Top secret: my case in the Stasi daily report

Reported centrally just one day later

I was arrested in Erfurt on 14 February 1989. The very next day, my case appeared in a daily report classified “Top secret”, produced by the Central Coordination Group of the Ministry for State Security.

My personal wish for freedom was no longer merely the subject of an investigation in Erfurt. It had become part of the Stasi’s central reporting on people who had tried to leave East Germany.

My life in a few administrative lines

The overview listed me as an 18-year-old apprentice clothing worker at VEB Modellkleidung Erfurt. It recorded my intended route through Czechoslovakia and Austria to West Germany, and the Bratislava area as the planned border crossing area.

The more detailed account gives the intended date as 16 February 1989. I was due to receive my skilled worker’s certificate on 15 February. I wanted to take it with me on my way to a free life. I was arrested two days before my planned departure.

Criminal proceedings were opened against me under Section 213 of the East German Criminal Code. What I saw as an attempt to make my own decisions about my life was described by the state as an “unlawful border crossing” and a “criminal offence”.

Part of a system, rather than an isolated case

The report shows that my case was no isolated incident within the East German border regime. The Stasi recorded escape attempts from different districts, compiled daily reports and forwarded them to its central coordination office.

People from what was then Erfurt District were also reported for trying to leave East Germany without state permission. My personal wish for freedom thus became a numbered case within a bureaucratic overview. Just one day after my arrest, my case appeared in a Ministry for State Security report classified “Top secret”.

What the document establishes

The report confirms the sequence of events I remember: my arrest on 14 February, the planned issue of my skilled worker’s certificate on 15 February, and my intended departure on 16 February 1989. It also shows how quickly information passed from the Erfurt District Administration into the Stasi’s central reporting structure.

Nevertheless, it is not a neutral statement of facts. Terms such as “criminal offence”, “abuse of travel arrangements” and “unlawful departure” reflect the perspective and language of the East German state apparatus. That is why I do not publish the document without comment: I set my own story alongside its administrative language.

Source: Federal Archives — Stasi Records Archive, MfS-ZKG no. 7639, appendix 21/4. To protect privacy, information about other people, personal contact details, signatures and individual internal details have been permanently redacted. Only newly rasterised image files are published, rather than the editable source PDF.