Library Information: Karl Marx City

Many observers have been puzzled by the extent of the uprising that swept through East Germany in June 1953, given the legendary efficiency of the East German state security (Stasi) forces and their vast network of informants. Some scholars have even attempted to explain the Stasi's inability to foresee and prevent the uprising by arguing that the Stasi conspired with the demonstrators. The opening of the archives of the former German Democratic Republic has shed valuable light on this issue. Based on extensive research in the archives of the Stasi and of the former Socialist Unity Party of East Germany, as well as materials from the West German archives, this article shows that the Stasi did not fail its party superiors in being unable to foresee the uprising of June 1953. There was, in fact, no way that the organization could have foreseen the rebellion. Prior to 1953 the Stasi was not outfitted with a massive surveillance apparatus, nor was it mandated for broad internal surveillance. Rather, it primarily targeted well-known opposition groups at home and anti-Communist organizations based in West Berlin. The criticism directed against the Stasi after the uprising was attributable mainly to Walter Ulbricht's embattled leadership position and his need for a scapegoat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] .

Presents a detailed analysis of the German Law on the Documents of the State Security Service (STASI) of the Former German Democratic Republic (GDR) and considers the legislation's impact on society in the former GDR. Place of law and legal methods in post-communist transitions; Access to STASI records and use of their contents; Attempt to balance privacy against public interest..

Focusing on the Berlin Stasi prison memorial, Gedenkstätte Berlin-Hohenschönhausen, this article considers the role that memorialization might play in transitional justice as a form of symbolic reparation situated between vengeance and forgiveness. Through narrative analysis of interviews with former political prisoners, it traces the importance of memorialization for victims of human rights abuses in terms of a personal and collective coming to terms with the past. It connects understandings of transitional justice with social and cultural memory studies and demonstrates the dynamic interaction between different levels of memory that can take place at sites of conscience..

The article discusses the relation of surveillance with social sorting, the comparison between the collected information by the Stasi, a state agency of German and the available information to the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) as well as the discussion about metadata..

In order to situate the current debate on whether the Federal Commission for the Files of the State Security Service of the former German Democratic Republic (the Stasi Archive) should cease to be an autonomous institution in the larger context, this article traces the history of the Stasi Archive and of the Stasi Files Law since 1989. Key to understanding the Stasi Archive and access to its files is the 1989 revolution which saw demonstrators demand access to information gathered by the secret police. Although the research quasimonopoly that the Stasi Archive enjoys would be ended by integration into the federal archives, file access for Stasi victims–the raison d'être of the archive–would be jeopardized. Calls for the dismantling of the Stasi archive are, therefore, premature. Some criticism can be directed at the vetting and trial process in East Germany since 1989, but it is important to remember that the Stasi Archive acted only in a support capacity for those activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR

treatment of Staatssicherheitsdienst der DDR; relationship to Vergangenheitsbewältigung; role of gender.

The article offers the authors' insights on various issues including governmental surveillance, privacy in public, and the self. Among the topics discussed are informational norms as coordination norms, adoption of the Assurance Game, a part of game theory, to determine when and why complicity undermines coordination norms, and appropriate privacy in public..