Date of Graduation

5-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

History

Advisor/Mentor

Hare, Laurence

Committee Member

Hoyer, Jennifer

Second Committee Member

Phillips, Jared

Third Committee Member

Starks, Trish

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to assess how the history and identity of the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Ministry for State Security, Stasi) has been internalized by the German people through film media. Germans endured significant trauma and cultural manipulation at the hands of the Stasi and the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (Socialist Unity Party, SED) that is personified in many ways. The trauma that the Stasi inflicted sits heavily on the reflective interpretations of the DDR, complicating retrospection on life in the DDR and its positive elements. The Stasi have come to represent the essential negativity of life in the DDR in the popular historical memory of film; however, appreciating the historical memory spawned by this shared experience as it is today requires an understanding of how it has changed over time. Therefore, this thesis will analyze film depictions of Stasi characters or characters that interact with the Stasi, separating out thematic groups of individuals based on their relationships to the Stasi and identifying similar narratives between the relationships. A list of films ranging from those produced in Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic, DDR) to the most recent productions made for streaming platforms will be assessed to this end, covering to a varying degree of depth more than fifteen films and three television series in order to compile a substantially representative body of primary sources.

Core categories of relationships under review will be the outsiders, sub-categorized as prisoners, suspects, and Western interests; inoffizielle Mitarbeiter (unofficial collaborators, IMs), divided into informants and special agents; and official agents of the Stasi separated into low and high command positions when possible. These categories will be reviewed in the context of a continuous development over time with particular attention to shifts occurring before or after Germany’s Wende (Peaceful Revolution, directly translated as the Turning Point).

Keywords

Stasi; Historical Memory; Film; Wende; German

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