Sascha Anderson

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Alexander "Sascha" Anderson (born August 24, 1953 in Weimar ) is a German writer . In the 1980s he was considered an important protagonist of the alternative writer and artist scene in Prenzlauer Berg in East Berlin. In the early 1990s he was exposed as a former unofficial employee (IM) of the Ministry for State Security of the GDR .

Life

Sascha Anderson was born as the son of the theater dramaturge Dieter Anderson and the architect Monika Krauße-Anderson , who later was a director in the DEFA studio for animated films in Dresden.

From 1969 to 1971 he learned the profession of typesetter in Dresden . Anderson was imprisoned for six months in 1970 and twelve months in 1972 for leaflet campaigns and distribution of poems by the songwriter and poet Wolf Biermann . Between 1978 and 1979 he was detained again, this time for check fraud. In 1972 he worked as a machinist and as an assistant in an antiquarian bookshop . From 1974 to 1975 he did an internship at DEFA in Babelsberg , and from 1976 to 1978 Anderson was a writer at the Potsdam Film and Television Academy . Other part-time jobs followed, such as night doorman in a dairy and track construction worker in the lignite in the Luckau penal system , then caretaker at the Reconciliation Church in Dresden-Striesen . In order to directly influence the editorial work, he applied (unsuccessfully) on September 1, 1980 - presumably at the instigation of the Stasi - as a technical editor at the church newspaper Der Sonntag , which published on politically unpopular topics such as peace ethics , environmental protection and human rights . In 1980 he met the lieder singer and publicist Ekkehard Maaß in Dresden and invited him to Berlin . Maaß lived there in marriage with the ceramic artist Wilfriede Maaß, who designed the literary kitchen salon.

“In winter he came to visit [...]. He wore a page cut, neatly combed and with a pony, had a black shirt buttoned up and black jeans. [...] Sascha was busy in Berlin, collecting some autographs for an auction in favor of Nicaragua, which was to take place in a church in Dresden. He visited the Wolfs and the Schalls, which is why he was so refined. [...] In any case, it was a good ticket for him here in Berlin. He came more often and stayed with us most of the time. [...] Through him our readings got the right regularity and order. He immediately got involved and knew how to do it. "

- Wilfriede Maaß

In 1981, Anderson moved entirely to Wilfriede Maaß in Berlin, who entered into a relationship with him. In the following years he developed into one of the most important protagonists of the alternative artist scene in Prenzlauer Berg. He published numerous underground publications and played in several rock groups ( Zwitschermaschine , Fabrik). Among other things, he was instrumental in the West German publication of the split LP DDR from below with the band Schleim-Keim . From the Twitter machine side, he wrote the lyrics for four out of five songs. Characteristics of his poetry and his lyrics were playing with seriousness and irony as well as the use of paradoxes and metaphors that could not be deciphered with certainty.

In 1986 Anderson applied for an exit visa , which was granted shortly afterwards, so that Anderson could move to West Berlin that same year .

In 1990 Anderson co-founded the lyric publishing house Druckhaus Galrev . In the following year, there was more evidence of his work as an unofficial employee of the Ministry for State Security of the GDR .

In 1996 Anderson founded the Poetic Boegen edition together with Bert Papenfuß-Gorek . From 2006 to 2013 he published the Black Paperhouse series at Gutleut Verlag Frankfurt a. M. out. He also works as a layouter and copywriter for rock bands.

He is married to the writer Alissa Walser , his father-in-law is the writer Martin Walser . Anderson lives near Frankfurt / Main.

Spy scandal

Since 1975 Anderson was under the code names David Menzer , Fritz Müller and Peters IM of the MfS (IMB: unofficial employee with enemy contact ); he mainly spied on colleagues and artist friends in Prenzlauer Berg, including Elke Erb , Jan Faktor , Wolfgang Hilbig , Uwe Kolbe , Bert Papenfuß-Gorek , Lutz Rathenow and Cornelia Schleime .

Anderson continued to work for the Stasi even after he moved to West Berlin in 1986. In 1987, together with Jürgen Fuchs, he received the Thomas Dehler Prize from the Federal Ministry for Internal German Relations . Its exposure by Wolf Biermann and Jürgen Fuchs sparked a broad debate. Biermann accused Anderson in October 1991 in his speech on the award of the Georg Büchner Prize, initially indirectly, a few days later in an interview directly with the Stasi ( chatterbox Sascha Arschloch, a Stasi informant who still coolly plays the son of a muse and hopes that his files never show up ).

Despite documented evidence of his activity as an informant, Anderson initially denied the allegations and insisted on the scholarship from the German Academy Rome Villa Massimo in Rome, which he initially suspended and took up some time later. In 1996 he was sentenced to a fine by the Berlin Higher Regional Court. In 2002, Anderson published an autobiography that flunked most of the critics, mainly because no understandable reason for the spy activity was given.

Quotes on the Anderson scandal

Anderson himself

  • I was always arrogant, that was taken advantage of, they let me talk about it. People talk about Hinz and Kunz, about friends and family - shit! I completely overran myself at the point.
  • To this day I have hardly any explanations [for my betrayal], especially none in public. The way out of the funnel will be as different as the reasons why I came and stayed at the State Security. Faith, voyeurism, playing with your own existence?
  • I was exposed as a spy ten years ago. I was too cowardly to quit myself as a 100% poet, as a 100% doer, as a 100% person. The last ten years have not been dominated by the files. The circumstances that went beyond me were important. I was, I am torn in space and time. The human being tears apart because of inner polarization. That which is has survived the disasters of others. It tears me to pieces now as it once did, it lets me meet again in my darkest hours. It's not about making amends, apologizing - there is nothing to make amends, apologizing.
  • I admit, I was foolish to think I could just deny my past like that. But that's just how I was: just stupid. It took me years before I was ready to say: Yes, I was an informant, yes, it really was like this and that.

Colleagues and critics

  • The A stands for asshole. Since the lyricist Sascha Anderson was exposed as a Stasi informant by Wolf Biermann in 1991 with crude vocabulary and great media brawl, the A word has been inscribed in his name. At that time, in the first shock of completely non-conspiratorial transparency and at the height of media demonization of the Stasi, he denied his previous professional activity in the service of the Stasi in front of the camera. But the evidence was so clear that he finally had to accept the facts. Since then it has become the exemplary IM of GDR literature, perhaps more than it once was, when it did not know how to differentiate so precisely between art and conspiracy. Jörg Magenau
  • Anderson was a strategist, he was the unofficial arm of official cultural policy. That made him more important to the Stasi than any other IM. Klaus Michael
  • The benevolent information from Anderson […] [provided] some artists and authors with the additional seal of approval of political harmlessness. This also applies to people whose life-defining anarchism and whose texts did not suggest this from the MfS's point of view. In this sense, they may consider themselves promoted by the IMs. The seal of approval harmless brought a travel permit to the west or in the late GDR the presence in a literary series. Apparently these people have the most trouble with the IM debate. Some owe a lot to Anderson and today he no longer knows how much of it happened with Stasi benevolence (in the rarest case by order). So those who wanted to use Anderson or others walk around with a permanent guilty conscience today. That makes them bad-tempered and aggressive. Anti-Western affects of some of the Prenzlauer Berg authors are also to be understood in this way. Lutz Rathenow

Awards

Works

literature

Movie

  • 1994: Treason , documentary. Screenplay: Björn Cederberg, Director: Fredrik von Krusenstjerna. German version: Gabriele Gärtner
  • 2014: Anderson. Director: Annekatrin Hendel

swell

  1. ^ Sascha Anderson in: Microsoft Encarta
  2. ↑ Conversation with contemporary witnesses: Monika Krauße-Anderson. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on April 13, 2010 ; Retrieved September 18, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.defa-stiftung.de
  3. ^ Andreas Kölling:  Sascha Anderson . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
  4. ↑ hr-fernsehen de, Frankfurt Germany: Anderson - Anatomie des Verrats. Retrieved on March 24, 2020 (German). From film minute 12.43
  5. ↑ p. 258 in Bettina Westfeld: Innere Mission and Diakonie in Sachsen 1867–2017, Evangelische Verlagsanstalt Leipzig 2017.
  6. ↑ www-test Wilfriede Maaß. Retrieved February 12, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Anderson - Anatomy of Treason | Video | ARD media library. Retrieved February 12, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Barbara Felsmann and Annett Gröschner (eds.), Prenzlauer Berg passage room , a Berlin artist social history of the 1970s and 1980s in self-reports, Lukas Verlag, 1999, ISBN 978-3-86732-121-1 .
  9. ↑ The generation after us is freer - the GDR poet and songwriter Sascha Anderson on the East German cultural scene by Ulrich Schwarz. In: Der Spiegel on September 1, 1986.
  10. ↑ The traitor of his friends - The Stasi documents about "David Menzer", "Fritz Müller", "Peters" alias Alexander ("Sascha") Anderson . In: Der Spiegel on December 9, 1991.
  11. ↑ Stasi documentary "Anderson": The King is listening , Spiegel Online from October 2, 2014, accessed on October 10, 2014
  12. ^ Rose-Maria Gropp: Suffering from Ludwig . In: FAZ , February 13, 2008, on Cornelia Schleime's novel "Weit fort"
  13. ^ Federal Agency for Civic Education: Biermann contra Anderson | bpb. Retrieved August 16, 2018 .
  14. ↑ Told a lot of shit. sascha anderson presents his book of the same name in Berlin. A documentation. March 13, 2002, archived from the original on May 27, 2002 ; Retrieved September 18, 2014 .
  15. ↑ What is Sascha Anderson actually doing. In: Stern. June 15, 2001, p. 1 , archived from the original on September 19, 2008 ; Retrieved September 18, 2014 .
  16. ↑ Well, I am sorry. Sascha Anderson is talking about an original audio documentary. In: Rockfall. March 2002, accessed September 18, 2014 .
  17. ↑ Christopher Beschnitt, Kübra Yücel: "I'm not Hitler after all". 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall: Sascha Anderson on his Stasi scandal and remorse. In: The magazine. January 2009, archived from the original on February 16, 2009 ; Retrieved July 25, 2009 .
  18. ↑ Jörg Magenau: "empty of your own sentences". Jörg Magenau about the new and old Sascha Anderson. Retrieved September 18, 2014 .
  19. ↑ TREASURE: Strategist Sascha Anderson: He planned for the Stasi. In: Focus. January 18, 1993, accessed September 18, 2014 .
  20. ↑ Lutz Rathenow: We all wanted to be spies. Espionage, the system and the opposition in the GDR. (No longer available online.) Oeko-net, archived from the original on June 18, 2013 ; Retrieved September 18, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.oeko-net.de
  21. ↑ Ursula March: The worst betrayal , in: Die Zeit from March 20, 2008. Retrieved October 6, 2014.
  22. ^ Film lexicon two thousand and one . Retrieved October 6, 2014.
  23. ↑ Bayerischer Rundfunk, 1998 . Retrieved October 6, 2014.
  24. ↑ Annekatrin Hendel: Cowardice in front of the friend. Sascha Anderson was the star of East Berlin's underground operations until he was exposed as a Stasi spy. Annekatrin Hendel rolls up his life. In: taz. Retrieved September 18, 2014 .
  25. ↑ Review , spiegel.de, October 2, 2014

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Anderson, Sascha
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sascha asshole
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 24, 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH Weimar