> The Germans knew to identify ex Stasi and their informants so they know who to beware of.
I thought it was quite the opposite: there were so many informants and records were shredded that it wasn't that easy to figure out. What was the mechanism for this identification? A public database records lookup?
It's worthy of a book length history: some records were shredded, and some undoubtedly lost forever, but German citizens occupied Stasi offices and preserved records. At least some of the shredded records were digitized and reconstructed. There are over 100 million pages of archived Stasi documents in German archives today.
Thanks for the context. I knew a little how people could review their own Stasi file but wonder how easily was for them to discover the mapping from the agent code names to people's names.
I found this blog https://zipser2018feb.wordpress.com/under-surveillance/ from someone who reviewed their Stasi file. They were visiting professor of German from University of Delaware. As a visitor from the "capitalist West" of course they had file on him.
> The file reveals that there were nine unofficial collaborators of one sort or another who reported on my GDR-related activities and gathered information on me for the Stasi. Three were writers: IME “Dichter” (Poet), Paul Wiens, a well-known, well-connected poet and communist party loyalist [...] Two informants were good acquaintances, a married couple I got to know while living in East Berlin: IMV “Kurt” and IMV “Julia.” [...] There is evidence that two American Germanists, “unofficial sources,” informed the Stasi about my GDR-related activities in the United States. Although they are unnamed, I was able to identify them from the information provided. The file also contains four surveillance reports (one stretching over a three-day period), which were authorized by the Ministry for State Security and prepared by Stasi operatives. In these I have a code name: “Adler,” eagle, the bird of prey.
Speaking of which, I feel like ICE's next move is to start arresting people for not turning in their friends, neighbors, and coworkers. We know they're planning for it at least.
i had a woman i met at a policy conference confide that many bad people made it through both the nazi period and the east german times -- there's a type of sadist who maliciously complies with the rules in any way they can to the detriment of others who i despise and saw much too much of in the policy context.
i haven't been there in a long time, but this hacker looking across the pond, it looks like germany has changed...
i worry too many hackers have not sufficiently studied history.
I think the concept you want here is "just following orders" or even "mindless compliance", rather than "malicious compliance". Malicious compliance refers to a sense of justice obtained from technically following rules, when you either disagree with the rule or the authority, in a way that is counterproductive to the goals of the authority.
i love that book -- i once rolled into an in school suspension with a copy of "eichmann in jerusalem" in my backpack, as i was a troll from an early age.
> Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from former Nazi Germany to the US between 1945 and 1959 for government employment after the end of World War II in Europe.
> Unit 731 was a secret biological and chemical warfare research unit run by the Imperial Japanese Army between 1933 and 1945. An estimated 14,000 people were killed by infecting prisoners with deadly diseases, conducting vivisection, performing organ harvesting, testing hypobaric chambers, amputating limbs, and exposing victims to chemical agents and explosives.
The German communist party managed to destroy all of its records, so the people in charge of this hellscape managed to escape justice. Only the foot soldiers were exposed.
They really are turning into something like the Stasi:
https://www.wired.com/story/ice-is-running-one-of-the-larges...
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And they're still being identified, decades later and still getting into trouble for it which I love.
> The Germans knew to identify ex Stasi and their informants so they know who to beware of.
I thought it was quite the opposite: there were so many informants and records were shredded that it wasn't that easy to figure out. What was the mechanism for this identification? A public database records lookup?
It's worthy of a book length history: some records were shredded, and some undoubtedly lost forever, but German citizens occupied Stasi offices and preserved records. At least some of the shredded records were digitized and reconstructed. There are over 100 million pages of archived Stasi documents in German archives today.
Thanks for the context. I knew a little how people could review their own Stasi file but wonder how easily was for them to discover the mapping from the agent code names to people's names.
I found this blog https://zipser2018feb.wordpress.com/under-surveillance/ from someone who reviewed their Stasi file. They were visiting professor of German from University of Delaware. As a visitor from the "capitalist West" of course they had file on him.
He did discover the names of some of this informants https://zipser2018feb.wordpress.com/my-stasi-file/
> The file reveals that there were nine unofficial collaborators of one sort or another who reported on my GDR-related activities and gathered information on me for the Stasi. Three were writers: IME “Dichter” (Poet), Paul Wiens, a well-known, well-connected poet and communist party loyalist [...] Two informants were good acquaintances, a married couple I got to know while living in East Berlin: IMV “Kurt” and IMV “Julia.” [...] There is evidence that two American Germanists, “unofficial sources,” informed the Stasi about my GDR-related activities in the United States. Although they are unnamed, I was able to identify them from the information provided. The file also contains four surveillance reports (one stretching over a three-day period), which were authorized by the Ministry for State Security and prepared by Stasi operatives. In these I have a code name: “Adler,” eagle, the bird of prey.
Speaking of which, I feel like ICE's next move is to start arresting people for not turning in their friends, neighbors, and coworkers. We know they're planning for it at least.
How do we know that?
I wouldn't say "know", but it sure is what historical precedent suggests...
They don't but it appeals to their imagination.
i had a woman i met at a policy conference confide that many bad people made it through both the nazi period and the east german times -- there's a type of sadist who maliciously complies with the rules in any way they can to the detriment of others who i despise and saw much too much of in the policy context.
i haven't been there in a long time, but this hacker looking across the pond, it looks like germany has changed...
i worry too many hackers have not sufficiently studied history.
> maliciously complies
I think the concept you want here is "just following orders" or even "mindless compliance", rather than "malicious compliance". Malicious compliance refers to a sense of justice obtained from technically following rules, when you either disagree with the rule or the authority, in a way that is counterproductive to the goals of the authority.
See https://www.reddit.com/r/MaliciousCompliance/
Hanna Arendt coined the best term of all for it: The Banality of Evil.
i love that book -- i once rolled into an in school suspension with a copy of "eichmann in jerusalem" in my backpack, as i was a troll from an early age.
(happy halloween, orange site.)
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There was a guy from Japanese Unit 731 found working as a pharmacist many years after the war.
A monster hiding in plain sight.
> Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from former Nazi Germany to the US between 1945 and 1959 for government employment after the end of World War II in Europe.
> Unit 731 was a secret biological and chemical warfare research unit run by the Imperial Japanese Army between 1933 and 1945. An estimated 14,000 people were killed by infecting prisoners with deadly diseases, conducting vivisection, performing organ harvesting, testing hypobaric chambers, amputating limbs, and exposing victims to chemical agents and explosives.
The German communist party managed to destroy all of its records, so the people in charge of this hellscape managed to escape justice. Only the foot soldiers were exposed.
Not really a great example of justice.
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