Book Review: Stasiland

Reviewed by Jamaica Zuanetti

Berlin was one of my favourite cities to visit, with its mix of modern grunge and stately buildings from another era. The scar that breaks the city in two is barely visible except for a few plaques on the ground that highlight its existence. Now it is happily snapped by eager tourists and its previous life forgotten. Anna Funder’s Stasiland reveals the hidden stories of people, whose lives were irrevocably affected by the Stasi - the East Germany secret service.

The book reads like a novel as Funder expertly retells the experiences of people who were affected by the Stasi as well as those of people who worked for the various departments of The Ministry for State Security. It’s hard to believe that the Stasi’s power and surveillance over East Germany ceased just over twenty years ago. Stories of babies left on the other side of the wall, torture by sleep deprivation, unsubstantiated incarceration, ruined futures for failure to become Stasi informers and the puzzle people who attempt to reconstruct the files and lives torn apart by the Stasi police, are all told in such detail, the reader is plunged into each horrifying experience. Funder navigates the reader through Berlin and East Germany to visit former Stasi departments and headquarters that have now become museums, putting behind glass what Germany would rather forget. A gripping and moving read with personal accounts that, at times, I struggled to digest. Next time I’m in Berlin, stepping over the discoloured bricks marking the former separation will hold much more gravity.

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