Keeping Authors in Check: Censorship and the Stasi
The respect that the SED regime accorded intellectuals in their perceived role as educators of the masses also underpinned the suspicion with which they viewed writers and other artists. The state feared that literature’s educative function might be used against the state and its ideology. Officially, there was no “censorship” in the GDR; however, there were various mechanisms in place to prevent the publication of books deemed undesirable. Most works required approval before publication by the Hauptverwaltung Verlage und Buchhandel (Main Office for Publishing and Book Trade) and some authors were involved in direct negotiation about their texts with representatives of that office or other leading functionaries. However, there were multiple other levels to the process of getting a work into print, making it a “dynamisches Kräftespiel mit wechselnden Teilnehmern aus allen Bereichen der Gesellschaft” (a dynamic power play with varying participants from all parts of society).
1Barck and Lokatis, Zensurspiele, 8. This included negotiations with publishers (who usually knew where the boundaries of the sayable lay), reviewers whose opinion could be used to both support and sink an unpublished manuscript, and “post-censorship,” that is the directed reading of a work in official literary journals after publication. Some have described the most insidious form of censorship to be self-censorship, that is the decision not to write about certain topics deemed taboo or to hold back manuscripts, writing solely “for the drawer.”
2There are numerous studies of censorship in the GDR. Alongside those already cited here, that includes: Barck, Langermann, and Lokatis, Jedes Buch ein Abenteuer; Wichner and Wiesner, Literaturentwicklungsprozesse; Bradley, Cooperation and Conflict; Jones, “Writing in Ambiguity.” Manfred Jäger goes as far as to state that all censorship in the GDR was self-censorship as ultimately the author had to agree to any changes made (albeit often under duress and the threat of non-publication).
3Jäger, “Das Wechselspiel,” 26. The system was highly differentiated and authors with a higher profile (especially those renowned in the West) had more room for manoeuvre than those who were less well-known.
There was a further layer to this complex and highly bureaucratic system of censorship: a layer that brings us closer to the main subject of this book. The Archiv unterdrückter Literatur der DDR (Archive of Suppressed Literature in the GDR) contains manuscripts that were confiscated by the Stasi before they could even be considered for publication. In the volume dedicated to these works,
Gesperrte Ablage, Joachim Walther describes the anxiety caused by knowledge of Stasi infiltration into the literary sphere as functioning “subtil als Selbstzensur, als Denkblockade und als schwarzer Fleck” (subtly as self-censorship, as a mental block, and as a black fleck).
4Walter, “Angsträume und literarische Gegenwelten,” 32. Indeed, the belief in the power of the writer made the literary and cultural spheres an area of significant concern for the MfS. The Stasi infiltrated these spheres with their complex network of Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter (informal collaborators, or IMs). As this book makes clear, knowledge of the existence of informants, or “Spitzel” (snitches) in the literary sphere was widespread, even if knowledge of the identities of the informants and the details of their activities was not. The opening of the files of the MfS in 1992 provided hard proof of their involvement.
Since then, a plethora of publications have examined the infiltration of literary circles by the Stasi. How exactly did the Stasi interfere? What impact did they have on the writers? How did the Stasi manage to recruit IMs from the cultural opposition? What were their methods? Research since the early nineties has mainly been invested in understanding the activities of the Stasi, the motivation of those writers who were successfully recruited as IMs, and the lived experience of those who were the subjects of observation. This has included works exploring attempts by the Stasi to combat dissent through observation, the process of infiltration and disruption known as “Zersetzung,” and the imprisonment and expulsion of oppositional writers.
5Notably Walther, Sicherungsbereich Literatur. See also the collection of essays and commentary in: Böthig and Michael, MachtSpiele; the special issue of Text+Kritik edited by Heinz Ludwig Arnold and published under the title “Feinderklärung: Literatur und Staatssicherheit” in 1993; and the series of special issues of europäische ideen edited by Andreas W. Mytze published between 1991 and 1996 under the title StasiSachen (1–6). One of the earliest studies of the relationship between the Stasi, literature and writers is Walther’s comprehensive
Sicherungsbereich Literatur (1996).
6Walther, Sicherungsbereich Literatur, 16. Walther demonstrates how the MfS systematically influenced literary life in the GDR, thoroughly examining the apparatus of the MfS and their methods, including the “unsichtbare Netz” (invisible network) of IMs.
7Walther, Sicherungsbereich Literatur, 730.Alongside such studies of the mechanisms of Stasi control, the victims of the Stasi have been allowed to speak for themselves in a rush of autobiographical writing after the
Wende.
8For example, the texts collected in Schädlich, Aktenkundig; Böthig and Michael, Machtspiele; and the short contributions by victims of the Stasi collected in the StasiSachen series edited by Mytze. These works were frequently an outpouring of rage at the experience of oppression along with detailed descriptions of what those mechanisms of control looked and felt like for the victims. A particular focus was the experience of betrayal by family, friends and colleagues who had acted as informants. Often these texts emerged in the context of the opening of the Stasi files in 1992 and several authors reproduced Stasi documents in their writings, showcasing the inhumanity of both the actions of the secret police and the language that they used to talk about their victims.
9For example, Kunze, Deckname “Lyrik”; Loest, Der Zorn des Schafes. Writers expressed shock and dismay at the extent of Stasi infiltration into their lives, with Stefan Heym noting that reading the files taught him why he should have been afraid.
10Heym, Der Winter unsers Mißvernügens, 222. More recent publications, including by Stötzer, indicate that interest in this topic amongst eastern German artists may have waned, but has not disappeared completely in the intervening 30 years.
11Stötzer, Der lange Arm der Stasi, 166–67.Writers who had acted as informants were less forthcoming in their personal accounts, especially in the immediate post-Wende period, although there is a smattering of autobiographical or essayistic writing from this group.
12For example, the autobiographies: Anderson, Sascha Anderson; Kant, Abspann. The StasiSachen volumes edited by Mytze contain a number of short entries by individuals registered as informants. However, the writer-informants have been the subject of a substantial body of scholarship. These texts explore the actions, motivations, and role of these individuals within the security apparatus, and how they influenced literary production in the GDR.
13Notably Walther, Sicherungsbereich Literatur; Deiritz and Krauss, Verrat an der Kunst?; Miller, Narratives of Guilt and Compliance; Lewis, Die Kunst des Verrats; Lewis, A State of Secrecy; Ring, After the Stasi. The Stasi’s infiltration of the literary spheres entailed what Alison Lewis has described as the “Kunst des Verrats” (artistry of betrayal); the existence of informants created an atmosphere of suspicion and fear in the cultural underground.
14Lewis, Die Kunst des Verrats. In the first year or so after unification, it gradually came to light how severely the Prenzlauer Berg specifically had been infiltrated by Stasi informants. Protagonists such as Sascha Anderson and Rainer Schedlinski were revealed to have acted as informants. The revelation in particular that the “Kronprinz der DDR-Dissidenten” (crown prince of GDR dissidents)
15Lewis, Die Kunst des Verrats, 9. Anderson had betrayed his friends and colleagues over a long period was especially shocking to many and led to a re-evaluation of the oppositional credentials of the entire scene.
16As discussed, for example, in: Berendse, Grenz-Fallstudien, 7; Leeder, Breaking Boundaries, 6; Lewis, Kunst des Verrats, 9–10.We thus know a great deal about what the Stasi knew about East German writers, what they perceived as critical or oppositional activity, and how they aimed to combat it. There is also extensive research on the motivation and psychology of the writers recruited as informants and the ambivalent impact of reading one’s own Stasi files. However, what the writers knew about the Stasi and how they navigated Stasi secrecy and surveillance has hardly been addressed. It is these questions that our book seeks to answer.