BERLIN (Reuters) - For decades, Joachim Fritsch struggled to understand why he was being denied access to higher education and passed over for job promotions again and again.
Then he got hold of a 400-page file East Germany's dreaded secret police had compiled on him. The Stasi had arrested him back in the mid-1950s when he was just 17 years old and branded him a "provocateur" for failing to produce his identity card.
The arrest left an indelible mark on his record, leading the Stasi to watch him closely and thwart repeated attempts by Fritsch to get on with his life.
"I was absolutely overwhelmed when I read my files," the 73-year-old told Reuters, poring over copies of his personal file in his small flat on the 10th floor of an east Berlin high rise. "You enter your past hesitantly, step by step."
Fritsch is one of hundreds of thousands who have read their Stasi files. Two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the government agency set up to oversee them is still inundated with requests and has a two-year backlog.
Founded in 1950, the Stasi was one of the most repressive police organizations in the world. It infiltrated almost every aspect of life in East Germany, using torture, intimidation and a vast network of informants to crush dissent.
Millions of Germans worked for the Stasi and provided reports on friends, family, colleagues or lovers. The files, which would stretch for 112 km (70 miles) if laid out flat, were opened up to the public in 1992, exposing a web of betrayals.
The plan was to keep the Stasi archives open for around 10 years -- enough time, officials thought, for everyone who was spied on to get to their file and close that chapter of history.
But thousands of people, mainly from former East Germany, are still applying every month. In the first half of 2009, applications were up nearly 11 percent on 2008.
"We have had more applications this year because of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall," said Martin Boettger, who heads a regional branch of the Stasi archives in Chemnitz, formerly Karl-Marx-Stadt.
"Many films and books are being made, events are being held, so it is in the public consciousness," said Boettger, whose own file contains 3,000 pages, detailing even the most trivial facts of his life and branding him a "religious fanatic."
TIME TO FACE PAST MORE HERE:
http://www.reuters.com/
THE REVENGE OF AYN RAND
Huffington Post is a left of center publication on the net which surprised me twice in one week. First it gave 2 books on Rand foot stomping great reviews. This would be enough to stun me - except that the 2 books are written by progressive liberals and are pro- Rand. But wait, there's more! The Huffington Post actually called on liberal book clubs to read her novels!
That threw me for a loop. For years when I brought up her name liberals and leftists responded with a hatred far beyond their hatred of talk show hosts like Glenn Beck. They would dismiss her work out of hand, claiming to have read it. However I learned long ago that a good test if someone has actually read what they are attacking is to simply quote a central part of the writing- if they respond with threats or shocked anger they haven't read the subject they are attacking. Conservatives also disliked her, condemning her atheism and pro- abortion stances. Something however has happened that I doubt even she could forsee.
Ayn (pronounced like PINE or MINE) escaped Russia and went to Hollywood carrying with her a first hand knowledge of the failure of socialism. To her horror, she met Americans who loved Stalin and felt the gulags, secret police and forced famines were small prices to pay for free health care and a world of "justice". Gradually she began to create a philosophy that was pro- free market and pro- capitalism. At a time when the New York Times hailed Stalin and Time made the socialist Hitler man of the year she was as welcome at Hollywood parties the way the plague was welcomed by Europe. When Hitler and Stalin signed their peace pact socialists worldwide hailed Hitler as the new breed of socialist and this made her angry. That anger would find its way into her books. Left wing critics, busy hailing Hitler and Stalin were appalled at her rejection of national and international socialism. Didn't she want a world of "justice", too?
Her anger and philosophical quest would lead to a dogmatic approach to counter the dogmatism of the left- but she was also against corporate welfare and big business cutting their own throats to get special deals from governments. In THE FOUNTAINHEAD one villain is a self made man who builds a newspaper empire- by catering to the masses. For conservatives and liberals alike, her views rubbed people the wrong way. She created her own world and philosophy- at a time when women weren't supposed to be philosophers. Her fans became as dogmatic in taking on socialists of all kinds as they were and she'd go toe to toe against the welfare state.
She had no way to know that Hitler and Stalin had attacked 11 ships, sinking them and killing all onboard during their peace pact. That fact wasn't discovered until a year ago in KGB documents. Had it been known in the late 1930's we would have fought both of them, and I assure you supporters of both would have faced far worse than the "McCarthy era" at war's end. Lucky for them, we didn't know.
Dismissed by the right, despised by the left, Ayn kept speaking, writing- and her books kept selling. ANTHEM, THE FOUNTAINHEAD and ATLAS SHRUGGED never really left the public. The books hailed freedom in ways no other novels did, perhaps because Ayn had seen both the socialist and capitalistic state. It took a foreigner from a different land to point out what made America great and what could make it greater. The reviews were caustic, the hatred far beyond what Beck faces, but the books kept selling.
Today socialism is almost gone. China knows it needs a free market. Cuba allows people to have cell phones. The people of central Europe rose up against their leaders and let them know the free health care wasn't worth the millions dead. You can measure the failure of any government by the amount of socialism it has. When Europe declined to do mass bailouts, many were stunned when the socialist government of Sweden told SAAB cars there would be no bailout. Sweden, Germany, England, France all warned us we would prolong the recession with bailouts - we chose the socialist solution of the 30's. Today those nations have recovered, while we must now back up the trillions of dollars we printed not backed by goods or labor. Today even socialists warn that socialist economics don't work.
So Ayn Rand sells again. ATLAS SHRUGGED and THE FOUNTAINHEAD are being read by people who want to find out what works and what doesn't. Only this time, even the left is looking at her with new eyes.