1 The Lives of Others (Buena Vista International 2006).Google Scholar

2 Brzezinski, Zbigniew, Terrorized by ‘War on Terror', Washington Post, Mar. 25, 2007, at B1.Google Scholar

3 See, e.g., Seven Awards to German Stasi Film, BBC, May 13, 2006.Google Scholar

4 Markovits, Inga, Selective Memory: How the Law Affects What We Remember and Forget about the Past – The Case of East Germany, 35 Law & Society Review 513–14 (2001).Google Scholar

5 See Robert E. Conot, Justice at Nuremberg (1993); Judgment at Nuremberg (United Artists 1961).Google Scholar

6 Schröder, Richard, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Jan. 2, 1991 (quoted in Jürgen Habermas, The Normative Deficits of Unification, in The Past as Future 33, 50 (Michael Haller ed., Max Pensky trans., 1994)).Google Scholar

7 A. James McAdams, Judging the Past in Unified Germany (2001).Google Scholar

8 Id. at 55–87.Google Scholar

9 Claus Offe, Varieties of Transition 88 (1996).Google Scholar

10 Disqualification was extended to pension rights by the statutory regime, but the Federal Constitutional Court ruled these statutory provisions unconstitutional.Google Scholar

11 See Fink Case, BVerfGE 96, 189, translated in 3 Decisions of the Bundesverfassungsgericht, Questions of Law Arising from German Unification, 1973–2004, 418 (2005); Treaty Between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic on the Establishment of German Unity, August 31, 1990, BGBl. II:885, Art. 20 (1) and Annex I, Chapter XIX, Subject Area A, part III, no. 1, subsection 5, no. 2.Google Scholar

12 See Wall Shooting Case, BVerfGE 95, 96.Google Scholar

13 McAdams, supra note 7, at 35.Google Scholar

14 McAdams, Offe and Markovits remark that only a small number of East Germans were ultimately affected by the disqualification regime. Market forces proved far more debilitating. See McAdams, supra note 7; Offe, supra note 9; Markovits, supra note 4.Google Scholar

15 See, Fink Case, BVerfGE 96, 189.Google Scholar

16 Id. at 426.Google Scholar

17 Id. at 421.Google Scholar

18 Id. Google Scholar

19 Id. at 422.Google Scholar

20 Id. at 420.Google Scholar

21 Id. at 423.Google Scholar

22 Id. at 423–24.Google Scholar

23 Id. at 425–26.Google Scholar

24 Id. at 420.Google Scholar

25 See Stasi Questionaire Case BVerfGE 96, 171, translated in 3 Decisions of the Bundesverfassungsgericht, Questions of Law Arising from German Unification, 1973–2004 358 (2005).Google Scholar

26 Id. at 367.Google Scholar

27 See id. at 368. For the second and third cases grouped as part of the Court's Questionnaire decision, the Court found a violation of both Article 2 (1) and Article 12 (1) of the Basic Law.Google Scholar

28 Id. Google Scholar

29 Id. Google Scholar

30 Id. at 369.Google Scholar

31 Id. Google Scholar

32 Id. Google Scholar

33 Id. at 370.Google Scholar

34 Id. Google Scholar

35 See Fink Case, BVerfGE 96, 189.Google Scholar

36 See Stasi Questionaire Case, BVerfGE 96, 171.Google Scholar

37 McAdams, supra note 7, at 73.Google Scholar

38 McAdams, supra note 7, at 70. This is a large number, no doubt. McAdams compares it to the much smaller degree of Gestapo penetration into German society during the Nazi era. Id. But it is considerably smaller than is often assumed. Where some suggest that as many as a third of all East Germans were in some way affiliated with the Stasi, McAdams reaches a much smaller figure at the time of the GDR's collapse: “at most, about 2.5 percent, or 265,200 persons out of 10,520,000 citizens between the ages of 18 and 65.” Id. Google Scholar

39 Id. at 73.Google Scholar

40 Id. Google Scholar

41 Id. McAdams notes that “there can be little doubt that the scores of new companies and businesses that sprang up throughout the former GDR in the first half of the 1990s had the wherewithal to undertake sweeping review of their ranks to match the most aggressive [public sector] campaigns. … However, as long as skilled labor was in short supply in the East, private employers were apparently more inclined to value the technical abilities and training of those who worked for them than to concern themselves with ancient history. As a consequence, as late as mid-1994, private firms had submitted only about 10,000 requests for background checks to the [Gauck Agency] in marked contrast to the well over 1.2 million inquiries filed by public agencies over the same period.” Id. at 76 (citations omitted).Google Scholar

42 See also Simon Burnett, Ghost Strasse – Germany's East Trapped Between Past and Present 127–140 (2007) (describing a meeting of former Stasi officers at which one of the attendees is quoted as saying “‘there is no need for regrets’ about the past.” Burnett reports that this “won him sustained applause.”).Google Scholar

43 See Stasi Questionaire Case, BVerfGE 96, 171.Google Scholar

44 Id. Google Scholar

45 Of course, Wiesler is just as likely to benefit from the holes in the disqualification regime discussed in relation to Hempf and Grbuitz.Google Scholar

46 See Stasi Questionaire Case, BVerfGE 96, 171.Google Scholar

47 See Fink Case, BVerfGE 96, 189.Google Scholar