Dittrich Boulevard and Stasi consciousness

I often do comparative analysis to look at issues in a different light. In this spirit, I researched a conversation between Robert Darnton and Hans Albrecht Grohmann during a recent trip to Germany. Darnton is one of the contributors to CTRL+SPACE: Rhetorics of Surveillance from Bentham to Big Brother (ZKM Center for Arts & Media, MIT Press, 2002). Hans Grohmann is a researcher who was given access to the files of East Germany's dreaded Stasi secret police. Stasi is an abbreviation for the Ministerium fur Staatssicherheit (Ministry of State Security) of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), aka communist East Germany. In 1990, demonstrators took control of the Stasi headquarters on Dittrich Boulevard in Leipzig. This action was fueled by rumours that Stasi were burning all the files in the archive. When the building was finally occupied, they discovered that some files had been destroyed, but not all -- the sheer volume was too great.

The citizens committee that had taken control of the Stasi building realized they had opened up a can of worms. There were files on so many individuals, everyone would be affected by the information here. The committee felt that they could not open the files up to the general public. If people uncovered who spied on whom, mass recriminations would follow, perhaps even violence. In an effort to learn something about East Germany's all-encompassing surveillance state, while minimizing the fallout, the committee invited some researchers to examine the files. Hans Grohmann was one of these researchers, and in conversations with him, and subsequent essay for CTRL+SPACE, Robert Darnton summarized some of his main discoveries.

According to Grohmann's research, a typical dossier on an East German citizen was between five to thirty pages. This would include a cover sheet explaining why this person was being investigated. The three more typical reasons were: another citizen had denounced them as a traitor, the state suspected they were having contacts with westerners, or they needed clearance to travel. The main part of the file would contain a description of the person's private life with cross-references to other files; a neighbourhood police report; a report by a Stasi agent assigned to the person's place of employment; and miscellaneous reports by other spies. At the end of the file would be a summary and a decision as to next steps.

Hans Grohmann describes the Stasi files as having an overall spirit of "misanthropy and distrust." Most of the files were focused on citizens who came into contact with different segments of society, especially westerners. The most comprehensive (ergo thickest) files were on writers, actors, artists, professors, musicians, performers, people married to foreigners, and those with relatives in West Germany. The key source of information seemed to be not paid spies, but rather ordinary citizens denouncing each other. This was what decades living in a surveillance state had produced: a nation full of people who made accusations against each other. Denouncing someone else was the easiest way to escape the Stasi's attention. The subjects of denunciation ranged from the absurd to the chilling. A neighbour's daughter wearing a cross around her neck; neighbours receiving mail from West Germany; people who watched western television; teachers who encouraged debate in classrooms -- the list of possible crimes was endless.

In addition to denunciation, Stasi hired ordinary people to be spies. One of the GDR's targets was to have one adult spy for every ten citizens in Leipzig by 1994. The favoured occupations for spies were, again, those who had the most contact with the public: train conductors, cleaning ladies, priests, and teachers. Kindergarten teachers were trained to ask their students about the conclusion of the children's program from the previous night. Those who had watched West German television were unable to answer the question and betrayed the fact that their parents were watching western television.

In a surveillance state, it takes very little effort to make people betray each other. In fact, typical Stasi spies were paid only 400 marks a month. There was also the incentive of receiving a bigger pension on retiring. But a much bigger factor was the desire to avoid punishment. If someone refused to spy, the Stasi could put them in prison without trial, refuse permission for travel, and exact other kinds of retribution. A note about "politically negative" attitude could be entered into their file, damaging chances of getting promoted, buying an apartment or a car. If there was anything incriminating in their own files, the Stasi would blackmail them into spying. The system was pernicious, as described by Robert Darnton:

"Spies spied on spies. The whole system kept escalating, and in the end all the GDR seemed to be honeycombed with denunciators and secret agents. The Stasi were a cancer eating away at the fibre of society."

In the end, there were very few citizens who were untouched by the surveillance culture. According to Darnton's research, Eric Honecker approved a plan in 1985 to have a computerized file on each of East Germany's 16 million citizens. By 1989, the Berlin headquarters of Stasi contained 6 million files, stored in a 100 km long space. At the height of its powers, the Stasi headquarters on Dittrich Boulevard housed an ultra-modern communications centre for spying on telephone calls. While East Germany was falling back on other markers of economic development, their investment in surveillance technology was so advanced that this system was able to eavesdrop on 2,000 calls simultaneously. Recorded tapes of these phone calls were stored on tapes and entered into files. Researchers say this was equal to 8 km of files. For comparison purposes, this was more archival material than was generated by the duchy of Saxony over 800 years.

Not surprisingly, all this surveillance changed the mass culture of the country. When people walked by the Dittrich Boulevard building, they turned up their collars and crossed the street in fear of hidden cameras. Professors were afraid that one of their students may denounce them, and as a result classroom lectures were denuded of any provocative content. Robert Darnton calls this "Stasi consciousness" -- the feeling of being overheard when you make a phone call, or being watched when you cross a street. Fear was so widespread that people took refuge in Stasi jokes. After the fall of communism, it was rumoured that many former spies had taken jobs as taxi drivers. Just tell the taxi driver your name, went the joke, he already knows your address and phone number!

It may seem that communist East Germany is far away from our current reality, and in some ways it is. The toxic levels of Big Brother culture that descended from communist Berlin would never be tolerated in a democratic Bangladesh with a (relatively) free press. But there is one important similarity. Surveillance agencies have to create a rationale and purpose for their existence. The more spying that is authorized by government and tolerated by citizens, the more powerful surveillance agencies become. At the height of its powers, Stasi received approval of a plan to be allowed to spy on every single East German citizen. Given the right circumstances, Bangladeshi agencies would like to have similar powers, especially as telephone technology spreads to millions of new people. The proposed wiretapping laws that come into effect this month are the first step in the creation of an omnipotent, surveillance-police state. The time to stop it is now -- if it ever becomes like Stasi, it will by then be too late.

Naeem Mohaiemen is director of DisappearedInAmerica.org, a project by a group of artist-activists on post 9/11 civil liberties and surveillance. The project is currently being presented in Frankfurt and New York.