral campaign and a participant in the unification of a part of the left political spectrum into a single party “Left Party. PDS ". The party achieved considerable success at the federal level and later in the state elections. After another unification of the German left forces into the Left Party took place on July 16, 2007, Gizi again acted as one of its main leaders and turned out to be a co-chairman of its parliamentary faction.

Despite the fact that in the above examples the fact of exposure did not seriously affect the political careers of Stolpe and Giesi, it is important that their situations became the subject of high-profile public hearings as a result of the consensus formed in German society. So, to the question: "In your opinion, should politicians (like Gregor Gizi) leave their posts if it turns out that they collaborated with the Stasi?" years, 56% of respondents answered in the affirmative, 35% gave a negative answer and 8% found it difficult to answer Rücktritt von Politiker wegen Stasi-Vergangenheit// Stern.de, Juni 2008..

Although there were cases after German reunification when politicians or celebrities opposed the release of their dossiers (such protests were made, for example, by Gregor Gysi and figure skater Katerina Witt), until the late 1990s, providing such information was common practice. However, in early 1999, a scandal erupted in Germany over the illegal financing of the CDU / CSU campaign, and the Stasi Archives Office opened access to some documents, including transcripts of intercepted telephone conversations of leading party politicians, intending to release similar data concerning directly the former chairman of the CDU Helmut Kohl. Finding himself at the center of the scandal, the former chancellor went to court to prevent the publication of the recordings of his telephone conversations. Kohl said that information about him "was collected as a result of serious violations of human dignity through criminal activity", therefore the publication of the dossier is illegal. On July 4, 2001, the Berlin Administrative Court (Verwaltungsgericht Berlin) upheld Kohl's position, ruling that the publication of the secret service files against his will was illegal and caused him moral damage. The Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Archives, Marianne Birtler, who succeeded Joachim Gauck in this post in 2000, appealed against the decision. Birtler reminded the public and the court that her "practice of submitting documents has never been challenged by either the Bundestag, which receives the Office's annual reports, or the Federal Government, which is legally responsible for the Office." Bullion, Constanze... 'Dieses Urteil ist ein Schritt zurück'. Der frühere Behördenchef Joachim Gauck zeigt sich enttäuscht, die meisten Politiker in Berlin aber sehen ihre Auffassung bestätigt // Süddeutsche Zeitung, 9.März 2002. However, in March 2002 the Federal Administrative Court of Germany ( Bundesverwaltungsgericht, BV erwG) upheld the ruling of the court of first instance, confirming that all the state security files collected on Kolya were not subject to publication. As a result of this decision, the access of journalists and historians to the archives was almost completely closed.

After the court ruled, it became clear that either the Office would have to reconsider its collaboration with academic researchers and journalists, or the law would need to be amended. The ruling coalition of the SPD and the Greens decided to change the law. Its new edition returned to scientists and journalists the right to work with documents, but access to the dossier of “persons of modern history” was now possible only on the basis of a personal decision of the Federal Commissioner. At the same time, the employees of the archive first had to check how certain information was collected: if during the collection of information human rights were violated (for example, if information was obtained from overheard telephone conversations, as a result of mail traffic or during secret searches) , the publication of documents could be prohibited. The staff of the archive should also take into account the interests of keeping the personal secrets of the persons mentioned in the documents. The amendments to the law were adopted by the votes of the ruling "red-green" coalition and the SVDP (CDU / CSU opposed, PDS abstained) Sabrow, Martin. The Quarrel over the Stasi Files. In: Eckert, Astrid M. (ed.) Institutions of Public Memory. The Legacies of German and American Politicians. Washington, D. C .: German Historical Institute / Sheridan Press, 2007. P. 46-52. Legner, Johannes. Op. cit. P. 23..

In September 2003, the Berlin Administrative Court ruled that the ban on the publication of materials collected by the East German Stasi intelligence on the former German chancellor Helmut Kohl should be lifted. However, Kohl appealed, and in June 2004 the Federal Administrative Court ruled in a compromise on the publication of materials related to "persons of modern history." According to the legal authority, the new version of the law, allowing researchers access to dossiers collected by Stasi officers on all prominent German politicians, lifts the ban on access to the archives. At the same time, the court also ruled that information about the private life of public figures cannot be made public. The Court imposed this restriction on all audio recordings and transcripts of illegal wiretaps in private or official premises and - this was an innovation - for all internal Stasi reports, analytical recordings and interpretations based on such protocols; access to all information collected through espionage was also restricted. In addition, the court has tightened restrictions on those who have the right to access such information: it could only be requested by researchers dealing with the history of the Stasi. At the same time, they had to ensure that the information received would not be published or passed on to third parties. Personal information could no longer be published for educational purposes or transmitted to the media without the written consent of the affected person himself Ibid. ...

Despite the tightening of the rules, both journalists and researchers actively use the right to access the archives. In the last twenty years, a huge number of scientific papers have been published that could not have been created without the use of files of the former secret services. Archival documents also widely used for writing biographies. For example, all biographies of the current Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel contain links to information contained in the archives of the Stasi.

conclusions

Even before the unification of Germany, beginning in the fall of 1989, activists of the East German civil opposition movement demanded the liquidation of the Ministry of State Security, the identification of informants of the state security agencies and an open study of the past, the opening of archives and lustration with the aim of returning trust to the public sphere. It is fundamentally important that the main goal of the protesters was not to commit retaliation, but to restore citizens' confidence in their elected representatives. The leaders of the protest proceeded from the fact that in a democratic system, trust is a fundamental principle, therefore, the elected authorities and officials should enjoy the confidence of citizens. As expressed by Joachim Gauck, who became the first head of the Stasi Archives Office and was elected President of Germany in March 2012,

"The task was not to strip the former communists of their posts, but there was a need to respond to the minimum requirement of the East Germans that people who were part of the previous regime were deemed unfit for public positions of trust." Gauck, Joachim... Dealing with a Stasi Past // Daedalus, Vol. 123, No. 1, Winter 1994. P. 279.

It is also important that the opposition's struggle to liquidate the Stasi and to preserve and open the archives was not limited to slogans and demands during rallies and demonstrations, but became the fundamental motive of civil action. As a result of this struggle, the archives of the state security were mostly preserved, and the possibility of access to the personal files of people who had been under the supervision of the secret services for many years was created. On the wave of this movement, the most important public institution was formed - the Office of the Federal Commissioner for Document Management of the Ministry of State Security of the GDR, which still retains its influence in the social and political life of Germany. Thanks to these actions and the measures taken, the united Germany received at its disposal well-protected from the interference of various interested parties, almost completely preserved archives of the state security.

The salvation of the archives symbolized the self-liberation of German society from the atmosphere of fear and mistrust, which was a direct result of comprehensive control and continuous surveillance by the special services. Evaluating the retrospective decision made in the united Germany to open these special services, it can be stated that the main fears and fears of skeptics were in vain: despite the fact that citizens' access to the state security dossier revealed many facts of betrayal, denunciations among family members, friends, comrades-in-arms and colleagues, officially in Germany there were no cases of a crime motivated by revenge. Most likely, a key role in the fact that the opening of the archives was generally peaceful, without justifying the worst fears of skeptics, was played by the fact of the abolition of the state security organs and the absence of an actual successor from the Stasi.

Historians and journalists have gained access to the dossiers of socially significant persons, the so-called “persons of modern history”. Since access to the archives was not limited by the statute of limitations, researchers and journalists were able to conduct independent and credible investigations of political persecution and its consequences in the GDR, thus playing a special role in the transition to democracy.

With the help of the Office for the Management of Archives in the unified Germany, lustration was also carried out - a restriction on the occupation of certain positions in the political sphere and in the public service for former staff members and informers of the MGB of the GDR on the basis of the Stasi Documentation Act. Noting the importance of the timely adoption of this legal document, Joachim Gauck wrote:

“We badly needed this law. It is logically inconceivable that those who served this apparatus of oppression would continue to occupy leadership positions. We need to convince our people that they are now free, and make sure that people are imbued with confidence in the authorities at all levels. " on: Koehler, John. Stasi secrets. The history of the famous secret service of the GDR. Per. from English Smolensk: Rusich, 2000.S. 44.

The decision to hide the truth about the past, contained in the dossier, would lead, according to Gauck, to "enormous frustration and dissatisfaction." Gauck, Joachim... Die Stasi-Akten, Das unheimliche Erbe der DDR. Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1991. S. 91.. The preservation of the archives and the opportunity to familiarize themselves with their contents was an antidote to nostalgia: without them, "the lies of those in power would have been much greater, as well as the degree of retrospective praise of the [GDR] regime by the majority of the population." Leithäuser, Johannes. Als die Bürger die Stasi-Ämter stürmten: Erinnerung zum 5. Jahrestag // Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 5. December 1994. S. 4..

The sensational event that took place on September 24, 1991 on the Austrian-German border was reported by the world's leading media. On that day, Colonel-General Markus Wolf, the former head of the former foreign intelligence service of the GDR, was arrested there. The talented ace of one of the most effective intelligence services on the planet was haughtily greeted by the Prosecutor General of the already united Germany, who managed to hastily qualify his actions as "betrayal." In an armored Mercedes, Markus Wolf was taken to Karlsruhe and soon sent to prison for eleven days. With what kind of "unified euphoria" the famous intelligence officer was put into dungeons?

Let us recall the biography of "a man without a face," as the Western secret services called Markus Wolf, who were hunting for his personality.

He was born on January 19, 1923 in the family of a doctor, writer and communist Friedrich Wolf. After the Nazis came to power in Germany, the Wolf family emigrated to Switzerland, then to France and in 1934 to the USSR.

In Moscow, Markus studied first at the German school named after Karl Liebknecht, then at the Russian school named after Fridtjof Nansen. With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War the Wolf family was evacuated to Kazakhstan, from where Markus was sent to the Comintern school in Kushnarenkov near Ufa, where agents were trained to be sent behind enemy lines. Due to a series of failures, it was decided to retain the main personnel from among the young German emigrants to work in post-war Germany. In 1943, Markus Wolf went to study at the Moscow Aviation Institute. He did not have a chance to graduate from the Moscow Aviation Institute: at the end of May 1945, he was sent to work in Germany together with the group of Walter Ulbricht, which was supposed to prepare the coming to power of the Communists.

Upon arrival in Berlin, Ulbricht recommended Marcus to work for Berlin Radio, which was located in Charlottenburg (in the British sector of Berlin). On this anti-fascist radio, which was created instead of the imperial radio of the times of Goebbels, Markus Wolf wrote foreign policy comments under the pseudonym Michael Storm, worked as a reporter and headed various political editorial offices.

From September 1945, Wolf was sent by the correspondent of Berlin radio to Nuremberg to cover the international tribune la over the main war criminals. And after the formation of the GDR in October 1949 and its recognition The Soviet Union Wolf was offered the position of the first counselor of the embassy in the diplomatic mission of the GDR in Moscow. For the sake of such a career, Markus Wolf was forced to renounce his Soviet citizenship and flew to Moscow in November. His diplomatic career lasted only a year and a half, and in August 1951 he was recalled to Berlin by Anton Ackermann, who, on behalf of the party leadership, created a political intelligence service. Markus Wolf went to work in foreign policy intelligence, which was housed for camouflage purposes under the "roof" of the Institute for Economic Research, created on August 16, 1951. In December 1952, Markus Wolf was appointed head of the GDR's foreign intelligence. In the beginning, the number of its employees and agents was small. A particular difficulty in this work was the fact that many Western countries refused to recognize the GDR, and they had to use only illegal methods.

What was the focus of the Stasi's activities? Wolf did not hide this:

“The number one issue for us was the problem of nuclear missile weapons, and we made attempts to establish contacts with the circle of von Braun and other scientists who were already in America at that time. But at that time we didn’t reach the United States, so in order to find out what was happening there, we mainly used contacts in West Germany. Over time, we got more and more of this information, and we were quite well aware of what was happening both in West Germany itself and in America. In particular, when the deployment of Pershing-2 missiles and cruise missiles in Germany and other Western European countries began in the late 70s - early 80s, we were fairly well informed about the equipment itself and about it. dislocation. All this information, of course, was sent to Moscow, because for the GDR it did not matter much. "

The Stasi also targeted international terrorism. On this occasion, Wolf noted:

“In one form or another of its manifestations in the post-war period, it made itself felt - and quite loudly - in many countries of the world. On September 11, 2001, a terrible tragedy took place in New York. And what happened in the Chilean capital Santiago on the same day, just almost three decades earlier? Then the planes bombed the residence of the legally elected President Allende. Don't blame everything on Pinochet. Today the world is well aware that the US CIA was behind it. This has been proven. The bombing of Allende's residence - La Moneda Palace - caused a shock in the world, quite comparable to an air attack on the symbol of American capitalism - the International Trade Center in New York ... But the attempt on the legitimate head of Chilean state is already a terrorist act. This should be remembered. "

Speaking about the fight against terrorism, M. Wolf stated:

“The purpose of our contacts with terrorists was the same: to identify and analyze possible threats, to receive information about the plans of terrorists and their actions. And all so that these actions do not spill over to the territory of the GDR and its allies. There were contacts with some Arab groups. Even with the totally adventurous group "Jackal" Carlos. But all this, I repeat, is only in order to penetrate the plans of the terrorists, but by no means to support them. How else? Take a meme, for example, Al-Qaeda. Today it is no secret to anyone that the American special services worked closely with her in the fight against the Soviet military presence in Afghanistan. Why didn't the US intelligence agencies acquire their own agents in this organization? For me it is inexplicable, incomprehensible. Had they had their agent network in al-Qaeda, the tragedy of September 11, 2001 in New York might not have happened. "

At the same time, M. Wolff emphatically argued:

“Fighting terrorism with aircraft carriers, bombers, missiles is ineffective. This is what the next two or three years showed. The only thing effective remedy- intelligence service. First of all, undercover intelligence. None of the billions thrown into activating the gigantic military machine will not solve the problem, will not allow you to get into the place where plans are developed and secrets are kept. This is possible only by acquiring valuable agents. A spetsnaz operation can only be carried out when it is clear where the strike is to be struck. And this requires reliable sources ...

It is difficult to isolate oneself from terrorism. But you can cope with it - if you want. There would be will. Moreover, it is mutual. The Israeli-Palestinian confrontation is a special case. There is no evidence that Palestinians are in any way involved in al-Qaeda crimes. People from other countries are actively working there.

While in Israel, I exchanged views with the former heads of the local special services. Of course, I cannot say that after that I know the topic in full, I know all the subtleties and nuances. But I am sure that today's military confrontation will not solve either the problem of security for Israel, or the issue of creating their own state for the Palestinians. Of course, there are good plans. They are famous. But mutual terror - and I think the terror in the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation is precisely mutual - postpones the implementation of these plans for an indefinite period. "

The following conclusions of M. Wolf are also instructive:

“In contrast to the widespread stereotypes that we worked for money or were blackmailed, for example, by abuse of sexual intercourse, etc. political persuasion... Not communists, not Marxists in their outlook, but people of different political convictions with whom we found common ground.

At first, it was a great dislike for American politics when they were an occupying power; then - to the atomic policy of the Americans, who threatened a new war. Then it began to move more to the issues of detente in international relations, the unification of Germany - this was one of the points that brought us closer together: the GDR for many years stood for a united Germany. "

In the 1960s, it was the external intelligence of the GDR, in close cooperation with the KGB, that supported the revolutionary movement in Asia and Africa. By 1986, up to 1,500 embedded agents were working for the external intelligence of the GDR, not counting the legal agents at the embassies and auxiliary agents. Many of them had great intelligence capabilities, for example, agent Gunther Guillaume was an assistant to German Chancellor Willy Brandt.

Possessing invaluable intelligence material and being a talented analyst, Markus Wolf shrewdly saw the need to democratize society in the German Democratic Republic. He did not hide the fact that at first he was attracted by the slogans of perestroika in the USSR. He warned of the danger of empty ranting about socio-economic transformations. Wolf once confessed to Russian journalist Viktor Skvortsov:

“I was very painfully going through the time of the so-called perestroika. Because I felt: everything that has become an integral part of life and our thinking for us is turning upside down and leads not to good, but to a deterioration in the lives of many people close to us. We spent a significant part of 1990-1991 in Moscow, and it was simply painful to see how the capital of Russia was becoming dirty, becoming destitute and poor. As for politics, there were many things that were not to my liking. "

There were many reasons for such an assessment. Here is how his observation is crying from the heart:

“There was an acute shortage of democratic regulators both in the life of the party itself, and in the life of the state and society. This was the main reason. Intelligence provided, of course, information, analytical documents, corresponding to reality and concerning the basics, especially on economic problems. And counterintelligence, which usually slightly embellished the situation, has recently provided an objective picture of the situation and attitudes in the country. We hoped that some in the leadership would be awakened by these materials. This did not happen ... I still believe that neither socialist ideas, nor what was conceived by Karl Marx and other socialists, are not something unreal, a utopia. As far as the political system is concerned, democracy must be characteristic of socialism. And the laws of the market are not "attached" only to capitalism. There were market elements in the socialist countries, after the XX Congress of the CPSU, and in the GDR there were interesting ideas and practical steps in the direction of a market economy, but then it was turned back again. And as for culture, creativity, personal freedom, the realization of talents - here, too, socialism provides all the opportunities. "

Admirable is the great courage with which Markus Wolf endured the trials that befell him after his forced return to the united Germany on September 24, 1991.

Being at the head of intelligence in the GDR for almost thirty years, that is, at the forefront of the struggle against capitalism, he understood better than others the essence of the notorious Western consumer society, its strengths and weaknesses:

“The power of money resorts to violence no less than the power of the state. She's not so obvious, but no less brutal. If the abuse of power under "real socialism" begins with the manipulation of the ideal, then capitalism abuses the ideal of individual freedom in the interests of the power of money and to the detriment of the majority of society. "

Often, Marcus Wolff's missions were broader than intelligence. He participated in secret negotiations with some official and high-ranking officials of the FRG. For example, with the Minister of Justice Fritz Schaeffer, who outlined his ideas for the reunification of the two Germanies. Or (through intermediaries) with Ernst Lemmer, the minister for general German affairs in the Adenauer cabinet. He maintained trusting political contacts with the Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Heinz Kühn, and with the chairman of the SPD faction in the Bonn parliament, Fritz Erler. His analysis of the processes taking place within NATO, as well as reports on the plans of the Washington "hawks" were invaluable.

Markus Wolf used a variety of methods to make friends in the higher spheres of Bonn. So to establish contact with a prominent figure of the Bundestag, who then passed under the pseudonym "Julius", he organized his trip along the Volga, and then a visit to a fishing house near Volgograd, where in the most relaxed atmosphere, under a Russian button accordion, pelmeni, vodka , caviar and the stories of a fish-ka who lost two sons at the front, found a common language with him.

When in the uniting Germany an avalanche of repressions rushed against the former employees of the GDR special services, M. Wolf and his wife went to Austria. From there, on October 22, 1990, he wrote a letter to Mi-Khail Gorbachev, in which he asked him, before the upcoming visit of the then Soviet leader to Germany, to raise there the question of the fate of his fellow intelligence officers, who are treated worse than prisoners of war. The letter ended with the words: "You, Mikhail Sergeevich, will understand that I stand up not only for myself, but also for many, for whom my heart hurts, for whom I still feel responsible ...". However, playing with the West, Gorbachev not only did not take any measures, but also did not respond to this letter. Moreover, after arriving in Moscow, Wolf became convinced of all kinds of evasions regarding his stay in the USSR. The Gorbachev and Yeltsin entourage did not want to spoil relations with the new Germany, which was gaining weight. Therefore, M. Wolf made a strong-willed decision to return to his homeland and share the fate of his former colleagues in trouble.

During the trial, he behaved with dignity, expressed his indignation at the very fact of bringing to justice people who acted in the interests of their legally existing state, a UN member. During the investigation and trial, M. Wolf pleaded not guilty, did not disclose any of the "sources" and any operations of the "Stasi".

On December 6, 1993, Markus Wolf was sentenced to six years in prison, but released on bail. In the summer of 1995, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled in the case of General Werner Grossmann, the successor to Markus Wolf, according to which it was established that intelligence officers of the GDR were not subject to prosecution in the FRG for treason and espionage. On this basis, the Federal Court of Justice overturned the judgment of the Düsseldorf court handed down to Wolf.

He spent the rest of his life in his apartment in the center of Berlin, engaging in literary activity. The books of the general, whose name alone caused the horror of "respectable" burghers, turned out to be unexpectedly romantic. He dedicated the collection Friends Do not Die to stories about German, Soviet and American comrades with whom fate brought him together. I was lucky to be at the presentation of this talented work at the Central House of Journalists of the Russian Federation, where the author excitedly recalled life in the Soviet country and the peculiarities of working for the Stasi.

The general invariably spoke respectfully of Russia, especially he loved to visit the Volga region, the renewed Moscow, he visited Siberia three times. He was fluent in Russian, appreciated Soviet and anti-fascist German songs.

The legendary head of the Stasi passed away on November 9, 2006 in Berlin. Several thousand people saw him off on his last journey: the former leaders of the GDR and the leaders of the left parties in Germany, his associates and cultural figures, student youth.

The highly professional intelligence agent Markus Wolf remained faithful to the ideas to which he devoted his life. He was persistently courted, trying to win over, walkers from the US Central Intelligence Agency, promising a villa in evergreen California and millions in rewards. The Israeli "Mossad" and the British special services were also called in. He was not tempted by any promises. Honor and glory to the Stasi super professional Markus Wolf!

Vyacheslav LASHKUL, Scientific Secretary of the Society for the Study of the History of Russian Special Services

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