Stasi Files

I researched the "real-life" Stasi files, similar to what we saw in The Lives of Others. I remember being in shock at that the amount of files we saw in the movie. It turns out that many of the files were shredded, and are being reassembled by the BStU. They began in 1995, and 13 years later (2008), three dozen archivists hired to reconstruct the documents had only reconstructed 327 bags, out of 16,000. Now using computer-assisted data recovery programs, they are reassembling the remaining 16,000 bags, containing an estimated 45 million pages. The amount of files shown in The Lives of Others now seems far more trivial, compared to the number of files the Stasi actually kept.

I found a ten page article about a man (Frederic L. Pryor) who was able to obtain the files the Stasi had on him, from the new German government. Halfway through, he explained, "My purpose in reading these files was to come to terms with my past, and I had no intention of denouncing anyone who might have supplied damaging materials about me to the Stasi. Nevertheless, I was comforted to find no evidence that would lead me to believe Helga [his significant other] had provided any such information. Moreover, it was also heartening to learn that, with the exception of my cell mate, all of the people whom I knew in East Berlin were quite fair about me. They could well have twisted things to make it easier for themselves; in this respect my experience was quite different from those of others who have found damaging and quite untrue reports about themselves from acquaintances and apparent friends." The overall experience seems similar to Georg Dreyman's in The Lives of Others, however distinctly different is the involvement of their significant others. In Pryor's case, his significant other had not incriminated him- although his cellmate in the Stasi prisons had; while, of course, Christa Maria had incriminated Georg Dreyman. Pryor and Dreyman now had more than suspicions about what the Stasi knew, and received well needed closure by reading the documents the Stasi had kept on them.

SOURCES

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2751/is_n38/ai_16350697/pg_5/?tag=content;col1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi

The "Others"

The title of the movie, "The Lives of Others," refers to the lives of people like Dreyman and Christa-Maria. The government and the Stasi classified these people as "others;" they were meant to be watched and not trusted. Yet again, we encounter a group of people that manages to alienate another group and classify them as the "other." In this case, the others are artists, but in East Germany, an other could basically be anybody who went against the government. In fact, a person didn't even have to commit any crime to be classified as an other. If someone in the government simply disliked you, bam!, you were an other. What is strange about this case is that the others are actually the majority of the people; much of the population of the GDR could easily be labeled an other. Most people, in fact, would think of the government and the Stasi as the others. They were the ones who weren't normal, leading lives based on spying and incriminating people. The majority of the population wasn't different. They were. So though we see "The Lives of Others" as Wiesler's journey of becoming one of the "others," it would almost be more accurate to see it as his journey of no longer being an "other." Or, perhaps the best would be to see it as his journey of simply becoming human, and transcending those labels of "other" or "not-other." Wiesler managed to break through that barrier. And isn't that exactly what happened when the Wall came down?