In 1991, the Stasi files created during the GDR era were made accessible to all those affected. But the majority of the people spied on by the Stasi didn't even want to see their files. But what are the reasons for this willful ignorance? Is it the fear of unwelcome revelations? The desire to close with the past? Scientists have now investigated what is behind this in a combination of psychological surveys and eyewitness interviews.
Tapped, spied on and followed: The government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) relied on controlling its citizens. In 1989, the Ministry for State Security had around 91,000 full-time employees and 200,000 unofficial employees. Everything the Stasi found out about GDR citizens and foreign nationals was recorded in detail in files. After the collapse of the GDR, the Stasi files were confiscated. Since 1991, those affected have been able to view their Stasi files in the locations of the Stasi Records Archive upon request.
Wanted ignorance in focus
In the three decades since the files were opened, over two million people have exercised this right. But many other victims decided not to look at their Stasi files - including prominent personalities such as Nobel Prize winner Günter Grass, former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt or union leader Claus Weselsky. How can this behavior be explained? And what does this mean for how society deals with memory and enlightenment in post-dictatorial societies? Ralph Hertwig from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Dagmar Ellerbrock from the Technical University of Dresden have now examined this in more detail.
"We are dealing here with the psychological phenomenon of deliberate ignorance, the so-called intentional ignorance," explains Hertwig. “There are circumstances in life in which people consciously forgo potentially important information. The motives are often by no means an ostrich policy, but considerations that can range from the regulation of anticipated negative emotions to considerations of fairness.” In order to investigate which motives are relevant for people, Hertwig and Ellerbrock combined survey methods from psychology with eyewitness interviews. More than 160 people responded to radio and newspaper calls and provided information as to why they did not want to see their Stasi files. 134 people took part in a survey, partially standardized interviews with 22 other people completed the picture.
Protection from emotional and family consequences
The evaluation of the interviews and surveys showed that there is a wide range of motives for conscious ignorance. The reason given most frequently, at 78 percent, was that the information in the files was no longer relevant to today's life. For example, several of the respondents stated in the interview that they did not want to read their files because knowledge would not change the past anyway. A smaller proportion did not want to deal with the past for political reasons: around 38 percent thought it was wrong to look at the GDR only from the perspective of the Stasi. 22 percent did not read their files because they identified themselves as committed GDR citizens.
However, another motive was far more important, as more than half of those questioned had emotional and social reasons for not reading their Stasi files: They feared that the files would expose family members, friends or colleagues as informants. "The detailed and emotional descriptions indicate that the suspected content of the files could have serious psychological or emotional effects - for those affected themselves and others," the researchers explain. One interviewee feared that her sister might have been an informant, another feared that her daughter's father might turn out to be an informal collaborator. According to this, many people place the maintenance of social relationships and harmony in the circle of family, friends and acquaintances above enlightenment.
Discrepancy between public and personal coping strategies
The study thus reveals a discrepancy between the prevailing view of the culture of remembrance and how to come to terms with the past and the personal motives of those affected. "The collective memory model rests on the assumption that knowledge is always relevant: although it cannot change the past, it is instrumental in making society better in the present and future," explain Hertwig and Ellerbrock. But as the surveys showed, this idea differs significantly from the personal attitudes and motives of those affected. "While individual remembrance and public remembrance culture influence each other, the underlying motives can obviously diverge," says Ellerbrock. This congruence or discrepancy is an important factor in social change.
In Germany there is extensive research, for example on the denial of support or active complicity in the crimes of the Nazi regime, as the scientists explain. Individual motives for this denial and, above all, their connection with collective cultures of remembrance have hardly been researched to date. The opening of the Stasi documents offered the unique opportunity to learn more about the decisions of citizens from a collapsed dictatorship not to deal with the past.
Source: Max Planck Society; Specialist article: Cognition, doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105247