Critics fear that coming to terms with the GDR past will become marginal.
The federal authority for the Stasi files no longer exists.
What's next?
Berlin (dpa) - After almost 30 years, the Stasi records authority is history.
The facility with the huge archive of rescued documents was considered an achievement of the peaceful revolution and has now been closed.
The Federal Archives have been responsible for millions of Stasi files as well as thousands of photos and sound carriers from the GDR State Security since Thursday.
The transfer of the files was to be honored with a ceremony in Berlin in the evening (7 p.m.).
Minister of State for Culture Monika Grütters (CDU), the first Federal Commissioner for the Stasi documents and former Federal President Joachim Gauck, as well as the President of the Federal Archives, Michael Hollmann, were expected in the Zeughaushof of the German Historical Museum.
After around ten years in office, the last federal commissioner for the Stasi files, Roland Jahn, should also be officially adopted.
According to a previous announcement, Minister of State for Culture Grütters took it as a political signal that the files were officially transferred on the day of the GDR popular uprising 68 years ago.
The documents are to be permanently preserved under the umbrella of the Federal Archives as part of the national memory.
According to Grütters, the files remain indispensable, “as an opportunity to bring up the injustice of the SED dictatorship, but also as an invitation to differentiate between suffering and responsibility”.
Grütters emphasized: "To have saved this evidence of the SED dictatorship from annihilation is a lasting merit and legacy of the GDR civil rights movement."
The possibility of inspection remains
At the Stasi records authority alone, almost 3.5 million applications were submitted by people who wanted to personally take a look at papers that the Stasi secretly put on them.
Since its inception, the federal authority has received a total of 7.3 million requests and applications, including from authorities and scientists.
The Bundestag had decided that the law will continue to apply to the Stasi files. The files remain open, information will continue to be provided. The approximately 1300 employees of the previous Jahn authority were taken over by the Federal Archives. However, the archive remains at the historical location of the former Stasi headquarters in Berlin and at the 13 East German locations. Jahn's office was abolished with the new structure.
What is new, however, is the position of an SED victim ombudsman, who is based directly at the Bundestag.
The former GDR opposition member Evelyn Zupke was elected for this.
She started her work on Thursday.
First she met with the Union of Victims' Associations of Communist Tyranny, as announced by the chairman of the association, Dieter Dombrowski.
There had already been a "very constructive exchange" and close cooperation in the interests of the victims had been agreed.
Also criticism of the new structure
The former GDR opposition member Jahn (67) had said in the dpa conversation that the coming to terms with the past could continue with an all-German structure.
The Stasi files could help in a dialogue between the generations.
“We did justice to the victims, and we built the bridge into the next generation.” Jahn had worked out the concept for transferring the files together with Hollmann.
Technology, resources and skills should be bundled.
Many of the papers are in poor condition.
Critics, on the other hand, fear that history will unfold.
Jahn's predecessor, Marianne Birthler, accused him of a lack of interest in education and research in the “Tagesspiegel”.
The reprocessing association citizens' committee January 15 sees "weaving errors" in the new structure.
"An archive finds it difficult to actively process, that is, to take on educational tasks that are prescribed by law," said association chairman Christian Booß.
"We now have to make the best of the situation." However, the authority had helped with the change of elite and with democratic restructuring in the east.
In an interview with Die Zeit, the previous Federal Commissioner, Jahn, said that because the authority was constantly revealing Stasi activities by GDR citizens, the impression was sometimes created that the GDR was a Stasi dictatorship.
The Stasi was one of the SED's instruments of power.
"And so the responsibility for what happened in the GDR could always be pushed aside," said Jahn.
The Stasi legacy alone includes more than 111 kilometers of written material.
In addition, more than 15,000 sacks of torn and not yet opened papers are stored in more than 15,000 bags.
The virtual reconstruction planned on a large scale has not yet materialized.
According to Jahn, employees reconstructed the contents of seven bags by hand in 2019.
How the reconstruction project will continue is unclear.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210617-99-37143 / 2
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