Managing the Legacy of Communist Repression in Germany
As part of USIP's periodic series examining and comparing the way different countries deal with the aftermath of mass abuse, Joachim Gauck will discuss the German post-communist experience. Since 1990, he has headed the federal agency responsible for the files of Eastern Europe's most pervasive secret police network, which maintained files on more than one third of the population of the former German Democratic Republic. This session will explore how Germany is managing issues of research and public education on the system of repression, questions of privacy and access to personal Stasi files, the process of vetting individuals for various professional positions based on the secret police files, and more broadly, the challenge of national reconciliation.
Speakers
- Joachim Gauck
Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Files
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