Anna Funder's Stasiland

Stasiland is a non-fiction book based on author, Anna Funder’s, encounters with several East German citizens, victims of the GDR and ex-Stasi members. Anna was not of German origin, but Germany fascinated her for various reasons, one significant reason being oppression. She firmly believes that people speak out when oppressed, and it’s a natural behavior to do so. In the non-fiction book, she interacts with many people, and listens to both sides of the story. However, that does not mean she necessarily agrees with everything the people she interviewed said. Many of the ex-Stasi members had no remorse for the things they did, but some also wanted capitalism to die away and have the rebirth of communism in their country. The Stasi spied on

Herr Winz agreed to meet her and suggests they go to a “neutral place”, a vacant hotel with almost no one around. Winz asked Funder for her ID and basically is intimidating by being sinister and behaving coldly towards her. As the conversation furthers, he never answers Funder’s questions about himself or what the Insiderkomitee did. (p.85). He kept going on and on about his socialist and communist views and how he interpreted the western media, but never specifically answered any of the questions that she said. Lastly, he had the audacity to pass The Communist Manifesto to Funder while deepening his gaze and explaining how she will understand everything a lot more once she had a read of the book. The way Winz makes her uncomfortable showed how manipulative and menacing the man really was. Despite not having any real power after the fall of the GDR, he held his head high and continued as if he had not committed any wrongdoing. This man is a bad influence on society. In this interaction, the reader is able to make out the type of man he is and the negativity surrounding his

In this book, Funder gave us both sides of the story where the victim of the Stasi were given an opportunity to tell their truth, but the perpetrators were also given a chance to tell their truth of being a part of the Ministry of State Security. Through the course of this book, women like Julia, Miriam, and Frau Paul express to the reader how their experiences in the GDR were an open wound that would not heal because of how horrific the circumstances were. The ex-Stasi members had little to no remorse for their actions and it solidified the need for harsher punishment. After World War II, many of the war criminals were not brought to justice because of the way the law was written. If the Stasi members were to be given punishment, the judicial system would have to do something about it, otherwise the opinions of a select few citizens would not make a difference. The root to solving this problem is the government; they are fundamentally the only ones that can bring about