Dad. My hero!

Background developments June 17, 1986

Meanwhile at Stasi State Headquarters Dept. XX (responsible dept. for 'State Affairs, Culture, Churches, Underground’).

The Stasi Hauptabteilung XX (State Apparatus, Culture, Churches, Underground/HA XX) Leipzig let go of its refusal to release me into the Federal Republic of Germany. Incidentally, my father was never a "party leadership member" but a simple member automatically enrolled by his employer, like the vast majority of employees in the country.

Apparently there were some reasons (formulated by the Stasi on 7-Sep 1985) not to negotiate my release with the West German Minister of Intra-German Relations:

My dad had worked for a state owned company (like most) but in a prestigious department (he was a trade show booth builder and was allowed to work at Western trade shows) and there was no way in hell that anyone would admit that their ‘role model organization’ was compromised in any way.

Now, after all the trouble I had made during my imprisonment they felt forced to revisit my case in a move to avoid major disruption if they’d let me out in the East.

In this document the Stasi headquarters advises to not uphold the original reasons because my dad refused to denounce me.

As a result he was stripped of all rights and memberships and had left that state company to work for a private handicraft enterprise.

While it is perverse beyond reason to expect of my dad to denounce his own son and therefore assume to keep me locked in that country for the rest of my life, it is also ironic that the Stasi took that reverse decision and finally decided to negotiate ransom with the West German Minister of Intra-German Relations on the anniversary of the Uprising of 1953 in East Germany, 17-June.