The Stasi Files: East Germany's Secret Operations Against Britain - Brief Article - Book Review

Contemporary Review, Dec, 2003

The Stasi Files: East Germany's Secret Operations Against Britain. Anthony Glees. The Free Press. [pounds sterling]20.00. 461 pages. ISBN 0-7432-3104-X. The East German secret police are perhaps more notorious today than they were when there was an East Germany simply because we know more about them.

In this deeply researched and scholarly book Mr Glees turns the spotlight on one particular aspect of their work, 'the history of the UK operations', that is, of East German spying in Britain. It is also a history of relations between Britain and the DDR between 1973 and 1990. More than this it shows how vital the Stasi was to maintaining the Communists' grip on power, how essential was the savage repression of human rights and how this repression worked. The author also exposes the weak-minded in Britain who helped this repression by their friendliness, if nothing more, to Stasi agents. This story of East Germany's 'chilling secret police' is not a comfortable read but it is an essential one for anyone wishing to understand what Communism really was in the twentieth century. (T.B.)