Stasiland

Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall

By: Anna Funder

Narrated by: Denica Fairman

Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

East Germany may have been - until now - the most perfected surveillance state of all time.

In Stasiland, Anna Funder tells extraordinary stories of ordinary people who heroically resisted the communist dictatorship, and of those who worked for its vicious secret police, the Stasi.

She meets Miriam, who as a 16-year-old was accused of trying to start World War III. She visits the regime’s cartographer, a man obsessed to this day with the Berlin Wall, then gets drunk with the legendary “Mik Jegger” of the east, once declared by the authorities “no longer to exist.” And she finds spies and Stasi men, in hiding but defiant, still loyal to the regime as they lick their wounds and regroup, hoping for the next revolution.

Stasiland is a brilliant, timeless portrait of a Kafkaesque world, as gripping as any thriller. In a world of total surveillance, its celebration of human conscience and courage is as potent as ever.

©2020 Anna Funder (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing

So good

Fascinating. Such great storytelling. Highly recommend! We all know the basics, but this puts such a human face on that period of history.

A Great Achievement

This is a well researched and very well written contemporary history book. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Anna Funder knew she had only a short window before much of East Germany’s history would be forgotten, especially the individual stories. She went to work, spending much time in the former GDR and getting to know many people who lived the Stasi years, either as perpetrators or victims. She took the time not only to research the facts, but to get to know the people. The result is a collection of stories that have heart and are historically important. Listening to this book is getting immersed into a different world, Stasiland. The scenes are very well written making it a pleasure to follow even when the stories are sad. There is much sadness for sure, but also courage, humor and above all, hope. The narration on this audiobook is fantastic. I love the narrator’s accent and performance. What wonderful achievement. Highly recommended.

Amazing

Anna Funder did a beautiful job with Stasiland. Her talent for writing is only matched by her capacity for her empathy, and knowledge of 20th century German history. As I am in grad school studying to work in the foreign policy/int'l relations part of my own govt, I am studying a different language and country than German and Germany, but I am seriously f-ing impressed by her achievements of learning German and going to former East Germany, in order to foster relationships with former East Germans, from former Stasis, Stasi informants, both citizens who succeeded in the repressive system and those who resisted it. It takes much talent and skill to go to a foreign country and persuade lots of different types of people to talk about a dark period of local history. Anna Funder's Stasiland is also newly relevant, given the portion of his career that KGB officer turned dictator of Russia, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin spent stationed in Dresden working with the Stasi, and how many of those former Stasis currently are assisting him to influence geopolitics and industry in Europe- Gerhardt Schroeder and Mattias Wernig, for example, and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. In order to understand the present and build the future, we must understand the past. Anna Funder's Stasiland is an enormous contribution to better understanding that past. I highly recommend, whether to apply what you learn to the current world as I've just described, or for entertainment, it's a gripping book right from the first chapter. Tales of totalitarianism are so important.

Strong reminder of police state bleakness

Overall solid. Especially interesting were the first person accounts of both victims and former Stasi, very nuanced and insightful. A bit too much extraneous pondering by the author, but not enough to diminish the worth of the book.

Stick with the paper/Kindle versions.

This is a fantastic look at the role of the Stasi in individuals' lives in the DDR. Read it.

Yes, read it, don't listen to it. The narrator is fine when just reading straight English, but when struggling with German words--even common, "easy" words--or trying to do "characters" she is appallingly bad. I don't understand why the publishers would hire someone who can neither pronounce nor stick to any sort of consistent style for pronunciation of German words or names. She is inconsistent with either Anglicizing the pronunciation or very awkwardly attempting it in German. The character voices she attempts are all essentially the same, artificially lowered, almost mockingly dopey voice. The narrator was distracting from the content, and this book deserved much better.

Shocking True Tales of Thought Policing

In depth, highly personal stories of the damaging and enduring effects of fascism on German society. Poetically written and empathetically told.

Great find

Having been born in the GDR, and having some fleeting memories, this was such an amazing read. My mother was imprisoned at 18 because she helped some people flee, and it made me understand better her, and some of the things she did and did not do as mother....

Powerful

This book was not only enthralling because of the moving and harrowing stories that it tells, but also because of the engaging style of writing by the author. She mixes personal and overarching narratives with an expertise that makes you feel every word.

Listen to this book.

Orwellian Account of East Berlin

A reminder to the younger generations of this country not to take the freedoms they enjoy for granted, or to be so willing to give those freedoms away to others to administer.

The East Germany That Really is Like 1984

The hostilities between the two German republics following WWII is well-known and documented, as is the Berlin Wall and how people from the east tried to cross it to freedom. However, daily life in the German Democratic Republic of the 1950s through 1989 isn't as well documented or discussed. Here, Anna Funder tries to bring to life the realities of communist East Germany and how it still effects people living in this part of Germany to this day.

If you've read Orwell's novel 1984, a lot of the mentality will seem familiar in the GDR as in many former Soviet countries. Being monitored was a reality of daily life: your friends might be informers, even small things you said or did could be used to ruin chances at a job or going to college, etc. Privacy was not a concept, as one of the women Funder interviewed revealed when she said she always thought someone was listening to her calls to her Italian boyfriend and later learned the Stasi did copy and read her correspondence with him. Paranoia was also a big factor too: the idea that people may think differently, may question the regime or want to change things from within was always a worry. So too was the false front of communist unity and productivity and resistance to western influence. Equally disturbing was how people disappear: Funder's interview with Miriam and her husband's imprisonment and probable murder is a good example. She couldn't even locate his body and everyone tried to act like he hadn't been cremated against her will. He just died from "suicide" according to the Stasi and that was that, though they monitored the funeral that Miriam insisted on having anyway.

What I've also found interesting so far is how similar the nostalgia mentality for the GDR has been in recent years in reaction to the democratization of Eastern Germany. People complain that homelessness and drugs weren't a part of GDR life, but it does seem like a rose-colored view of it without the constant surveillance and threats against your life and family. It's very similar to the accounts I've read of how Russia and Serbia tried to reform into democracies following the collapse of the USSR and the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s but found change overnight wasn't going to be simple and that people also needed to change as well. It also seems a lot of former Stasi and GDR leaders are reluctant to accept how many people were oppressed by the GDR policies and how their ideas of communist harmony were limited to a small group of people in power. Or perhaps it's just easier to remember the rosy past rather than deal with cold hard reality.

Denica Farman has been a great reader of this book. I speak no German so I presume her pronunciations are spot-on and she's good at making people sound as they might. From Funder's landlady whose life is still haunted by her childhood, to the former voice of the GDR's propaganda program, the Black Channel, who refuses to acknowledge the failure of the regime, you can hear irony, pompousness, fear, mockery, etc. It fits each person Funder works with well.

As someone who knows very little about the GDR, it's interesting to hear these stories and how these issues still haunt eastern Germany today. Compared to the western part of the country, it remains in some ways the way it did during the GDR: conservative to a fault, suspicious of everyone and repressed in some way or another. But it's important to hear this history from the people who lived in it because its lessons are important today. If you're interested in German Cold War history or want to learn more about East Germany, this is a good listen.