Germany The Pain of Purification

By Howard G. Chua-Eoan

Bespectacled and goateed, Lothar de Maiziere always looked less like a politician than a classical musician. In fact, before he became East Germany's first -- and last -- freely elected head of government in April 1990, De Maiziere was once a professional violist. After a nerve ailment ended his orchestral career, he took to defending dissidents in court against the Communists who then ruled the East. Last week he resigned as Minister Without Portfolio from Chancellor Helmut Kohl's government after he was labeled with another vocation: informant.

De Maiziere had twice outlasted rumors of Stasi links since his rise from political obscurity. Not this time. In early December the weekly Der Spiegel claimed that under the old regime he regularly provided information to the infamous Ministry of State Security, popularly known as Stasi. The magazine reproduced a Stasi file card indicating that an informant lived at De Maiziere's Berlin address. His code name: Czerny, the surname of a 19th century Austrian composer.

De Maiziere protested his innocence, but there are some indications that Czerny could have been De Maiziere. Though he quit the government, De Maiziere vowed to keep his seat in parliament "and at the same time undertake everything in my power to clear up the suspicion."

The Stasi stain, however, will be almost impossible to erase -- for De Maiziere as well as tens of thousands of other former citizens of East Germany. At its height, the ministry was the most powerful arm of the communists and had at its command 85,000 full-time workers, 109,000 paid informants and innumerable unofficial snoops who kept tabs on everything from visiting foreigners to the affairs of their neighbors. It kept files on 4 million of the country's citizens as well as 2 million West Germans. Placed end to end, the Stasi's records would reportedly stretch 65 miles, and they have yet to be properly evaluated by the new unified government. The potential for disrupting ordinary lives -- of those guiltless as well as those in secret desperation -- is immense.

In the final days of East Germany, the country's parliament was scandalized by the discovery that 56 of its 400 deputies, including 15 ministers, had Stasi ties. In fact, De Maiziere became leader of the conservative coalition that was elected to rule East Germany only after its most likely prime- ministerial candidate, civil rights lawyer Wolfgang Schnur, resigned in the wake of charges that he was a Stasi informant. Stasi officials remain in control of much of the newly privatized sector of the eastern economy.

At the archives, some material still lies in sacks, a reminder of the confusing citizens' takeover of Stasi headquarters in the early days of the East German revolution. Last week rules were issued that permitted access to those charged with collaborating with the Stasi and those seeking rehabilitation from past slanders, among others. So far, several inquiries have been government background checks. Security and intelligence agencies are barred from the files.

These guidelines, however, remain preliminary. If the federal parliament decides to admit all citizens who are mentioned in the records into the archives, as some government officials suggest, there will be a flood of inquiries from those who want to see their former oppressors and secret accusers brought to justice. Already many Germans are aghast over revelations of former spies -- and therefore traitors -- in their midst. Fearful of the divisive potential of "de-Stasification," some Germans have called for a limited amnesty. In an interview in the daily Die Welt, former Chancellor Willy Brandt said, "Those who abused their countrymen and enriched themselves must go before the courts . . . ((but)) let the others lie in peace." And while East Germany committed no horrors on the scale of the Third Reich, some Germans fear a replay of the turmoil associated with the purges of postwar de- Nazification.

Other Germans disagree. "You cannot build a new start on a lie," says Barbel Bohley, a leading civil rights activist from Eastern Germany. She warns of the possibility of a "corruptible parliament with members susceptible to blackmail" for their Stasi past. Says Karl-Dietrich Bracher, a political scientist at the University of Bonn: "If we were to have a general amnesty, there would be a general disgust with politics. Some kind of purification is necessary."

Because De Maiziere played an important role in helping Kohl speed unification, many Germans feel a twinge of regret at his fall from grace. If he was an informant, De Maiziere would have been small fry in East Germany's maze of domestic spies. Yet even if he vindicates himself in court, he is likely to be permanently wounded by the allegations. And he will not be the last.

With reporting by Daniel Benjamin/Bonn and James O. Jackson/Berlin