Posts Tagged ‘Stasi’
On The Stasi Trail
Tam Eastley traces the ghosts of Erich Mielke, head of East Germany's notorious secret police, and visits the newly renovated Stasi Museum... In the middle of January 2012, Berlin history buffs and GDR junkies were suddenly abuzz with curious excitement about the re-opening of Erich Mielke's office. Smack dab in the middle of a complex of grey and scary buildings so large they make your neck ache and your head spin, lies the desk, shredder, tape recorder and office chair of a man whom Anna [...]
Behind the Wall in ‘Stasiland’
Bookslut's Jessa Crispin talks to Australian author Anna Funder about her 2003 book Stasiland... Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall is a document of a city in flux. After the fall of the wall, the East and West found itself intermingling, sometimes unwillingly, in a city that had to transform itself structurally and demographically very quickly. Australian journalist Anna Funder found herself drawn to these places of tension. In Stasiland we meet a former propagandist for [...]
Hohenschönhausen: In Pictures
Stefanie Rothenhöfer chats to Berlin photographer Philipp Lohöfener about his work at Hohenschönhausen, Berlin's Stasi prison memorial. Philipp Lohöfener was born in 1974 in Bielefeld, Germany. He studied photography at the University of Applied Sciences in Bielefeld, Germany from 1998 till 2006. In 2010 Lohöfener won first place in the Sony World Photography Awards (Category Fine Art/Architecture 2011), and recently bagged 4th place at the Art of Photography Show, 4th Place, [...]
The Müggelturm
Richard Carter explores Berlin's mysterious Müggelturm... Out in the furthest reaches of Treptow-Köpenick, hiding behind a high barbed wire-topped fence, is a strange radome-topped tower on a hill. If you're thinking it looks like a cold war listening station, you'd actually be completely right, but it's one with a rather interesting background. Back in 1954, with plans well underway to establish a brave new world of communism in East Germany, work began here on building a tower [...]
To Rococo Rot
Paul Sullivan chats to Berlin-based electronica mavericks Robert and Ronald Lippok, aka To Rococo Rot... “This was where the main bohemian scene used to be,” states Ronald Lippok, gesturing out of a large café window in the general direction of Kastanienallee. “When we were younger, playing in punk-rock bands, all the rehearsal spaces were around Schoenhauser Allee and here in Zionskirchplatz. This was the centre of the art scene in the 80s. Places like the Wiener café and the [...]
