Abstract
This paper discusses how East German citizens felt about the East German Secret Police (Stasi). It focuses on German sentiment and everyday life during East German rule, rather than how Germans retrospectively reacted once the Berlin Wall fell and the true extent of Stasi surveillance had been discovered. It also attempts to disaggregate different demographics of East German society – artists, doctors, the clergy, etc. – and posits that there was no universal ‘East German experience’ of the Stasi. It further explores equally wide range of reasons why an East German citizen might become an ‘inoffizielle mitarbeiter’ – an informer – for the notorious secret police.
First Page
47
Last Page
61
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Roberts, Thomas M C
(2023)
"Living with the Stasi: Experiences and Opinions of East Germans, 1945-90,"
Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History: Vol. 13:
Iss.
1, Article 4.
DOI: 10.20429/aujh.2023.130104
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/aujh/vol13/iss1/4