by David Young
Like Mathias before her.
A spy.
An informer.
A Stasi child.
GLOSSARY
Ampelmann
Little green/red man with hat at pedestrian crossing lights
Arschloch
Arsehole
Bäderarchitektur
Resort architecture
Bezirk (pl Bezirke)
East German district or region
Brötchen
Bread roll
Bundesgrenzschutz
Federal border guard – the first police force permitted in West Germany after WW2
Der schwarze Kanal
Notorious East German propaganda television programme
Eingaben
Petitions
Gebackene Apfelringe
Baked apple rings
Generaloberst
Colonel general
Gottverdammt
Goddamnit
Grenztruppen
Border guards
Grenzübergang
Crossing point in the Berlin Wall or inner German border
Hänschen klein
Little Hans (name of a famous children’s song)
Jugendliche
Youth; teenager
Jugendwerkhof
Reformatory (literally ‘youth work yard’)
(pL Jugendwerkhöfe)
Kaufhaus des Westens
West Berlin department store
(usually abbreviated to KaDeWe)
Kriminalpolizei
Criminal police
Kriminaltechniker
Forensic officer
Kripo
Criminal police (short form)
Leutnant
Lieutenant
Neues Deutschland
Daily party newspaper
Oberleutnant
Lieutenant or first lieutenant
Oberliga
First division of the East German football league
Oberst
Colonel
Oberstleutnant
Lieutenant colonel
Ostler
Slang word for an East German (after 1989, called an Ossi)
Ostpolitik
Normalisation of relations between West and East Germany in the early 1970s
Ostsee
Baltic Sea
Republikflucht
Movement of people from East Germany to the West
Republikflüchtlinge
Escapees (people who escaped or left East Germany)
Scheisse
Shit
Seebrücke
Pier
Unterleutnant
Second lieutenant
Volkspolizei
People’s Police
Westler
Slang word for a West German (after 1989, called a Wessi)
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This novel is a work of fiction, but some of the story is inspired by true events – in particular the way the Stasi recruited young people. It is estimated that by the time the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, around six per cent of the Stasi’s 173,000 unofficial collaborators were under the age of eighteen. Recruitment of youths began in the 1970s and gathered pace in the 1980s. You can find out more in the book Stasi Auf Dem Schulhof by Klaus Behnke and Jürgen Wolf.
The favoured method of execution in East Germany was the guillotine up until the mid-1960s and from then on a bullet in the back of the head. The death sentence was not abolished until 1987. In 1982, the head of the Stasi, Erich Mielke, was quoted as saying that Stasi operatives should ‘execute if necessary, even without trial’. You can hear those chilling words as part of the exhibition at the Museum in der Runden Ecke, the old Stasi HQ in Leipzig.
Although the Jugendwerkhof featured in this book is fictional, the ‘closed’ Jugendwerkhof at Torgau was notorious for sexual and physical abuse of the children there. One harrowing first-hand account comes from Heidemarie Puls, who was an inmate in the 1970s. Her book, Schattenkinder hinter Torgauer Mauern, provided some of the background inspiration for this novel. The only Jugendwerkhof on Rügen was shut down in the 1950s. However, Prora itself is still there and makes for an interesting visit.
The idea of Neumann and Ackermann’s fictional escape tunnel was inspired by one built for East German leader Erich Honecker. He had a fifty-metre escape route built under the Berlin Wall in the event his people turned against him. Like my fictional Ackermann, he never got the chance to use it.
The island of Vilm does exist and was used by the East German political elite. The story of sexual abuse set there in this novel is, however, entirely fictional, as is the fancy-dress party on the Brocken. The Soviet base at Gross Zicker on Rügen described in this book is fictional, but there was a base nearby at Klein Zicker (since dismantled).
I have no evidence that the children of Jugendwerkhöfe were involved in making furniture for the West. Political prisoners of the Stasi were however used to produce items of IKEA furniture in the 1970s and 1980s. This included the well-known Klippan sofa. In November 2012, the head of IKEA Germany, Peter Betzel, made a formal apology to a roomful of former prisoners after a report by auditors Ernst & Young confirmed that IKEA managers were aware of the practice.
The plotline of the repatriation agreement for under-sixteens derives from a fascinating story on the internet called ‘Flight to Freedom’, told by a former American serviceman, Thomas Pucci. Thomas and his friend Harry Knights witnessed a fourteen-year-old boy escape near the ‘Doppel housing area’ in Berlin one day in the mid-1970s. Harry even took photos. But although the boy successfully evaded the death strip and reached the West, Thomas says he was taken into custody by the West Berlin authorities. Three days later, according to newspaper headlines, he was returned to the East under the terms of the ‘agreement’.
Sending Stasi agents to the West to get a hire car back to the East for forensic tests did actually happen in a murder case from 1977 related to me by Dr Remo Kroll, author of Die Kriminalpolizei im Ostteil Berlins (1945–1990). The Stasi did have a special homicide division and would become closely involved if the suspect was related to the ruling party, the SED (Socialist Unity Party). And they did sometimes take over criminal investigations from the Kripo – Dr Kroll cites the example of the 1986 murders of babies in a Leipzig hospital.
Finally, although party leaders did occasionally parade in their Volvos, more often than not they would be watching the parades themselves on a raised podium, Kremlin-style – so Karin’s memory from the twenty-fifth anniversary parade was a little authorial licence for the sake of the plot.
I hope you enjoyed reading the novel as much as I enjoyed writing it, and that it will encourage you to visit the eastern part of Germany, where the ghost of the dystopian world that was the DDR is still very much evident – but disappearing fast.
For more background, please see my website: www.stasichild.com
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This novel was written for the inaugural Crime Thriller Creative Writing MA at City University, London. Special thanks to my fellow students for their invaluable help and suggestions, particularly Stephanie Broadribb, Rob Hogg, James Holt, Philip Horswood, Kylie Morris, Seun Olatoye, Rod Reynolds, Jody Sabral, Laura Shepherd-Robinson and Emma Tuddenham. As I write, two of us have obtained publishing deals (with, I’m sure, more to follow), one has won the Debut Dagger and several have secured literary agents.
Also many thanks to my tutors – Claire McGowan, Laura Wilson and Philip Sington – for their suggestions. Philip’s novel The Valley of Unknowing – set in Dresden in the 1980s – was far and away the best fictional account I read during my research.
For sharing his experiences as a child in Sellin, Rügen, and for reading my first draft, I’m very grateful to Oliver Berlau of the BBC World Service. I spent a fabulous research trip in Sellin in April 2013, staying just off Wilhelmstrasse (Wilhelm-Pieck-Strasse in DDR times) and that – together with Oliver’s recollections – inspired the Rügen pa
rts of the book. Thanks also to Stephanie Smith for her valuable comments on the first draft.
For their help with explanations of DDR policing I’m indebted to former detectives Siegfried Schwarz and Bernd Marmulla, and to Jana Reissmann and Thomas Abrams for very kindly helping with interview translations. Many thanks, too, to Ronald Schulz-Töpken of the Berlin Police Presidency, Remo Kroll and former East Berlin police officer Kerstin Krüger.
Also a big thank you to the organisers of the international Yeovil Literary Prize. My shortlisting and third prize there was the first step towards publication.
Last, but not least, without my agent Adam Gauntlett and his colleagues at Peters Fraser & Dunlop (especially Rachel Mills, Naomi Joseph and Jonathan Sissons) this book might never have seen the light of day. I was thrilled when it was bought for Bonnier UK by Mark Smith, and am very grateful for the improvements suggested by my editor and publisher at Twenty7, Joel Richardson. All remaining errors are – of course – solely down to me.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Young was born near Hull and – after dropping out of a Bristol University science degree – studied Humanities at Bristol Polytechnic. Temporary jobs cleaning ferry toilets and driving a butcher’s van were followed by a career in journalism with provincial newspapers, a London news agency, and international radio and TV newsrooms. He now writes in his garden shed and in his spare time supports Hull City AFC.
First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Twenty7 Books
Twenty7 Books
80-81 Wimpole St, London W1G 9RE
www.twenty7books.co.uk
Copyright © David Young, 2015
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
The right of David Young to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Paperback ISBN: 978 1 78577 006 7
Ebook ISBN: 978 1 78577 005 0
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Printed and bound by Clays Ltd, St Ives Plc
Twenty7 Books is an imprint of Bonnier Publishing Fiction, a Bonnier Publishing company
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