Dietrich Staritz

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Dietrich Staritz (born July 11, 1934 in Berlin ) is a German political scientist . He was mirror - editor , lecturer at the Free University of Berlin and finally historian at the University of Mannheim . From 1961 to 1972 he was an agent of the GDR State Security .

Life, studies, politics

Dietrich Staritz grew up in Berlin (West) , first completed an apprenticeship in banking and became a member of the FDJ and SED candidate. From 1956 Staritz studied financial economics at the Humboldt University (HU) in East Berlin .

With other fellow students he got into the "party purge" in the GDR in 1957 , which followed the brief " thaw period " after the 20th party congress of the CPSU and led to numerous arrests , including that of his brother Joachim , who was charged in 1958 for alleged treason to eight years in prison condemned. Dietrich Staritz was struck off the list of SED candidates as a "faction maker" and relegated by the HU.

Staritz fled to West Berlin in 1958 . Like his friend Walter Barthel , Staritz had political hopes for non-aligned socialist Yugoslavia and therefore wanted to continue his studies in Belgrade . Since a trip there ended disappointingly, he studied political science in West Berlin from 1958/59 at the German University of Politics (later Otto Suhr Institute of the FU). After graduating, he became assistant to Ossip K. Flechtheim , where he received his doctorate in 1968 with a thesis on the National Democratic Party of Germany (NDPD) in the GDR.

Staritz was active in the SDS and wrote articles for Augstein's failed newspaper project Today . In 1968 Der Spiegel hired him as an editor.

In 1972 Staritz switched to an assistant professor position at the Otto Suhr Institute (focus on GDR research), was habilitated in 1976 with the work Socialism in Half a Country and in 1980 professor there. In 1982, under Hermann Weber, he became managing director of the history and politics department of the GDR at the University of Mannheim and taught there. He wrote numerous other texts on contemporary history and party research.

After 1978 Staritz was no longer able to enter the GDR because he had shown solidarity with Rudolf Bahro . It was not until 1994 that the Gauck authorities discovered his work for the MfS ; Hubertus Knabe then mentioned him in his book The Infiltrated Republic .

Staritz was released from his duties and was able to retire early in 1996. Partly because of the personnel scandal caused by Staritz, the history and politics of the GDR in Mannheim was given up. His text History of the GDR , reissued in 1996 by Suhrkamp and dating from 1985, is valid in a review in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and a. as "beautifully written GDR history and as a revised version of a ten year old failed attempt to write GDR history". In particular, u. a. criticized that Staritz "faded out the dictatorial character of the SED rule". Staritz continued to publish technical papers. In 2006 he took part with a contribution to the workshop Enterprise GDR History: State of Research, Deficits, Projects organized by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation , which is closely related to the party Die Linke .

Staritz lives in Karlsruhe.

Agent of the GDR State Security

In 1961, Dietrich Staritz became an agent of the MfS and until 1972 provided information from West Berlin. He was last led by the Stasi Department XX / 5. Among other things, she was responsible for "inspirers and organizers of underground political activity" in the West.

Immediately after the Wall was built in September 1961, Staritz became clear, according to the MfS's recruitment note, that perspective belongs to socialism. The MfS gave him hope that his brother's prison term would be shortened; he was actually released after four and a half years in prison. In 1964 Staritz became a member of the SED. During these years Staritz met with employees of the MfS in East Berlin and delivered a. a. Information that he had received from the head of the West Berlin Spiegel office, Karlheinz Vater. According to the "Spiegel", he gave far more information to the MfS within four years than he had published in the Hamburg magazine.

Awards (GDR)

According to his own account, Staritz had already broken ideologically with real socialism in 1968 after the Soviet troops marched into Prague . Der Spiegel referred to a “sophisticated and dangerous informant” Staritz towards the end of the 1960s with a “puzzling ideological puzzle”.

In January 1973 Staritz, alias IM Erich , drove through East Berlin with a Stasi captain and it was mutually agreed to separate. Even then, the MfS report stated that Staritz's activity as an "East Expert" was directed against the GDR. In October 1971, an MfS major general had given the main department XX / 5 the order to carry out "perspective measures " to break off the connection with him. He assumed that effective and reliable cooperation with Staritz was probably no longer possible because he was obviously pursuing a tactic of gradual reduction and finally cessation of cooperation with the MfS while eliminating all negative consequences for him. Before breaking the connection, he should be advised of the criminal law consequences if he continued his hostile activities against the GDR, the major said.

When he was exposed in 1994, his crimes were barred. Regardless of this, there are reports that Staritz had also worked as an undercover agent for the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution at the end of the 1960s . After the discovery of the espionage activities of his employee, the Mannheim institute director Hermann Weber expressed a. a. that he found Staritz's behavior “abhorrent”. He thinks Staritz is "not as insidious as his friend Barthel (IM" Kurt ")".

Fonts

  • The founding of the GDR: from Soviet occupation to a socialist state . Munich 1995, ISBN 3-423-04524-8 .
  • (as ed.): The party system of the Federal Republic: history, emergence, development . Opladen 1976, ISBN 3-8100-0161-9 .
  • (with Hermann Weber as ed.): United Front, Unity Party: Communists and Social Democrats in Eastern and Western Europe 1944–1948 . Cologne 1989, ISBN 3-8046-8718-0 .
  • History of the GDR 1949–1985 . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / Main 1985, ISBN 978-3-518-11260-1 .
Extended new edition, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / Main 1996, ISBN 3-518-11260-0 .
  • What was. Historical studies on the history and politics of the GDR . Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-926893-04-4 .

literature

  • Johannes Pöhlandt: Bugs, unofficial employees, disinformation - Spiegel, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and the Ministry for State Security (149 pp. And CD-Rom attachment with Staritz interview about his IfS activities). Diploma thesis at the University of Leipzig (journalism); 2011
  • Hubertus Knabe : The infiltrated republic. Stasi in the west. Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-549-05589-7 , p. 197 ff.
  • Gerda and Hermann Weber: Living according to the “left principle”. Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-86153-405-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f reports from Erich. The Stasi files of the GDR researcher and former Berlin journalist Dietrich Staritz . In: Der Spiegel . No. 38 , 1994, pp. 95-101 ( online - 19 September 1994 ). Retrieved February 10, 2013.
  2. ^ Review of non-fiction, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, August 6, 1996: "Break with fateful traditions"? GDR history written nicely: Staritz pours cold coffee at Suhrkamp
  3. ^ Event on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of Helle Panke and the appearance of the 100th publication in the series Hefte zur DDR-Geschichte
  4. ^ Jochen Staadt : A German brotherhood in arms. In: FAZ.net . October 4, 2007, accessed October 13, 2018 .
  5. ↑ cf. Literature - Pöhlandt: bugs, unofficial employees, disinformation ..
  6. ↑ cf. Literature : Weber: Life according to the "left principle". P. 328 ff.
  7. ↑ Text and CD can be found in the BStU specialist library; Accessed February 8, 2013
personal data
SURNAME Staritz, Dietrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German political scientist, agent of the GDR State Security
DATE OF BIRTH July 11, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin