STASILAND

Question 1

human courage

Answer 1

you wont find the great story of human courage you are looking for- it would have come out years ago, straight after 1989

Question 2

cultural cringe

Answer 2

It’s sort of… embarrassing

Question 3

social mistrust

Answer 3

everyone suspected everyone else and the mistrust this bred was the foundation of social existence.

Question 4

miriam locked up

Answer 4

They were all crazy and they were locking her up

Question 5

the past- remember or forget

Answer 5

to remember or forget- which is healthier

Question 6

germans- authority

Answer 6

willingness of east germans to subject themselves to authority

Question 7

justification of actions

Answer 7

it was just my job

Question 8

past effect on future- telling story

Answer 8

does telling your story mean that you are free of it? or that you go fettered into your future?

Question 9

Julia-future

Answer 9

unable to go forward into her future.

Question 10

GDR ignoring reality

Answer 10

…like many others in the GDR, trod this line between seeing things for what they were in the GDR, and ignoring those realities in order to stay sane.

Question 11

GDR logic

Answer 11

it was a condition of sanity to both accept GDR logic and to ignore it

Question 12

total surveillance

Answer 12

it’s the total surveillance that damaged me the worst

Question 13

alice in wonderland

Answer 13

I’ve been having adventures in Stasiland

Question 14

GDR- clearer you see…

Answer 14

and the clearer you see the worse you feel

Question 15

germany

Answer 15

orderly chaos

Question 16

the past- working against forgetting

Answer 16

this is working against forgetting and against time

Question 17

law- herr christian

Answer 17

ive always had an acute sense of duty to obey the law

Question 18

herr christian- reporting

Answer 18

everything must be reported

Question 19

religion

Answer 19

the GDR was like a religion

Question 20

communist Nirvana

Answer 20

the communist nirvana was the world to come

Question 21

german innocence

Answer 21

and almost overnight the Germans in the eastern states were made, or made themselves innocent of Nazism

Question 22

Hagen Koch- lifted

Answer 22

I was lifted out from the great grey mass

Question 23

stasi knowledge

Answer 23

the stasi knew everything

Question 24

Koch revenge

Answer 24

that plate- -was all i had the courage for

Question 25

klaus- courage

Answer 25

i don’t know whether it was courage.. …more like some kind of naivety, that protected me

Question 26

stasi control

Answer 26

the internal service of the stasi was designed to spy on and control the citizens of the GDR

Question 27

memory

Answer 27

memory like so much else is unreliable. not only for what it hides and what it alters, but also for what it reveals

Question 28

Frau Paul- stasi made her

Answer 28

that the picture she has of herself is one that the stasi made for her

Question 29

stasi men-wall

Answer 29

the wall persists in stasi men’s minds as something they hope might one day come again, and in their victims’ minds too, as a terrifying possibility.

Question 30

nostalgia

Answer 30

i dont doubt this genuine nostalgia, but i think it has coloured a cheap and nasty world golden

Question 31

cultural cringe- not German anymore

Answer 31

i dont want to be german anymore

Question 32

history airbrushed

Answer 32

“the new wall however is pristine.”

“it is history, airbrushed for effect.”

Question 33

herr koch- remembering

Answer 33

“Herr Koch is a lone crusader against forgetting”
“I am the only person who is keeping alive the sense of the wall from the Eastern side”
“is giving them his side of history”

Question 34

behind glass

Answer 34

things have been put behind glass, but it is not yet over