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Like Scientology, the Communist German Ministry for State Security (Stasi) utilized field staff, both officially and unofficially, and both as cognizant and incognizant volunteers. While Scientology calls its component FSM's, for Field Staff Members, the Stasi referred to its component as IM's, for Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter. "Mitarbeiter" also conveys the sense of "colleague" or "co-worker." This abbreviation will be transformed into its English equivalent for clarity's sake, UC's for Unofficial Coworkers. It should be noted FSM is a more general term than UC, in that FSMs may also work in part or in full for the "Church" department of Scientology.
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For decades Scientology has been feeding the media a red herring -- that Germans who openly oppose the cult are Nazis. In fact, the German communist party and its successor, the Left.PDS Party, are historically well-known for an anti-cult, as well as an anti-fascist agenda. Understandably, the Germans are not particularly eager to share this information with Americans. This is partly because communism has stronger roots in Germany than it does in the USA, and partly because many Americans regard Communism not only as a subversive, anti-social movement, but anti-American and anti-business as well. This could hardly have gone unnoticed by Scientology in its search for allies in prosecuting American businessman Bob Minton for alleged white-collar crime.
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One source of the many names of Stasi Unofficial Coworkers is the recently released Rosenholz file, which was handed over to Germany by the CIA.
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Be that as it may, the official German representative for Stasi Documents, Marianne Birthler, has voiced a proposal that newly elected parliamentarians be checked out for prior intelligence employment in former Communist East Germany. As reported by dpa September 23, 2005, "They should undergo this process voluntarily." According to Birthler's documents, the newly formed faction of (Hamburg Working Group on Scientology director) Caberta's Left.PDS party contains at least seven people who are known to have worked as unofficial field staff members for the Stasi, more formally known as the Ministry for State Security of formerly communist East Germany. One of the Stasi collaboraters was said to have been a West German politician who passed confidential political information to the East Germans. That particular politician is a member of Caberta's old political party, the SPD (Socialist Party), more moderate than the Communists and therefore not under surveillance in Germany. (With the election of Angela Merkel, the socialists are now out of power.)
Unofficial Coworkers (UC's) of communist Germany's Ministry for State Security
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Like Scientology, Stasi
was founded in the Cold War. Unlike Hubbard's policies, some of which were
based on his Naval Intelligence training in WWII, Stasi policies were
transferred exclusively from the former Soviet NKVD (secret police).
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In the western German version of Stasi's history, the Ministry for State Security (Stasi) was the new Gestapo (secret state police of the Nazi regime) of East Germany. What the western Germans, not unlike Scientology, mistakenly called the Gestapo, was actually an organization originally set up for the "detection and eradication of war criminals, fascist terrorists, provocateurs and saboteurs," (April 5, 1945 directive of the German anti-Fascists (i.e., anti-Nazis) in the Red Army occupation zone.) This anti-Nazi endeavor was regarded by Communist Party Germany as the most urgent and pressing task in the period immediately after the war. In addition to targeting Nazi "poison," the political purge was eventually directed against "all imperialist/militarist thought processes." It gradually became apparent that anti-Nazi sentiment, supported by the western Allies, was being used by the Communists to strategic self-advantage.
Communist Party Germany itself originally came into existence in accordance with directives from the Russian secret police. The infrastructure of post-war East Germany, including both state and local governments as well as the police, were organized as "K7," or various German "Commissariates for Occupation Affairs." They functioned as contact points for the corresponding "operative groups" of the NKVD (Russian secret police), to whom they were solely responsible.
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Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED) / (SUPG) Socialist Unity Party Germany
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Scientology
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political officers (K5)
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Ethics Officers
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Ministry for State Security (MSS, Stasi)
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Office for Special Affairs (OSA)
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Unofficial Coworkers
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covert data collection, human resources section
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The idea of the Stasi started with East Germany's political police, designated K5 in the Soviet model. The power of the K5 was broadened in 1947 by Order 201 of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany. For the political police, this meant the construction of a network of Unofficial Coworkers (UCs) to replace certain functions of Soviet security, which until then had been the agency to deal with suspected crimes of a political nature. Prior to that point, vice president of the East German Office of the Interior (GOI) Erich Mielke had had difficulty in getting people to turn in their neighbors as part of the denazification process. As time went on this became even more difficult, to the point where by January of 1948, the political police had received only 33,000 reports of "fascistic remnants."
Under these circumstances, Unofficial Coworkers became essential. They were needed as an instrument of political purification. At a meeting of the commissariates, to which K5 was invited, Order 201 was regarded as a "great encumbrance." The regular staff were already overworked, and could barely spare time to investigate sabotage and white-collar crime. How could they do all this and maintain an additional undercover network? GOI vice president Kurt Wagner tried to convince those present of the necessity of engaging in undercover work. In doing this, he said working undercover should be regarded as the aide and guarantor that would contribute to the mission of K5. The "creation" of undercover personnel was intended to relieve the staff of K5 so that they might better accomplish their mission. Speaking in favor, one conference attendee from Leipzig said, "We are hearing practically nothing. We'll hear what we need to hear from undercover personnel." To all appearances, Wagner's audience started recruiting, albeit slowly. By 1948, however, undercover work still played no significant role in information collection. By this time undercover work was less dedicated to former Nazis and more devoted to "reactionaries, saboteurs and criminals." This change in target was apparently part of the build-up for the upcoming Cold War.
Systematic recruiting of UCs did not occur until 1950, when the Ministry for State Security (MSS) was founded. Records indicate that recruitment was occurring in Zwickau, for instance, in March 1950. By the end of the year, Berlin had 368 UCs, most of whom were recruited late that year.
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Socialist Unity Party Germany (SUPG)
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Scientology
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Informant Reports
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Knowledge Reports
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"fair punishment"
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"fair game"
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UC "enemy-fighters"
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OSA FSMs
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UCs to secure an area
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data collectors/distributors
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UCs on logistical assignment
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The "Church," "social reform" or other "safepoint"
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In the MSS directive authorizing UCs, which included the establishment of a department of statistics, "undercover agent" was replaced by three categories of Unofficial Coworker: secret coworker, data collector, and "persons who maintain a conspiratorial residence." These three categories were to remain the same, although they were later designated as UC "enemy-fighters," UCs to secure a definite area, and UC on logistic assignment. There were no details in the establishment directive as to either its political significance or to the operational legitimacy of UCs. The necessity of having a security service was derived in advance from Article 6 of the Constitution. This Article made incitement to boycott, murder and war punishable by law. In order to guarantee "full effectiveness" of Article 6, explained Mielke, the "appropriate organs" would have to be created to conduct the "battle against agents, saboteurs and diversionists." In this way, justice would be served and guilty perpetrators would receive "fair punishment." Although the Ministry for State Security saw Article 6 as a significant legal basis, no mention of it was made in the establishment directive. Instead, UCs were repeatedly directed to gather information on "hostile" or, correspondingly, "illegal, anti-democratic" activity and on espionage. UCs were to play a key role in monitoring the Homeland politically.
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Signs of the German Communist anti-cult campaign were evident in 1951, when the Jehovahs Witnesses were banned in East Germany.
Today's director of Leipzig's Hanna Arendt Institute for Totalitarian Studies, Gerhard Besier, uses German Communist anti-cult sentiment to promote a cult-backed agenda: he defines a totalitarian organization essentially as an organization that suppresses minority religions.
Several years ago, Besier also publicly praised Scientology's human rights endeavors, an action for which he received open disapproval, mainly from German anti-cult officials.
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Like Scientology uses WISE (World Institute of Scientology Enterprises, the SUPG (Socialist Unity Party Germany) assigned UCs to adapt business to the Soviet model, simultaneously discouraging private proprietorships. The East Germans later systemitized this oversight in the "Economic System of Socialism," which evolved from the "New Economic System of Management and Planning."
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UCs were used in 1951 primarily to protect "pressure points in business." The primary interest of the MSS was in its own survival. One way of doing this was to increase the importance of monitoring industry. This mission was announced at the third SUPG (Socialist Unity Party Germany) conference. The first 5-year plan included a provision to adapt private industry to the Soviet model and to suppress private industry.
On November 20, 1952, State Secretary Mielke authorized "Directive 21 on the search for, recruitment of and work with information collectors and distributors, secret coworkers and people who maintain conspiratorial residences." Without being explicit about it, this paper superseded the establishment directive. Unlike its predecessor, directive 21 contained a preamble that made UCs part of the political milieu, thereby linking them to security requirements of the GDR (German Democratic Republic, official name for communist East Germany).
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Observations of the 2002 attacks on Robert Minton, among others, indicate the alt.religion.scientology news group is used as a proving ground and to give newly recruited Scientology coworkers practical experience in taking part in hostile operations against critics.
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Directive 21 also provided some practical experience for Stasi staff, so that they would have more to fall back on than the training that had originated in the Soviet Union. To this end the MSS developed a "most significant document" based on "scientific analysis" in which the work of the UCs was specified in detail. Staff were qualified in accordance with the provisions of the document, of which there were 505 copies, mostly in weekly classes. This was the way the duties of a UC could be conveyed most quickly to staff.
The preamble of the directive made a direct connection between the requirements of politics and the recruitment of UCs. UC activities were legitimized with operations directed against East Germany by "agent centrals." No legal basis for this was given. Legitimization existed only for the benefit of SUPG management. In order to successfully conduct the fight against "agent centrals" it was necessary to recruit suitable staff. More staff was regarded as the most important weapon in the fight against "agents, spies, saboteurs and diversionists." This functional definition supposedly narrowed the operating field for the UCs, in that they could "be used only to fight the enemy."
Directive 21 applied solely to "enemy fighters." No provisions in it were made for information collection/distribution UCs. These did not fit into this context, because 1) their job was to secure definite areas, and 2) by definition they could maintain no connection to UCs actively engaged in fighting the enemy. The mission of the information collection/distribution UCs was to 1) discover the conditions favorable to enemy operations, 2) have a hindering effect and 3) conduct the fight on an offensive basis.
Like the establishment directive, all the basic components for utilizing UCs were present in Directive 21, they were merely to be adapted in the following years. These adaptations were made as recruitment progressed, and the process of selection, testing and acquisition of UCs became ever more refined over the decades. This also applied to defining the limits of cooperating with UCs. The directive concentrated on the basic processes, such as the preparation, execution and evaluation of meetings with the UC, the distribution of assignments and the acceptance of reports.
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While many who have never been Scientologists characterize cult members as having to follow instructions without fail, Scientologists themselves are repeatedly impressed with the idea that as long as they "make things go right," a transgression of policy may be overlooked. A similar scenario existed for Stasi officers, who "in the best case," were to behave in accordance with MSS directives.
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At the same time, Directive 21 limited the scope to which it could be interpreted, something the establishment directive had not done. The standard rules of working with UCs were put down in detail. Numerous case studies and graphic aids gave the directive an academic character. It was meant to address coworkers at the entry level as well as on a higher intellectual niveau. This interaction between practical experience and the setting of new standards was in evidence for the entire 40 years of Stasi's existence. In general, Stasi directives were not strictly adhered to, and management personnel were instructed that it would "be best" if they behaved in accordance with directives.
For East Germany the 1950s was an era of disappointment and frustration. The rewards promised as a result of conversion to Socialism did not come to pass. Instead, prices rose and production decreased. For the Stasi, the solution to these failures were simple -- infuse fresh blood into the ranks of Unofficial Coworker and concentrate on Production. The result of this move, of course, was a mass migration of workers from East to West Germany, thereby worsening matters even more. The political climate in communist Germany was unstable, and the Soviet communists intervened with a "new course." The "Creation of Socialism" plan was supposed to relieve inner social tensions. The SUPG met this challenge and revoked every resolution it had passed to "heighten the class struggle" within the country. Nevertheless the higher work standards were kept in place, which resulted in protests by workers in 1953 in East Germany.
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Like Stasi, Scientology had its share of problems in the 1950s with protests from dissidents like Don Purcell and Dr. Joe Winter, and with mass defections. Stasi's initial solution was to get more support from the Party and eventually build the Berlin Wall, Hubbard's solution was to move to England and eventually start the Sea Organization.
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These protests were viewed as provocation of the state. The MSS used its own failure to predict and thwart these protests as an excuse to get more resources allocated to itself, so that in the future it could recognize where "enemy elements" were concentrated. Beginning in 1953, the focus of MSS efforts shifted from within East Germany to the external enemy that had caused the "Fascist Putsch attempt." This resulted in hundreds being jailed. UCs who had previously been instructed to observe "all targets at once" were now concentrated on "Fascist and other hostile elements" and on "protecting the economy." The "Information Apparatus," which included 15,000 UCs, was assessed by MSS management as "extraordinarily weak," and this was said to be especially true of Berlin. Mass recruitment resulted. In August 1954, a leading communist predicted that at this rate of recruitment, every other citizen of the German Democratic Republic would be a UC by 1963. While that was an exaggeration, the number of UCs still doubled in two years.
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German Communists: "We must hit hard and ruthlessly. There is no place in our ranks for weak-kneed pacifists or navel-gazers."
"Keeping Scientology Working": "When we do instruct someone properly he becomes more and more tiger. When we instruct half-mindedly and are afraid to offend ... that let's everybody down."
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As with any other bureaucracy, there were a few sacrificial lambs whose ousters were accompanied with language like "We must hit hard and ruthlessly. There is no place in our ranks for weak-kneed pacifists or navel-gazers." This led to an increase in number of arrests made as a result of UC work.
In 1956, after the 20th conference of Communist Party Soviet Union, at which Nikita Kruschev denounced Stalinists (Stalin died in 1953) as a "cult of personality," the emphasis was no longer on "class struggle" as much as it was on "states living in peaceful coexistence." The SUPG hesitated in accepting this new party line, and ended up reinterpreting class struggle as "escalating the fight against the American and West German warmongers" who operated from West German soil. To stress the "democratic legitimacy" of this, many Germans who had been arrested were released from jail and allowed to return to work. However, the idea of a threat from outside the country was taken more seriously once the uprising in Hungary was put down. MSS management perceived the uprising as a political-ideological diversion resulting from an opponent's attempt to weaken and destroy. From this the mission was derived to "nip in the bud all attempts to hold up or hinder Socialism."
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While Scientology tried, sometimes successfully, to criminalize "deprogrammers" (people who help Scientologists leave the cult), Stasi's targets included "human traffickers" (those who helped people escape from East Germany). Although there indeed were unethical people in both these groups, they were not generally representative of the others.
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The MSS, which had an important role in border security, was gratified by the building of the Wall dividing East and West Berlin on August 13, 1961. Now infiltration by the West and the operability of its "agent centrals" would be severely limited. Much effort was subsequently spent on fighting the West's "psychological warfare" and the "human trafficking gangs" (those who helped people escape East Germany). In the meantime, the emphasis internally was on the new scientific-technological revolution and the accompanying training. The core of this effort was the "New Economic System of Management and Planning," which was supposed to modernize business and make it manageable, and several years later this transmutated in the "Economic System of Socialism.
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As Scientology has become expert in finding sympathizers and collaborators in the most unlikely places (see the Carto pages), East German UC managers were also assigned to know exactly not only which suspected enemy forces were within their areas, but what human resources they had in place that could have an effect on and exploit the enemy.
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Stasi oriented its operational work on the enemy's "political-ideological diversion," which was supposed to be scientifically analyzed. The people who did this supposedly scientific analysis had been trained in new, supposedly scientific management methods. Part of this science was that Stasi would know exactly "which suspected enemy forces were in a particular jurisdiction and which people already in place were suited to influence and exploit these forces." Each jurisdiction had to know exactly "who was who" in each area. Of course this applied not only to information collection, but to distribution as well. Operative lines were to be built according to which resources were in place, and policies were modified accordingly.
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While the Stasi could hardly be called "religious," Stasi was to protect socialism similarly to how Hubbard's numerous groups were to protect "Scientology."
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The Stasi was to use ruthlessly "Socialist legitimacy" against the enemy. This would guarantee Socialism's protective, preventive and training functions. Emphasis was put on the category of prevention. One purpose of this was to use "socialization" to depolarize the "repressive situation." This had no effect on the functions of the Stasi, as it was still "a respected instrument of Socialist state power feared by the enemies of the people ..." Prevention was stressed in the areas of "provocation" along the border, "human trafficking," and increasing "ideological-political diversion."
In order to "increase public awareness," the Socialist society would have to be cultivated, and for the Stasi this meant an increase in their unofficial forces. By 1968, this was couched in pseudo-scientific terms, complete with references and footnotes, for "Socialist legitimacy." Stasi's part in this legitimization was to "serve and strengthen" it. In stating this, Stasi management was making the assumption that the people of East Germany were "ever more willing" to protect their Communist country. "The wider the scope of confidential cooperation," stated a 1968 directive, "the surer the protection of the Socialist establishment." Part of this included making sub-categories of Unofficial Coworkers. The UC Information Collectors/Distributors were to be aided in their duties by "Social Coworkers for Security" and ad hoc UCs were authorized as "UCs in charge of security for a definite area or target."
"Peaceful coexistence" became nothing less than a "class struggle at a more intense level." In this struggle, tasks of greater significance were assigned to the most reliable UCs, while slip-ups were punished by reassignment to less important areas. As far as by-now-Minister Mielke was concerned, there could never be any similarity between Imperialism and Socialism. He demanded marginalization, with no compromise. The union of Socialism and business was stated in the following mission:
The main mission consists of further heightening the material and cultural level of public life on the basis of the high rate of development of Socialist production, the increase of effectiveness, scientific-technical progress and the growth of labor production."
This was not compatible with the idea of a united Germany, and so the Stasi had a difficult time countering calls from the West for reunification. In 1974, approximately 1,300 citizens of East Germany fled to the West without the Stasi knowing how they disappeared.
In 1979, East Germany defined itself as a "developing Socialist society" that, even though it was currently undergoing "class disputes," was still promoting the "principles of peaceful coexistence." In pursuing "peaceful coexistence," the Stasi had five mission areas: protecting social development, guaranteeing inner security, strengthening the socialist state presence, "working on the enemy," and "preventive, harm-averting work." The main purpose of UCs was said to be the "acquisition of significant information," but UCs were also required to better cooperate in introducing changes deemed to have "high social and political use."
If numbers can be used as an indication of how much importance Stasi management placed upon UCs, in 1955 Stasi managed about 20,000 Unofficial Coworkers, but by 1985 the number was closer to 176,000. In 1989, prior to the collapse of Communist East Germany, Stasi management were still trying to retain their UCs. By placing restrictions on them traveling to "non-socialist" countries, Stasi hoped to staunch the increasing defection rate of their own coworkers.
Unofficial Coworkers (UC's) of communist Germany's Ministry for State Security - Part 2
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Left Parties under observation by the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution include: ex-PDS ex-SUPG-PDS ex-SUPG (Socialist Unity Party Germany) ex-KPD (Communist Party Germany), and Ursula Caberta's WASG party, but not her old, more moderate SPD (Socialist Party).
In the 1970s Scientology's Guardian Office was able to insert its own operative agents into the offices of several government offices in Washington, D.C.
Today any Scientologist employed in a sensitive area is a potential source of information for Scientology central data banks. Sample questions from a current Scientology application form:
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Are you related to or connected to intelligence agencies either by past history or immediate familial connections.
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Have any of your relatives (parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousings, children, grandparents) ever worked for the govermnet? If so, when, for which branch, and what did they do?
- Have you ever worked in a high security section in the government or armed forces?
Ostentatiously these questions are to prevent Scientology from being infiltrated, but the answers to the questions are also a necessary requirement for establishing contacts within government once the application is accepted and the Scientologist starts giving real accounts of personal life in "auditing."
Besides having its own informants, Scientology relies upon marketing and other types of surveys to determine public mood or attitude. What the public's attitude is towards a certain situation determines upon what side that situation will be placed on Scientology's world game board, and what prominence that situation is to take.
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Unofficial Coworkers (UC's) of communist Germany's Ministry for State Security - Part 2
UCs to secure a definite area
UCs to secure a definite area were recruited primarily for those areas that, in the opinion of the SUPG (Socialist Unity Party Germany), were of special interest to the "enemy." Their professional or social status and their contacts were meant to give them the possibility of a wide overview and good influence potential. Their conspiratorial work was supposed to contribute to internal security, and avert and prevent harm. The ultimate purpose was an extensive, reliable assessment and oversight of the corresponding area. The functional category was to not only collect information about persons or events, but to also work actively on assignments from state security services to investigate transgressions of political law and take a part in certain measures. In addition to this the UC would acquire professional knowledge to help develop expert opinions, observe, communicate or fulfill Stasi missions connected with his professional involvement. There were several category designations for this type of UC, from 1950 to 1967 Secret Informant, from 1953 to 1967 Secret Chief Informant, from 1958 to 1967 Secret Coworker on Special Assignment, and from 1968 on the names included UC for political-operative Penetration and Jurisdictional Security, Social Coworker for Security, UC on Special Assignment and Operations UC.
According to the establishment directive and directive 21, after 1952 secret informants, also frequently refered to as agents, were to target only people who stayed or lived in the GDR (German Democratic Republic). Most likely these composed the majority of UCs, although exact figures are unavailable. It was their assignment to come up with "interesting statements" about professional and regional situations. In the early '50s, secret informants were assigned mainly to cover individual fields of business, other political parties, as well as "hostile" persons. By 1953, their attention was to be spent on "all targets at once" for the general security of a definite area. By June 17, 1953, management saw a need to become aware of "all moods" among the people. As a result there was a drastic increase of unofficial work with the assignment of "mood informants." By 1954, mood informants made up the majority of secret informants. They were supplemented by: secruity, observation, investigation, business, technical, civil and defense informants, also known as "agents."
This led to some discussion among management, who then saw a need for properly categorizing this variety of agent into security informants, mood informants and informants that are actually assigned to observe persons. This led to a yet greater increase in the number of different categories of secret informant. According to directive 1/58, secret informants were classified into eight categories. They were to 1) secure important institutions, 2) observe suspicious persons and 3) determine the mood of the people. To the extent they were deemed "fully reliable," they were assigned to 4) prevent escapes from the GDR, 5) check out suspicious people and 6) conduct surveillance and investigations. They were supposed to 7) work as experts or 8) accomplish definite tasks in key positions. Unlike the requirements of Directive 21, Secret Informants were now required to have certain personality traits, including honesty, determination, attention to detail. In addition, SIs were required to have a "patriotic outlook."
With the issuance of Directive 1/68, another addition was made to the numerous categories of UC: Unofficial Coworker assigned to the securing of a business target or area. They were to work alone, assigned with the mission of recognizing a possible suspicious circumstance and following up on it. Besides that they were supposed to oppose circumstances favorable to "hostile activity" and have "effects harmful to business." Finally, they were supposed to observe personnel, characterize them and keep them "under control." Directive 1/79 then reverted to and readapated the list of functions in directive 1/58. However, there were still a few categories under "UC on Special Assignment": surveillance and investigations, expert opinions, and the transformation of management decision in key positions. The UC for political-operative Penetration and Jurisdictional Security basically "contributed to the multilateral guarantee of internal security" in the jurisdictional areas, brought about a "high degree of prevention and harm-aversion," and "helped recognize new security requirements in a timely manner." They were to contribute to the "extensive, secure assessment and control" of the situation. 93,500 of this type of UC made up the largest group of UCs in 1988.
This account may be continued, depending on future need.
Note:
The material in the main text, i.e., not the side notes, of the above section is from the "Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter des Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit series.
