The File: A Personal History [Paperback]

Timothy Garton Ash discovered after the reunification of the two Germanies, that the Stasi had kept a file on him under the code name "Romeo"(He thinks this name came from the Alfa Romeo he was driving at the time). They recorded everything about him from his first stay in West Berlin in 1978 as a student of history from Oxford who researched for his thesis on the Third Reich, and got specially interested in his person when he spent some time in East Berlin where he was allowed to study archives for his work.
So these files brought the older Garton Ash of the nineties back to his professional beginnings, and, since he kept his own notes from the time, he is in the unique position of comparing his own view of his life and past events with the outward view of those informing on him. The first half of the book deals with the incongruities of personal memory and historical events and the forever shifting perception of how things happened and what your own role was. This is sometimes a trifle tedious, because, as Garton Ash himself says, as a priviliged foreigner he had no negative or even dangerous consequences to fear, compared with East Germans, whose file brought them to Bautzen prison for years or ruined their personal and professional life. On the other hand, the "outsider's" view of this total surveillance of every move you made, every personal contact you established, is gripping in its honesty.
In the second, more thrilling part of the book Garton Ash interviews all the people who spied on him, the "IMs" as they were lovingly called by the communist system of the GDR. And the author tries very hard to be fair, to find out what made these informers do their dirty work. There is a German saying: "To understand all means to condone all", and sometimes Garton Ash is dangerously close to that. Still, it's very unusual for a Briton to show so much understanding, that he even doesn't give the real names of his informers, in order not to cause them problems. And, in an ironic turn at the end, we learn that the British Secret Service had a file on the author, too.
All in all, "the File" is a valuable counterpart of "The Balaton Brigade" by Georgy Konrad.

In part contemporary history, in part investigative journalism, in part memoir and in part essay,The File is a remarkable book. It is well-written, penetrating and readable.

Garton Ash lived in East Berlin in 1980, working on a doctoral dissertation on the Nazi period but also producing journalistic pieces on East Germany. He was the subject of Stasi surveillance and the core of the book is an account of what he found in the file that the Stasi kept on him and his subsequent exploration of how it was put together by tracking down and interviewing informers and others and by drawing upon his own recollections and notes of the time.

The File also describes as historical phenomena the Stasi and the so-called Gauck Authority, which provides access to the Stasi files, and it contains a more general treatise on such themes as memory, attitudes to the past and the factors lying behind the darker side of the history of Europe in the twentieth century.

There is a primary focus on the people who were involved in Garton Ash's life in East Germany: his friends, those who informed on him and Stasi officers. Their motivations, strengths, weaknesses and background are described in a detail which is never tedious. The clear driving force behind Garton Ash's interest here is the desire to find out why people acted as they did.

Contrast and irony permeate the book much as they do a novel. Perhaps the most important are the intimate proximity of high European culture and systematic inhumanity, which Garton Ash calls the "Goethe Oak", and the choice between the heroic resistance of a Stauffenberg and the collaboration of a Speer. As he openly admits, he only has partial explanations for these phenomena.

Garton Ash's somewhat informal style is thoroughly appropriate. He has a marvellous ability to evoke a time and a place economically. He succeeds in conveying the thrill of piecing together information, identifying sources and persuading them to talk.

My only criticism is that the apparatus of a historical study, such as a bibliography, footnotes and an index, would have been beneficial.

Garton Ash would be the first to admit that the Stasi treated him,like most foriegners in the GDR,with kid gloves compared to the way they treated East German citizens they had cause to investigate.Having said that,this book is a great read,and shows how the Stasi went to work on foriegn residents of the GDR.
Garton Ash had the opportunity to read a copy of his file(now more or less impossible due to a new law of 2000)and then tried to find the IMs(unofficial collaborators)of the Stasi who passed on information about him.He makes it quite clear that he dosen't want most of them identified (can't say why in this review,I'd ruin the story)and shows some understanding,even pity,for them.
Only four stars as it's too short,it could do with a more detailed considered approach.It's a great story of the old saw "Absolute power corrupts absolutely".Readers who never lived under totalitarianism will appreciate how lucky they are.The more perceptive will learn that those not as lucky as themselves had to make difficult decisions all the time.Pointing fingers and playing the blame game,as Garton Ash makes clear,is never a good way to gain any kind of understanding of such people.