The House by the Lake

by Thomas Harding

  In the last year or so, Wolfgang’s work had tapered off and he had spent more time at home, drinking with his father and stepmother. His temper had soured, and he didn’t help with the children. Money was hard to come by. After a particularly boisterous drinking session one evening, Irene had snapped, and told Wolfgang that she was at the end of her tether and that he needed to find a job. Realising that his wife was serious, Wolfgang promised to do better. Over the next few days he went looking for employment in Potsdam, visiting construction sites and asking if they needed help.

  It was then that Wolfgang heard that the border patrol regiment in Groß Glienicke was recruiting and dropped off an application. To his delight, he was told that he could start at once. His new job would involve driving a truck for the regiment. His military rank would be lance corporal, and his contract would run for three years. But with his new position, they said, came additional responsibilities. Before he could start work he must report for a meeting with the Ministry for State Security (MfS), more commonly known as the Stasi.

  Wolfgang Kühne

  The Stasi had been created in February 1950, five months after the foundation of the DDR. Its official motto was ‘Shield and Sword for the Party’, a clear indication of its political imperative. Established under the guidance of the Soviet secret police – and formed from the K5 department which had been tasked with investigating political crimes within occupied Germany – the Stasi was answerable directly to the SED leadership.

  Following the 1953 uprisings, the Stasi’s functions included reconnaissance and counter-espionage work in West Germany and West Berlin, uncovering and eliminating ‘anti-democratic’ organisations and activities within the DDR, border police work, and providing protection for political functionaries. By 1958, the Stasi employed over 172,000 people, and oversaw a network of between 20,000 and 30,000 unofficial informants, equivalent to approximately one in every 450 adults in the DDR. Their role was to spy on the domestic population. While some were little more than occasional sources of information, others held more formal roles, requiring them to sign a formal contract. At this time they were known as Geheimer Informator (GI)2, or secret informants.

  Wolfgang arrived on time for his recruitment meeting on 13 August 1958. The interview took place in the office of a Stasi operative, Helmut Zschirp, based at the Groß Glienicke border patrol barracks. On the desk in front of him lay Wolfgang’s file and application. Wolfgang, Zschirp had read, could speak no foreign language, nor did he have any relatives outside of the DDR – he had conveniently forgotten to mention his sister-in-law in Dortmund – and had no relatives who had worked for the Nazis. He was therefore politically clean. The file also included a physical description of the candidate: thin, with blond hair, an oval face and having a slight stutter.

  One thing troubling the recruitment officer was a sentence that had been underlined in red: ‘Kühne has participated in political education. However, he focuses on negative discussions, revealing that he has little trust in the politics of the DDR. In this matter lots of questions remain over him.’ On a more positive note, ‘Kühne accomplishes simple tasks satisfactorily.’

  Attached to the file was a handwritten note from Zschirp’s superior, First Lieutenant Hermann, which recommended that Wolfgang be recruited despite ‘several weaknesses which point towards ideological confusion … Kühne has enough intellect to work as a secret informant.’ The operational objective for recruiting Wolfgang, it was written, should be ‘to bolster the number of informants working in the truck drivers department as they only have one now and that does not meet security standards’.

  Zschirp started by asking the ‘candidate’ about the current political situation. Wolfgang said that he feared the ‘enemy gathered in Berlin threatened to take over our troops and communities’, and that he didn’t want his family to ‘experience enemy forces penetrating our land and starting an atomic war’. Zschirp then explained that he wanted Kühne to work as a secret informant. He would be expected to collect information on his family and co-workers, preparing written and oral reports and meeting at times and places designated by his handler. Most importantly, Wolfgang must never disclose his work to anyone, not even to his wife. In return he would benefit from the state’s patronage – a better quality of life, and a better home.

  After consenting to these terms, Wolfgang wrote his ‘commitment letter’, the content of which was dictated to him. Compared with the neat handwriting on his truck driver’s application, this note was uneven, the blue ink seemingly applied with varying pressure, as if he wavered during the writing.

  Commitment

  Because of the current political crisis in the world and the continuing threat of the atomic arms military build-up in West Germany, I have understood that it is necessary to protect our borders and to hinder such threats or acts that try to disrupt our peaceful development. On this understanding, I agree to inform the Stasi in writing on anything that will hinder the development of our peaceful workers’ and farmers’ state. I will provide my written reports openly and honestly. My working for the Stasi will be an unofficial relationship and I will always come to the meetings with the Stasi punctually. I will keep this to myself and not disclose to my wife and family or colleagues. I will sign the reports I hand in with the code name:

  Ignition Key

  If for some reason I cannot attend meetings with the MfS I will let my superiors know in advance. If the connection is lost I will try and re-establish it.

  It was signed ‘Lance Corporal Wolfgang Kühne’. The recruitment now complete, Wolfgang was told that his first task was to provide a ‘detailed description of his family and their political views’, as well as any ‘deficiencies in the vehicle department’. They agreed to meet two weeks later.

  Later, the file would be reviewed by Zschirp’s superior3, a certain Operation Group Leader Beick. At the bottom of the report, Beick added a handwritten note: ‘In future, please persuade other candidates not to come up with such senseless code names.’

  Once home, Wolfgang told Irene the good news. He said that he had a new job driving trucks for the border patrol regiment in Groß Glienicke. Even better, he had found them somewhere to live, beside a gorgeous lake. What he didn’t say was that they would be sharing the house with another family nor how he had secured their new home.

  This was how Irene Kühne came to be standing outside the lake house with her children as Wolfgang greeted Frau Fuhrmann. Irene assessed the situation. It would be a tight squeeze perhaps, but anything would be better than living next to her in-laws in Potsdam. Frau Fuhrmann came over to say hello. She seemed pleasant, friendly, although perhaps a little too chatty. She offered to show them round.

  Ella Fuhrmann explained that the house was owned by Will Meisel, a famous music composer who lived in West Berlin. At first, she had been taking care of the property until the tensions improved between East and West. But, given that it had been six years since they had last been seen, she assumed that the Meisels were not coming back.

  The Fuhrmanns would live in the right-hand side of the house. They would have the two bedrooms by the front door, the main corridor, the kitchen and bathroom, as well as the room with the piano and the blue ceiling. The Kühnes would live in the left-hand side. They would have the small room containing a wooden bunk bed, the living room and what had been the master bedroom. They would also have use of the room where the chauffeur had once lived and the cupboard-sized toilet, which could only be accessed from the outside. They would therefore have no inside toilet, nor a bath or hot water. From now on, the Kühnes would have to wash outside, rain, snow or shine. But it would have to do. Many people didn’t have indoor plumbing, and the children would love growing up by the lake. They would have to make some alterations, but fortunately her husband was a builder.

  It didn’t take Wolfgang long. First, he built a brick chimney in the chauffeur’s annexe, stretching from the floor, through the attic and then the roof. He installed a cupboard w
ith a work surface on which to prepare food, a small table and four chairs, and a two-ring electric stove. This would be their kitchen. With winter coming, and having heard from the Fuhrmanns how cold it could get in the house, Wolfgang removed the draughty French windows that led from the living room onto the veranda overlooking the lake and, in their place, built an insulated wall into which he inserted two large windows. To decorate, he pasted flower-patterned paper onto the wood panelling. Next he sealed up the fireplace and, in a final effort to reduce even the smallest draught, he covered the brick chimney with brick-patterned wallpaper, concealing the thirty blue-and-white Delft tiles. Then he installed a coal-burning stove in front of the fireplace, connecting it to the chimney with metal pipes and fabric tape.

  After that, he set about clearing the master bedroom, removing and storing the oversized oak bed and its heavy wool-stuffed mattress in the garage by the main gate. When he went to move the large gold-edged mirror that hung on the wall to the left of the bed, he was startled when a cluster of small photographs of scantily clad women fluttered to the floor. Irene assumed they had been left by Will Meisel.

  Finally, he built a small extension onto the front of their section of the house. The sides were formed of cheap plywood, within which Wolfgang inserted windows, and on the floor he laid narrow pine planks. The purpose of this two-metre by three-metre Wintergarten, or conservatory, was to keep the cold away from the kitchen. What had once been a simple, symmetrical wooden cottage, memorable for its straight lines and pretty exterior, had become a botched product of East German utilitarianism.

  The Groß Glienicke community council provided all the materials Wolfgang needed. In return, the Kühnes were told that they had to pay a nominal rent each month at the post office into an account marked ‘Meisel’ – money that would be handed back by the state to pay for maintenance and upkeep. The Meisels never received a penny.

  To wash, the Kühne family filled a large metal tub outside and then heated it with an immersion coil. This process could take over an hour and was both uncomfortable and laborious, especially in the winter. It wasn’t quite clear why they couldn’t share a bathroom with the Fuhrmanns, who after all had inside running hot water, but it had never been explained to Irene and she decided not to ask.

  Whatever the problems, their new life was infinitely better than before. They were now living in a charming little house next to a lake. Her children had plenty of space to play in and, while they had to share the house, doing so was much better than being abused by her in-laws. To cap it all, her husband even had a new job.

  20

  FUHRMANN AND KÜHNE

  1959

  IGNITION KEY APPEARED on time for the first meeting with his Stasi handler.

  Unsure what to expect, he felt anxious and insecure. He attempted to evade the handler’s probing as best he could, saying that he hadn’t had time to complete his tasks, and didn’t see the purpose in gathering information on his family as ‘he didn’t have any relatives in West Germany’.

  Then Ignition Key was asked about his colleagues. Had he noticed if they had committed any ‘political misdeeds’? Ignition Key responded that while it ‘was possible that a few of the truck drivers used the petrol vouchers for their own usage’, he could not name anyone specifically. Trying to keep his handlers happy, and gaining a little confidence, he promised that he would pay more attention in the future. He did have one piece of information though: while drinking at the Drei Linden he had heard someone complaining about the state of the country. Delighted that Ignition Key was at last sharing a real titbit of information, the handlers asked for the man’s name. Apologising, Ignition Key said that the drunkard was unfamiliar to him.

  On 9 February 1959, Ignition Key met his handlers once again. This time he said that he would like to pass along a report on Herr Gerdner, who also lived in the village and was his manager at the truck department. Ignition Key said that when he was returning an airgun he had borrowed, he had noticed that Gerdner’s television was tuned to a Western station. Having been thanked for this report, Ignition Key was told they would meet again on 12 February 1959 at 12.30. The rendezvous would be held at a place code-named ‘The Barn’.

  Shortly afterwards, the Kühnes took possession of a large television set, becoming one of the few families in the village to have such a luxury.

  Lake house, 1960s

  Though they lived side by side1, the two families did not spend much time together. Wolfgang kept busy with home improvements: building a new garage next to the house, in which he kept his tools, with room to spare for the car he hoped one day to own, along with a number of sheds for his chickens, geese, and pigs. Before long, Wolfgang was known in the village as ‘Schwein Kühne’, piggy Kühne.

  Irene was happily occupied with her two children and housework. Then, in the spring of 1959, she realised she would have even less time on her hands, for she was once again pregnant.

  Ella Fuhrmann meanwhile occupied herself in the garden, tending to her fruit trees and vegetables, and tidying up after her son. Now twenty years old Lothar was busy working, having secured a job installing milk machines for the state-owned company KLF. He was not only proud of his salary, but also of his company van. It was a matt-grey B1000 Wartburg and, while not in great condition, he loved to drive it fast along the narrow country lanes to his customers’ farms. Officially Lothar only worked from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., but most weeks he was obliged to clock in an additional five to ten hours. The van also gave him the mobility to travel to Potsdam, where he and his friends visited the bars, hoping to meet girls.

  On most days, the Fuhrmanns and Kühnes had no contact. If they saw each other in the garden, or at the shops, they might greet each other, but no more than that. Twice the Fuhrmanns looked after the Kühne children, but for some reason this never became a habit. They never shared meals or invited one another to birthday parties. Although they held the keys for each other’s houses, the two families were not friends.

  While the house was just about able to absorb its additional residents, the lake was having a harder time. When the little weekend houses had first been built in the late 1920s, the planning department had assumed that they would be used infrequently. In consequence, the authorities had allowed these first homeowners to build gravity-based septic systems next to the lake. But now, with all the cottages filled with full-time residents, the sheer quantity of black water overwhelmed the rudimentary systems. To make matters worse, the sewage from the National People’s Army (NVA) barracks on the edge of the village also flowed directly into the water.

  Green algae began spreading across its surface, at first in small spots, then joining up to form a massive blanket which blocked the sun from the water, further depriving its deeper levels of oxygen. The consequences were dire: the water turned acidic and soon the plant and fish life died off. Meanwhile the shoreline’s greenery – ground elder, iris, mountain ash – began to vanish, swamped by touch-me-nots, an aggressive weed whose pink and yellow berries can leap more than five metres when its seed pods open.

  Yet Groß Glienicke was still considered an attractive place to visit by the West Berlin media. In 1959, the Berliner Morgenpost wrote:

  Whoever travels to Berlin these days should also take a look at Groß Glienicke. Not only because the fauna and flora is so relaxing and interesting but mainly because of its political statement. In only a few other places does the division of our city becomes so vivid and clear … If you reach this region, turn down your music and leave the football in the car! Something like that should be written in a travel guide, for Groß Glienicke is one of the prettiest suburbs of our city, a small settlement between water and forest, under windy trees and a wide-open sky.

  On 5 December 1959, a little boy was born. Irene and Wolfgang named him Bernd. Yet another person to squeeze into the lake house. He was a good infant, sleeping through the night and eating well. Yet even the most angelic baby cries from time to time, and his little yells of hunger, or
longing, pierced through to the Fuhrmanns’ side. The house was feeling more crowded by the day.

  On 21 October 1960, Ignition Key received a message from Stasi Operative Schneider: appear at 5.30 p.m. at a secret location code-named ‘Garage 21’. Given that he hadn’t written any memos, and still had nothing to report, Ignition Key decided to go for a drink at the Drei Linden instead.

  Thirty minutes later, Schneider tracked him down. Clearly disappointed, the operative attempted to engage Ignition Key in a more general conversation about the DDR’s political situation. He was distressed, however, by the informant’s lack of interest, noting that he repeatedly glanced at the clock on the wall. At the end of the conversation, Schneider asked Ignition Key to investigate a certain Herr L, who lived in the village and also worked as a truck driver. In addition, he was told to confirm if Herr L or Frau L were stealing food from the regiment’s kitchen. Ignition Key agreed to look into this and to report back next time.

  Ignition Key failed to turn up not only for the next meeting2, on 19 December at the ‘Clubhouse’, but also for the backup meeting set four days later at the ‘Hall Rental’. On 3 January 1961, Schneider finally located Ignition Key and asked him what he had discovered about the L family. Trying to put his handler off, Ignition Key once again said that he hadn’t been able to gather any information. When pressed, he confessed that even though he was constantly in contact with the L family he did not want to inform on them since they were friends. To do so, he said, ‘would result in a negative impact on our relationship’.

  Ignition Key’s career as an informant was in peril. In a final report, written on 22 February 1961, Schneider concluded that Ignition Key ‘was not honest and did not report well on shortcomings and failures’. For him to be of ‘Nutzeffekt’, or ‘use-effect’, would require ‘further education’. Worse, Schneider had heard from another informant that Ignition Key was stealing groceries, coal and potatoes from his food truck and using the truck for private purposes.