The Stasi and the Sorbs: Recruitment, Refusal, and Moral Resistance Within a Small Slavic Minority Under East German Surveillance

The history of the Ministry for State Security of the German Democratic Republic is inseparably bound to the fate of those people who served as unofficial collaborators for the secret service or who were pressured into such service against their will. Within the Sorbian minority of the Lusatia region, a small Slavic people that has been at home in the Upper and Lower Lusatia for many centuries, the penetration by the State Security assumed a particular form, because here ethnic, cultural, religious, and political lines of surveillance converged and overlapped in ways that were unique within the broader apparatus of East German control. The files that became accessible after the end of the German Democratic Republic reveal a complex picture of political conviction, personal pressure, moral refusal, and quiet resistance that defies simple categorisation. The following account traces, on the basis of the surviving documents, the various facets of this recruitment practice and shows how the State Security proceeded in the Sorbian territory, whom it targeted, and why some people refused the demand while others yielded to it. It is a story that tells of the tension between the total claim of the state and the individual decision of conscience, and it continues to resonate into the present day.

The Overwhelming Majority Acted from Conviction

As a former head of the authority responsible for the Stasi records observed in the nineteen nineties of the twentieth century, between ninety and ninety-five percent of unofficial collaborators committed themselves to cooperation with the Ministry for State Security out of genuine political conviction. The great majority of informants therefore did not act under compulsion or out of fear but from an inner agreement with the goals of the socialist state. In the few cases in which a person was actually coerced into cooperation, a corresponding note can be found in the files, because the Ministry also rendered account of such processes. This finding refutes the widespread notion that the State Security won its informants exclusively through pressure and blackmail. At the same time, it demonstrates that the ideological penetration of society had advanced so far that a large portion of the population regarded the surveillance of their own surroundings as a legitimate contribution to the building of socialism.

Cases of Misclassification in the Sorbian Context

Cases in which persons were listed as unofficial collaborators although they did not meet the actual criteria for such a classification are rarely documented for the Sorbian sphere. In the nineteen fifties and sixties of the twentieth century, the accelerated construction of a comprehensive informant network led to full-time supervising officers occasionally over-classifying their conversation partners and recording them in the files as secret informants although no formal commitment had taken place. In the nineteen seventies and eighties, another form of misclassification emerged: conversations that full-time employees of the Ministry conducted with ecclesiastical dignitaries were erroneously interpreted in the files as reports from unofficial collaborators. These over-classifications distort the picture of actual cooperation and make a precise historical assessment difficult. For the Sorbian sphere, several such cases can be demonstrated, and they will be presented in what follows.

The Case of Georg Schramm: Recruitment Under Pressure

Georg Schramm, a locksmith at the industrial works in Bautzen, was arrested on the seventeenth of June in the year nineteen hundred and fifty-three in the course of the popular uprising and taken to the detention facility of the district office in Bautzen. After a week in custody, a full-time employee of the district office, a junior lieutenant named Biskup, offered him the prospect of early release provided he declared his willingness to cooperate with the State Security. The recruitment report of July nineteen hundred and fifty-three records that Schramm initially wished to downplay his provocative behaviour on the day of the uprising and stated that he had not known what he had done on that day. The junior lieutenant then showed him his criminal conduct and asked how he intended to atone for this crime. Schramm replied that he wished to do everything to correct his grave error, whereupon the officer informed him that open and honest cooperation and trust in the German Democratic Republic were the prerequisites for advocating his release.

The Failure of a Forced Commitment

Schramm thereupon promised to cooperate openly and honestly and to report everything he could learn about hostile activities to the office. The recruitment report explicitly notes that Schramm was recruited under pressure, which underscores the coercive character of this recruitment. However, the expectations that the State Security had placed in him as a secret informant bearing the cover name Horst Hein were in no way fulfilled by Schramm, who was released from custody at the end of June nineteen hundred and fifty-three. His supervising officer summarised the results of the cooperation in February nineteen hundred and fifty-four in a final assessment and stated that Schramm had not complied with the tasks assigned to him. He had always appeared embarrassed, had given hesitant answers, and had created the impression that he did not wish to cooperate sincerely.

Flight to the West as the Last Escape

Since Schramm had already departed for West Berlin in November nineteen hundred and fifty-three and his whereabouts could not be determined, the case was considered a failure. Both the personnel file and the working file of the secret informant Horst Hein were placed in the internal archive of the Ministry with only a few pages. The case of Schramm exemplarily demonstrates how the State Security in the early nineteen fifties attempted to profit from the distress of imprisoned persons and to move them toward cooperation by linking release from custody to a declaration of commitment. At the same time, it proves that commitments obtained under pressure were often worthless in practice, because those affected possessed neither the inner motivation nor the external possibilities to fulfil the expectations of the secret service. Flight to the West was for many of those recruited in this manner the last way out of a situation experienced as unbearable.

The Case of Georg Rentsch: A Lawyer Between Prison and Conscience

Georg Rentsch, a lawyer from Bautzen, was recruited during his imprisonment in January nineteen hundred and fifty-four for cooperation with the Ministry for State Security. He had been sentenced three years earlier under an article of the Soviet criminal code for propaganda aimed at overthrowing Soviet rule to twenty-five years of forced labour. Due to an amnesty pronounced by the Soviet government in January nineteen hundred and fifty-four, Rentsch was to be released early, with the decision over the beneficiaries lying solely in Soviet hands. In the run-up to a conference of foreign ministers, more than six thousand convicted persons were freed, according to criteria that were described even by the main department for penal execution of the German Democratic Republic as arbitrary and opaque. The State Security exploited the impending release to recruit unofficial collaborators among the prisoners, and a lieutenant of the district administration in Dresden conducted a final interrogation with Rentsch in order subsequently to win him as an informant.

The Conditional Commitment and Its Withdrawal

In the recruitment report of January nineteen hundred and fifty-four, it was noted that Rentsch, when asked whether he was willing to continue assisting the State Secretariat for State Security, declared his agreement, but with the restriction that it must exclusively concern the affair of the Sorbs. He read the declaration of commitment presented to him attentively and copied it with the restriction of not being used as a denouncer or spy. He also refused to work under a cover name and signed the commitment only with these restrictions. The following day, Rentsch was to be transferred to a penal institution and released from there, but he asked beforehand to revoke the handwritten declaration of commitment made the previous day, as he wished to return home as a free man. The officer made it unmistakably clear to him that he now had to decide whether to leave the detention facility or to remain, whereupon Rentsch declared that he would prefer to stay.

The Final Refusal of Rentsch

After approximately a quarter of an hour of reflection, Rentsch was visited again in his cell, where he declared that he was prepared to sign a commitment that essentially contained the duty of confidentiality and expressed his readiness to stand at the disposal of the State Secretariat after his release from custody. The first declaration of commitment was thereupon destroyed and replaced by the new one. After his release, Rentsch met several times with the operative employee and continually pressed for his discharge from the obligation. At the last meeting in November nineteen hundred and fifty-four, the State Security attempted to bind him more closely by giving him a concrete assignment: he was to visit two persons named by name in West Berlin and in the Federal Republic and to explore their connections as well as a possible collaboration with Western secret services. Rentsch refused the assignment for moral reasons and was thereupon discharged from further cooperation.

The Case of Monika Just: An Unproductive Informant

Regarding Monika Just, a typist in the district association of the Domowina in Kamenz, a full-time employee of the district office in Kamenz created a file as an unofficial collaborator in October nineteen hundred and fifty-four. From her it was expected that she would report on the work of the Domowina and characterise the functionaries of the Sorbian national organisation in terms of personnel. In a report on the cooperation from January nineteen hundred and fifty-six, the responsible officer had to admit, however, that no file notes had been written, because the informant had not submitted written reports and had communicated nothing of substance orally either. As a rule, she had been met once a month, and the oral reports she had given could only be described as official material. The case officer had not managed to educate her toward better cooperation, and in August nineteen hundred and fifty-six the case was filed away.

The Case of Hermann Jahn: Indirect Information Gathering

Regarding Hermann Jahn, a master carpenter from Dissen, a lieutenant of the district administration in Cottbus created a file in May nineteen hundred and fifty-six, with the provision of deploying him in the sphere of Sorbian affairs. In the final report of October nineteen hundred and sixty-two, it was recorded that the cooperation had borne the character of a slow introduction to the work with the Ministry. Since Jahn did not respond to this form of contact, the connection was maintained through another secret informant who was active as an instructor at the Domowina. Jahn did not know that this instructor worked for the Ministry and that the information he gave him was destined for the State Security. This practice of indirect collection without the knowledge of the person concerned represents a particular form of covert information gathering that deprived the affected person of every possibility of refusal.

The Case of Fritz Drogatz: Flight as the Only Answer

Regarding Fritz Drogatz, an editor at the radio studio in Cottbus, the same lieutenant created a file in October nineteen hundred and fifty-eight in order to deploy him in the sphere of Sorbian affairs. In the final report of August nineteen hundred and fifty-nine, it was noted that Drogatz had been active as a reporter in the Sorbian department of the radio and had come into much contact with Sorbian people. However, Drogatz had already departed for West Berlin in November nineteen hundred and fifty-eight. Through an informant of the district administration in Karl-Marx-Stadt, who was staying on assignment in the refugee camp of Berlin-Marienfelde, the motive for his flight could be ascertained. Drogatz stated that he had been approached by the Ministry for State Security to function as a collaborator and that he was prepared to receive a cover name, so that his own name was practically worthless.

The Psychological Weight of a Mere Approach

Drogatz explained to the informant in the refugee camp that the work for the Ministry had been the last thing for him and that he had left the zone for this reason. He furthermore revealed to the American secret service the attempted recruitment by the Ministry for State Security, so that he was definitively no longer in question as a potential informant for the German Democratic Republic. The case of Drogatz shows how the mere approach by the State Security could trigger such a strong defensive reaction in some people that they considered flight to the West as the only way out. The fact that the recruitment itself was experienced as a threat even when no formal commitment had taken place illustrates the psychological pressure that emanated from the mere act of contact by the secret service. For the State Security, this case was a complete failure that moreover exposed its own methods to Western services.

Church Contacts Misclassified as Informant Activities

Examples of conversations with ecclesiastical dignitaries that were erroneously listed in the files as operations of unofficial collaborators can be found in the Sorbian sphere on both the Protestant and the Catholic side. In the case of the Protestant pastor Herbert Noack in Drebkau, the contact lasted from nineteen hundred and seventy-four to nineteen hundred and eighty, while the Catholic priests Martin Lehmann, Martin Salowski, and Rudolf Kilank maintained contacts with representatives of the State Security over various periods from the nineteen seventies into the late nineteen eighties. These persons conducted conversations with the Ministry without informing their ecclesiastical superiors, which constituted a breach of the internal church duty of reporting. The motivation and character of these contacts differed fundamentally from classical unofficial collaboration, which is why their classification as informants in the files must be regarded as over-classification. Close examination of these cases shows how the State Security instrumentalised church contacts and elevated them in its own files.

The Protestant Pastor Herbert Noack

Herbert Noack, pastor in Drebkau in the Lower Lusatia, was visited in May nineteen hundred and seventy-four by a senior lieutenant of the district administration in Cottbus in his office in order to conduct a discussion in connection with a legal violation by his wife. The psychologically trained officer succeeded in the course of the conversation in pressing Noack toward discussions about church matters. Noack expressed the view that the state should make the protocol disappear and exercise a little tolerance, since a public treatment of the matter would benefit no one. One could agree on many things amicably, and he liked to hear views and opinions from the perspective of the state. The connection with Noack was maintained loosely until his departure from pastoral service due to disability, without a formal commitment or regular reporting taking place.

The Catholic Priests and the Illusion of Influence

In contrast to Pastor Noack, the motivation of the three Catholic priests Lehmann, Salowski, and Kilank for conversations with the Ministry did not arise from a personal emergency situation but from the misjudgement of being able to influence the decisions of the party and the state. A historian in the nineteen nineties assigned the proportionally small sphere of contacts between the State Security and Catholic clergy roughly to four patterns of action. The three priests of Sorbian origin correspond to the type of the collected source: persons who maintained more or less regular contacts with the Ministry without a declaration of commitment and conducted these conspiratively without informing their bishop. The clergy were made to feel by the full-time employees that they were equal conversation partners in a free exchange of opinions. On the basis of the surviving files, however, it can be proven that they were instrumentalised by the state authorities in the sense of party policy.

The Asymmetry of Interests Between Church and State

The officers of the Ministry benefited from the fact that the interests of the church representatives apparently coincided with the intentions of the party and the state. Both sides were concerned with maintaining the established relationship between state and church and reducing emerging conflicts. Behind this apparent consensus, however, there were considerable differences in substance: for the state, it was important to retain control and to influence decisions, while for the church representatives in question, it was important not to endanger the conceded possibilities of work within the church. This asymmetry of interests was not recognised by the clergy or was consciously ignored, which made them into willing instruments of state surveillance. The conversations of the clergy with representatives of the Ministry in the nineteen eighties contributed substantially to the pacification of the Christian Sorbian milieu and guaranteed that no potential for protest grew up for the party and state leadership in the Lusatia.

The Undermining of the Church’s Prophetic Function

That the Catholic dignitaries in the territorial sphere of the diocese of Meissen did not oppose state policy and partly adopted an affirming attitude was recorded in the files as a success of operative work. The motives for both Protestant and Catholic clergy seeking proximity to the totalitarian regime were manifold and ranged from talkativeness through petty ambition to a systemically conditioned readiness for submission that resulted from a widespread scepticism toward the church leadership. In retrospect, the church representatives justified their approach by claiming that through direct contacts with representatives of the party and the State Security they wished to influence policy and achieve concessions in humanitarian terms. This notion was naive, however, since the one-sided flow of information in the direction of the communist rulers strengthened only their position. In contrast, the social standing of the churches was sustainably undermined by these contacts, because as conversation partners of the regime they forfeited their prophetic and critical function.

The Rarity of Documented Refusals

Cases in which candidates for appointment as an unofficial collaborator or contact person of the Ministry refused the request for cooperation are rarely documented for the Sorbian sphere. For the period of the nineteen fifties and sixties, this can only be inferred indirectly from the files, because the Ministry was reluctant to document failures and often blurred the traces of rejected recruitment attempts. An early case concerns the Sorbian writer Jurij Brězan, whom the department of the district administration in Dresden targeted in May nineteen hundred and fifty-five in order to win him for unofficial cooperation. The discussion with the national prize winner was to be conducted in such a way that he named further persons who, together with another Sorbian writer, were supposed to have been active for a Polish secret service. The documents do not reveal whether Brězan agreed to enter the service of the State Security as a secret informant, but much suggests that he refused the request.

The Case of Erich Schneider: A Teacher’s Hesitation

In the summer of nineteen hundred and fifty-six, the office responsible for Sorbian affairs of the district administration in Dresden attempted to win the teacher Erich Schneider as a secret informant. He was to report on events at the Sorbian Institute for Teacher Training in Kleinwelka as well as in other Sorbian institutions. In September nineteen hundred and fifty-six, a full-time employee of the district office in Bautzen conducted a contact conversation with the candidate, which however did not prove successful. It emerged that Schneider was indeed willing to support the State Security but did not wish to commit himself in writing and did not wish to meet weekly. For this reason, a formal recruitment was abandoned, because the candidate had recognisable inhibitions that he would not have overcome in a future cooperation.

The Doctoral Thesis on Refusal

In the year nineteen hundred and sixty-eight, a lieutenant colonel at the legal academy of the Ministry in Potsdam defended his doctoral thesis on the effectiveness of moral factors in the behaviour of citizens toward unofficial cooperation with the organs of the State Security. In it, he discussed extensively the reasons for refusal and stated that moral aspects constituted the main factors for the refusal or termination of cooperation. Especially the attitudes arising from moral misinterpretations of unofficial cooperation were decisive inner obstacles. In order to reduce the moral concerns of candidates, the public relations work of the Ministry would have to be oriented toward presenting the activity of the secret service as compatible with conscience. Despite concrete proposals for improving its own public image, the State Security did not succeed in presenting the activity of its unofficial collaborators as morally unobjectionable.

The Persistence of Refusal Until the End

Therefore the proportion of candidates who ultimately escaped cooperation with the Ministry remained relatively high until the end of the German Democratic Republic. A researcher quantified the ratio of successful recruitment to refusal of cooperation at seven to one. The refusal strategies employed proved to be manifold and ranged from rigorous rejection to skilful evasion behind pretextual arguments. Some invoked moral and religious reasons, psychological burden, unsuitability, or health problems. Others professed readiness provided the cooperation bore an official character, while still others had inwardly already terminated their solidarity with the state and did not wish to be active for it in their free time as well.

The Common Motive of the Refusers

The common motive of almost all who refused was that they did not wish to report on other persons, whether relatives, acquaintances, friends, or colleagues. In the event of a refusal of cooperation, the Ministry fundamentally refrained from consequences, which represents a remarkable restraint. The recruiting supervising officer left the candidate, however, in uncertainty about whether and what consequences the refusal might have. The candidate was thus left alone with his fears and could not know whether the refusal would actually remain without consequences. This uncertainty was an effective means of pressure that, even without an open threat, unfolded an intimidating effect and ultimately moved some candidates to compliance.

The First Failed Recruitment: Hubertus Scholze

On the basis of the files from the nineteen sixties, seventies, and eighties, six failed recruitment attempts can be documented for the Sorbian sphere that were recorded by the State Security itself. The first case concerns Hubertus Scholze, by profession a baker and member of the parish council in Ralbitz in the Upper Lusatia. In the justification for creating a suitable preliminary phase, the responsible sergeant of the district office in Kamenz described in September nineteen hundred and sixty-nine what gain the Ministry promised itself from the candidate: a qualitatively better securing of the Catholic church and a better flow of information in this sphere. Since all council members had good contact with the responsible chaplain and were guided by him, there was furthermore the possibility of bringing this clergyman under operative control. In September nineteen hundred and sixty-nine, contact was made with the candidate, the conversation being disguised by his impending call-up for border service.

The Moral Integrity of a Baker

In the second contact conversation in January nineteen hundred and seventy, Scholze declared, however, that he refused cooperation with the Ministry. To the question of the employee why he could not reconcile a contribution to the strengthening of the republic and to world peace with his conscience, he replied that he could not manage to converse with his friend on the basis of an assignment and then have to report about it. Scholze had recognised that in the event of naming the participants of a meeting of West German Catholics with East German fellow believers in Leipzig, he could no longer escape cooperation. Despite three further meetings with the participation of superiors until March nineteen hundred and seventy, it was not possible to change the mind of the candidate. The preliminary phase was terminated for unsuitability, and Scholze retained his moral integrity.

The Second Failed Recruitment: Lucia Heine

The second failed case concerns the attempted recruitment of the lecturer for Sorbian literature at the University of Leipzig, Lucia Heine. In August nineteen hundred and seventy, she was visited in her dwelling for the purpose of contact and examination of suitability for cooperation. The recruitment attempt failed, however, because although she willingly provided information, she refused the further maintenance of the connection. As a reason, she cited her health and her overload of work, which was evaluated by the State Security as a pretext but could not be pursued further. The case shows that academic personalities of the Sorbian milieu also came into the sights of the State Security and that refusal sometimes took the form of a polite but firm rejection.

The Third Failed Recruitment: Benno Budar

The third case concerns Benno Budar, an editorial employee for fiction in the Domowina publishing house in Bautzen. He was listed as a preliminary informant from May nineteen hundred and seventy-one to February nineteen hundred and seventy-two without a formal commitment coming about. In a letter to the main department for the National People’s Army and border troops, the head of the district office in Bautzen justified in November nineteen hundred and seventy-two why the case was terminated. Budar had refused further cooperation for religious reasons, and for this reason the case had been filed away. This case illustrates that the Christian faith constituted for some people an insurmountable moral barrier that could not be overcome even by the pressure of the State Security.

The Fourth Failed Recruitment: Georg Büttner

In the fourth case, the district office in Kamenz set itself the goal in December nineteen hundred and seventy-six of winning an unofficial collaborator for the securing of amateur artistic activity in the bilingual territory. Through cooperation with another informant, the chairman of the amateur choir Lipa, the teacher Georg Büttner from Panschwitz-Kuckau, became known to the investigators. In three contact conversations, a junior lieutenant of the district office attempted to convince the candidate of the necessity of pushing back attempts at political-ideological diversion. Although Büttner always behaved loyally toward party and state, could demonstrate a manifold social activity, and had been decorated several times for it, he refused unofficial collaboration in the service of the State Security. In the final report of April nineteen hundred and seventy-seven, it was noted that the candidate fundamentally refused confidential cooperation and always brought forward new arguments when individual objections were refuted.

The Arguments of a Loyal Citizen Who Refused

Büttner explained that in his immediate sphere no tendencies of softening of socialist ideology were known to him and that he coordinated himself in all essential questions with the party group organiser of the culture group. He himself was not suitable for supporting the organ, since in the past no trust had been placed in him either, including by the Ministry. There were enough full-time functionaries who likewise had insight into the affairs of culture, and he could not report secretly without the knowledge of the collective about things. His state of health was impaired, and he could not tolerate further excitement and burdens. The State Security ultimately had to acknowledge that Büttner, despite all loyalty toward the state, was not prepared to cross the threshold to conspiratorial activity.

The Fifth Failed Recruitment: Franz Schön

In the fifth case, the attempt failed to win the aspirant in the department of literature of the Institute for Sorbian Folk Research, Franz Schön, for cooperation as a societal collaborator for security. Schön did indeed sign in June nineteen hundred and seventy-eight the appointment presented to him, but revoked his consent to cooperation in writing on the same day. In his letter, he stated that he had been informed about a possible deployment in the non-socialist economic territory and about connected protective functions and that an agreement had been presented to him in which he was asked for cooperation. He had been in a certain sense cleverly overrun and had given his consent without demanding time for reflection. Subsequently he had come to the conclusion that the agreement was too general and ambiguous and that he suspected that rather his colleagues and his personal surroundings were of interest, and in this respect he was not willing to maintain a connection.

Decomposition Measures Against a Refuser

Since at that time an operative case was running against a circle of Sorbian intellectuals in Bautzen for anti-state agitation, Schön was visited again at the institute by a senior lieutenant of the district office in Bautzen in order to discredit him in public and to prevent him from continuing to work within the literature club. In the final report of September nineteen hundred and seventy-nine, the officer noted that offensive decomposition measures had been initiated, to which also an obvious connection of the Ministry to Schön belonged. Through another informant, it had been circulated among members of the state ensemble for Sorbian folk culture that Schön had contact with the Ministry. Shortly thereafter, Schön was excluded from the governing body of the named group. This procedure was a common component of the decomposition measures specifically directed against groups with the aim of achieving the dissolution of such structures.

The Poison of Suspicion Within Small Communities

Particular effect was achieved in the affected groups through the spreading of the rumour that members were spies of the Ministry. The State Security Service initially concentrated this rumour on a single person and only gradually drew other group members into the suspicions. In this way, everyone began to distrust everyone, and continuous common work became nearly impossible. The decomposition from within was one of the most perfidious methods of the State Security, because it systematically destroyed the social bonds and the trust within a community. For the Sorbian sphere, in which the communities were small and the personal relationships close, this strategy had particularly devastating effects on the cohesion of the group.

The Sixth Failed Recruitment: Frank Stübner

The sixth failed case concerns Frank Stübner, a student of German studies and literary studies at the University of Leipzig. He refused, as emerges from an information of the main administration for reconnaissance of November nineteen hundred and eighty-one, a closer contact with the Ministry on the basis of negative personal experiences with the security organ. The full-time employees noted after the unsuccessful recruitment attempt that Stübner adopted a positive political attitude and was socially active. In the discussion conducted, however, a contradiction between his political appearance and the readiness to support the Ministry had shown itself. He refused to assess persons whom he knew from his activity in the framework of the singing movement, and declared that he had no trust in the work of the security organ and feared harming his acquaintances through his assessments.

Songs as a Medium of Quiet Resistance

Stübner also expressed in the following years with his songs at public performances a critical attitude toward the existing social conditions in the German Democratic Republic. His refusal was thus not an isolated gesture but the expression of a fundamental attitude directed against the appropriation of the individual by the surveillance apparatus. The State Security could move him neither by arguments nor by pressure to cooperation, and his songs became a medium of quiet resistance. The case of Stübner stands exemplarily for those people who did not openly oppose the system but drew the line of personal integrity where the state wished to make them into instruments of surveillance. In his refusal lay a dignity that no pressure and no temptation could break, and that endured until the end of the regime.