GDR past | Stasi checks until the end of 2030

In the schedule for the state parliament session, this item on the agenda was pushed back by 21 minutes on Wednesday. However, the topic was then ticked off after just one minute at 12:31 p.m. Five minutes were actually planned instead of one minute. But the parliament did not even take this already tight time. In a matter of seconds, a commission consisting of Gilbert Furian, Uta Leichsenring, Maria Nooke and Rüdiger Sielaff was unanimously elected to carry out the next Stasi check of the state parliament members.

"It has been agreed not to hold a debate," recalls State Parliament President Ulrike Liedtke (SPD). The Left Party's state chairman Sebastian Walter would have liked to have said something about it. But because his party failed to clear the five percent hurdle in the state elections on September 22, 2024, he is no longer in parliament and can only speak out from the sidelines as an extra-parliamentary opposition. Walter explained to the "nd" on Wednesday: "The Stasi review is completely superfluous and a mere relic from the post-reunification years. The results so far have by no means brought any progress in the assessment of GDR history, but are repeatedly used to devalue GDR biographies."

The Stasi checks on parliamentarians are based on Section 27 of the Brandenburg Parliamentary Act. The regulation would have expired at the end of 2019, but was extended in November 2019 until the end of 2030. This means that such checks will be carried out again after the next regular state election in 2029. The people who are still eligible will then be at least 58 years old and they would be accused of things that happened more than 40 years ago.

When the state parliament extended the regulation in 2019, the Left faction abstained. Sebastian Walter argued at the time that a GDR citizen could have been a bad person regardless of whether he had worked for the Stasi or not. So long after reunification, the review was unnecessary and he was fundamentally critical of it. The last time there were two previously unknown Stasi cases in the Left faction was after the 2009 state election. After the 2019 election, the only files left were on MP Bettina Fortunato (Left). However, she had by no means made herself available as an informant; rather, she had once come under the radar of the state security service herself because she was and is married to a Portuguese man. After retiring, Bettina Fortunato emigrated with her husband Armenio to his old homeland after the 2024 election.

The ten-week-long fuss and the suspicions that were once raised in connection with the alleged Stasi case Fortunato still annoy Sebastian Walter today. Walter himself was born in April 1990 and definitely did not work for the Stasi. If his party had received five to ten percent in the most recent state election and had entered parliament with up to ten representatives, eight out of ten would have been too young for a Stasi check. Only Kathrin Dannenberg (born 1966) and Thomas Domres (born 1970) would have been subject to the regulation. But both had been in the state parliament for a long time and had already been checked several times without success.

The Left faction would only have had a Stasi case if Kerstin Kaiser had won her constituency in Strausberg. But even then, secrets would no longer have been revealed. The reports she provided during her studies in Leningrad have been known for decades. The last member of the Left faction with a Stasi past was Hans-Jürgen Scharfenberg, who left parliament in 2019. He is now a BSW member and did not run again in the state elections.

There is no official statement from the BSW on the point of conducting a Stasi investigation so long after the fall of the Wall. Sebastian Walter from the Left Party is of the opinion that the party, with West German Robert Crumbach as its regional chairman, is a total failure in this respect. That is why there is little hope when it comes to getting more East Germans into leadership positions, Walter regrets. In recent decades, Stasi allegations have been a means of keeping East Germans away from top positions.

Now all state parliament members will be checked again to see whether they worked full-time or unofficially for the GDR Ministry for State Security – if they were at least 18 years old on January 12, 1990 and lived in the GDR before October 3, 1990.

On October 3, 1990, the GDR ceased to exist when it joined the Federal Republic. On February 13, 1990, the government led by Prime Minister Hans Modrow (SED-PDS) decided to dissolve the secret service without replacement. The Ministry for State Security had just been renamed the Office for National Security. Now, for the purpose of investigation, members of parliament who are suspected of being Stasi employees due to their age and origin must provide their birth names and names from previous marriages, their GDR personal identification number and all their places of residence in the GDR. The Federal Archives will then search through the Stasi files that have been kept. If there are indications of Stasi activity, the commission appointed will evaluate the files and, if necessary, request further files. It will hear the accused and report whether Stasi activity can be considered proven.

The chairwoman of the commission is Maria Nooke, the Stasi state commissioner - or as it is officially called: the commissioner for dealing with the consequences of the communist dictatorship. Uta Leichsenring is a former police chief, Rüdiger Sielaff used to head the branch of the Stasi records authority in Frankfurt (Oder) and Gilbert Furian was arrested in 1987 and put in the Stasi prison in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen. He had interviewed punks and was sentenced to two years and two months in prison "for making recordings that were likely to harm the interests of the GDR."

"As Left Party members, it is important to us to really support the victims of injustice in the GDR ," says Left Party state leader Walter.