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From Amazon
When Timothy Garton Ash graduated from Oxford in 1978, he went to live in Berlin, ostensibly to research and write about Nazism. But once there, he gradually immersed himself in a study of the repressive political culture of East Germany. As if to return the favor, that culture--in the form of the dreaded East German secret police, the "Stasi"--secretly began studying him. As was Stasi's practice, over the years its study produced a considerable paper trail. After the fall of the East German communist regime, a government apparatus was established to allow those targeted to see their Stasi files, and Garton Ash discovered and pored over his. He then set about to interview the people who made this gross intrusion possible, the several case officers, and the numerous regular-citizen informers. The result is nothing short of a journey into the darkest recesses of the totalitarian mind, taking its place honorably alongside 1984 and Darkness at Noon.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Library Journal
Garton Ash's (In Europe's Name, LJ 1/94) investigative memoir focuses on the waning days of the Cold War, when espionage and suspicion were the order of the day in Eastern Europe. The author went to Berlin to study in 1978 and soon came under the scrutiny of the Stasi, the notorious East German secret police. In 1993, Garton Ash had the opportunity to examine the secret file kept on him. Comparing the file reports with his private diary of the time, he finds distortions, fabrications, and surprising omissions in the file. There are compelling accounts of visits to his informers and the officers who monitored his case, yet the most revealing aspects of this book center on Garton Ash's search for his "lost self." While marveling at reunited Germany's unprecedented opening of the secret police files, he also analyzes the Germans' attempts to come to terms with their past. Hence, this work makes an important contribution to the literature of the new Europe and is recommended for most academic and public libraries.
-?Thomas A. Karel, Franklin & Marshall Coll. Lib., Lancaster, Pa.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
-?Thomas A. Karel, Franklin & Marshall Coll. Lib., Lancaster, Pa.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Skip it,
By A Customer
This review is from: File: The: A Personal History (Hardcover)
While this book provides detail to what everyone knows (the Stasi spied on everyone, including the sixth of the population that worked for it) it offers very little else. Missing is any sense whatsoever of the psychological effects of living in this kind of society or any kind of nuanced understanding of what it has meant to confront these files. Ash gives some small indications of what his own responses were, but as a Westerner who expected to be spied on for his activities, his experience is not very instructive. Garton Ash has many things to be proud of, but this book is not one of them.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Book about a sensitive subject.,
By Erich Dieter Groebe (Springfield, Missouri United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The File: A Personal History (Paperback)
I came across this book by accident just searching for books about East Germany on Amazon.com. On a personal note, I myself immigrated from the USA to the DDR (Home of my fathers family) in 1982 and lived there until 1987 when I was expelled for political reasons. This book told of many things I personally experienced, confirmed many things I had long suspected and informed me of many things I never knew.It is an excellent, accurate look at a country and a system that have passed into oblivion but left many scars on many people.
5.0 out of 5 stars
The kind of book that slaps you in the back of the head.,
By
This review is from: The File: A Personal History (Paperback)
I did not read this book for the reasons I ended up enjoying it. Timothy Garton Ash's delving into his Stasi file is a peek into the madness and organized obsurdity of the East German State. The reader is presented with a wonderful feel for what it was like to live in East Berlin as well as the motives and workings of both Stasi IMs and the Federal Authority which now oversees the administration of the Stasi files. On another level it is a book about a middle aged man looking back on his Romantic youth, on a man he can not remember well, and sees again through the eyes of the slightly paranoid and slightly inaccurate secret police. In the end though, this is a frightening book that leaves the reader wondering what are in the secret intelligence files of the Western style democracies.
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