By Gary Bruce

I. Background

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n expectation of vast amounts of documentation, East Germany's Ministry for State Security (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit) built its central archive in East Berlin out of reinforced concrete.' Within the walls of this archive, and the regional MfS archives, lie over 102 miles of documents. Although the amount of archival material is enormous, it would have been even greater had the MfS' successor, the Office for National Security (Amt für Nationale Sicherheit - AfNS), not destroyed considerable amounts of the holdings in the fall of 1989. Ironically, the order by Wolfgang Schwanitz, the last head of the AfNS, on 7 December 1989 to systematically destroy incriminating material hastened the demise of the secret police.3 Smoke billowing out of the chimneys of MfS regional offices incited citizens to storm the buildings and secure the documents. The security of the archival material was also a primary motivation for the several thousand citizens who stormed the MfS headquarters in East Berlin on 15 January 1990.5

On the same day of the storming of the headquarters, a "citizens' committee" was created to oversee the dismantling of the AfNS. Present right of access to the MfS documents is primarily a result of pressure from this committee, and other East German grass roots movements, for full access to the files. This pressure forced the East German parliament, which had been freely elected in March 1990, to pass a law on 24 August 1990 requiring that MfS records remain on the territory of the GDR, rather than be transferred to the West German federal archives in Koblenz, as foreseen in the draft unification treaty, where they would have been subject to stricter West German classification rules.' The draft unification treaty was subsequently adjusted to reflect that MfS files would remain on GDR territory. Furthermore, an addendum to the treaty stated that a future all-German parliament would address other issues concerning the files, such as the conditions of access to MFS files for the victims of the secret police, and the ban on file use by the new German secret service. The German Unification Treaty of 1990 created a special body to administer the MFS files called the "Special Commissioner of the Federal Government for the Files of the former State Security Service" (Sonderbeauftragte für die Unterlagen des ehemaligen Staatssicherheitsdienstes) under the leadership of Rostock pastor Joachim Gauck." The use of MfS files was codified in the "Law on the Files of the State Security Service of the former German Democratic Republic" (Gesetz über die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, or simply Stasi-UnterlagenGesetz) of 20 December 1991. This law came into force on 1

January 1992.

II. Holdings

The central MfS archives contain two broad categories of documents: personal files, and files relating to the administration of the MfS (Sachakten). The personal files, which make up 80 percent of the archival holdings, consist of records on approximately four million East Germans and two million West Germans.10 Due to privacy considerations, these documents are only accessible to those individuals personally affected, or to researchers who have obtained permission from those affected for use of their files." In general, these files deal solely with the conduct of certain individuals. The remaining 20 percent of MfS files will be of greater interest to historians of the GDR, for these documents provide more information on GDR society, the functioning of the MfS, and its place within the state apparatus.12

The documents of three record groups of the Sachakten are particularly noteworthy: the "documentation section" (Dokumentenstelle), the Secretariat of the Minister (Sekretariat des Ministers - SdM), and the Central Evaluation and Information Group (Zentrale Auswertungsund Informationsgruppe -ZAIG.) The "documentation section" contains a collection of instructions, directives, guidelines and other similar orders from the MfS leadership, as well as a series of documents from the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry for National Defense.13 These documents provide detail on the operational conduct of the MfS and insight into its internal divisions and organization. Documents in this group cover a wide range of topics, from relatively straightforward orders for securing May Day festivities in the GDR, to detailed instructions regarding the recruitment of informants, to often 40-50 page long directives outlining operations against particular targets.

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The documents in the "Secretariat of the Minister" record group are critical to the understanding of the hierarchy of the MfS and shifting priorities for the organization. These documents cover the period from 1945 to 1989 and contain, among other items, the protocols of conferences of the MfS leadership, the Kollegium sessions from 1954 to 1989, and other meetings of the MfS leadership.1 Because of the lack of information on the foreign espionage branch of the MfS, this record group will be of considerable interest to researchers dealing with the GDR's foreign espionage, for Markus Wolf's comments occupy a prominent position in the discussions of the MfS leadership. These documents are also important for tracing the careers of the leading figures in the MfS. They do not, however, contain much information relating to developments within the Socialist Unity Party.15

The "Secretariat of the Minister" documents often provide insight into GDR society through the speeches of the various department heads on the situation in their jurisdiction, but they do not provide the detail found in documents of the Central Evaluation and Information Group. The ZAIG collected and evaluated information from unofficial informants from the general population on the situation in the GDR, and prepared a summary and analysis for the leadership of the MfS, the Party, and the government.16 Furthermore, this branch was responsible for ensuring that the leadership plans were carried out at the lower levels of the MfS." This record group contains enormous documentation on popular opinion towards developments in the GDR, especially for the 1970s and 1980s. Because the ZAIG was not founded until the mid1950s, researchers who are interested in MfS evaluation of the popular mood prior to that date will have to turn to the files of the ZAIG predecessor, the Central Information Group (Zentrale Informationsgruppe.) The reports on the population on which the Central Information Group based its analysis are contained in a general record group called the Allgemeine Sachablage. The files of the ZAIG and its forerunner are especially useful in determining the popular perception of the SED and its politics, and therefore researchers dealing with opposition and resistance in East Germany will have to consider these sources. 18

III. Limitations

It is, of course, the responsibility of each researcher to judge the value of MfS documents for their own topics. A few general words about the limitations of the documents, and the archives themselves, are nevertheless in order. The extent to which the MfS documents were deficient in reflecting actual developments in GDR society should be kept in mind. On the citizens' movement (Bürgerbewegung) of the 1980s, for example, the MfS documents are important because the movement itself did not leave much written material and there is little information on the movement in the archives of the SED.19 Yet one would be unwise to accept MfS documents as an accurate reflection of opposition in the 1980s. In the spring of 1989, the MFS reported approximately 150 oppositional groups with an active membership of 2,500 and a further 5,000 who were sympathetic to the groups or passive supporters.20 However, present estimates suggest that there were at least 325 oppositional groups, and between 10,000 and 15,000 people who were actively involved with the groups.21 Historians interested in gaining insight into GDR society would be advised to consult other sources in addition to the MFS files, such as the police records, files of the nonMarxist parties, SED reports, church files, or the records of the Free German Trade Union.

There are certain subjects for which, due to several reasons, MFS files are unavailable. There is little documentation on the foreign espionage branch of the MfS because of the widespread destruction of documents that took place in the fall of 1989.22 It should be noted,

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however, that it is by no means clear how much of this documentation survived, be it in eastern Germany or Washington. The recent discovery of a data base of HVA informants and a catalogue of their reports (the so-called "Sira" data base for System, Information, Recherche der Aufklärung), and the corresponding revelation that CIAheld Stasi files acquired after 1989 hold a key to deciphering the code names, are testimony to the above points.2 There is also little material on the role of the KGB in the Mfs in the 1950s.24 Due to classification, there are a number of files that remain closed to researchers, including files relating to supranational organizations and foreign countries, counter-intelligence, terrorism, and secret West German matters. 25 Much material still remains inaccessible because of the chaotic state in which the archives were left. Roughly one third of archival material has yet to be catalogued.26

The "unofficial classification" taking place in the archive also poses a barrier to researchers. External researchers are not guaranteed the same complete access to non-classified materials as the researchers of the internal research branch (Abteilung Bildung und Forschung). What is worse, external researchers are usually unaware of this practice because they are not informed that information is being withheld and, because of the manner in which the archive operates (outlined below), are not able to verify for themselves what documentation should be available. This unacceptable practice likely has its roots in the territorialism of the internal research division. A muchneeded breakdown of the early organization of the MfS which has been produced by the BStU, for example, is for the exclusive use of the in-house researchers.27

Apart from limitations of the holdings, the procedure for processing a research application also poses certain limitations for researchers. After a researcher has applied and received permission to use the archives-which is presently a process of between 1 1/2 and 2 years-the researcher is invited to the archives to discuss his/her topic with a Sachbearbeiter.28 The Sachbearbeiter then commissions a search for relevant material. Once material has been located, the researcher is invited back to the archives to see the material. Because there are no finding aids, the researcher is entirely dependent on the Sachbearbeiter and their instructions to the locators for retrieval of information. The dependence on the Sachbearbeiter is a drawback for researchers, as Sachbearbeiter often have little knowledge of the topic at hand, nor are they always aware of the most important archival holdings on the subject. This deficiency in the archives is largely due to the inefficient manner in which research applications are assigned to Sachbearbeiter. Topics are assigned to Sachbearbeiter based on the Sachbearbeiter's general area of responsibility, such as "Border Issues," with little regard for periodization. As a result, each Sachbearbeiter handles an enormous range of topics from all eras of the MfS that fall loosely under their jurisdiction, and, to be fair, they cannot be expected to

provide a thorough treatment of the application. This problem is compounded by the clear lack of cooperation between the division of the archives responsible for external researchers, and the internal research division. Sachbearbeiter are too often unaware of the research projects being carried out by their colleagues in the research division and thus are unable to take advantage of their colleagues' knowledge of archival holdings. There is, however, usually little difficulty in retrieving material if the researcher already has the archival call number.

IV. Present research

The research division of the archives has already published a series of valuable documentation on and analyses of the MfS.29 At present, the research division continues to research its main project, the MfS-Handbuch, which will provide a detailed history of the institution from its beginning until 1990 once completed. Several installments of the MfS-Handbuch have already been published.30 Other projects underway include "Women in the MfS," "The prison system of the GDR under the influence of the Ministry for State Security," and "The Influence of the MfS on the Human Rights Debate in the GDR."

Researchers interested in the latest research projects being carried out by the internal research division should consult Aktuelles aus der DDR-Forschung, available on-line at http://www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/ddr-forschung/ Projekt.html. The forth official update produced by the BStU (4. Tätigkeitsbericht) appeared in 1999.

Gary Bruce teaches history at St. Thomas University. His book, Resistance with the People: Resistance in Eastern Germany 1945-55 is due out in July 2001 from Westview Press.

1 Joachim Gauck, Die Stasi-Akten: Das unheimliche Erbe der DDR (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1991), p. 11.

2 Roger Engelmann, "Zum Quellenwert der Unterlagen des Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit," in Klaus-Dietmar Henke, Roger Engelmann (eds.), Aktenlage: Die Bedeutung der Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes für die Zeitgeschichtsforschung (Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag, 1995), p. 24.

By Paul Maddrell

The three documents below' shed light on two neglected themes of Cold War history: first, how scientists returning to the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the 1950s were bribed and flattered to become members of its privileged nomenklatura, and, second, which of the scientists who refused these privileges and became valuable to Western intelligence services, particularly those of the United States and Britain. The reports depict one aspect of the division of Germany in the 1950s: the division of its scientific community, and its significant consequences for intelligence-gathering in the two Germanies. Scientists who returned to East Germany in the years 1950-58 from compulsory work in the Soviet Union. promised to be of value to the GDR authorities for the contribution they could make to its scientific progress; they were of great interest to the intelligence services of Britain and the United States because they could provide much sought-after information on the military-industrial complex of the USSR. Some fled to the West soon after their return to East Germany, either by arrangement with a Western intelligence service or on their own initiative; some, for one reason or another, threw in their lot with the Socialist Unity Party (SED) and some (generally the less important scientists) were allowed to go West. Others, who stayed in the GDR, may have been recruited by Western intelligence services as "agents-in-place" in important research institutes, factories and ministries. Their controllers were particularly interested in any connections between these institutions and institutes, factories and ministries in the USSR itself.

Loyalty and how to buy it is the dominant theme of the first report.2 Dated 31 December 1954, the report was written in anticipation of the return to East Germany in 1955 of the most important of the atomic scientists taken by force to the Soviet Union in 1945. The SED was eager to keep in the GDR those scientists, engineers and technicians who had been employed on atomic tasks in the Soviet Union. The well-informed Soviets (referred to in the report with the characteristic SED term "die Freunde❞— "our Friends") provided its officials with information on the returning men and women. Both Soviet and East German officials examined the returning scientists and their background closely, looking for sympathy towards Communism, affection for the Soviet Union, and a lack of ties to the West, all of which would help to prevent them from going West as soon as they found themselves on German soil. Equally useful to the Party were flaws in the character of each scientific worker. Financial greed and a need for admiration from others (Geltungsbedürfnis) would lay the target open to bribery and flattery, activites at

which the nomenklatura state excelled. Both failings were rightly detected in abundance in Baron Manfred von Ardenne, who is discussed in the first report below. The SED's officials saw it would be worthwhile to make a show of admiration for von Ardenne, and Ulbricht made sure to send a personal representative, Fritz Zeiler, to greet him when he arrived in Frankfurt-an-der-Oder three months later. Zeiler's report to Ulbricht on the encounter is the second document below. Zeiler was an appropriate choice to meet von Ardenne, as he was the department chief in the SED's Central Committee responsible for economic management. In his autobiography, von Ardenne mistakenly remembers his name as Eichler.

Just as the SED waited expectantly for the return of scientists it saw as likely to be useful to the development of science in the fledgling GDR, the CIA, British Intelligence and the CIA-controlled Gehlen Organization' also prized these people for their value to intelligence. Thus, on the other side of the Berlin sectoral divide, the Western intelligence services also waited for the returnees. The East German Ministry of State Security [Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, or MfS], aware of the Western intelligence services' interests in these scientists, kept two lists. The first list is of eleven men whom the SED regarded as security risks because it suspected that the men had "links with secret services, were formerly counter-intelligence officers in the Gestapo, displayed a hostile attitude at work and have interesting connections with persons in foreign capitalist countries." The MfS would investigate these men [Des weiteren müssen folgende Spezialisten operativ bearbeitet werden].

The second list, the A-list of eighteen scientists, is composed of men who, for security reasons, were to be kept in the GDR. They had worked on important research projects in the USSR, and the Soviets did not want their knowledge to become available to the Americans, British or West Germans. Misspellings complicate the task of establishing to whom the surnames on the list refer, but an additional list, prepared at about the same time entitled "List of German specialists, workers and their families who are being released from work in the USSR and wish to return to their homeland" [Liste der deutschen Spezialisten, Arbeiter und ihrer Familien, die von der Arbeit in der UdSSR entbunden werden und in die Heimat zurückkehren wollen] contained in the same SAPMOBundesarchiv file, eases this task, since those on it with the same or similar names are likely the same as those on the A-list. All but two of those on the A-list had certainly worked on atomic projects in the USSR; it is likely that they all had.

The A-list is dominated by the "Riehl Group," a group