ABSTRACT
The lavish celebrations laid on by the evil old men at the top for the fortieth anniversary of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was, in the beginning, accompanied only by small-scale protest from splinter opposition groups. The attempt to deal with the Stasi past reflects the wish, at least partially, to bridge the gap that existed in the former GDR between "us" and "them: the people and the elite. The courageous protesters of Leipzig were symbolic of the rebirth of citizenship. It was a heady period for all who for decades had been forced to keep their heads down. The Federal Commissioner for Documents of the State Security Service of the former GDR and the body that bears the same name began work on German Unity Day. The Commission's main activities consist of providing data for the public service and preserving and arranging the archive.
