“Subliminal” Knowledge and Resisting Recruitment

Christa Moog was no exception to Rathenow’s statement about the prevalence of efforts to recruit critical writers to the army of Stasi informants. The Stasi attempted to recruit her as an informant when she was just a teenager, but—as we will see—she resisted their advances. The way in which she describes this refusal indicates how fragmented knowledge about the Stasi circulated in social and familial environments, and how direct experiences with the Stasi could be used to enhance that knowledge, which nonetheless remained incomplete.

In the interview with Windsor, Moog describes in some detail the experience of being approached by the Stasi to act as an informant when she was just fourteen. In January 1966, she received a postcard from the local police office (Volkspolizeikreisamt) with the request to attend “zur Klärung eines Sachverhaltes” (to clarify a matter)—a phrase that was frequently used to summon individuals to meetings with the secret police and which is now notorious in memory of the Stasi.2Interview with Christa Moog, August 25, 2021. Moog describes a lack of knowledge within her family about the meaning of this request and what and who might lie behind it. This lack of knowledge makes the request even more worrying, as they attempt to interpret what might be behind it, focusing on insignificant past misdemeanours. In her recollection, the idea that it might be the Stasi or an attempted recruitment does not even occur to them:

Moog says she only feels able to refuse because of the support given to her by her family, which meant she did not feel she had to fear the potential consequences or that her future would be ruined by her refusal. She notes that it was not a lack of knowledge about the Stasi’s power that gave her the strength not to sign; rather it was the resilience provided by her parents. Others—as Moog comments—responded differently to the same knowledge:

What we see here is a kind of partial knowledge—a lack of detailed information, but a sense of who the Stasi were and the threat they posed. In his interview with Windsor, Ekkehard Maaß asserts that everyone knew “dass es die Stasi gab, schon in der Kindheit” (that the Stasi existed, already as a child).8Interview with Ekkehard Maaß, July 30, 2021. His description of what exactly was known is rather general. However, this superficial knowledge informs the development of rules of thumb relating to behaviour: “Also, man wusste sich immer beobachtet. Man wusste immer, dass man aufpassen muss, dass man nicht in irgendeiner Form den Vorwand liefert, dass man verhaftet werden kann” (well, you always knew you were being watched. You always knew that you had to be careful not to provide any kind of excuse for them to arrest you).9Interview with Ekkehard Maaß, July 30, 2021. Moog describes how she was able to use this partial knowledge to make quick decisions and avoid being drawn into the role of a secret informant.

Another decision that Moog makes is to tell her family and her friend about the attempted recruitment (despite having signed a declaration of secrecy). This makes her unusable for the Stasi as an informant and she subsequently becomes the target of their observation. In the moment of contact with a potential informant, the Stasi also make themselves vulnerable to revelation: these moments of contact allowed individuals to gain and disseminate knowledge about the Stasi, how they operate and even what they look like. Moog describes her reaction when a Stasi officer waits for her daily at the school gate: “Ich hatte total Herzklopfen, hab’ dann zu meiner Freundin gesagt ‘Um Gottes Willen, das ist der, da’” (my heart was pounding, then I said to my friend, “oh my god, that’s him over there.”).10Interview with Christa Moog, August 25, 2021. As we will see, Moog describes how later in her life this partial knowledge about the Stasi—how they behaved and what they looked like—was also used to try to identify Stasi informants within the literary sphere. That is, the knowledge gained through the moment in which the Stasi revealed themselves was used to support rules of thumb or heuristics that aimed to uncover more of their secrets.

Uwe Kolbe also had early direct experiences with the Stasi that provided him with fragmented knowledge about their operations. In the interview with Windsor, Kolbe describes knowledge about the Stasi in a way that resonates with Moog’s description of her “subliminal” or visceral response, that is, as something almost unconscious and stemming from experiences within one’s familial networks:

This knowing and yet not knowing extended to the language used to talk about the secret police in Kolbe’s account. He recalls that the most visible Stasi agents were those that stood around on the street whenever there was an official event attended by “die Bonzen,” that is, high-ranking SED members.

What is particular to Kolbe is that this habitual, intuitive knowledge about the danger of the Stasi emerged in a context in which the Stasi were in his family, that is, his father was a Stasi officer. This is not something that Kolbe knew for certain until the opening of the Stasi files, but it is something that he suspected from a young age.14For a post-Wende account of Kolbe’s suspicions about his father and the confirmation of those suspicions after the Wende, see: Kolbe, “Die Sache mit V.” In the interview with Windsor, we see him struggling to articulate where that knowledge came from:

Kolbe’s early confrontation with the Stasi began when he was invited to a seminar for young poets at the Freie Deutsche Jugend (FDJ, Free German Youth), the SED youth organisation. He was puzzled at the time as to why he had been invited, as he was already beginning to voice politically uncomfortable ideas. He suspects his father had a hand in it, but adds: “ich weiß es eigentlich bis heute nicht” (I actually don’t know to this day).19Interview with Uwe Kolbe, June 1, 2021. When Kolbe returns from the seminar, his mother reports that someone from the Department of Culture in the Berlin Magistrate had visited and said they wanted to do something with his poems. He recalls that she was pleased about this apparent external recognition, even though she had shown little interest in his literary work previously. Despite his father’s profession, his mother seems to have little awareness of what an approach from the Stasi might look like (noting that Kolbe’s mother and father were separated).20See chapter 2 for a discussion of the contradictory accounts of this meeting in the Stasi files. It should be added in this context that the Stasi record suggests that Kolbe’s mother and stepfather were, in fact, a little more circumspect about the visit and Kolbe only felt comfortable inviting the officers in on their return visit because his parents were not at home.21Report on a conversation with Uwe Kolbe, dated September 16, 1975. That return visit happened a little while later, when the man appeared at their door and wanted to speak directly to Kolbe. He introduced himself as being from the Magistrate. But, Kolbe recalls, he knew instantly that this was not true: “es fiel mir nämlich damals schon auf—natürlich wusste ich relativ rasch, wer die sind, dass das Stasi war. Das zum Beispiel wusste ich ganz schnell” (I already realised back then—of course I knew relatively quickly who they were, that it was the Stasi. I knew that very quickly, for example).22Interview with Uwe Kolbe, June 1, 2021. Kolbe articulates that it was the man’s behaviour that gave him away, that is, that he asked questions completely unrelated to his poetry and wanted copies of manuscripts. In this sense, we see once again that the Stasi risked revealing themselves at this moment of contact.

Nonetheless, the certainty that Kolbe expresses “natürlich wusste ich … dass das Stasi war” (of course I knew … that it was the Stasi) dissipates as Kolbe continues in his recollection. He remembers that he gave them the manuscripts and that he found the explanation that they wanted to promote young authors at least “halbwegs glaubhaft” (half believable). It is only on the second visit that it was “ziemlich sonnenklar” (pretty clear as day) that they were not who they said they were. Despite this, Kolbe agrees to attend a third meeting, this time in the Department of Culture at the Magistrate. It is at this meeting that the Stasi officers (literally) lay their cards on the table:

Bernd Wagner was older than Moog and Kolbe when the Stasi approached him to work as an informant and already active in the unofficial literary sphere. In the spring of 1983, when Wagner was 34 years old, Wagner submitted an application to the Writers Union to travel to Norway and West Berlin. A few days later, he was visited by an MfS officer who stated that he was charged with Wagner’s security and proceeded to ask for information about friends and acquaintances. Wagner writes about the attempted recruitment in the 1993 article “Stasi-Gift” (Stasi Poison)24Wagner, “Stasi-Gift.” and also recalls the series of events in the interview with Windsor in 2020. In both accounts, we see a complex interweaving of knowledge and naivety. Wagner recalls that he let the officers into his home because he was not aware of his rights, “die man selbst als DDR-Bürger hatte” (that we had, even as citizens of the GDR).25Wagner, “Stasi-Gift,” 8. He refuses to answer any questions relating to his personal contacts and throws the man out of his home, refusing also to sign a declaration of secrecy and asserting that he will most definitely speak about the visit to his friends. This act of defiance was not, however, based on knowledge of the aim of the visit. Wagner states in both the article and interview that he did not realise that it was an attempted recruitment until after speaking to friends: “Aber letztendlich war mir da immer noch nicht klar, dass das ne Anwerbung, der Versuch einer Anwerbung als Spitzel war. So, das ist mir erst klar geworden, als ich dann mit meinen Freunden drüber geredet habe” (But in the end I still didn’t realise that it was a recruitment, an attempt to recruit me as an informer. I only realised that when I talked to my friends about it).26Interview with Bernd Wagner, October 20, 2020. Armed with this knowledge, he refuses any further conversations with the Stasi when the officer returns two days later and writes letters of complaint to both Erich Mielke and then President of the Writers Union (and former informant), Hermann Kant (see chapter 3).27Wagner, “Stasi-Gift,” 8–9. See Gallinat, “Power and Vulnerability,” for further examples of resisting recruitment.

In contrast to Moog and Kolbe, intuitive knowledge, or rules of thumb do not appear to play much of a role in Wagner’s ability to resist the attempt of the Stasi to recruit him as an informant. Notably, unlike Moog (on receipt of the invitation to the police office) or Kolbe’s summons to the Magistrate, Wagner did not need to intuit the identity of the man who appeared at his door: the Stasi officer presented himself as such, including with his name and ID. Wagner presents himself as resolutely and uncompromisingly defiant against the very nature and activity of the secret police—something that is confirmed by the files28See Wagner, “Stasi-Gift,” 9.—the purpose of their visit is therefore immaterial to that initial interaction. However, those in his circle with whom he speaks about the visit clearly do use heuristic knowledge to identify the reason for the visit: they have no more information about it than Wagner but use the clues he provides them to apply a rule of thumb that such visits are likely attempts at recruitment. We can see this as a further example of how heuristic knowledge was built on experiences within the social environment and circulated within it.

Particularly in his account in “Stasi-Gift,” Wagner makes clear the extent to which the files have helped fill in the gaps in his memory of the attempted recruitment and given it structure: “die Akten geben meiner Vergangenheit Chronologie und logische Strukturen zurück” (the files return to my past a chronology and logical structure).29Wagner, “Stasi-Gift,” 8. However, as for Kolbe, gaps remain. In particular, Wagner wondered then and continues to wonder after reading the files why the Stasi thought he might be open to the attempted recruitment. In “Stasi-Gift,” he reports his feelings on first reading the Stasi files: