Less than a week after starting reading a new book, I finish off this one, that’s what travelling does for ya!
This book is Stasiland by Anna Funder. This book was recommended to me by a tour guide while touring in Berlin visiting the sites of the cold war. Since then I had been meaning to read it, as I had it sitting on the shelf. So I decided to give it a shot. I am extremely thankful I did. Anna lived in East Berlin and this book follows her journey wanting to hear about what/how people’s lives were affected by the East German Secret Police…. the Stasi.
During the 60s the East German government constructed the Berlin wall to protect itself from the West Germans. They essentially sealed off their own citizens from the rest of the world overnight. This was absolutely crazy and since I visited Berlin and have seen the wall first hand I wanted to read more about how it affected the average person. This book is the one to read for that perspective. Anna takes a journey seeking out not only the men of the Stasi (it was mostly men) but also those people whose lives were affected by them. The Stasi were notorious for monitoring their own citizens. Anything and everything they had to know about you. What you ate, what you did, how you slept, even what you smelt like. That is Insane!
This book was just intriguing and thrilling and brought a whole new side to light for me on Berlin. I could not imagine being someone in East Germany during the time of the wall and the stasi. They sound ruthless and stupid at the same time. How the hell do they get away with getting your own family to inform on you, or convincing co workers to inform on each other. Where a 16 year old girl who just decided to jump the wall was imprisoned and interrogated for a week with torture and sleep deprivation to find out who she was working with, when she did it all on her own on a whim. Insane!
You really need to read this book, it is well written and even if your not into that kind of thing, it should be a read as it is something you NEED to read for histories sake.