After Nazi Germany's defeat in World War II, the country was divided. East Germany became a communist state created by the Soviet Union, while West Germany began the process of democratization under the watchful eye of the three remaining Allied Powers: U.S., Britain and France. East and West Germany would take very different paths through the next four decades, and it was not until 1990, a year after the Berlin Wall was torn down, that the two states would officially be reunified.

During the years of communist reign in East Germany, the government used intimidation to oppress and control its citizens, many of whom hoped for freedom and a better life beyond the Wall. The Stasi were East Germany's secret police force. They used spy tactics like wiretapping to monitor East Germans suspected of anti-government activities. They used interrogation techniques such as sleep deprivation to force ordinary citizens to confess to actions they may or many not have taken, or to inform on friends, neighbors and even family members.

In 1989, an astonishing 173,000 East Germans were employed by the Stasi as informants.¹ Journalist Steve Rosenberg of BBC News wrote, "Some calculations have concluded that in East Germany there was one informer to every seven citizens."² In light of this history, how can trust be restored among people who were betrayed by their government and by each other?

Das Leben der Anderen ("The Lives of Others") is an East German film made in 2006. It looks critically and chillingly at a society that allowed its secret police force to use spying and intimidation against its citizenry, and turned neighbor against neighbor. The movie, which won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, is among the first major artistic works to publicly confront this troubling history.

Contemporary German history is dominated by a study of the Holocaust. Germans are well-versed in Hitler's rise to power and the Nazi genocide of the Jews in Europe. In a society both forced and willing to confront the past, it might seem surprising that the history of East Germany from the late 1940s until reunification has been relatively hidden and less discussed. Perhaps this is because World War II and the Holocaust happened on the global stage, whereas communist rule in East Germany was such a closed society. "The Lives of Others" is one of the first major works to encourage real dialogue. Journalist Colin Nickerson points out:

The film "Das Leben der Anderen"—"The Lives of Others"—has triggered what some call the first debate in the reunified nation about the realities of the communist regime....Unlike the Nazi period, a constant reference point for contemporary Germany, oppression by the GDR is seldom discussed in a country that was politically reunified in 1990. Even the Wall itself has nearly vanished—only a few out-of-the way sections remain....

German films and television have routinely treated the communist era in a light manner—showing Stasi as lovable buffoons and portraying as hilariously incompetent a system that killed 1,000 people trying to escape over the Berlin Wall.... "The Lives of Others" has broken sharply with that tradition, winning applause not just from film critics but also historians and political scientists.³

The movie provides a snapshot of what life was like for many East Germans during the 1980s. The main character in the movie is a Stasi officer who wiretaps and monitors the apartment of an East German playwright and his girlfriend, a famous actor. By the end of the movie, all of the main characters have been put in situations that bring out the best and worst of their humanity. In the movie, relationships and lives are ruined by Stasi officers and officials, as we see how entangled the society was in a web of paranoia and how determined the government was to maintain control over the actions of an oppressed citizenry.

If done well, film can present our history in powerful ways that connect to us emotionally. It is important to know the facts and figures of history, but it is also crucial to learn the stories of individual human beings—their struggles, inactions, courage, or dishonesty. In witnessing the lives of other human beings, their history—and ours—comes alive. Just as Schindler's List and Hotel Rwanda have exposed and educated millions to the tragic history of genocide, The Lives of Others is playing an important role in confronting a painful past reality in post-war Germany.

Connections for the Classroom...

• Recently, some former Stasi officers and officials have been trying to revise and downplay the role of the Stasi during communist reign in East Germany. They are voicing concern over revisiting the past. And in their protests are trying to re-frame the past.

  "We harmed no one," said Gotthold Schramm, 74, a former Stasi colonel who has authored recent books asserting that the secret police have been unfairly demonized. "The GDR was not a criminal state. With good conscience, I can say the Stasi only served the people and obeyed the laws that were the laws of that time."⁴

  Why do you think these former officers are so intent on stopping their society from confronting the past? Working together, the former Stasis were able to lead an effort to stop the installation of 40,000 plaques dedicated to former East German political prisoners.⁵ Why would they especially want to block the 40,000 plaques? What role does memorialization play in confronting the past?
• Find a plaque in your community that commemorates a person or event from the past. Why was it put there? What purpose does it serve? Do you think it makes a difference?
• In postunification Germany, people who were once in West Germany or East Germany are now trying to confront what is common to them as Germans and what is unique to their experience in the four decades after WWII. Many Germans who grew up in the East learned that the Holocaust was the history of the West. They were taught to see themselves as innocent of that history. Now East Germans are confronted with the reality that the Holocaust is their history as well. Discuss this tension.
• Think of a film, novel, song, poem or other work of art that looks at a specific history. What about that work had an impact on you? What do you think are the effects (positive and negative) that piece of art had on your community, nation or the world at large?
• In certain instances, not confronting a painful history may be the best short term course of action. After the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the teaching of history was banned for over ten years. This was necessary to help ensure the safety and stability of the country. In Northern Ireland, a culture of silence has hindered opportunities for reconciliation and peaceful coexistence. What about East Germany? Is there any benefit to "forgetting" the past and simply moving on? Why is it important to confront the past, and when is the "right time"?
• For more information on the Stasi, go to the website for the Stasi Museum in Berlin (http://www.stasimuseum.de/en/engeschichte.htm).

¹"The Prelude to Nationwide Surveillance in East Germany: Stasi Operations and Threat Perceptions, 1945-1953," by Gary Bruce. Journal of Cold War Studies, Volume 5, Number 2, Spring 2003, pp. 3-31. Source.
² "Computers to Solve Stasi Puzzle," by Steve Rosenberg. From BBC News at bbc.co.uk/news. May 25, 2007. Source.
³ "German Film Prompts Open Debate on Stasi," by Colin Nickerson. BBC Online. May 29, 2006. Source.
⁴ Ibid.
⁵ Ibid.