The problem with many books that add a very specific and precise slice to the overall pie of the historical record is that they often tend to be thematically thin as well. The writer of a certain historical event or a text that covers perhaps only a certain limited chronology or views the big picture from within an aperture of limited scope often becomes so detail-oriented as to forget or possibly simply overlook that just as a subject can be narrowed for emphasis, so can it be broadened for perspective. This, most assuredly, is not the case with Anna Funder’s Stasiland. Although the story she tells is quite limited in scope as a portrait of a totalitarian terrorism under the orbit of Soviet domination, it manages to cover such an abundance of thematic territory as to become a prime example of how not to let the construction of focus overwhelm the bigger story.
The bigger story here is, most assuredly, the effects upon daily life and everyday anonymous people by an authoritarian regime that exists upon a backbone of paranoid control. Ostensibly about nothing more than the East German secret police known as the Stasi and how it interacted with both those who resisted and those who collaborated with its evil, the book winds up becoming a commentary upon a more universal and collective idea of such repressive techniques. With the passage of time, inf act, the book has come to be applicable to more of the world than one could have imagined at the time of publication.
The dominant theme of the story is, naturally, the impact upon the psychology of living in a society where there is quite literally the fear and potential that every word one speaks, place one goes, person one meets and even ideas one holds are under surveillance that holds out the lingering potential for bringing about harsh retribution for defiance of the prevailing power. The East German society which the author describes could quite easily fit into Orwell’s dystopic nightmare 1984 with very little editing or alteration. The result is a portrait of how the tiniest aspects of what one takes for granted as part of their daily routine become invested with greater significance as a result of the sheer maintenance required. The simple act of retrieving one’s man and opening the envelopes that is hardly given a thought in free societies becomes a gamble under a repressive regime guided by paranoia.
The paranoia, in fact, becomes viral in the way it spreads from the watchers to those being watched. When one opens an envelope under those conditions, one will eventually be conditioned to look for signs of tampering and not just with personal correspondence; even "junk mail" could come under suspicion. Does a sticker attached to a damaged envelope reading “Damaged in Transit” mean simply that it was actually damaged accidentally, or does it mean that it had been opened and inspected? And if inspected: was anything incriminating—even if only to the conspiracy-minded inspectors capable of seeing sedition in literally anything—removed? And if removed, what could it mean down the road? And if nothing was actually removed, but the recipient simply is left to wonder if the damaged envelope reached them fully intact what is the psychological impact of that paranoia?
Such is the mindset of wonder, ambiguity, fear and simple trepidation that leads inexorably both to becoming active participants in the resistance and to becoming active collaborators. This is an example of the bigger picture that the narrow focus on the East German secret police widens to example. What creates an informer? It is merely a sincere belief in the ruling ideology? Funder’s stories suggest otherwise. The real-life accounts of those who turned informer as well as those informed upon demonstrates that the role of the informer in an atmosphere stoked by paranoia is far more complicated than merely being a divide between those who believe and those who don’t. The bigger picture here is suggestive of a reality that is much more sinister and capable of provoking shudders.
Those who collaborate and assist in the wicked repressive authority of a group like the Stasi may actually be comprised of a substantial chunk of absolute non-believers who stand in ideological opposition to everything they are collaborating with…and yet, there they are. Why would this be? The answer supplied by the stories of those whom Funder interviewed seems counterintuitive: they are victims of the system as well. They are victims of the paranoia and engendering of distrust and the always hovering possibility that the next door to be knocked down the purpose of a brutal arrest will be theirs. If the option is between becoming a victim and avoiding becoming a victim, the decision-making process behind collaboration becomes infinitely more complicated than the black and white world of believers versus deniers.
This is just one example of how the specific story that is told in Stasiland is expanded to paint a portrait unfortunately too easily applied to the rest of the world. In addition, the author also explore the ways that coercion is used through propaganda to reduce the necessity of force to keep people in line. The issue of propaganda always creates entry for an exploration of thematic line that America has managed to avoid for most of its history, but which came crashing down upon it near in the second decade of the 21st century. Few would have ever even entertained the ridiculous assumption that one day the very nature of truth would become an issue of contention the way it does in despotic regimes like East Germany. On this issue, Stasiland proves it existence as a story about something much larger than its subject.
