Schutzraum Familie? Strukturen und Typologien von Bespitzelungsprozessen innerhalb von Künstlerfamilien in der DDR

Abstract

This thesis investigates the interdisciplinary topic of surveillance within intellectual families in the former GDR by the secret police [Staatssicherheit], primarily focussing on those families in which one partner or relative was an informant for the secret police and was spying or was reported to be spying on a close family member. The analysis seeks to clarify the question of whether it was an official strategy of the Ministry of State Security to abuse the private sphere of public figures in order to collect detailed information about critics of the SED regime, or whether the private sphere symbolized a taboo for the Staatssicherheit. The research and the fieldwork carried out for this project reveal that there are only a few documented cases about the process of spying within intellectual families. Nevertheless the files that document these cases can be regarded as highly significant documents, since they give a detailed insight into how the Ministry of State Security tried to intervene and control the life of a public person. The process of how the secret police operated within the structure of a family is another key question of the investigation. Structures within the files reveal that, even within a family,the process of surveillance was mostly based outside of these social structures, giving the informant the role not of an intruder into the family, but as a networker within the public social life of the relatives. The topic is rooted in the field of Germanic Studies but touches on the fields of cultural studies and political studies, involving a thorough investigation of the files of the Ministry of State Security, offering an overview and detailed examination of the topic, analysing when and under which circumstances the sphere of a family became the target of informants. Divided into four case studies from different decades, the work focusses on the writers Brigitte Reimann, Hans Joachim and Susanne Sch?dlich, Uwe Kolbe and the politician Vera Lengsfeld, offering an interdisciplinary analysis of a key aspect of the cultural history in the GDR by examining the influence of the so-called Stasi-Files on autobiographical writings, drawing on and comparing archive material, autobiographies and the literary output of the selected authors. Furthermore, the analysis takes into account the developments that have shaped the perception of so-called post-Wende narrations or artistic works which deal with the memories of the GDR and display the traumatic experience of being spied on by a close family member. The study draws on the corresponding autobiographical writings and further artistic adaptations, such as films and documentary theatre plays, describing structures and typologies, focussing on different narratives within these works. The study reveals a specific development within these post-Wende narratives and autobiographical narrations by stressing that the time that has passed since reunification allows on one hand for the use of a more explicit and direct language in terms of describing the process of betrayal and giving way to a more independent analysis of the situation, while on the other hand allows for the manifestation of new stereotypes or intensely interpreted versions of autobiographical adaptations of the victims? past.