This is a compensated review originally published in Shelf Awareness for Readers and is reprinted here with permission. The cover image shown is an affiliate link to IndieBound.org.
Stasiland: Stories From Behind the Berlin WallHarper Perennial (2011) trade paperback original (ISBN 1862075808 / 9781862075801)
History, 304 pages
The Berlin Wall existed for forty years as both a physical and symbolic barrier in a city and a country divided by ideology; it’s been over twenty years since it was physically and symbolically destroyed. While working for German overseas television in Berlin a few years after the Wall came down, Anna Funder became interested in the stories of ordinary citizens of the former East Berlin, as well as those who had enforced the rules of the German Democratic Republic. Those stories are collected in Stasiland, an award-winning work of investigative nonfiction being published in the United States for the first time.
Funder spoke with ordinary citizens who had been the focus of attention from the Stasi, the East German secret police, as well as with Stasi agents. Granted, very few citizens were not the focus of Stasi attention at one time or another. Descriptions of Stasi facilities and actions sound as if they come straight out of a spy novel; however, Funder’s evocation of the East German police state has even more impact because it’s true, and reported by those who lived it.
Through personal interviews, Funder learns the stories of would-be escapees, separated families, one of East Germany’s best-known rock musicians, a student targeted for surveillance because of her boyfriend, a propagandist, and one of the Wall’s architects. Reported in a straightforward manner, they make for enlightening and accessible reading.
As 20th-century Communism fades into history, Stasiland serves to document and preserve the experiences of ordinary people who lived and struggled under it.
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