World Famous Comics: Stasiland: True Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
Stasiland: True Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
By: Anna Funder Publisher: Granta Books Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Granta Books Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 288 Publication Date: 2003-05
Product Description: In this anecdotal history, Anna Funder tells extraordinary stories from the underbelly of the most perfected surveillance state of all time: the former East Germany. Stasiland is a powerful account of the courage of those who withstood the dictatorship and the consequences for those who collaborated: from Miriam, a 16-year-old who failed a desperate attempt to scale the Wall, to an ex-Stasi cartographer living in an apartment lined with propaganda. This is a lyrical and gripping debut novel.
Personal Views of Life Behind the Iron Curtain Anna Funder's description of life in the east German police state is based on her experiences while she was writer in residence in Berlin during the late 1990's. Funder spent time researching this book largely in Berlin, but also in Leipzig tracking down perpetrators and victims of state-sponsored oppression. Her stories inspire both sadness and anger. The first emotion stemming from the lives ruined almost arbitrarily by a state that viewed every citizen as a potential enemy. The second emotion often followed from her descriptions of how social, educational and economic freedoms were ruthlessly taken from people because they didn't wholeheartedly support the system.
This book recounts brief stories of eight people revealed to Anna Funder through various interviews. Her style is very personal and introspective, almost reading like a diary or a memoir. But, the focus is definitely on her subjects. The book will certainly hold the interest of historically-minded readers who want a more personal take on the impact of the DDR. The variety of people interviewed exposes various sides of the equation, from casual informants and handlers to people who were mildly subversive to those who wholeheartedly supported the regime. The interviews of Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler, the unrepentant mouthpiece of the DDR's anti-western "The Black Channel" and Hagen Koch, the Stasi recruit who painted the white line around Berlin in 1961 demarcating the wall are remarkable. The same holds true for the highly personal accounts of the three women Funder interviewed.
I read this book twice in two years. The insights, perspective and literary merit brought me back. I don't think you need to be a German history maven to appreciate the human struggles portrayed in Stasiland. The book is more about the personal challenges of every day life - in a police state.
Sure we all know the facts, but... If you're more than about 30 years old, you surely remember the existence of the 'Iron Curtain', of life under totalitarian communist regimes like the Deutsche Democratic "Republic". Even if you're younger, you've doubtlessly learned about it in school. Yet despite all this being general knowledge, the deeply personal and human side of the experience seems to be a story largely untold. Anna Funder does a remarkable job of leaving the reader with the feel of what it must have been like to have actually lived on the wrong side of the Berlin wall. Various distinct vignettes describe the experience of individuals; ordinary people trying to lead ordinary lives, under a crushing dictatorship and the omnipresent Stazi police.
I think that reading this book provides a far better understanding of what communism was like and why me must fight it than any amount of textbook education. Its tough (impossible) to read this book and not reel in shock and anger at the incalculable human cost of the so-called "communist experiment".
Good Topic, Poorly Written This book has something to offer in terms of topic, however I found the writing style disjointed. The author oscilates at a frustrating pace between the artistic style of a journal entry, and that of a reporter. She would have served the readers better by sticking to reporting on her findings of the Stasi and the implications of the existance of the former security state on current german society. I came to the book following the promise of a good report on the Stasi, and instead found myself bored with the useless tangents about the author feeling lonely, not being able to figure out her odd relationship with her roommate, etc. Still worth reading, but be prepared to gloss over much petty information.
Exceptional and Fascinating I normally don't go for straight non-fiction memoirs, but this is an unusual book in its structure and tone. Stasiland has all the virtues of a pacey novel combined with providing deep insights on the impact of the DDR's horrible regime on painfully ordinary people. The author manages to work in personal travalogue and investigative journalism without any elements jarring or feeling out of place. It's very, very good. Anyone with an interest in the end of the cold war era must read it. Actually, anyone should read it - even if you'd never heard of the DDR it's riveting stuff.
Learning about life in former Stasi-controlled GDR (DDR) through many different eye-glasses Anna Funder is an Australian writter who found herself in Berlin several years after the Berlin wall and Communism in former GDR (German Democratic Republic; or DDR in the German language) collapsed.
Through personal stories of former East Germans, Anna tries to put together a mental pictures of what life in former GDR was like. And this mental picture is a stark, dark, oppressive, and paranoid collage of people's lives' stories.
One will learn that East Germany was 'the most perfected surveillance state of all time,' where there was one Stasi officer or informant for every 63 people. The book covers the national formation of the GDR regime and also discuss the cultural background of why Germans were willingly subjecting themselves to authority. The best torture method devised by the Stasi was sleep deprivation. With all this and more, the author makes the point that the regime would not have survived without the Soviet military muscle and presence.
The book also presents some light and funny trivia: the quasi-scientific method of 'smell sampling' used by the 'Firm' (Stasi), the East German silly dance style called 'Lipsi' and the corny or mind-numbing propaganda TV shows.
Interviewing people who lost loved ones in the evil regime's prisons, persons who taught counterintelligence classes for the Stasi, who worked as informants or undercover policeman, students who tried to escape across the Berlin Wall, and persons who are still believers in the 'proletarian' revolution and are nostalgic about the values of the former Socialist republic.
By reading this ecclectic biography collage you will learn about German cultural values, GDR political and idiological history, the Stasi (one of the most feared secret police organizations). Stasiland also shows how much the Stasi archives ruined many lives in former East Germany.
A recommended counter-balance to the gloomy and depressing theme of this non-fiction is the romance/drama/comedy movie "Good Bye Lenin (2003)."
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Tailipoe
Trevor
