Sunday, March 16, 2014
Presidential Board Room (Omni Shoreham)
Following the fall of the East German government, the activists who helped to precipitate the regime’s collapse fought to ensure that the secret police agency, the Ministry for State Security, or Stasi, would be dismantled. I examine the motivations and actions taken by the East German citizens’ organizations to make this happen. I argue that without the driving force of the citizens’ movements, the Stasi would likely have continued to operate and destroy evidence of its work. I trace the development of the citizens’ movements and show how their actions drove the dissolution of the Stasi. I examine the role that certain activists played in forcing the transitional East German and unified German governments to create a law governing the Stasi’s files. Without pressure from activists, the law would not have passed. In pushing to preserve the Stasi’s files the East German activists continuously inserted themselves into a governmental process. In demonstrating the role of the citizens’ movements in the process of building democracy, I emphasize the importance of a multifaceted reckoning with the past that includes the voices of both the government and the people.
