Historical Methods

Almost there… If I wasn’t clear enough in my presentation, hopefully this should serve better. Knowing that time was limited today, I tried to keep what I wanted to say as brief as possible and really sped through it, but I think I covered most of the main points I needed to cover. Either way, here’s a recap.

I chose my topic after doing a little research into Ibrahim Böhme, who I wrote my Wikipedia entry on, and after watching the movie “The Lives of Others.” Somehow, in thinking about both, I started to wonder if (as ironic as it may sound) the Stasi could have played any role in contributing to the collapse of the GDR. In realizing that that would be sort of a tough point to argue, I decided to reformat my topic a little and look into how the Stasi’s history has been interpreted since 1989.

My argument in my paper is basically that Stasi history isn’t as “black and white” as it is largely presented in writing and in the media or press and sometimes in film. At the same time, not everything or everybody associated with the Stasi were “evil.” I included evidence of this in my paper discussing the management of the Stasi Archives by the Gauck Authority which naturally is biased towards victims; “reformist” informers like Manfred Stolpe, who claim that their “conversations” with the Stasi were intended as merely a means of bringing about change in the system; officers like Marcus Wolf, who have expressed becoming disillusioned with the Stasi and the GDR leadership prior to 1989; and talked about the ZAIG (Central Evaluation and Information Group) division that focused on public opinion and encouraged an open discussion of life in the GDR (just as long as it was discussion with the Stasi, not in public or with anyone else). I hope my evidence really supports my argument as much as I intended it to.

I essentially come to the conclusion that as controversial as the Stasi is still today, further examination should strive to remain objective and that in order to do so, the laws pertaining to the Gauck Authority’s management of the archives should be revamped maybe. Like the GDR itself, not ALL in the Stasi was or were bad.

I think my presentation went ok (at least I hope). I think it was helpful in that it aided me in formulating my thoughts a little more. Now I just need to finish my paper!!!

Like I’ve said before I’m looking into the Ministry for State Security aka the Stasi in East Germany. I decided to pursue that route after I went out and bought “The Lives of Others” a couple weeks ago. I just found it really interesting. Granted it is a historical fiction movie, there were a couple things that I noticed that sort of sparked my curiosity and got me thinking. I felt that the way the movie portrayed it, there wasn’t one person, Stasi or not, who seemed really truly devoted to the SED party, its ideology, or its government. Chances are this wasn’t true as most officials and most of the Stasi might have been real believers in the system. But several scenes led me to wonder…the Stasi University student questioning interrogation methods, the young Stasi officer who tells the Honecker joke, Ulrich Mühe’s character in general…how much of the Stasi by 1989, might have actually felt that way? And what kind of influence might they have had contributing to the events in 1989? The Stasi had agents or informants covering every aspect of life in the GDR, including what dissidents there were left in the country…would it be too much to speculate that by 1989, when combined with the Gorbachev factor, the economy and so on, many of the Stasi began to side with the “opposition” that they were spying on? My thinking at this point really just falls into the “I don’t have evidence so this is merely speculation but…” category, so I’m not sure how far I could go with this, but again its just thinking.

That being said, I’ve done a little researching thus far. In one book I came across this…”Commenting on the high number of Stasi agents among the opposition groups, a founding member of the IFM even argued that ‘in a certain sense opposition and Stasi were one.’” Another author quotes a former Stasi officer…”The process of disillusionment started in October was tragic. Every day it brought new, bad news, new disclosures, partly perhaps exaggerated, which now showed the top leadership to be wretched, senile men, who had been concerned above all for their own well-being, who were incapable of comprehending these numerous signals, signals which had reached them, let alone to cope with them.” The author then adds…”By 15 October some of the security forces were siding with the crowd.”

Many authors seem to pose the question that…if the Stasi had such a complete grip on the GDR population, why couldn’t they or why didn’t they quell the protests of early October? Each author offers their own explanation. Now I’m no professional historian, but from what I’ve read so far, it seems to me that they could have relatively easily cracked down and prevented the events in late 1989 from spiraling onward. So the question I’m pondering is…maybe they didn’t want to…?

Am I reaching here with this???