Contents page 1 — summer in front of the Computer page 2 — technology skepticism? There was more in the BRD page 3 — “The influence of electronics”? Growing up today On a page
In June 1989, the summer before, were on holiday, hundreds of thousands of women and men in the German Democratic Republic planned for the holiday period in July and August. A trip to Hungary, for example. Some few weeks would later escape across the border to Austria in the West, did not know many of them yourself.
A captain in the service of the Ministry for state security (MfS) was engaged in June of ’89, meanwhile, with it’s very own summer vacation planning. The Stasi officer had brink the order, together with a Sergeant of the MfS is a computer Cabinet to set up in the children’s holiday camp, the mass organisation Free German youth (FDJ). 10 – to 14-Year-old, would be there to spend to the Southeast of Berlin, July, and August, should be trained to computers.
child care is not just a task that you would have usually two members of the secret service of the GDR meant. But the Stasi helped, apparently, where you could, when it came to computers. TIME ONLINE has evaluated a roughly 600-page collection of documents of the MfS, which come from the vorwende years, and in which it comes, as the East German intelligence service set on the fact that in that time computers in many areas of life were introduced, at work as well as leisure.
With the home computer there was, for the first time a type of computer, designed as a mass product and for private use. Young people were fascinated by the boxes, and in particular the computer, you could gamble on it. The state of the GDR, for its part, had an interest in ensuring that children and young people learned to use computers. But not for the fun of it.
the reading of the files, from the holdings of the Federal Commissioner for the records of the state security service (BStU), it is clear that the MfS, like other organisations of the GDR on the subject of Computer moving into a conflict.
of TIME ONLINE these documents concern The digital future of the GDR
on the one Hand, considered employees of the MfS in the eighties, as evidenced by growing, that they had little control over the increasing distribution of Software and Games in the GDR, especially for Western computers like the C64. The private import was not prevented by the GDR-inch, but the Software. But the people came anyway to the programs, many young people around exchanged games in the computer clubs that sprang everywhere in the country, and the same of the Stasi critically observed. (See also the first report of this Research.)
GDR – The Stasi played with In the eighties, the Stasi considered the young Gamer as a threat. At a Meeting of the gambling scene spooks were, therefore, also always. © Photo: Collage: Sven Wolters
on the Other hand, the state had brought in leadership with the decision for the development of micro-electronics of the Central Committee of the SED in 1977, the development of its own computer industry. The future of the GDR’s economy should be a part of this technology. According to Know, had to collect-how and young people should be Computer.
Denis Gießler About the author
Denis Gießler, was just born that way, even during the times of the GDR. He studied journalism at the University of Leipzig, is a freelance writer and is not supported as a Moderator of the Community.
2017 had met Gießler, for the first time with DDR-witnesses, the end of the eighties, were in East Berlin the gamer scene. In the game magazine gamestar, a first report on the rail,such as young people zockten at the time, before the turn to West computers C64-games.
From the files of the Ministry for state security has reconstructed Denis Gießler now for TIME ONLINE, as the young GDR-gamer scene of the Stasi was spying. Click here to read his report. The game Raid over Moscow for the C64-retro version replay.
