ABSTRACT
One of the most controversial issues during the East German revolution was whether or not to open the Pandora's box of microfilm, discs, tapes and documents which had survived destruction by the MfS. The question of access sometimes cut across the lines of political parties and citizens' movements, although the latter were generally in favour of opening the files. Needless to say, former MfS employees, some of whom were used by the government in the dismantling of the ministry, hoped for their closure. A cogent case could be made for both opening and restricting access. If access were strictly limited or the files destroyed, privacy would be protected, wounds in East German society perhaps healed without sensationalist disclosures and a witch hunt for agents, and a line therefore drawn under the past. It was also argued that the dubious records of a secret police were inappropriate for assessing and making judgements on the disparate reasons for an individual's collaboration with the Stasi and on complex social and political processes. 1 Pastor Rainer Eppelmann, who became Minister of Defence and Disarmament after the March 1990 elections to the Volkskammer, also had serious reservations, fearing that the new political freedoms would be jeopardised by 'denunciations, revelations, and acts of revenge'. The Minister of the Interior, Diestel, warned that the Stasi records - 'these products of evil' could not be used to determine innocence and guilt as 'there were only two [types of individuals] who were truly innocent in this system, the newborn child and the alcoholic'. 2 Diestel's chief, Minister President Lothar de Maizière, 237even went so far as to predict murder and manslaughter if the files were opened. 3 On balance, representatives of the West German government favoured closure, partly because they wished to avoid revelations about secret service practices. Some, like the Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, wondered whether it would not be better to concentrate on the reconstruction of the GDR rather than becoming embroiled in heated controversies over the millions of East Germans who had been connected with the Stasi in so many different ways. 4
