KNOWING THE SECRET POLICE: Secrecy and knowledge in East German Society

秘密警察(Stasi)一直以纪念前德意志民主共和国的方式存在。从将斯塔西描述为无所不能的学术描述，到展示斯塔西监视入侵网络的文化表现(例如，《他人的生活》，2006；斯塔西兰，2003)，在公众想象中，民主德国在许多方面已成为斯塔西的代名词。但民主德国公民在日常生活中是如何驾驭这种存在和围绕着它的秘密的？他们如何能够洞察其战术和恐怖行为；他们如何分享关于其优势和弱点的知识？该项目调查不同类型的知识如何通过社会、宗教、政治和文学网络传播。它将这些探索投入到对话中，研究这些知识是如何在民主德国时期的文献中表现出来的，以及它是如何反映在史塔西档案开放后的文献中的。在这样做的过程中，它注意到家庭在支撑或破坏网络方面可能发挥的作用，以及信息和理解如何跨越东德和西德之间的边界。该项目基于这样一种假设，即探索斯塔西的“公共秘密”依赖于各种形式的政治机构，并产生了多种政治身份。因此，它的目的是挑战关于前民主德国公民的叙述，认为他们是被“SED独裁”“塑造”的，缺乏参与当代民主生活所必需的公民美德。该项目结合口述历史、档案研究、文本分析和人种学，探索民主德国公民如何认识斯塔西以及他们如何分享这一知识。它的目的是通过两个研讨会和一个巡回展览，利用得出的结果与公共记忆工作领域的从业者和更广泛的德国公众进行辩论。它将在两个上学日将这些见解带给英国的历史教师和学生。此外，研究小组将在不少于9本学术出版物上对研究结果进行探索。在赠款的第三年，该项目的范围将在一次为期一天的跨学科会议上扩大到当代社会的监督问题。

The Secret Police (Stasi) is ever-present in the ways in which the former German Democratic Republic is remembered. From academic accounts which describe the Stasi as all-powerful to cultural representations which show the invasive network of Stasi surveillance (e.g. The Lives of Others, 2006; Stasiland, 2003), the GDR has in many ways become synonymous with the Stasi in public imagination. But how did the citizens of the GDR navigate this presence and the secrecy surrounding it in their daily lives? How were they able to gain insight into its tactics and terror; how did they share knowledge about its strengths and weaknesses? This project investigates how different kinds of knowledge were circulated through social, religious, political and literary networks. It puts these explorations into conversation with a the study of how such knowledge was represented in the literature at the time of the GDR and how it was reflected on in literature written after the Stasi-archives opened. In doing so it pays heed to the role families may have played in underpinning or undermining networks and how information and understandings passed across the border between East and West Germany. The project is based on the hypothesis that navigating the 'public secret' of the Stasi relied on varied forms of political agency and gave rise to many kinds of political identity. As a result, it aims to challenge narratives about former citizens of the GDR as 'moulded' by the 'SED-dictatorship' and lacking the civic virtues necessary to participate in contemporary democratic life. The project combines oral history, archival research, textual analysis and ethnography to explore how citizens of the GDR could know the Stasi and how they shared this knowledge. It aims to use the resulting findings to engage in debates with practitioners in the field of public memory-work and the wider German public through two workshops and a touring exhibition. And it will bring these insights to history teachers and pupils in the UK at two school days. Moreover, findings will be explored in no less than nine academic publications by the research team. In the third year of the grant the scope of the project will be widened to the question of surveillance in contemporary societies at an interdisciplinary one day conference.