Born in the GDR

by Vaizey, Hester

  Soon after Mario’s imprisonment, Maria, a friend from West Berlin, rang up his parents asking where he was, as she hadn’t seen him at the club where they so often met. Like many other East Germans, Mario’s father was aware that their phone call might be listened to.22 Choosing his words carefully, he suggested that Maria travel across to East Berlin on a day visa so that they could meet for a walk in a forested area, where they could talk more freely. There he explained about Mario’s escape attempt. As a Westerner Maria was able to enlist the help of Barbara von der Schulenburg, a lawyer who specialized in securing the release of political prisoners in the GDR. The system of exchanging East German prisoners for West German money had been in operation since the 1950s but in the 1980s, with the thawing of relations between Eastern and Western political leaders and with East German politicians facing ever-deterioriating economic conditions, the GDR seemed particularly open to selling the freedom of certain political prisoners to the West. The West, for their part, were keen to help remove their fellow Germans from Stasi captivity, even if the money did help the SED. Overall, between 1963 and 1990, 3.8 million West German Marks was paid by humanitarian organizations, such as Amnesty International, as well as by churches, other charities, and private donors, for almost 34,000 political prisoners. The cost of freedom from the GDR did not come cheap. The average prisoner cost 100–120,000 West German Marks to free, but this varied hugely depending on factors such as the prisoner’s education and length of sentence.23

  As luck would have it for Mario, his friend’s connections led to his representation by one of the most prestigious legal minds in East Germany, Professor Wolfgang Vogel, who was a key figure in negotiating with the Interior Ministry in the GDR for the release of East German political prisoners.24 By this stroke of good fortune Mario’s freedom was secured on 18 September 1987 for the relatively low sum of 40,000 West German Marks. Initially, the conditions of his release were that he had to live in East Berlin at his parents’ address, he had to report to the police station every week, and he was not allowed to go out at night. Mario also had to sign a confidentiality agreement, promising not to talk about his experiences in prison.25 The release officers explained that if he went back on this agreement and talked, he would either be rearrested or ‘taken care of’ in a car accident. Then suddenly one day, on 7 March 1988, papers came through giving Mario permission to leave the GDR for West Germany. This was a great relief for Mario since it had been difficult since his release to live in the country which had put him behind bars.26 Arriving at the police station that afternoon, they said, ‘You have until midnight to be out of the GDR or else we’ll arrest you and put you in prison again.’ Mario quickly replied that he could be out of East Berlin and into West Berlin in 45 minutes, but then the policemen explained that he could not cross directly through to West Berlin, but had to go the long way into West Germany and use the train.

  Mario lost no time in setting out. He bade a hasty farewell to his parents, not knowing whether or not he would see them ever again, and set off on his journey. Just before the border with West Germany the train was halted, his papers were checked, and he was thoroughly searched. He made it into West Germany with only minutes to spare before the midnight cut-off. Four minutes after crossing the border the train came to a halt at Wolfsburg, the first stop on the Western side. The platform was brightly lit but completely deserted. Suddenly Mario saw a large nun wearing a black habit running along the platform and shouting his name. Forewarned of his arrival by Maria, Sister Hildegard, a nun from the Bahnhofsmission, a Christian charitable organization which helps travellers in need, had come to meet him. She took him to the mission and gave him somewhere to sleep.

  A strong part of Mario’s motivation for leaving the GDR had been a desire to be with his West German boyfriend, who had been very pleased to hear the news that Mario had been released from prison, even though they had only managed to talk on the phone since then. Eager to be reunited with him, Mario took a flight to West Berlin and headed straight for his boyfriend’s house. When he arrived, a small child answered the door. Some very awkward moments passed as Mario came to realize that his boyfriend in fact had a whole other life with a wife and family. Downcast and dejected that the future he had longed for with this man was no longer to be, he sought out his West Berliner friend Maria who had played such an important part in his release. And by May 1988 Mario had secured a job he had often dreamed of, being a waiter at one of the top hotels in Berlin.

  On the night that the Wall came down, Mario had worked a long shift. His father rang him from East Berlin to tell him what had happened. ‘Young man, the Wall has fallen,’ his father said. ‘Shall we come over?’ Mario’s initial reaction was that it was a sick joke: ‘I’d had a hard day of work behind me and I said “Are you drunk? What kind of joke is this?” and then hung up. My father rang back and said, “Put the television on.” So then I turned on the TV and saw that he wasn’t joking.’ For other East Germans, who had campaigned for change, this was a happy moment. They hoped for a relaxing of social control in a free, independent Germany. Mario’s first reaction, however, was fear. While the Wall had been up, he was safe from the Stasi officials who had ruthlessly pursued and imprisoned him. Now he was not. Rightly as it turned out, Mario was afraid of running into his Stasi interrogators. In fact, fear and trepidation about what would happen next were very common among East Germans, not all of whom were as euphoric about the collapse of the SED as the pictures of people dancing on the newly opened Berlin Wall might suggest.27 Some, like Mario, who had battled to escape the GDR prior to November 1989, felt resentful that their compatriots could now simply walk over the border without any personal risk.28

  figure 14 Free at last! Mario standing in front of the Berlin Wall in Kreuzberg, West Berlin in March 1988.

  Courtesy of Mario Röllig.

  In the ten years that followed, Mario was able to put his traumatic experiences behind him. That is, until quite by chance he encountered one of his interrogators on 17 January 1999. Mario was working behind the cigar counter in KaDeWe, an upmarket department store in West Berlin. As he was serving a customer, he had the feeling that he recognized him—he certainly recognized the way this man cleared his throat and touched his nose. Finally the penny dropped and he realized that he was serving his interrogator. Mario coolly looked the man in the eye and said, ‘I think you owe me an apology. You interrogated me at Hohenschönhausen.’ The interrogator, though briefly taken aback, snarled, ‘I owe you nothing. You were a criminal!’ Enraged at the interrogator’s lack of remorse, Mario lunged towards him aggressively, only to be restrained by his colleagues at KaDeWe. The managers there did not take kindly to this kind of disruption on the shop floor and Mario lost his job. He was deeply shaken by this encounter. When the Wall fell he had been worried about once again walking the same streets as his persecutors. Now, in KaDeWe, his nightmare scenario had become a reality. Overwhelmed by feelings of fear and insecurity, Mario tried to kill himself. Luckily a friend found him before it was too late, and he was taken to a mental hospital, where he spent the next ten years in intensive therapy to try and get over his treatment at the hands of the Stasi.

  Like many others, Mario took up the opportunity to view his Stasi file once the German government decreed that this should be possible. From December 1991 former citizens of the GDR have been able to write to the BStU (Die Bundesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen DDR or GDR State Security Records) and if they have a file they will be sent a copy of it. The decision came a full two years after the Wall fell, and in the interim many former Stasi officials had a hand in destroying the paper trail the regime had left. Overall, one-third of all the Stasi files were eradicated in this period. It is only due to the technological backwardness of the GDR that more files were not destroyed.

  The decision to open up the files was and still is a controversial issue.29 Historians are of course delighted that this material is available as it
gives them unparalleled insights into the modus operandi of the Stasi. For many ordinary people, however, access to their files has fuelled accusations of betrayal and has sometimes led to painful discoveries of being informed on by friends, acquaintances, colleagues, and even family members.30 Mario’s file was over 2,000 pages long. Within it, he discovered that his oldest and best friend Torsten had tipped off the Stasi about his relationship with a West German politician, which is what prompted them to start hounding Mario.

  Once he discovered his best friend’s betrayal, Mario arranged to meet up with Torsten. Sitting across from him, Mario placed his Stasi file on the table. Torsten was lost for words and turned bright red with embarrassment. Finally he spoke. ‘Well what do you want me to say? It’s all in the past now.’ By now it was clear to Mario that his friend was not going to apologize. He therefore simply stood up and walked out, and has never seen him again. Though it is unclear what motivated Torsten to inform on Mario, there were many reasons that a person might work for the Stasi—in some cases it was blackmail for an ill-judged drunken criticism of the regime or for an extramarital affair, in other cases patients were denied medicine unless they collected information for the Stasi about their neighbours. Like many others, Mario discovered betrayal by his nearest and dearest after the Wall fell, and this continues to contribute to his difficulties in forming close relationships with other people. He explains that though he has been in a relationship for the past two years, as a result of his experiences in the GDR, it took him a long time to open up fully and trust his partner. Very early on in their relationship, he confides, Mario actually did some research into his boyfriend and his family to make sure that they had no connection with the Stasi. And, of course, living in the GDR also had a long-term impact on those East Germans who had less extreme experiences than Mario. Indeed in 1990, the East German psychoanalyst Hans-Joachim Maaz put together a psychological portrait of East Germans in the wake of the Wende, concluding that, as a result of living in a dictatorship, former citizens of the GDR were well practised at blocking emotional responses instinctively. ‘We were’, he says ‘as walled in emotionally as our country was blocked off physically from the outside world by the Berlin Wall.’31

  While Mario was still recovering from his breakdown in 2004, a friend called him, asking him to hurry over to Kreuzberg. The police were in the process of confiscating a dog from an alcoholic homeless man, his friend explained. And if someone did not take the dog, it would be put down. When Mario arrived at the scene, the dog, who was kicking up a fuss about being separated from her owner, suddenly trotted over to Mario. And she has now been in Mario’s care for eight years. Mario explains that he does not even really like dogs but that it has been amazingly therapeutic looking after Daphne. Whilst in the mental hospital, suffering from severe depression, Mario recalls his sense of hopelessness, of not wanting to get up, of not wanting to see anyone. Now that he has a dog he has no choice, he has to get up and take her out, and through their walks he talks to lots of other dog owners, helping to restore his faith in other humans.

  Though when I met Mario he looked fit and well and no longer lives in a mental hospital, the deep impact of his experiences in the GDR means that he will never be able to do a ‘normal’ full-time job. In this sense, the Stasi, who aimed to destroy their opponents psychologically, were regrettably successful.32 Mario talks of the psychological scars of imprisonment. Even before the encounter with his former interrogator in KaDeWe, Mario used to change his job every few months. When everything was going well, when he had established a good routine, he felt like a prisoner. The routine reminded him of being behind bars. Since 2003, Mario has received a pension as compensation for the severe mental trauma caused by his time in Hohenschönhausen. This pension is the equivalent to a head waiter’s salary, as this is what Mario might well have worked as, had it not been for the psychological impact of his imprisonment. No longer is he constrained by a working routine that reminds him of the worst time in his life. ‘My greatest luxury today’, he says, ‘is that I can plan my own day and if I’m not feeling mentally strong, I don’t have to do anything.’ In the early 2000s, Mario did tours of the Stasi prison several times a week, because he needed the money to make ends meet. At a certain point, though, he found doing all the tours meant that he felt like he was never escaping from the prison in his head. He was consequently readmitted into hospital. ‘It felt’, he says, ‘like my personality was bound up with talking about this topic.’ Ever since Mario has received the pension, ‘a large part of my worries have gone’, he explains. ‘Previously I was constantly worried that my past would threaten my future.’ The pension means that Mario will have enough money to survive even if he suffers from further psychological problems in the future.

  In some senses, Mario feels that life is all the sweeter, having had such a horrendous experience in prison followed by a mental breakdown. ‘I have a heightened sense of pleasure,’ he says. ‘When I was imprisoned, there were times when I thought I’d never get out. Not many times, but a few times. When I was lonely in my cell, at night, alone, I doubted whether I would survive at all. The difference is noticeable only because I’ve had these horrible experiences. A good wine, good conversation—I take particular pleasure in these simple things.’ Mario explains that travelling freely abroad is something that he particularly appreciates because he was unable to do this from the GDR. Sitting in a café in France on holiday is all the more pleasurable with the memory of what it was like to be walled in.33

  Some aspects of daily life are unavoidable, however, and the experience of being imprisoned and interrogated makes them especially hard. When Mario goes into a bank or other administrative offices there are similarities, for example the official sits behind the counter like in an interrogation. It is now very difficult for Mario to go into such places and he has to take a friend with him because the associations with the interrogation situation are so strong in his head. For other former prisoners, too, people in authority like bank managers, traffic wardens, or policemen, can instil fear. Other things that Mario encounters in daily life can also trigger horrible memories. He explains, ‘Sometimes when I see a van on the road similar to the one that took me from Schönefeld airport to Hohenschönhausen prison I have to sit down because it makes me panic. Even smelling GDR lino flooring is enough to put me on edge because of its associations.’34 The ongoing impact of imprisonment therefore manifests itself in multiple and perhaps surprising ways in daily life.

  figure 15 Mario on holiday in Sweden, August 2010.

  Courtesy of Mario Röllig.

  Mario has made it his mission to raise awareness about the brutal side of the East German dictatorship. As well as giving tours of the prison, he talks about his experiences to schoolchildren and to journalists. In all of these contexts, recounting his story can be difficult. When schoolchildren come on the tour of the prison, for example, they sometimes appear bored and are easily distracted. Mario finds this very bad for his nerves. His story is too painful, he explains, to tell to people who are indifferent to hearing it. He recalls revisiting the prison in December 1998 for the first time since his release. There was a group of schoolchildren doing a tour at the same time. But while they were laughing and mucking about, Mario had tears in his eyes. He recalls, ‘I couldn’t believe that they were laughing.’ But they noticed how upset Mario was and they asked their teacher, ‘Why is he crying?’ Mario explained that he had spent the worst time of his life imprisoned there. The schoolchildren were then quiet and paid much closer attention to the tour. Today, Mario explains, he does not react so emotionally to such things. If visitors laugh, he rationalizes, they are trying to distance themselves from the situation. When he does a tour with quite young schoolchildren, at the start he says, ‘Anyone who doesn’t want to come can stay behind here’. And then the pupils are surprised and think, ‘Ahaa, if I don’t have to do it there might be something interesting in it.’ Mario asks students to put their phones on silent, but
there are always some who talk on the phone. Once, he recalls, he reprimanded a pupil for this and said, ‘I asked you to turn your phone off and remain quiet, and you haven’t done this, so I’d like you to leave’, leaving the student very shocked.

  Sometimes too, Mario encounters a frosty reception from teachers when he goes to talk in schools. He puts this down to fear that he may raise unwanted and difficult questions about what the teachers themselves did in the GDR. In spite of the challenges, however, Mario remains undeterred in his mission to raise awareness of the darker side of communist East Germany. He finds it very satisfying when he feels that young children take his message on board. After his talks, he explains, students sometimes say, ‘I’d always thought communism would be great. But when we see that everyone’s forced to be the same, then it’s awful.’ This perspective was not clear to them before. Sometimes, he says, teachers ring up to say that pupils who used to be skinheads are letting their hair grow long again, and that they are not wearing army boots anymore. The teachers explain that as a result of Mario’s talk the pupils no longer identify with extreme ideology. This is his goal.

  Mario is also writing a memoir. This, he explains, is a slow process, and part of his therapy. He has written most of it—his childhood in East Berlin, his experiences being pursued by the Stasi, his failed attempt to escape, and life after the Wall fell. The one part he finds almost impossible to write about is the three months he spent in the Stasi prison. So painful are his memories that he says it is very hard to find the words to capture what he went through and how he passed the time. For four years, Mario’s agent has been eager to know when the manuscript will finally be finished but when he sits down to write about his experience in prison, Mario says he always finds lots of other things to do—anything but that. It is just so difficult to even think about it. Another reason he has not published his story yet is out of fear about how the perpetrators will react. He is afraid that they will buy the book and say it is all lies because their memories will be different. All of this goes to show how tough it is to write a personal account of such a controversial and politically charged topic in recent history.