Women Agents in the East German State Security

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-84
Author(s):  
Thomas Wegener Friis ◽  
Helmut Müller-Enbergs
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
German State ◽  
State Security ◽  
Controlling Images ◽  
Intelligence Studies ◽  
East German ◽  
Women's Role ◽  
The Cold War

In the communist camp during the Cold War, exercising power was a male domain. The Ministry of State Security (MfS) of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) was no exception. Within the organization, women were employed but they rarely made a career. In the bottom of the State Security hierarchy were the agents. This article examines who were the women agents in the rank of the MfS. Based on statistical materials, it gives an overview of women’s role and the character of their covert work. Inspired by Andrea Petö’s introduction of the concept of controlling images to intelligence studies, particular focus is devoted to the question whether the MfS agents complied to the stereotypes of women in intelligence work.

From the Search for Normality to the Search for Normality: German Historical Writing

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Berger
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
History Writing ◽  
East German ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Socialist Unity

This chapter demonstrates the overwhelming dominance of a Marxist, Soviet-inspired agenda, and the supremacy of social and especially economic history. During the Cold War, only the historians in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) followed the Western path. Their counterparts in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) adhered to the Marxist-Leninist framework of history-writing prescribed by the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED). The divided world of the Cold War ensured that history-writing in the FRG and GDR became highly polarized. Anti-communism remained the underlying rationale of much historical writing in the FRG during the 1950s, and anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism comprised the ideological backbone of the GDR’s historical profession. Ultimately, the Cold War was crucial in incorporating West and East German historians into different transnational networks. After 1945, the two Germanies were attempting to regain some kind of national as well as historiographical ‘normality’ following major political and historiographical caesuras.

The Prelude to Nationwide Surveillance in East Germany: Stasi Operations and Threat Perceptions, 1945–1953

2003 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary S. Bruce
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Republic ◽  
East Germany ◽  
German State ◽  
Threat Perceptions ◽  
State Security ◽  
West Berlin ◽  
East German ◽  
Nationwide Surveillance ◽  
Vast Network ◽  
Socialist Unity

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.

“Football More Important Than Berlin”

2020 ◽  
pp. 116-137
Author(s):  
Heather L. Dichter
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
National Interest ◽  
Sporting Events ◽  
East German ◽  
National Boundaries ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Foreign Ministries

In the early 1960s Portugal and the Netherlands confronted the problem of East German participation in the UEFA Junior Tournament and Olympic qualification. Although not very important tournaments, domestic governments feared they would cause a public backlash against themselves and NATO should the East Germans not be allowed to participate. These games became tied up with debates over NATO policies, national interest, and public opinion. The popularity of football prompted some states to attempt to use the national interest exception to the East German travel ban. These football matches brought the Cold War into the smaller NATO member states’ national boundaries. By hosting sporting events the Netherlands and Portugal engaged directly with their NATO allies over Cold War policies with which they did not fully agree or which they believed would cause public opinion problems at home and abroad. NATO diplomats, foreign ministries, and the leaders of national and international football federations spent months in protracted negotiations over whether minor football matches involving the German Democratic Republic would even take place during the height of the Cold War as each group attempted to appear blameless in the court of public opinion.

City Plans

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Stangl
Keyword(s):  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
State Policy ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Socialist Realism ◽  
City Center ◽  
German State ◽  
Design Competition ◽  
East German ◽  
Political Turmoil ◽  
The City

Between 1945 and 1949 a series of modernist plans were developed for Berlin. In this time of political turmoil, planners and politicians projected a broad range of meanings onto the plans. After the founding of the East German state, Lothar Bolz orchestrated the adoption of socialist realism as state policy, requiring a return to traditional urban design. This theory included a range of tenets guiding planning, but Walter Ulbricht intervened to assure that planning would be dominated by a concern for parade routes leading to an immense square in the city center. In response to West Berlin’s international building exhibition, the German Democratic Republic held their own design competition for a “socialist” city center in 1958. The recent introduction of industrialized building, along with uncertainty and debate over the nature of “socialist” architecture, was evident in designs with a range of influences, including international modernism, midcentury modernism, and socialist realism.

The Wisdom of a Socialist Defector

2020 ◽  
pp. 58-62
Author(s):  
Harry R. Targ
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Federal Republic ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
The United States ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
The Cold War

Victor Grossman's A Socialist Defector: From Harvard to Karl-Marx-Allee is at once an exciting adventure story, an engaging autobiography of a radical opponent of U.S. imperialism, and a clear-headed assessment of the successes and failures of the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) at the onset of the Cold War until 1990, when its citizens voted to merge with the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany). Most poignantly, Grossman compares the benefits workers gained in the GDR, the FRG, and even the United States during the Cold War.

Soldiers, Citizens, and the State: East German Army Officers in Post-Unification Germany

2009 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 260-287
Author(s):  
Andrew Bickford
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
The State ◽  
Smooth Transition ◽  
The West ◽  
German Government ◽  
German State ◽  
German Army ◽  
Army Officers ◽  
East German ◽  
The Cold War

Despite official narratives of a relatively smooth transition, of the merging of “those things which belong together,” German unification and the formation of a new German state has been an uneven project filled with friction and animosity. While the West German government celebrated the “victory” of unification, and stated that all East Germans wanted unification, one group of East Germans did not look forward to the dissolution of the GDR: members of the East German military, the Nationale Volksarmee (National People's Army, or NVA). Disbanded immediately upon unification, the overwhelming majority of NVA officers were left unemployed overnight, stripped of their status as officers and portrayed by the West Germans as the “losers” of the Cold War. For these men, unification was not a joyous, desired event; rather, it represented the end of their careers, security, status, and the state they had sworn to defend. As such, the “fall” into democracy for these men was from the start fraught with uncertainty, disappointment, anomie, and a profound sense of loss.

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