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Stasiland Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall Anna Funder 9781862076556 Books

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Stasiland Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall Anna Funder 9781862076556 Books

Bravo Anna Funder, for laying bare the corpse of perhaps the nastiest regime in the Soviet bloc, and helping us remember how its people were brought under police control.

In my penniless student days (1959) before the Wall went up, I spent a month in Berlin West and East. I put in plenty of time in the eastern sector, then accessible to tourists, since it was a lot cheaper to eat there. Still, it scared the hell outa me. Not much had happened since the "rubble women" had swept up and stacked the loose bricks into nice orderly Teutonic piles. But the thing I noticed most was the difference in behavior between the open, friendly, fun-loving Westies and the dour, ill-clad, incurious, uncommunicative East Berliners. The realization that politics and military power could have such a profound effect on people's everyday behavior and their inner spirits made me an enemy of any country's heavy-handed social experiments and use of brute force in dealing with its citizens.

Ms. Funder, who haunted the former capital of East German capital for many months a few years after the East Germans themselves attacked the Wall and made it history,tracked down several victims of the utterly nasty East German communist regime.Their stories of treatment at the hands of the "Stasi" - the GDR's manically thorough and compulsive secret police -will curl your hair and maybe gives you nightmares.

Worse still are her interviews with several former unrepenting Stasi officers who recount, with deadpan accuracy, the many ingenious ways they sought to bend selected GDR citizens to their control. Far too many succumbed, swelling Stasi files until, by Funder's accounting, nearly one GDR citizen in six became a Stasi informant. Nonetheless, says Funder, GDR citizens who simply declined the Stasi's recruitment efforts suffered few ill effects, and fell off the Stasi radar. Despite such non-cooperation, East Germany quicky fell from the Nazi frying pan into the communist fire. Many were burned.

Read this book, and remember it for the next time you hear about the police asking for information about perople you know.


Tags : Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall [Anna Funder] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <DIV><P>In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell; shortly afterwards the two Germanies reunited, and East Germany ceased to exist. In a country where the headquarters of the secret police can become a museum literally overnight and one in 50 East Germans were informing on their fellow citizens,Anna Funder,Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall,Granta UK,1862076553,Germany,Modern - 20th Century,Berlin (Germany);History;20th century.,Dictatuur.,Ministerium fèur Staatssicherheit.,Europe - Germany,European history (ie other than Britain & Ireland),General,History,History - General History,History Europe Germany,History Modern 20th Century,History: World,World history,World history: from c 1900 -,gtt

Stasiland Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall Anna Funder 9781862076556 Books Reviews

As I lived with my family in the "socialist paradise" of the GDR (German Democratic Republic) until 1950, when we had to escape, I found this book quite enthralling if not very uncomfortable at times. My father was a classical musician and teacher at a well-known Conservatory of Music and in the attached symphony orchestra through those years. He was arrested for cracking a joke about the president. On his parole we used various means to escape into West Germany, while Dad went via Berlin and the US refugee processing facility in Berlin. Thank God, because we have been able to enjoy a wonderful life in New Zealand, as opposed to friends and relations left behind.
Incredibly well-written, full of life and significance. Excellent and educational. Asks tough questions and is not afraid of ending up without an answer. Perfect read for exploring how a nation and individuals cope and deal with the trauma of dictatorship and surveillance and violence and secrecy and corruption, while also taking pride in their fatherland.
Anna Funder brings her characters to life, narrating with honest and detail, allowing the characters/people she interviewed to take the spotlight and allowing her commentary to propel atories like Julia's and the Rent Collective's along. At the same time, Funder's narration gives life and a more personal touch to her experience as she includes her own reflections and observations in with the GDR Stasi and people.
Wow. What and incredibly relevant and important read for today’s toxic political climate. I was woefully undereducated about bost-Hitler Germany, the Berlin Wall, and the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). Funder writes with spellbinding clarity as she relates the stories of former Stasi (GDR secret police) agents and citizens persecuted under the regime. Their accounts range from horrific and devastating to mind-blowingly absurd, a bleak tapestry of an environment that at times felt all too close to what I see in America today. This is a must read for everyone, but is especially perfect for fiction lovers who want to dip their toes into non fiction as it is written in a very story-oriented fashion. If you are under-educated in the things that have come before which are informing our times, please read this one. Please please please.
Former GDR citizens endured life in a dictatorship with real daily struggles, while living a double life, of not knowing what was fact, truth, false, or wrong. The GDR was openly watching its citizens via internal surveillance, by the Stasi, the East German secrete police. While reading this book, I found myself releasing a long held breath from relief, sorrow, pain, confusion, sympathy and empathy.

The author successfully explored, while behind the Wall, the GDR citizen needed to compromise and balance one's humanistic values, to survive the false narratives of the one party state (the Socialist Unity Party -SED), while living the reality of survival . Further, the author explored how the GDR citizen coped with the emotional toll, upon learning of how the Stasi directly or indirectly affected one's personal, professional, social, and familial life. This book has made me further believe that the human spirit does survive physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Oh, and there is humor in the book, I could not stop laughing about a plate, which reminds me - life heroes are those who can laugh and carry on.
Bravo Anna Funder, for laying bare the corpse of perhaps the nastiest regime in the Soviet bloc, and helping us remember how its people were brought under police control.

In my penniless student days (1959) before the Wall went up, I spent a month in Berlin West and East. I put in plenty of time in the eastern sector, then accessible to tourists, since it was a lot cheaper to eat there. Still, it scared the hell outa me. Not much had happened since the "rubble women" had swept up and stacked the loose bricks into nice orderly Teutonic piles. But the thing I noticed most was the difference in behavior between the open, friendly, fun-loving Westies and the dour, ill-clad, incurious, uncommunicative East Berliners. The realization that politics and military power could have such a profound effect on people's everyday behavior and their inner spirits made me an enemy of any country's heavy-handed social experiments and use of brute force in dealing with its citizens.

Ms. Funder, who haunted the former capital of East German capital for many months a few years after the East Germans themselves attacked the Wall and made it history,tracked down several victims of the utterly nasty East German communist regime.Their stories of treatment at the hands of the "Stasi" - the GDR's manically thorough and compulsive secret police -will curl your hair and maybe gives you nightmares.

Worse still are her interviews with several former unrepenting Stasi officers who recount, with deadpan accuracy, the many ingenious ways they sought to bend selected GDR citizens to their control. Far too many succumbed, swelling Stasi files until, by Funder's accounting, nearly one GDR citizen in six became a Stasi informant. Nonetheless, says Funder, GDR citizens who simply declined the Stasi's recruitment efforts suffered few ill effects, and fell off the Stasi radar. Despite such non-cooperation, East Germany quicky fell from the Nazi frying pan into the communist fire. Many were burned.

Read this book, and remember it for the next time you hear about the police asking for information about perople you know.