God's Spies

Elisabeth Braw

• 18 oktober 2019
• 9780745980089

Samenvatting:

The inside story of how the Stasi turned Christians into spies during the war.

When the Berlin Wall came down, the files of the East German secret police, the dreaded Stasi, were opened and read. Among the shocking stories revealed was that of the Stasi's infiltration of the Lutheran Church. The Lutheran Church was the only semi-free space in East Germany and thus an obvious target for the Stasi, which recruited pastors to spy on one another and on other Christians. In preperation for writing God's Spies, Elizabeth Braw has read thousands of pages of Stasi documents, mapped the spy pastors' activities and those of their victims, interviewed dozen of East German pastors, and spoken exclusively with the man who directed the Stasi's church espionage campaign. This gripping account contains betrayal, career advancement, and the ultimate failure of the Stasi - who, despite their endless hard work, were unable to prevent the discontent that was bubbling below the surface, ready to explode in the summer and autumn of 1989.

When the Berlin Wall came down, the files of the East German secret police, the much-dreaded Stasi, were opened and read. And among the shocking stories revealed was that of the Stasi's infiltration of the Church. Almost 10% of the Lutheran Church's workforce were, it appears, busy involved in spying on each other, and on the Church's congregations. The Lutheran Church was the only semi-free space in East Germany, where those who rebelled against the regime could find a way of living at least a little out of the government's iron grip. Even the organisations that smuggled Bibles were infiltrated.