Germany is in an uproar after the recent revelation that ex-members of the former East Germany’s secret service (Stasi) are employed by the current German government. The German Financial Times claims that as many as 17,000 Stasi members are civil servants, mainly in the East of the country. Even one of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s personal bodyguards worked for the communist secret police.

The East German Ministry for State Security was a highly effective organisation that conducted intelligence operations, throughout Cold War Germany. The term ‘Stasi’, is an abbreviation of the German word for state security, but the repressive administration engaged in more than security activities, working to crush all forms of dissent inside of communist Germany. Over the years, more than 250,000 people were employed by the Stasi, but some argue that perhaps two million people worked with the organisation. The Stasi infiltrated almost every aspect of life in East Germany. 

The disclosure that thousands of ex-Stasi members are still employed by the German government has shocked many. But intelligence services expert Roger Vluegels says it was necessary to keep many East German administrators on the job:

“It’s always the case, in countries which have major new starts. Like Germany after the Second World War or, for instance, South Africa after apartheid, in all those new situations you have to try to keep the government going…So in all those new starts,  you need the old people in their old functions or in another government function. You can’t do without them.”

Mr Vluegels suggests that the current controversy stems from divisions which still exist within the German population. Unlike South Africa, where an explicit public discussion about post-apartheid reconciliation took place, Germans have reached no consensus on how to resolve their divided past. Mr Vluegels hopes that these new revelations will spur on discussion in Germany.

“I hope it will lead to a serious reconciliation discussion, because the reunification of East and West Germany was on [the] state level, a success, but on [the] social level, in the population, it was not… The reunification of the people is not finished.”

Listen to the full interview with Roger Vluegels: