Faustian Essay Draft

Funder describes the Stasi as ‘innovators, story makers and Faustian bargain-haunters” How successful is she in the portrayal?

As did Alice in Wonderland, Funder finds herself plunging deep into a world unknown. A world bathed in grey, where ‘story makers’ could ruin your future and a world where the Stasi ‘brainwashed its citizens into glorifying the GDR and spying on their friends and family’. Funder’s’ didactic text, ‘Stasiland’ explores the personal and societal effects of life under the constant watch of the former German Democratic Republic. This ‘universe in a vacuum’ was callously protected by the Stasi and a Communist society that deteriorated with the Wall. Through her investigations, Funder reveals the agonizing aftermath of the Stasi regime that thrust its immoral practises and ‘innovative’ tactics on those who fell victim to their cruel and sinister ways. Funder paints a strong picture of these ‘Faustian’ men and their profound desire to ‘know everything’, and as ‘innovators’ and ‘Faustian bargain-hunters’, these men come to life in the pages of this non-fiction text.

Through Funder’s interviews with former Stasi men, it is clear that these individuals, whose careers lay dependent on their ability to manipulate, mislead and deceive, were known to twist factual truth into complicated stories in order to control a society to kneel before their ideals. Herr Winz is a man stuck in the pretence of ‘spy games’, left out of touch with society as he continues to parade around in various, superfluous disguises. Through her interview with this particular character, she notes that he speaks ‘in authoritative barks’, forever undercover waiting for ‘the second coming of Socialism’. Funder’s authorial intrusion sees her telling the reader that she believes this man to hope ‘through me, to sow the seeds of socialism in this untainted corner of the world,’ further reiterating the fact that this is a man who does not believe in capitalism, he remains devoted to the Stasi and will eagerly await the rise of this destructive regime. Funder mentions his work for the ‘Society for the Protection of Civil Rights and the Dignity of Man’, which is both ironic and ludicrous seeing as he dedicated his life to a regime that completely disregarded all basic human rights during its reign. He remains secretive, never revealing to Funder the details of his position as a Stasi man, rather telling her of the ‘masterful work of the Stasi in counter-espionage’. In this ‘land gone wrong’ the Stasi would disguise themselves in costumes, manufacture dances of symbolic gestures and tell a wife that her innocent husband was creating pornography. Herr Von Schnitzler’s faith in this regime knows no bounds. This man ‘radiated so much nastiness he simply wasn’t credible’. His zealous belief in the Wall and the Stasi has seen Erich Mielke, a man who Funder herself describes to be ‘too fierce and feared’, named as ‘the most humane human being’. Through his work in the meticulous broadcasting of propaganda through the Black Channel, it is clear that this man is a ‘story maker’ in his truest form. Funder’s reference to Von Schnitzler’s description of ‘Big Brother’, the very show inspired by Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’, as an ‘idiotic program’, is laced with heavy irony as East Germany during the Stasi reign was just that, but on a much larger scale. This ‘grumpy old puppet’ is used to symbolise the average Stasi man, an individual whose thoughts and actions were a result of the careful actions of the Stasi, master puppeteers. These two men are the quintessential Stasi man, ‘story makers’ and ‘innovators’ in their own right whether that is through their innate need to keep up the charade of disguises and proclaim the innovative effectiveness of the regime’s surveillance techniques or rather the need to tell carefully constructed ‘stories’ to control an entire society.

Funder explores the permanently damaged and disfigured lives of those who fell victim to the Stasi’s ‘Faustian’ ways. In contrast to the way she spoke with the Stasi men, Funder speaks with tones of empathy, rather than caution. Funder’s time with Miriam leads to the reveal of the cruel and utter inhumane tactics the Stasi utilised in order to get the answers they so desperately craved. When in custody, she was left without sleep for eleven days, left sleep deprived as a result of the Stasi’s innovative tactics and forms of torture . Upon her arrest, Miriam was led down ‘naked down a corridor’, a process in which Funder refers to as the ‘Baptism of Welcome’, a symbol she uses to describe the beginning of Miriam’s dehumanization, she would no longer be Miriam Weber but ‘Juvenile Prisoner Number 725’, reborn free of her sins against the regime within the claustrophobic confinements of the prison. Through Funder’s time spent with Miriam, it is evident that after she was released, she and Charlie were two of the many individuals who fell victim to the Stasi’s innate ability to blight lives through their roles as ‘story makers’. The couple were under constant surveillance and subject to thorough house inspections throughout the entirety of their existence under the GDR regime. However, Miriam came to know the pain of losing someone you love, but also the immense difficulty in fighting a system that prides itself on deception. Fed lie after lie, or rather ‘story’ after ‘story’, Charlie is ripped away from her forever. Miriam is left to hear the carefully scripted story that implies that Charlie had committed suicide. Following Charlie’s suspicious death, it was clear just how little control Miriam had whether it was Charlie’s funeral or her inability to have an investigation undertaken into her husband’s death. The Stasi had a tight grasp on all aspects of her life and they attempted to control this ‘enemy of state’ in any means possible. It is clear through her painful experiences that she is truly a victim of the GDR. The Wall Went Straight though My Heart’, the heading of her biographical notes simply expresses the literal fact that Frau Paul’s heart was divided as her new born son, Torsten, lay ill in a hospital in Germany’s west and she in the eastern sector. In the Stasi’s ‘Faust’ like quest for ultimate knowledge, Frau Paul is given an ultimatum, give up her friend Michael and be given the chance to see her son, or refuse and face the prospect of incarceration, aware of the consequences that will come paired with her decision. ‘I had to decide against my son’, however, ‘At the time it was the right decision’. This is one example of the immoral nature of the Stasi that saw to them blackmail innocent people into becoming informer, betraying their neighbours. Funder states, in the retelling of the fateful day that she was offered this ‘deal’, that she was sat on a ‘low backless stool’. This stool ‘designed for indignity’ is a key symbol of the Stasi’s determination not to afford the people any dignity. It represents the idea that they were of higher status; they were a regime that by nature, made others feels small, like children sitting in the corner as a form punishment. Through a result of her time with these victims of the ‘Faustian’ Stasi, Funder affords them the respect and dignity that they were constantly denied during the regime’s horrific and torturous reign.

Throughout Stasiland, it cannot be determined that Funder believes all of the Stasi men to be sinister and dispassionate. She reveals that not all were sadistic and found delight in their work as Stasi, but rather after being exposed to the influence of such a regime like the GDR in their youth, their understanding and view of the world around them were shaped involuntarily. Through Funder’s time with Hagen Koch, he retells the story of his childhood and the career with the Stasi followed subsequently. The description of Hagen Koch as a man with ‘a glow about-him-a bright face and ‘soft brown eyes’ contrasts greatly to the menacing images Funder paints of individuals such as Von Schnitzler and Herr Winz, it is a much gentler image. As a result of being brought up by his father with the idea of becoming ‘a poster boy for the new regime’, his career with the GDR is natural, however, it is not ‘a regime he believed in’, raised by his father, he befell into a socialist man, ‘the GDR was like a religion. It was something I was brought up to believe in’. However, this was a ‘closed belief system that punish people for lack of belief, or even suspected lack of belief’. Koch’s childhood explores the notion that the manipulation he was exposed to as a child had subsequently shaped the decisions he made as an adult, even the one to join to the Stasi. He was not like Von Schnitzler who so irrevocably believed in a system who breached one’s right to privacy or even dignity, but is rather a victim of the propaganda fed to the children behind the Wall. The plate that ‘shone like gold’ but was only made of plastic allowed Koch to have his ‘little private revenge’ on the regime that ruined his life. It symbolized the life that the Stasi stripped him of, the life that they teasingly waved in front of his face until the day he took it. Taking the plate meant taking control of his life. ‘If there is one thing that life has taught me’ ‘It is that we must not sees things from one side’. Funder, despite portraying Koch as ‘story maker’ as he ‘speaks passionately and loudly’ adding that ‘he speaks with exclamation marks’, clearly acknowledges that not all Stasi men are dispassionate and sadistic ‘Faustian’ men.

In this ‘land gone wrong’ Funder explores and describes the Stasi as ‘innovators, story makers and Faustian bargain-haunters”, individuals who by nature would stop at nothing in their quest for information, denying the people the dignity they as humans deserved as well as stripping them of basic human rights. Individuals like Herr Winz and Von Schnitzler remain the quintessential Stasi men, meticulous story makers and innovators, devoted to the regime they hope to see rise again. As Funder explores the stories of Miriam and Charlie and Frau Paul, the reader is allowed a glimpse into the various torture methods and practises the Stasi uitilised in this quest for power. It cannot be concluded however, that all men were of the same sadistic nature, as Funder reveals through key characters such as Hagen Koch that their role in the Stasi came as a result of their exposure to carefully formed manipulation.