The Stasi Poetry Circle: The Creative Writing Class that Tried to Win the Cold War

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Increased sense of community: Poetry circles can help people to feel a sense of belonging and community. This is because they provide a space for people to connect with others who share their interests. This way of doing things impedes the forward progress of TSPC, and if you're the type who prefers time in a constant left/right flow, you will no doubt become frustrated. I digress. In this case the Stasi convinced itself that one way to win the cold war was to convince the West that the their culture was not as good was by becoming better poets, hence the title of the book.

I suppose in the neurotic times of the early '80's and mutually assured destruction, when Ronald Reagan's 300-kiloton thermonuclear warheads were called "Peacekeepers", it's at least unsurprising that the GDR's Stasi could create a Wunderwaffe of their own out of sonnets, bathos and broken rhyme. It may have had its roots in the utopian days of building a "real existing socialism" with literature as a central pillar, extolling the virtues of the common man. Yet it ended with the writing circles' poetry and literature being co-opted by the out of touch dictatorship for its own ends. It certainly didn't bring out the best in people, or stop "das Volk" from turning against the state and looking westwards. If you've see the movie Other People's Lives, set in the GDR, at the end of the movie the main Stasi character is seen as now being a postie delivering letters. It has been said many times that the falling of the Berlin Wall was neither foreseen or expected. When it did happen, that country, the GDR and its culture (valued or not) just disappeared into dust. What I find both beguiling and strange about books like this is that it is set in a country that no longer exists and in a culture that has disappeared. In this article, I will discuss the importance of poetry circles and how they have impacted certain social groups for the better. I will also explain that I host a relaxed writing group free of charge and that everybody is welcome to join. As the Stasi men at the Adlershof House of Culture became increasingly accomplished poets, the man brought in to teach them verse turned spy again. Berger resumed his activity as an unofficial collaborator in October 1982 with a series of short profiles. One 20-year-old corporal was “clumsy” with a “low level of education”, but also “open and direct”, and therefore useful: he naively confessed that other comrades had warned him off joining the poetry circle because he would be forced “to wave the red flag” there.

Gerd Knauer, who was a junior officer within the Stasi’s propaganda unit when he attended the poetry circle. Photograph: Courtesy of Gerd Knauer During the Romantic era, as Oltermann reminds us, the notion arose that a poem is an expression of the poet’s inner self. Which meant that when a circle member’s demeanour or lyrics did not appear supportive of the regime, Berger informed on them. I was hoping that the book would focus more on the Stasi Poetry Circle and for there to be more of the poetry in the book. Rather, it provides a good overview of the GDR, an overview of the political climate during the Cold War and up to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the context to the formation of the Stasi Poetry Circle, it focuses on a few of the more notable poets of the group as well as looking at other poets in the GDR at that time and how they were viewed and treated.

I normally present a shortlist of books for my store's book club to choose from and I like to throw in one non-fiction into the mix each time - there's so much great non-fiction out there and it doesn't seem to get much of a look-in. This was the first time the book club had actually gone for it and now I'm rather worried that I might have turned them off non-fiction now :( Poetry circles (and writing circles) are a powerful force for uniting people through words. They provide a shared space for people to express themselves, connect with others who share their love of writing, and share their stories and experiences. Poetry circles have been used to unite people in a variety of settings, including schools, prisons, and communities affected by conflict. Karen Leeder is Professor of Modern German Literature at the University of Oxford. Her books include Rereading East Germany: The Literature and Film of the GDR and a translation of Durs Grünbein's Porcelain: Poem on the Downfall of My City Helen Roche is Associate Professor in Modern European Cultural History at the University of Durham. Her second book is The Third Reich’s Elite Schools: A History of the Napolas He snitched upon others, too. Oltermann points to the “unremarkable” quality of Berger’s own poems, despite the numerous prizes given to him by the regime. Spite got the better of him. He denounced more successful writers and poets, as well as his own editor when she was lukewarm about his work. Berger died in 2014, defending his actions to the end.After the defeat of Nazi Germany and during the reconstruction, Germany West and East discovered that art was something that could be held up to the light that appeared clear and beautiful with the occasional flaw of a Nazi here and there. Art was the new god. Nonetheless, it makes for a fascinating read. The fact that members of the Stasi would meet to workshop their poetry seems surreal, but it did happen. Being the GDR, nothing was completely as it seemed. The country was rife with informants and people being surveilled - even in this Stasi group, poets were watching and reporting on poets. That any of the poetry is any good seems like a miracle but some of it quite good. On the whole they are not as interesting as the spy craft and the crazy morality of the system, but these well-chosen examples of what was coming out of the Stasi are entertaining, though as I said before, not as entertaining as the continual totalitarian reportage.

If it feels a bit odd that the Stasi report on the Stasi, don't be alarmed. Some 80,000 part-time domestic spooks reported to the professional spooks. It was a spooky world that even after all the attempts to pulp these files remains formidable to this day. Weaving unseen archival material and exclusive interviews with surviving members, Philip Oltermann reveals the incredible hidden story of a unique experiment: weaponising poetry for politics. Both a gripping true story and a parable about creativity in a surveillance state, this is history writing at its finest. Yet the political is also personal, which is where the story gets murkier. Stasi members were not themselves immune from surveillance – far from it – and writing verse can make poets vulnerable. Found that he often went off on tangents not directly associated or relevant to the history/story of the Poetry Circle itself. Overseeing this inky mission was the circle’s leader, Uwe Berger, who, after some searching, believed he had found his star student. Alexander Ruika was a recruit who had followed his colonel father into the Guards Regiment, an elite training ground for Stasi recruits. What separated Ruika from his fellow versifiers was his use of figurative language, the “mastery of metaphor” that Aristotle believed was the mark of genius. Oltermann traces his early successes – a string of awards, publication in prestigious literary magazines – but also hears a dissenting voice in his poems that suggests Ruika was not a model Chekist but “the Hamlet of the Stasi poetry circle”, a soul at war with himself. His ambivalence becomes almost a test case in this account – how to reconcile the free fluidities of poetry with the ideological constrictions of communism. Be prepared for a sting in the tale. Berger implied that his work as an informant came to an end once he took over the poetry circle at AdlershofOltermann introduces us to some fascinating characters in service to the state who very often wrote crap but sometimes produced thoughtful, high quality work which Ewe Berger, the leader of this sewing circle, promptly reported to his superiors in the Stasi. What had the Stasi tried to achieve with its poetry programme, I asked Polinske over a currywurst with potato salad. Was the idea to help East Germany’s working-class warriors better understand the decadent bourgeois mind? Polinske shook his head. The reason he had joined the Stasi poetry circle was simple: “I had artistic ambitions, and I thought I could learn something from the real poets who ran the workshop.” His own poems were technically accomplished, but could verge on the whimsical, and didn’t always earn praise. Many of the young soldiers who turned up to the Working Circle of Writing Chekists had left with tears in their eyes after being informed of the poor quality of their work. He, too, had stopped attending after a few months.

Berger’s report on Gerd Knauer’s long nuclear-war poem The Bang was particularly troubled by the stanza about Odysseus and Karl Marx. The syntax was ambiguous, he wrote: when Marx said “they are doing it because of me”, was the “it” referring to the other philosophers’ silence, or to nuclear war? And if the latter, were “they” Marx’s followers or his enemies? “The question of guilt is not answered unambiguously,” Berger noted in his report. Knauer implied that “Marx has invented social revolution and is therefore to blame for the imminent annihilation of mankind,” a thesis that amounted to nothing but “idealism and acceptance of surrender”. I paid our bill. Outside the cafe, before we waved our goodbyes, Polinske said something that I couldn’t quite make sense of at the time: “The question mark at the end of a poem is worth a hundred times more than a full stop. I know that now, after thinking about it for a long time. But I didn’t know that then.”

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Increased creativity: Poetry circles can help people to tap into their creativity and to express themselves in new and innovative ways. I can't remember why Plato banned poets from his Republic, but I think he shouldn't have worried so much. Maybe he was jilted by one, or had his own poetry badly criticised by a peer. As we have daily proof, soft power only really goes so far, and the idea of a Literturgesellschaft (literary society) is more utopian than a Marxist one. But even if poetry can't crush an enemy like a Soviet tank, it sure can piss people off. And for that alone, it's worth consideration. The poetic and political destiny of East Germany were intertwined: that had been the credo of an influential group of poets who had returned from exile after the second world war to take up political posts in the fledgling satellite state of Soviet Russia. One of them, poet-turned-culture-minister Johannes R Becher, argued that creative writing would not merely reflect the social conditions of East Germany, but shape them.