The GDR in the eyes of the Stasi

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The GDR in the eyes of the Stasi. The secret reports to the SED leadership is a 39-volume edition of sources on the history of the GDR and the Ministry of State Security . The series is published by Daniela Münkel on behalf of the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records .

Source corpus

The edition includes all domestic reports that the Central Evaluation and Information Group (ZAIG), a service unit of the Ministry for State Security, forwarded to the SED leadership and the government of the GDR. The ZAIG (originally ZIG - Central Information Group) emerged from the Information Department. With the reports, the GDR leadership was regularly informed about the situation and the mood in the country, about special incidents, so-called "enemy activity" and "enemy propaganda", about problems in industry and agriculture and much more. The edited reports therefore give the historian a good impression of the conditions in the GDR as they were perceived by the State Security Service.

Editing principles

The ZAIG reports are reproduced in full and in full. The document system provides information about the provenance of the source, the addressees, the tradition and any special features. The scientific commentary is made by means of footnotes, in which, in addition to text-critical notes, events, institutions, terms and people are briefly explained.

Publication format and frequency

The ZAIG reports are published in hybrid form for each year: A selection of the documents appears in book form together with a detailed introduction; the complete year can be found in the form of a database on a CD-ROM enclosed with the book . One year after the publication of each volume, the corresponding year is also made available online. The reports can therefore also be researched across years at the web address www.ddr-im-blick.de. The edition has been published by the Göttingen publishing house Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht since 2009 . A volume is published every year. So far, the years 1953, 1956, 1961, 1964, 1965, 1968, 1976, 1977, 1981, 1988 and 1989 have been published. So far, all volumes have been presented with prominent contemporary witnesses who are also mentioned in the respective reports, including the songwriter Wolf Biermann (1976), the actress and singer Eva-Maria Hagen (1961), the songwriter Stephan Krawczyk (1988), the former GDR correspondent for Der Spiegel magazine , Ulrich Schwarz (1977), the former GDR church functionary and the former pastor and civil rights activist Rainer Eppelmann (1981), the Hungarian writer György Dalos (1956) and the last SED head of government in the GDR Hans Modrow (1989) and civil rights activist Peter Grimm (1989).

reception

The edition was widely received by academia and the public. Meetings appeared and a. in the historical review portal sehepunkte, in the Germany Archive , in the Yearbook for Communication History , in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , in the Tagespost, in Neues Deutschland and in the Pankower Allgemeine.

Volumes published so far

  • Roger Engelmann (edit.): The GDR in view of the Stasi 1953. The secret reports to the SED leadership. Göttingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-525-37500-6 .
  • Henrik Bispinck (edit.): The GDR in view of the Stasi 1956. The secret reports to the SED leadership. Göttingen 2016, ISBN 978-3-525-37506-8 .
  • Daniela Münkel (edit.): The GDR in view of the Stasi 1961. The secret reports to the SED leadership. Göttingen 2011, ISBN 978-3-525-37503-7 .
  • Bernd Florath (edit.): The GDR in view of the Stasi 1964. The secret reports to the SED leadership. Göttingen 2017, ISBN 978-3-525-37508-2 .
  • Bernd Florath (edit.): The GDR in view of the Stasi 1965. The secret reports to the SED leadership. Göttingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-525-37504-4 .
  • Bernd Florath (edit.): The GDR in view of the Stasi 1968. The secret reports to the SED leadership. Göttingen 2018, ISBN 978-3-525-37079-7 .
  • Siegfried Suckut (Ed.): The GDR in view of the Stasi 1976. The secret reports to the SED leadership , Göttingen 2009. ISBN 978-3-525-37300-2
  • Henrik Bispinck (edit.): The GDR in view of the Stasi 1977. The secret reports to the SED leadership , Göttingen 2012. ISBN 978-3-525-37501-3
  • Matthias Braun / Bernd Florath (edit.): The GDR in view of the Stasi 1981. The secret reports to the SED leadership. Göttingen 2015. ISBN 978-3-525-37505-1
  • Frank Joestel (edit.): The GDR in view of the Stasi 1988. The secret reports to the SED leadership , Göttingen 2010. ISBN 978-3-525-37502-0
  • Mark Schiefer / Martin Stief (arr.). The GDR in view of the Stasi 1989. The secret reports to the SED leadership, Göttingen 2019, ISBN 978-3-525-31066-3 .

Web link

Individual evidence

  1. ^ BStU's list of publications
  2. ↑ BStU press release of November 21, 2012, accessed on February 20, 2013.
  3. ↑ Chronicler of the downfall: The Stasi in the Peaceful Revolution. Retrieved May 14, 2020 .