by Friedrich W. Busch and Peter-Paul Straube

Because they had many contacts in the West, the student communities of the GDR were a favourite target of the State Security Service. The aim was not only to spy on critical potential, but also to exert direct influence on the work of the student communities. This was partly successful, as the following article shows, which was written as part of a project funded by the German Research Foundation entitled "Catholic Student Community (KSG) in the GDR".

As the "shield and sword of the SED" and "a special organ of the dictatorship of the proletariat", the Ministry for State Security of the GDR (MfS) sought to enforce and stabilise the policies of the SED and its ideology in all areas of society for almost 40 years. The MfS was thus a constitutive instrument of power of the SED. For this reason, the repeatedly discussed view that the MfS was - especially in the 1980s - a "state within a state" must be clearly contradicted if the historical responsibility of the SED is not to be concealed.

The diverse influence of the State Security Service on the university system was not least a consequence of its specific transformation along Soviet lines at the end of the 1940s/beginning of the 1950s. The totalitarian claim to want to educate all students ideologically in the spirit of Marxism-Leninism (M/L) and not to tolerate divergent views more or less inevitably led to the deployment of an informer system.

Christian students who were known as such at universities and colleges could in many cases be sure of special attention from the SED district leadership of their university. In a multi-page "Assessment of the influence and civic attitude of religiously affiliated students at our university", which was prepared in March 1977 by the SED district leadership of TU Dresden for the Directorate of Student Affairs, the question of how religiously affiliated students made their presence felt in everyday university life is also addressed:

"Assumption of social functions in seminar groups and halls of residence ... Attempts to provoke under the guise of religious freedom ... Under the guise of religious freedom, people try to avoid social obligations ... with good professional achievements. In this way they gain great influence in the group and can push back comrade students who perform less well ... The church-affiliated forces use every opportunity to influence the political level in the group ... They use any political anonymity to exert their influence unrecognised."

These points are each supported by examples; the work of the student congregations is described and finally the following conclusion is drawn: "The atheistic propaganda both in the ML courses and in interesting forums outside teaching must be strengthened in such a way that the targeted work of the church can be countered offensively."

However, the "processing" by the MfS had the most far-reaching consequences for these and the student congregations as a whole. In an official meeting in November 1966, the Minister for State Security, Erich Mielke, stated: "Influencing the young intelligentsia continues to take place primarily within the Protestant and Catholic student congregations at universities, colleges and technical schools. The regular events organised by the student congregations are often attended by numerous young guests, so that the audience at interesting events can number up to 500 people. In this context, I would like to remind you once again of my comments on the action plans, where I made particular reference to the treatment of this ideologically corrosive concentration. The most reactionary members of these student organisations are grouped together in 'core circles', from which the negative influence and organisation of the activities of the Protestant and Catholic student communities emanates."

The MfS was also particularly interested in "working on this ideologically corrosive concentration" because, on the one hand, the student congregations were among those church organisations that had a high degree of "enemy contact", i.e. contacts with the West, and, on the other hand, their members were usually students at a state university, college or technical college.

In order to understand the Stasi's influence on the student communities and to be able to interpret the resulting files with certainty, one must know the following: Unofficial collaborators (IM) were also among the main agents of Stasi influence in the university sector; they were usually recruited for collaboration.

The so-called IM files usually consist of two parts. Firstly, the personnel file (Part I) contains what is known as the preliminary IM file, which shows, among other things, how a person was recruited (e.g. on the basis of conviction and voluntariness, material interest or through blackmail), what code name they were given and what legend was used in the recruitment process. In many cases, this section also contains a handwritten declaration of commitment. The personnel file also contains analyses of the IM's work and possible uses.

The work file (Part II) contains the results of an IM's activities in the form of reports from the leading officer about the meetings, reports written by the IM about persons or events, transcripts of tape recordings that were recorded conspiratorially at the meetings or deliberately discussed by unofficial collaborators, so-called "bug protocols" (transcripts of the meetings), and the results of the IM's work. Bug logs (transcripts of wiretapping measures), analyses and action plans prepared on the basis of the information templates, on the basis of which further Operative Person Controls (OPK) and Operative Operations (OV) were initiated, as well as materials that the IM had handed over to the commanding officer, e.g. student community programmes, photos or minutes of local council meetings. In some cases, a Part III, in which receipts for financial donations were collected, and a Part IV, e.g. for awards, were also created.

In addition to gathering information, in many cases the IM were tasked with actively participating in decision-making and organisational processes in the student communities - e.g. in the selection of topics and speakers for educational events or as accommodation providers for visitors from the Federal Republic.

The truthfulness of IM files cannot be questioned in principle. The Federal Commissioner for the Stasi, Joachim Gauck, emphasises this: "The fact that employees could design their fantasy products in order to receive a bonus or be promoted did not apply to reports on the results of the IM's work. Other parts of the MfS had to continue working with these results. This ensured mutual control, and there were also control bodies within the MfS." Nevertheless, the archival material of the MfS must be analysed extremely carefully and in a differentiated manner. The individual literary genres (IM reports, meeting reports written by MfS employees, information, action plans, etc.) must be subjected to detailed textual criticism. The process of their creation, the associated intention, the authorship and possible editorial layers must be recorded. In addition to these textual and literary critical analyses, results from research in archives of the SED, but also of the church, the CDU and the state organs must be consulted for comparison and contemporary witnesses must be heard. Only then is a specific hermeneutic of the MfS materials and, in individual cases, a differentiated approach to guilt possible.

An MfS study available to us on the subject of "Experiences and problems in the long-term development and deployment of unofficial collaborators among reactionary church circles" deals in particular with the infiltration of IMs into the church and their subsequent "disengagement".

Among other things, it reports on an IM who was assigned to the Catholic Student Community (KSG) in Zwickau in the mid-1980s. The initial aim of his assignment was to establish trusting relationships with the student chaplain and the speakers. This was to be achieved, among other things, through the following behaviour and actions of the IM: "Loyal, partly pacifist behaviour towards the teaching staff and the students of his seminar group in order to make his behaviour within the KSG credible. To this end, he must organise his FDJ work passively and request his replacement as secretary of the FDJ group, stating his church ties ... Buying religious materials in the Christian bookshop, such as 'The Cross', 'The Old Testament', 'The Good News', etc., in order to ... prepare for baptism."

After this IM had been successfully deployed in the KSG on behalf of the MfS, he was given the opportunity to study again by his employer - he had broken off his studies and was working as an unskilled labourer - but this was made dependent on membership of the SED.

In the context of the transformation of the universities and colleges in the GDR in the early 1950s, the student communities were forced out of the university space "under the umbrella of the churches", as they stood in the way of educating students in the spirit of the SED. The MfS therefore attempted to control the work of the student communities and intimidate their members. In 1963, the Leipzig KSG pastor Wolfgang Trilling felt compelled to write an "open letter" due to the repeated cases in which the State Security Service called on and in some cases pressurised members of the student community to make themselves available for its tasks, which was posted in the rooms of the student community and passed on to the other Catholic student communities. Trilling himself took it to the Leipzig district office of the MfS.

"Explanation: There are repeated cases in which the State Security Service requests and in some cases pressures members of the student community to make themselves available for its tasks, including for enquiries about the work of the student community. I would like to explain the following:

1. The events of the student community are open to the public, the monthly programme is posted in all Catholic churches in Leipzig. Guests who make themselves known to the student pastor are always welcome.
2. The student community is part of the pastoral responsibility of the Bishop of Meissen, has a constitution drawn up by him and is supported by his authority. The student pastor appointed by him is solely responsible for providing information on pastoral work in general and on the individual events of the community, to whom enquiries should be regularly referred.
3. It is not morally permissible to systematically collect information about the private views and attitudes of individual fellow human beings and pass it on to state bodies. This is forbidden
   1. according to the natural moral law, the commandment to protect the honour of one's neighbour,
   2. according to general human rights, the principle of freedom of thought and conscience,
   3. according to Christian ethics, the commandment to love one's neighbour.
4. Unless it is a matter of solving a crime, any request for co-operation as described above must be resolutely resisted from the outset.
5. In such cases, it is advisable to inform the student pastor for counselling and support. The often imposed duty of confidentiality only binds the conscience if it has been assumed in complete freedom and of one's own free will.

Leipzig, 23 November 1963

signed. Wolfgang Trilling, student pastor."

In practice, it was indeed possible in most cases for students to escape the MfS's attempts at recruitment by deconspiring. Of the 283 respondents to a written survey we carried out in 1992/93, 4% stated that they had been recruited - unsuccessfully - to work for the MfS. In response to the question "Are you aware of any disciplinary proceedings or De-registrations with a political background, assaults by the MfS in connection with a KSG affiliation?", 272 respondents to our survey answered "yes" (33%) and "no" (67%).

One of the most elaborate MfS operations on a Catholic student community was the Operative Operation (OV) "Shield", in which the KSG Leipzig was "processed" from 1969 to 1974. The materials found so far consist of 3 volumes, 14 side volumes and a folder with letters. In the decision to initiate the operational preliminary work on 5 September 1969, the reason given for this was the suspicion of the formation of a group in the KSG Leipzig that was committed to conditions similar to those in the CSSR in 1968 and was therefore engaging in anti-state agitation. At the so-called trade fair meeting during the Leipzig Spring Fair with students from the Federal Republic of Germany in March 1973, for example, at least six IM were on duty, supplying the MfS almost "around the clock" with information about the topics of the talks and lectures, the number of participants and conspicuous panellists; this gave the MfS the opportunity to make a comprehensive comparison of the information. In August 1974, it was concluded that the arrest of four former KSG members in November 1971, personnel changes in the leadership of the KSG Leipzig and a recommendation made by Bishop Schaffran of Meissen in July 1973 that political topics should not be discussed at KSG events made further "processing" of the OV "Schild" superfluous.

The State Security Service not only tried to spy on the work of the student communities through the IM, but also to help organise it. This also affected events which the MfS would actually have been expected to be interested in preventing. After all, one of the main tasks of an IM was to prevent "high-profile activities by hostile and negative forces".

Example: On 18 February 1975, a "Reiner Kunze Evening" took place as part of the inter-semester programme organised jointly by the ESG and the KSG Leipzig. The poet Kunze - categorised by the MfS as extremely "hostile-negative" - was a welcome guest in Christian youth and student groups in the 1970s. In a report by IM "Horst", which Kunze found in his Stasi files and excerpts of which were published in a small volume entitled "Deckname Lyrik" (Frankfurt 1990), the following can be read about this evening: "Around 250 people were present, including R. Kunze and Mrs ... The evening confirmed that ... texts questioning our society were often met with spontaneous applause (cf. recording)". IM "Horst", a drama student and member of the KSG Leipzig, had organised the evening and subsequently informed the MfS of the students' reactions to Kunze's texts in a written report and on tape.

This IM was infiltrated into the Leipzig KSG. From 1969 onwards, he worked as an - at times semi-official - IM on a voluntary basis and out of conviction as well as for extensive financial benefits and did not return to the GDR from a visit to West Germany on behalf of the MfS in 1980; he had "taken on" the task of "processing" the KSG Freiburg and the Frankfurter Fischer publishing house in the West, among others.

In addition to the KSG Leipzig, which was of particular interest to the MfS due to its opportunities for contact with members of West German student communities via the entry into the country with fewer formalities on the occasion of the Leipzig trade fairs, the Stasi was interested in the KSG in East Berlin - not only because of the special entry conditions in Berlin, but also because of the contact with the West Berlin educational centre for Catholic students, which was mainly through this KSG, and the various events in the educational centre of the Berlin diocese in Pappelallee in East Berlin.

The MfS was extremely successful in its contacts with Joachim Berger, who was the student pastor of the East Berlin KSG from 1969 to 1976 and who was held as an IM by the MfS under the code names "Berg" and "Johannes" during this period. Berger did not report his conversations with the MfS to his bishop. Berger justified his years of contact with the MfS by saying that this contact "seemed urgently necessary in a prolonged, politically extreme situation of the Catholic Student Community Berlin (after 1968) ... to protect the KSG as a whole and especially many of its endangered members."

The documents that have so far been made available to the Gauck Office in Berlin are mainly "meeting reports" written by an MfS officer after conversations with Berger - sometimes including tape recordings - and usually signed "Nordt, Hptm." signed "Nordt, Hptm.". They contain information about KSG Berlin events, regional events and about parishioners and student pastors. This information was supplemented by the handing over of minutes of meetings of the various committees of the Catholic student communities to the MfS.

In this way, Berger attempted - in congruence with the interests of the MfS and in part also with the Berlin church leadership (!) - to prevent and suppress tendencies and activities that were critical of society and the church, particularly in the Berlin KSG. A meeting report from June 1974 states that Berger had succeeded in "reducing the influence of negative circles from the young academics on the student community."

The student congregations were a favoured terrain for the activities of the MfS because the students were an important group from both a religious and social point of view. In close co-operation with university authorities, the SED and the CDU, and through the use of a large number of IMs and technical aids, the MfS therefore attempted to "conspiratorially process" and control the work of the student congregations, to gain leadership positions in the congregations through IMs and to influence individuals through "subversion measures". In individual cases, this led to arrests, sometimes to "Stasiphobia" and, overall, to a feeling of insecurity among KSG members, which resulted in a greater retreat into the niche student community or individual students staying away from the student communities.

An analysis of the MfS Greifswald district office dated 5 July 1973 on the situation in the Protestant and Catholic student communities in Greifswald aptly states:

"Globally, it can be assessed that the two church student youth organisations are actively hostile ideologically effective in the context of the class conflict between socialism and capitalism, in accordance with their centrally led organisations. ... Many students regard the ESG and the KSG as a 'free space', 'real freedom' or 'model of democracy' for uncontrollable discussions. This provides reactionary students with a platform to study and analyse Western publications, to spread hostile ideologies and to form groups."

Prof Dr Friedrich W. Busch, educational scientist and educational researcher, has been teaching and researching in Oldenburg since 1971. In his projects, which are mainly funded by the DFG, he has focussed on pedagogical problems and educational policy developments in the GDR. From 1966 onwards, he got to know everyday life in the GDR by travelling regularly and meeting people who were mainly involved in the church. He himself was targeted by the Stasi. - Dr Peter-Paul Straube studied theology in the GDR. In 1986 he travelled abroad and completed his doctorate in the Federal Republic of Germany after studying social sciences. After completing two research projects, including the one described above, he returned to Bautzen in Saxony at the end of 1995 as the educational director of a church education centre.