Stasiland: Chapter 15 Summary & Analysis

A few days later, Funder meets her next “Stasi man,” Herr Christian, who’s in his mid-forties. Christian takes Funder to a large house where he used to work, recording and coding transcripts of citizens’ phone conversations. Christian began working for the Stasi at the age of 19, guarding their main nuclear bunker. Nowadays, he works as a private detective, doing most of the same things he did for the Stasi.

Christian tells Funder that during his time with the Stasi, he was involved in an affair with his son’s teacher. After he told his best friend the truth, the friend told the Stasi, and Christian was locked up for three days and demoted—not for the affair itself but for hiding something from his employers. Later on, Christian’s job was to track down cars obtained by potential defectors. He brought hundreds of defectors to the Stasi; usually they received a year or two in jail.

Christian tells Funder that one of his favorite things about his old job was that he got to wear disguises. His favorite disguise was a blind man. “Being a blind man,” he claims, “is the best way to observe people.”