That Vogel
Stasi prison November 23, 1985
The arm seems to heal.
I hardly feel any pain anymore.
The cast will come off before christmas.
There has been a significant peak in transports lately.
Some cells lose 3-4 comrades a week.
There were even two hits last week.
Tuesday we bid farewell to two of our friends.
Thursday none, but our neighbors sent five guys at once.
Will this prevail or is it the peak before a quiet christmas time?
All family visits revolve around this theme and people are gathering festive food treats.
It feels as if all of us get ready for a massive party to ignore the bastards who hold us here and to celebrate the future.
My folks brought candy and fruits from the West again, some Italian salami and another hidden stash of cash to buy anything else with.
They also saw one of my lawyers last week: Wolfgang Vogel.
It is said that he’d only see the relatives in one first meeting and then hand over to a sub ordinate.
Of course he wasn’t able to say anything about the state of affairs but he ensured them that negotiations are held between the two states.
Chancellor Helmut Schmidt negotiating with Wolfgang Vogel, one of my lawyers, about political prisoners trades and spies exchange.
It is a well known fact in here that Vogel is assigned to political prisoners to be sold off to the West.
This is how the state makes hard currency to buy the oranges and bananas with that my parents try to purchase to bring them in here.
“You must understand that those negotiations are very delicate and secretive and sometimes they stall for months.” Vogel tried to calm my mother.
We handle the names of the lawyers in here that are assigned to the bail out cases.
Wolfgang Vogel is the top guy also in charge of exchanging spies.
Lothar Jarosh is the new name my parents learnt from Vogel.
They negotiate with other lawyers in the West:
Barbara von der Schulenburg and Wolf-Egbert Näumann.
One prisoner might be worth 40’000-90'000 marks depending on profession.
We all hate Vogel as he’s clearly not independent.
There are even rumours about him being an informant to the Stasi.
Some lawyer! Driving a Volvo limousine like the state politicians and crossing the border at will.
Of course the West German government needs to put a good face to the matter.
Their goal is to get us out of here and to support the GDR public with the proceeds of the bails.
So if they’ll sell me, there will be some GDR kids joyfully munching some West bananas bought with that cash.
*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.