Reading and writing the stasi file: On the uses and abuses of the file as (auto)biography

Abstract

The opening of the Stasi files in 1992, made possible by the Stasi Documents Legislation, was an important symbolic act of reconciliation between victims and perpetrators. For victims, reading their file provided a means of re-appropriating stolen aspects of their lives and rewriting their life histories. This article argues that the Stasi file itself can be viewed as a form of hostile biography, authored by an oppressive state apparatus, that constituted in GDR times an all-powerful written 'technology of power'. The analogy of secret police files to literary genres enables us to pose a number of questions about the current uses to which the files are being put by victims and perpetrators. ..