Rating: 
Summary: A marvel, a must-read on totalitarianism
Review: Anna Funder is an Australian who, somewhat aimlessly, finds herself in
Berlin in the 1990s. Working in the media she takes a professional interest in gathering stories about East German and its all-pervasive security apparatus - The Stasi. She visits museums filled with Stasi memorabilia, seeks interviews with former agents and victims. The book is well written and evocative, it paints a realistic picture of everyday cruelty of the former regime - a wife put to her wits end trying to bury her husband who died in custody, families pressured to spy on each other and on friends - Funder quotes statistics which reveal that there was one Stasi officer for every 63 East Germans; Hitler's Gestapo had one agent for every 2,000. The cases of the victims are heartbreaking, the effects on their personalities of the harassment, surveillance and torture they endured lasts beyond the reach of the old regime, through the supposed liberation.
She is quite effective on the attitude of today's German society to Ossies (former East Germans), most former West Germans (Wessies) now feel that "they were Germans who had Communism for forty years and went backwards, and all they want now is money to have big TV sets and holidays... It was an experiment and it failed". Ossies on the other hand feel an amount of resentment that they now live in a society which is so unequal and relatively unsafe. This resentment has spawned a cynical nostalgia for the old East Germany - Ostalgia. This outcome is astonishing to the outsider, but Funder's book carefully outlines how this has come to pass, since the optimism of the day's when the Berlin wall collapsed.
She excellently outlines revealing vignettes - the toilet minder, ex-East Berliner , who would like to travel, especially to visit China " to have a look at that Wall of theirs"; the former broadcaster, whose weekly propaganda program made him one of the most reviled figures of the Communist regime, who now rails against the reality TV show where people are locked into a house and observed via camera, their every move recorded - he calls it "Big Brozer" with unconscious irony- as a product of `The Australian Television Tyrant' {Murdoch}.
She is less revealing when dealing with the ex-Stasi agents, whom she meets. They talk to her as an apparently neutral foreigner, but their description of the past is filled with minimization and evasion. Their bewilderment at the collapse of their entire belief system and social structure is their most deeply felt emotion.
The book strengths lie in the despair of the stories themselves, and the craft that Funder brings to their telling, the mixture of bewilderment, despair, comedy and banality with which she makes the past and present so real. That said the weaknesses lie in her intrusion of her own story into the tale and her attempts at analysis. Funder is the thread along which the story advances - the tales of her acquaintances, her journalistic assignments mingle in the narrative. For the most part this works, however it can be over-instrusive, in particular when includes some dream sequences.
As an outside in Germany, she fails on when using German self analysis - e.g. Tucholsky's observation that all Germans grovel in front of counters and aspire to sit behind them - is fine for a German to make, but smacks of intrusion into a family quarrel when used by an outsider. Occasionally the commentary will lapse into German exceptionalism - what is it about the Germans and their lack of self esteem that makes them co-operate with oppression and totalitarianism. Its seems to me that this is not too far from the views expressed in the book "Hitler's willing Executioners", and is equally fatuous. It is a myth that societies react selflessly in the face of coercive repression, the French faced it for four years in World War II, Eastern Europe for forty years. Funder's book would be better without these judgmental side tracks. That being said, it's a wonderful read. There are heat breaking stories of peoples still living with the impact of their treatment by the Communist regime, stories of people still living in denial of the crimes that they have committed. Surprises about the compromises made by the current regime in terms of failing to pursue those crimes, both in a forlorn effort to forgive by forgetting, but also due to typical bureaucratic underfunding. Hugely revealing, and topical in the sense of reminding us that systems and regimes can make enormous mistakes, of historical importance, that questioning dissent is vital for societies and that individual morality must guides all functionaries within systems.
Rating: 
Summary: Chilling, lyrical, fascinating
Review: As a person who knows a good deal about East Germany and the Stasi (I've actually written a play on the subject), I was curious to read this. What would Funder have to offer that was new or fresh?
A good deal, as it turns out. Anna Funder has uncovered new truths about authoritarianism, totalitarianism, the price of resisting and the price of just going along. She has done this by excercising a keen reporter's instinct for a good source and an insightful story, and by understanding that careful attention paid to the specifics of one story can illuminate thousands of others. She has not necessarily found new facts, but unearthed new emotional truths that make the reader understand the terror and the absurdity of the regime in new ways. And Lord, is she a beautiful writer with an amazing prose style. She can take your breath away with horror and admiration at the same time.
I haven't read a fiction or nonfiction book this riveting in a long time. I can't imagine a reader who would not be similarly saddened and spellbound. I highly recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing...
Review: Given the rave reviews this book received I expected rather more of Anna Funder's first work, "Stasiland". The subject matter is certainly loaded with potential, especially given the human trauma associated with the greatest sociological experiment in European history. Funder, an Australian based mostly in Berlin, is clearly fluent enough in German to be able to extract prodigious amounts of detail from the people she interviewed but, in this reviewer's opinion, fails to deliver the knockout punch hoped for. It all started in 1996, at the height of the rebuilding program, when Funder was working for an overseas television network in Berlin. Having been there at that time myself, I recall vividly how vast the gulf was between what was new and what was to be rebuilt. She approached a woman named Miriam Weber to talk about the fate of her husband who had died at the hands of the Stasi, the East German Secret Police. Miriam's story, like the rest of the people in the book, particularly tragic: the underlying theme being that everyone in East Germany had a story to tell, and hers was a classic example. The book goes on to tell the individual tales, some more tragic than others, of the lengths the East German Government went to to keep the entire population under surveillance and control the lives of the men, women and children who were East Germany. She interviewed many people, ranging from Stasi operatives with their various slants on the subject, to their victims, many of whom are still literally looking over their shoulders today. Where the book falls down is in the inappropriate style used by the writer. Whilst I think it entirely appropriate to adopt a sympathetic approach, Funder's often flowery descriptions of the way the fluorescent tube in the kitchen flickers or the way the sunlight catches the smoke from a cigarette is very distracting and, in this reviewer's opinion, self indulgent. I am not interested in her constant references to female sexuality: I've seen enough women from that part of the world to know how beautiful they are, and I don't care what does or does not push her buttons. I'm here for the people's story. There were times when I thought that the author was working on a screen play for an art movie. It was almost as though the book had been written through a tobacco filter. In fact, the actual content, whilst very moving, could have been condensed into a book half the length. Her slightly over-confident style seemed more geared towards impressing upon the reader that she was a good observer of people and failed miserably. If her mission was to tell the stories of those who suffered, then its success is certainly reduced by her writing style. History as entertainment is not what it's all about. These are real people and there were times when I audibly groaned at such silly distractions. This subject is a near-bottomless pit and there is a great book out there just waiting to be written. This isn't it.
Rating:
Summary: Be chilled by real horror stories from recent history
Review: It is easy to forget that "Stasiland : True Stories From Behind The Berlin Wall" isn't fiction but a piece of very recent history revealed under the guise of Anna Funder's impressive investigative journalism. The author weaves together horrific stories from behind the Berlin War about lives lived under the prying eyes of the East German secret police and its appalling private network of recruits, the shocking tactics employed by the state apparatus to invent a false reality for their citizens' forced consumption and the ludicrous extent they go to intimidate and cow dissenters into submission.
The horror of Funder's findings through interviews with survivors of this system is sharply heightened by self deluded confessionals extracted from the former regime's stoutest and craziest defenders after the wall had crumbled. Without a doubt, the "thought police" has come to believe the lies they had invented and fed their victims with. The free world may have celebrated with the German people when the Berlin Wall came crashing down....but has anyone considered the psychological trauma ordinary easterners must have experienced when overnight they had to cope with a new reality thrust upon them. It must have been like getting Martians to live as Earthlings !
Funder's work is a powerful, timely and acute reminder to the world that after East Germany, there is another story waiting to be told. It's called "Tales from the Hermit Kingdom". No doubt, more horror stories in store. So for those who optimistically proclaim the death of history, hold on to your horses, there's still a loose one about !
Rating:
Summary: Travelling to Berlin? Read This!
Review: On my recent travels in Europe I found myself in Berlin - one of my favourite cities in the world. The visit unplanned, I was completely amazed by the history and beauty of the city and despite learning a lot about the city's history while I was there I wanted to better understand what went on there before the wall came down. A friend recommended "Stasiland" and so I grabbed a copy and voraciously devoured the book over the weekend. Funder provides an insight into the personal impact of the wall on various Germans while also giving the reader an understanding of the history of East and West Germany, especially Berlin. Highly recommended for anyone who has been to Germany or is planning to travel there, but really is a book that everyone should read to acquire a greater knowledge and understanding of this country and its often misrepresented people. A great read - interesting and doesn't feel to much like a history lesson.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating, Heartbreaking Journey Back Into the GDR
Review: Seven years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Anna Funder was driven to explore "Stasiland," the former German Democratic Republic. This book answers the question many of us have: "What was it like to live as a closely-watched individual in one of the most repressive societies on Earth?" While the wall itself has been almost entirely torn down, Funder still found the "inner wall" -- the differences in attitude and beliefs of those who had lived in the freedom of West Germany and those who had grown up in the East.
After touring the former Stasi headquarters in Leipzig, Funder meets Miriam Weber, who attempted to escape from East Berlin. Her story is riveting, like a John LeCarre novel, except real. Funder tells us of Sigrid Paul. The Stasi dangled before Frau Paul the opportunity to visit her terribly ill son in the West -- at the price of becoming a Stasi informant. And Julia, loyal to the regime, who accidentally gets cross-wise with the State and whose prospects are then destroyed. Funder tells of ex-Stasi men, some who were coerced into joining, others who willingly grabbed the chance at adventure.
There are many funny moments in the book as well. In describing the regime's unpopular propagandist and his even-less-popular television show, Funder explains that scheduling the show immediately after beloved movies caused a weekly electricity crisis. Power plant workers had to be on alert: "First, everyone tuned in at once to the movie, so they went into overdrive. Then, when 'The Black Channel' came on, the workers had to struggle to stop the power supply from collapsing under a backsurge as everyone, simultaneously, switched off their sets." In well-written explanatory passages, Funder also demonstrates that she understands what made the leaders of the GDR tick: "Mielke and Honecker grew up fighting the real evil of Nazism. And they kept on fighting the west, which they saw as Nazism's successor, for forty-five years after the war ended. . . They never wanted to stop."
Funder is a great writer, and there are many beautifully written passages in the book. Her description of the sights and smells of the GDR can make you think you are there. This is not a comprehensive history of the Stasi (John Koehler has written the best one), but it is the best-written account of average (and courageous) people in "Stasiland."
Rating:
Summary: Puzzle People
Review: Stasiland is the former East Germany, a country where the Stasi, the secret police, spied on every inhabitant, kept files on everybody, and seemed all-powerful. Anna Funder has written about the Stasi in a way that sometimes seems like fiction, other times like memoir, and ultimately like an exceptionally readable history.
The Berlin of Funder's book is post-Wall Berlin, but it is as gray and paranoid as the Berlin of John le Carre's spy novels. Funder seems depressed throughout, and it is no wonder. She spends all her time interviewing former "Ossis," East Germans who were victims of the Stasi or who were former Stasi themselves. Even her irrepresible rock musician friend reveals that his band was declared "non-existent" by the Stasi. The secret police were so thorough that he cannot find any evidence that his group, which recorded several albums and was quite popular in the East, ever existed.
Through Funder, we hear from Miriam, who nearly made it over the Wall at age sixteen, but was caught, jailed, and blacklisted. Shortly after she married, her husband was arrested, then the Stasi showed up at Miriam's door to tell her that her husband had killed himself. She refused to believe the obvious lie and the subsequent funeral was a bizarre farce. Decades later, Miriam is still trying to make sense of it all, still searching for clues to explain what really happened.
Frau Paul tells of her newborn son whose East German doctors risked their careers by smuggling the infant to the West because it was his only chance to survive a life-threatening condition. Frau Paul was denied permission to visit her baby unless she agreed to help the Stasi trap an acquaintance of hers. She desperately wanted to see her son, whose condition kept him in hospital for years, but knew that if she agreed to help the Stasi just once, she would be theirs for life. The child was well-cared for, but was growing up with only the hospital staff as his family. When he left the hospital at age six and returned to his family in the East, he was polite but distant with the parents who were strangers to him. Forty years later, Frau Paul still considers herself the traitor to her country and failure as a parent that the Stasi told her she was.
Not all of the stories are tragic. Funder learns of a woman the Stasi tried to recruit to spy on her co-workers. The woman agreed, then went to work and cheerfully told everyone that the Stasi had recruited her to be a spy. Since her cover had been blown, she was no longer useful to the Stasi. They never bothered her again.
Funder visits the office of the "puzzle people," workers who put shredded documents from Stasi files back together. The papers reveal who the Stasi was watching, what they discovered, and who the informers were. Ossis may now request to see their files, but many of the files have yet to be put back together. The director tells Funder that at the rate of an average of ten reconstructed documents a day per employee, it will take forty puzzle people 375 years to reconstruct all the shredded documents. And, he explains, "as you see, we have only thirty-one employees."
Little by little, Funder allows us to realize that the Stasi does not exist as a curious and irrelevant moment in history. The torture devices in the Stasi museum and the thousands of bags of shredded documents that recall the abuses of power are evidence of a government that still haunts the lives of millions of former Ossis. It had seemed so powerful, but when the end came for the Stasi, it was without violence in a peaceful revolution of people who were just fed up.
Rating:
Summary: Their story...
Review: The recent winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, Stasiland reads like a diary of an outsider, as Funder takes her readers through her own personal landscapes of Berlin. Perhaps one of the most honest pieces of history written, her intimate style refocuses on the idea of story-telling in the most personal sense. History, as Funder portrays it, is a matter of memory, of re-telling the story of both sides, of interpreting, of listening and of re-creating. Very few history books dare to reveal their own vulnerability, and their own uncertain claim to "objectivity". Funder puts herself into the history that she attempts to record, and exposes the author of non-fiction as a mediator between the history as recorded and the history as told. Here Stasiland is a vehicle for subjective, personal histories to be heard, to accumulate, to inter-relate and therefore giving us a picture of what it is to wield power in the Orwellian GDR and what it is to live as a subject of the terrifying totalitarian apparatus. A beautifully written, almost bittersweet, non-fiction. Funder tells the story of Miriam - a woman that continues to struggle with the authorities for the truth of her husband's death; of Frau Paul, who continues to wonder what might have been if she had not decided "against" her child; of her landlord Julia, whose teenage love affair with an Italian brought the scrutiny of the Stasi; and of the Stasi-men - and they are always men - of the young man who drew the line for the Berlin Wall; of a spy who thought it was fun to dress up for his job; of the propaganda-machine of GDR, who continues to hold on to his socialist ideal. The intimacy of Funder's re-telling of her interviewees' accounts is coloured also by a sadness, an elegy, but sometimes also an obssessive drive. Often, Funder's own voice intrudes, commenting on what she has heard, sharing with us her reactions to the stories she is ascribing. These moments serves to remind the readers that although the prose reads like a novel, these stories are real - no matter how closely they may resemble fiction. Funder re-tells the stories, allowing herself to become the medium through which these histories can come to light.
Rating:
Summary: Their story...
Review: The recent winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, Stasiland reads like a diary of an outsider, as Funder takes her readers through her own personal landscapes of Berlin. Perhaps one of the most honest pieces of history written, her intimate style refocuses on the idea of story-telling in the most personal sense. History, as Funder portrays it, is a matter of memory, of re-telling the story of both sides, of interpreting, of listening and of re-creating. Very few history books dare to reveal their own vulnerability, and their own uncertain claim to "objectivity". Funder puts herself into the history that she attempts to record, and exposes the author of non-fiction as a mediator between the history as recorded and the history as told. Here Stasiland is a vehicle for subjective, personal histories to be heard, to accumulate, to inter-relate and therefore giving us a picture of what it is to wield power in the Orwellian GDR and what it is to live as a subject of the terrifying totalitarian apparatus. A beautifully written, almost bittersweet, non-fiction. Funder tells the story of Miriam - a woman that continues to struggle with the authorities for the truth of her husband's death; of Frau Paul, who continues to wonder what might have been if she had not decided "against" her child; of her landlord Julia, whose teenage love affair with an Italian brought the scrutiny of the Stasi; and of the Stasi-men - and they are always men - of the young man who drew the line for the Berlin Wall; of a spy who thought it was fun to dress up for his job; of the propaganda-machine of GDR, who continues to hold on to his socialist ideal. The intimacy of Funder's re-telling of her interviewees' accounts is coloured also by a sadness, an elegy, but sometimes also an obssessive drive. Often, Funder's own voice intrudes, commenting on what she has heard, sharing with us her reactions to the stories she is ascribing. These moments serves to remind the readers that although the prose reads like a novel, these stories are real - no matter how closely they may resemble fiction. Funder re-tells the stories, allowing herself to become the medium through which these histories can come to light.
Rating:
Summary: An engaging read about a little known evil
Review: This is a hard book to categorise (one bookshop I know of has this on the shelves in Travel, History and Biography!). Anna Funder has written a book about the Stasi, the pervasive secret service of the old East Germany. Rather than do historical research, Funder chooses to interview people from both sides of the story - the victims of the Stasi and the former perpetrators, some repentant, some not. As the story unfolds the reader follows Funder as she discovers more and more about life before the Wall fell, included that many of the people she deals with in everyday life have extraordinary tales to tell. Without directly explaining, Funder helps the reader see, through the stories she shares, what motivated people to take a stand, either on the side of control or freedom, and she also helps the reader, again through the stories of others, to see how such a regime of control can exist. This is a great book - Funder allows the stories of others to do their thing, only commenting on her own life to underline feelings or points made. It is a personal tale, and all the better for it, as it makes the book more alive and accessible than the academic tome it could have been. This is the type of book you could recommend to anyone looking for something interesting to read - even if they don't usually read travel, history or biography.
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