God's Spies

Preface through production. My heartfelt thanks to all of you. Any errors, of course, remain mine alone. In addition to Wiegand, Kapiske, Krötke, and Stauss, many other participants in the East Germany church espionage drama spoke with me in personal interviews. In addition, I have used Stasi files that document actions and conversations. As conversations contained in the files are by definition somewhat truncated, I have gently reconstructed them. I have attempted to contact every organization and living person mentioned in the book. In some cases, organizations and individuals declined interviews; in several cases I was unsuccessful trying to locate them. Espionage is by definition a murky business. Unless the information is contradicted by other written sources, I have used documentation from Stasi files. Likewise, I have used information provided to me by the participants, whether perpetrators or victims. In all cases, I have looked for verified information contradicting their accounts. I have found none. Did other East German parents in Vienna ostracize Jürgen Kapiske and his family? They may not have done so on purpose—but that’s what the Kapiskes felt. Did Gerd Bambowsky’s wild ride with Helmut Matthies happen exactly as Matthies remembers it? It may have been different, but there are no other witnesses. I have recounted what the participants have told me. German church terminology is a matter worthy of many lengthy conversations. In translating German terms, I have chosen to use the most common English term, even though ecclesiastical dictionaries in some cases propose a more precise translation. Before handing out files to researchers, the experts at the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records redact the names of people mentioned in the files (though the names of some high-profile individuals remain). When reading Stasi files, I have been able to establish the identities of some of the redacted names; with each redacted name, I have noted whether I have been able to establish the person’s identity. In some cases, to simplify the reading, I have used a generic name; I have noted those cases as well. xii

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God's Spies

Published on Sep 17, 2019

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

East Germany existed for only forty years, but in that time, the country's secret police, the Stasi, developed a highly successful church department that managed to recruit an extraordinary stable of clergy spies. Pastors, professors, seminary students, and even bishops spied on colleagues, other Christians, and anyone else they could report about to their handlers in the Stasi. Thanks to its pastor spies, the Church Department (official name: Department XX/4) knew exactly what was happening and being planned in the country's predominantly Luther churches. Yet ultimately it failed in its mission: despite knowing virtually everything about East German Christians, the Stasi couldn't prevent the church-led protests that erupted in 1989 and brought down the Berlin Wall.