The Other Lives of Stasi Spies: Decrypting Informants at the Biographical Level

abstract: This article takes a biographical approach to understand why informants helped the Stasi, and how the Stasi used them. Using the case example of 1960s protests against the demolition of Leipzig's University Church, it delineates between informants who joined out of utilitarian self-interest and those who joined out of personal conviction. This latter, idealist brand of informants proved particularly useful for the Stasi, as their fundamental loyalty was typically camouflaged by their critique and desire for reform. In both cases, one must intertwine each side of an informant's double life to understand the everyday entanglement of East German lived reality.