stasiland stories from behind the berlin wall

Right away, people respond to the ad, many of them genuine ex-Stasi. As a result, she’s been unable to learn the truth about her husband.įunder posts an ad in the local paper for former Stasi officials. However, the Stasi kept secret files on tens of thousands of citizens, and shredded many of those files in the final days of the East German state. For decades, Miriam has been waging a campaign to learn the truth about her husband’s death. She demanded to see the body, and finally, after months of bureaucracy, she was allowed to do so-and discovered marks on Charlie’s body suggesting that he hadn’t died of hanging at all. Miriam became suspicious and wondered if he had been murdered. Charlie was later jailed, and in jail he supposedly hanged himself. Afterwards, Miriam married a young man named Charlie, who, like her, had been declared an “Enemy of the State” for his subversive acts. Like so many East Germans who tried to escape, Miriam was sentenced to jail time. For decades, the Stasi, headed by Erich Mielke, conducted surveillance on a staggering number of East German citizens, and sponsored a vast network of informants.įunder speaks with a woman named Miriam Weber, who tried and failed to sneak out of East Germany when she was still a teenager.

Funder’s research centers around the “Stasi,” the East German secret police and surveillance force. She’s there to work for a German TV station and research the state of the country following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the ensuing collapse of the Communist East German state. Anna Funder, the author and narrator, travels to Berlin from Australia in 1996.

Stasiland stories from behind the berlin wall