History of the Communist Secret Police in Eastern Europe, 1950-1989 - Detailseite

The opening of secret-police archives in Eastern Europe over the past three decades has constituted an “archival revolution” for historians. The newly-available materials have provided additional insight not only into the social and political history of communism, but also into the tools, methods, and tactics of repression employed by modern dictatorships. This course will critically examine the English-language historical scholarship about the Soviet and Soviet-bloc state security services, including works about their role and place in East European politics and society. The opening of the records after 1989, their availability to researchers, their relative usefulness as sources, and the impact of their opening on politics and society will also be discussed, along with the legacies of the communist secret police themselves. Can one speak of an emerging international or transnational historiography on the communist-era secret police, or does the scholarship about them remain largely national (or even nationalistic)?

Jens Gieseke, The history of the Stasi: East Germany's secret police, 1945-1990 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2014).

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