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The Stasi Poetry Circle: The Creative Writing Class that Tried to Win the Cold War

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The poems of the talented teen Alexander Ruika, Berger wrote in a report in April 1983, were “ambivalent”: he had a problem with “power” under socialism. On subjects like collectivism, life in the army and revolution, he reported, the young lyricist was hard to pin down: he was “openly in favour”, but “subliminally against”.

If a sinner sins and knows not what they do, is it still a sin if someone doesn't point out that it is sinful? The Stasi Poetry Circle: The Creative Writing Class that Tried to Win the Cold War is just an amazing title for the book! The title alone made me want to read the book and learn more. On 25 October 1984, Berger wrote that Knauer had read out a poem about a dream in which he flew a kite that “escapes from narrow confinement and sails into freedom”. Berger explained that the kite was what poets called a metaphor, and that the poem was a covert call for East German army personnel to cross over to the west. The Stasi major who ran the informal poetry meet-ups at the Adlershof compound in the late 70s had an inexhaustible appetite for jaunty ditties (“This song is very popular / In our country the GDR” went one), and the poems produced by his students were often similarly lighthearted. Soldiers in their late teens penned love poetry that paid little attention to political debates. One young member of the secret police fantasised in free verse about being kissed by a young maiden who was unaware of his lowly rank, thus elevating him to a “lance corporal of love”. “Patiently I wait”, the lusty teenager wrote, “for my next promotion / at least / to general”. One soldier imagined, in a sestina, writing the words “I love you” into the dark night sky with his searchlight. “An egotist / in love I am”, went another verse. “Want you / to be mine / just mine / and hope never / to be nationalised”. Love poetry could be awkwardly at odds with a state that valued collective ownership over private property. Nonetheless, it makes for a fascinating read. The fact that members of the Stasi would meet to workshop their poetry seems surreal, but it did happen. Being the GDR, nothing was completely as it seemed. The country was rife with informants and people being surveilled - even in this Stasi group, poets were watching and reporting on poets.Increased creativity: Poetry circles can help people to tap into their creativity and to express themselves in new and innovative ways. Poetry circles are a powerful force for uniting people through words. They provide a shared space for people to express themselves, connect with others who share their love of writing, and share their stories and experiences. Poetry circles have been used to unite people in a variety of settings, and they have been shown to be an effective way to promote social inclusion. A study published in the journal “Poetry Therapy” found that poetry circles can be an effective way to promote social inclusion for people with mental health problems. The study found that participants in the poetry circles reported feeling less isolated and more connected to others. They also reported feeling more confident in their ability to express themselves. I paid our bill. Outside the cafe, before we waved our goodbyes, Polinske said something that I couldn’t quite make sense of at the time: “The question mark at the end of a poem is worth a hundred times more than a full stop. I know that now, after thinking about it for a long time. But I didn’t know that then.”

During the Romantic era, as Oltermann reminds us, the notion arose that a poem is an expression of the poet’s inner self. Which meant that when a circle member’s demeanour or lyrics did not appear supportive of the regime, Berger informed on them. You can find more episodes of Free Thinking exploring German history and culture including: Florian Huber, Sophie Hardach, Tom Smith and Adam Scovell on New angles on post-war Germany and Austria https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006sjx I host a relaxed writing group free of charge. The group is open to everyone, regardless of their level of experience. The group uses WhatsApp to stay connected and uses Google Docs to share work. We encourage members to offer editorial suggestions and praise. Contradiction also animates the story of Berger, the man at the centre of the web. A mediocre poet who won vast acclaim, he had refused to join the Socialist Unity party and yet had accumulated significant influence within the state. A total of 620,000 informers were listed on the Stasi’s books between 1950 and 1989, their role to report on dodgy tendencies and opinions among the populace. The GDR was, in effect, a nation of curtain-twitchers. Berger had been approached to join them as an “informal collaborator” and apparently took to the work with alacrity, turning out a steady flow of lies, half-truths and obfuscations. In 1982, he was rewarded by the Stasi with a silver “brotherhood in arms” medal for his efforts, though in a memoir he wrote after the Berlin Wall came down he makes no mention of it or of his reports. He implied that his work as an informant came to an end once he took over the poetry circle at Adlershof, whereas we now know this posting marked a sinister new chapter in his snitching career. Berger’s reports revealed a deeper kind of paranoia at the heart of East Germany’s secret police: an instinctive suspicion not just of themselves but also of the literary creativity that the GDR’s cultural founding fathers had put at the heart of the state. There seemed to be something integral to what poets did that subverted the authority of the Socialist Unity party – a party that was “re-elected” every three to five years in a non-free, non-secret vote, yet claimed that only it was able to read Marx, Engels and Lenin in the correct way. Intellectuals who came up with alternative readings were an instant threat.Found that he often went off on tangents not directly associated or relevant to the history/story of the Poetry Circle itself.

Weaving unseen archival material and exclusive interviews with surviving members, Philip Oltermann reveals the incredible hidden story of a unique experiment: weaponising poetry for politics. Both a gripping true story and a parable about creativity in a surveillance state, this is history writing at its finest. Stars, normally it's either 5 stars or nothing, so what's different here? Hard to say actually, a lot of books are set in events long since passed, or todays countries but in olden times or even in countries invented by the author.Oltermann introduces us to some fascinating characters in service to the state who very often wrote crap but sometimes produced thoughtful, high quality work which Ewe Berger, the leader of this sewing circle, promptly reported to his superiors in the Stasi. Helen Roche is Associate Professor in Modern European Cultural History at the University of Durham. Her second book is The Third Reich’s Elite Schools: A History of the Napolas

In this article, I will discuss the importance of poetry circles and how they have impacted certain social groups for the better. I will also explain that I host a relaxed writing group free of charge and that everybody is welcome to join. As the Stasi men at the Adlershof House of Culture became increasingly accomplished poets, the man brought in to teach them verse turned spy again. Berger resumed his activity as an unofficial collaborator in October 1982 with a series of short profiles. One 20-year-old corporal was “clumsy” with a “low level of education”, but also “open and direct”, and therefore useful: he naively confessed that other comrades had warned him off joining the poetry circle because he would be forced “to wave the red flag” there.

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Working my way through piles of paperwork in the Stasi records archive, I discovered hundreds of poems that were produced by the Working Circle of Writing Chekists, including those that weren’t included in the secret police’s official anthologies. What became increasingly clear was that not all the young men who gathered at Adlershof once a week wanted to write weapons in verse form. They wanted to write poems that did something poetry was good at: asking questions rather than giving answers. After the defeat of Nazi Germany and during the reconstruction, Germany West and East discovered that art was something that could be held up to the light that appeared clear and beautiful with the occasional flaw of a Nazi here and there. Art was the new god.

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