Jena

Stasi prison October 20, 1985

Mom and dad are here again.

Routine is setting in with the cash smuggling.

No fear - they almost seem to have fun tricking the guards.

Greetings from B and U.

"They showed up in support."

Friendship proves in crisis situations.

They helped mom with the shopping and laundry.

Kind of cute considering our punk and hard rock attitudes.

Weeks before I knocked at the Stasi gates, we traveled to a punk concert.

The protestant church of Thuringia in Jena supported the underground music scene.

With it they also supported anyone and anything under Stasi watch or threat.

Since I was on file with the Stasi I never knew if and how they watched me.

Hence I avoided cameras.

Mostly successfully.

Not always though.

There were some dudes, always the same, who took photos at our parties, punk concerts and political discussions in Jena and Leipzig.

It took a while and some observation to identify the ones making some extra cash on the side.

They developed the pics themselves and cashed them in with the Stasi.

At one of B’s party’s one guy burned a GDR flag.

Flat stunt from a fashion punk lacking brain and purpose.

B got me out minutes before the Stasi showed.

In Jena we took one photo for ourselves.

Avoiding any other camera all weekend.

“Ulrike am Nagel” from Hermsdorf played. 

They had a bloke named “Kaktus” with a small budget from that church’s youth center.

Cutting tapes and inviting bands like “Fantastische Frisöre” and “Andreas Auslauf”.

It became one of the coolest illegal, underground, punk cassette labels in the country.

“Wutanfall” from my neighborhood played and got arrested there.

Our punk friends in Berlin always ran into trouble with the Nazis.

There were none in Leipzig but the Stasi was a pain in the neck.

Someone told us: “Stasi tips off Nazi gangs to beat up the punks.”

They didn’t have that option in our town however.

So, they sent photographers and snitches.

We were always on alert.

I miss that scene and my friends.

Over in the West I won’t have that fight anymore.

But I will support them.

How long can that rat state still survive?

There was a transport last Thursday - hope again.

*Testimony -> Start. This blog entry is part of a linear narrated testimony of the contemporary witness Jens Thieme who was imprisoned 1985-1986 as a political prisoner in various GDR prisons by the GDR Ministry of State Security. Stasi prison, Stasi jail, Stasi detention.