Covert Actions from the Underground

Artistic production and activities in the underground literary scenes were intentionally hidden from the broader public to target small, alternative audiences. As the editors of Mikado explained in the foreword to a collection of texts from their journal, published in West Germany in 1988: “wir wollten einfach eine andere Öffentlichkeit, die die Worte des Einzelnen bündelt, gegen—und miteinander sprechen läßt” (we simply wanted a different kind of public sphere, one that bundles the words of the individual and allows them to speak against and with each other).2Kolbe, Trolle, and Wagner, “Mikado 1–12,” 9. Emphasis in original. In this way, the editors and authors of samizdat works assumed they would find suitable readers who would grasp and value their writings, especially owing to their shared experiences and points of reference. We discuss the importance of situated readership and its relationship to knowledge further, alongside analysis of samizdat work, in chapter 4.

It took considerable courage—even for established regime-critical writers—to circumvent state censorship, given their situated (and imperfect) knowledge of Stasi surveillance. Kolbe noted that one very established writer declined the invitation to contribute to Mikado because of what Kolbe termed “Stasiangst” (Stasi fear): “Und da, also, ganz konspirativ bei ihm und so, und der hatte, es war deutlich, also er hatte so Stasiangst, ja, aber das hatten alle! Das ist ja, es gibt ja immer wieder diese Beispiele, dass Leute bei Gesprächen das Radio eingeschaltet haben” (and there, so, quite conspiratorial with him and so on, and he had, it was clear, so he was so afraid of the Stasi, yes, but everyone was! That’s, there are always these examples of people switching on the radio during conversations).3Interview with Uwe Kolbe, June 1, 2021. According to Kolbe, the same writer warned him about the political and reputational risks that such underground publishing might have: “Also, er ging dann mit mir auch aus der Wohnung raus, ins Treppenhaus und sagte: … ‘entweder ihr kriegt richtig Ärger, sie verbieten’s und stecken euch ins Gefängnis oder was, oder sie [d.h. andere] sagen, ihr seid doch sowieso von der Stasi’” (so he took me out of the apartment, into the stairwell and said: … either you’ll get into real trouble, they’ll ban it and put you in prison or something, or they [i.e., others] will just say you must be from the Stasi anyhow).4Interview with Uwe Kolbe, June 1, 2021. Although he agreed with this argumentation, at least in retrospect, Kolbe recalled being disappointed at the colleague’s response, but nonetheless vowed to persist with the Mikado project: “Und dann habe ich gesagt: ‘Na ja, Gott. Schade, aber wir machen weiter’” (and then I said: “oh well, my God. Pity, but we’ll persist”).5Interview with Uwe Kolbe, June 1, 2021. In Kolbe’s recollection, he and his co-editors were prepared to meet the potential backlash, whether directly from the Stasi or another state ministry, with open protest and felt that they had a kind of “dreifacher Schutz” (three-way protection) given their own respective positions as a writer already published in the West (Kolbe), a member of the official GDR Writers’ Union (Wagner), and a member of the Verein der Verfolgten des Naziregimes (Association of the Victims of the Nazi Regime, Lothar Trolle).6Interview with Uwe Kolbe, June 1, 2021. They were willing, if necessary, to make their covert resistance overt.

The cultural underground scene thus provided space to take action and counter-surveil in the most literal sense of the term “sousveillance” which derives from the French words for “sous” (below) and “veiller” (to watch). Coined by Steve Mann in 1998, the term sousveillance (watching from below), which emerged as an antipode to surveillance (watching from above), is a form of “reflectionism” meant to describe “a philosophy and procedures of using technology to mirror and confront bureaucratic organizations.”7Mann, Nolan, and Wellman, “Sousveillance,” 332–33. As Mann, Nolan, and Wellman elaborate further:

For example, after her release from prison, Gabriele Stötzer moved in underground artistic circles and women’s groups, and employed both conspicuous and inconspicuous strategies to deal with ongoing state surveillance. Frequently, Stötzer played on the fear of revelation as a method of countersurveillance. She made contact with the prominent writer Christa Wolf and spoke openly about this connection, drawing on the knowledge that the state would be less likely to enact openly repressive measures against authors famous in the West. In the interview with Windsor, Stötzer recalls:

Other strategies were more covert from the start. According to the Stasi files, Stötzer organised her own unofficial observation of an underground art studio in Erfurt to make sure that it was secure as a meeting point. This countersurveillance is documented by an IM with the code name “Lutz Müller” and is worth citing at some length:

Indeed, the knowledge that they were being observed by the Stasi—a knowledge gained through intuition and direct encounter—did not only provoke confrontational responses. These writers and authors also sought to conceal their potentially subversive actions from the secret police, avoiding conspicuous behaviour and adhering to stated rules in order not to attract attention. For example, Stötzer reveals the following about the Erfurt underground scene: