Pernicious influence: how the Stasi defended East Germany from video games

January 6, 1988 was one of those days when the old baroque building on Klosterstrasse in East Berlin was in full swing. The building was then called the “House of Young Talents” (HdjT), but today the original name was returned to it - the Palace of Podevils, given to him in honor of its first owner, the Minister for Foreign Affairs under Frederick the Great. On that winter day, 70-80 people crowded into a room on the ground floor, usually used for rehearsals of a local children's choir. Every Wednesday a computer club gathered here - a group mainly consisting of young people, the lion’s share of which was about twenty years old, and the youngest only sixteen.

Similar clubs in the 1980s could be found throughout the German Democratic Republic (GDR), there were about twenty in Berlin alone. But some of the attendees of that meeting came to HdjT from afar, and for that they had reasons. Despite the fact that it was the “Central Club” of the Komsomol organization FDJ, none of the computers here were made in the GDR. They all came from the West.


The computer club HdjT in the 1980s was a purely “men's and youth club”. In front of the computer in the center of the photo is Stefan Paubel, the head of the club.

On that January day, the C128 and two C64 with floppy drives of the American computer manufacturer Commodore stood at the club. Stefan Paubel, who founded the HdjT computer club in January 1986 and was its leader, did not recognize computers developed within East Germany - KC 85, created by VEB Mikroelektronik Wilhelm Pieck Mühlhausen and KC 87 made by VEB Robotron. Both companies were owned by the state, which could be understood from the abbreviation "VEB". “KC85 was not very good, so I asked the management of HdjT if we could use western equipment,” recalls Paubel. "It is strange that the director immediately agreed, and I purchased two C64 floppy drives in a used electronics store in the Köpenick area." Paubella was allowed to spend 25,000 GDR marks on equipment, and he paid 6,500 marks for each C64.

At the time, the Commodore model was the top seller of home computers worldwide. But this happened in the West, so such computers would never have gotten to East Germany. In 1988, microelectronics was still on the list of embargoed goods compiled by the Export Control Coordinating Committee (CoCom). Western countries have agreed that they will not supply any technological goods to the communist countries of the Eastern bloc. However, the C64 was able to make its way to East Germany, and representatives of the GDR customs allowed them to enter the country. They did not see any problems in the import of Western equipment. But software, and especially video games, was a completely different affair. Their content was very disturbed by the authorities of East Germany.

However, graphic programs were an exception, and they were the ones who were most interested in Paubela. He studied mechanical engineering and in the mid-1980s fell in love with computers, which led to the creation of a club, in which he often gave lectures on graphics software and programming languages. At 34, Paubel was much more mature than the rest of the club’s visitors, who were much more interested in C64 games than graphic programs.


“At 4:45 pm A. entered the computer club room,” - an excerpt from the report of an unofficial informant on HdjT. Source: Federal Commissioner for Reporting of the State Security Service (BStU)

But one of the visitors of the club on January 6, 1988, decided that Paubel was younger. He described the founder of the club as follows: "25-30 years old, with a beard and glasses in a metal frame." This description of Paubel is taken from the “Operational Information” report of January 12, 1988 of the Ministry of State Security (MfS), the secret police of the GDR, also known as the “Stasi”. MfS sent an informal informant to HdjT to assess the situation and mingle with the crowd. The informant was also a young man, a shot from the Guards regiment of the National People’s Army. The word “frame” may mean that he was a soldier, but this term was also used in the GDR in relation to those who were considered for an official position. The young informant, who, it seemed, was still in school, could hope that visiting a computer club can have a positive effect on his career. Be that as it may, his observations on behalf of an unofficial whistleblower were passed on to a Stasi officer, who in turn briefly formulated them in the “Operational Information” report.

This document became part of the Stasi youth collection of the GDRs shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall. They contain an in-depth analysis of how government agencies looked at computer games and computer lovers, and how they perceived the emerging information age. Now, three decades after the publication of these documents, ZEIT ONLINE decided to study them more carefully. In addition to Paubel, we also talked with other former visitors to the House of Young Talents, who shared their memories for the first time this year with Game Star magazine .

Thanks to this operational information, history has preserved the number of people present at that meeting in January 1988 ("70-80 people") and their approximate average age ("22-23"). The informant also said that he was perceived "usually and without suspicion." From conversations, he learned that "several visitors have a Commodore 64 computer, and possession of them is considered a mandatory requirement for membership in a computer club."

The informant also described the technical equipment available at the club, including computers, and relayed this information. The documents received by ZEIT ONLINE contain an even more detailed description, which seems to be taken from another source. The documents even contain copies of checks from a used electronics store in Köpenick, where Paubel bought two C64 and a floppy drive. “They probably received documents from the HdjT management,” says Paubel.

Even 30 years ago, it was obvious to Paubel that the GDR authorities were closely monitoring the work of the club. He did not know just what exactly the Stasi knew, who supplied her with information and through what channels.

Once Paubela was summoned to the office of the director of HdjT, where a man unknown to Paubela was waiting for him. The man asked him to compile a list of club members, but did not say which government organization he was working for. Paubel thought a little about the request and refused to provide information. Real membership in the club was not there anyway - it was open to all interested, and many people came from time to time, almost all of them were male. Paubel’s refusal to make a list as a result had no consequences, and he never heard of this man or such a request. From the documents it is clear that the Stasi already knew some of the visitors to the club. In the affairs of the organization contains the names and contact information.

They called themselves "freaks"

After studying the cases it becomes obvious that the Stasi began to control computer clubs organized in East Germany in the 1980s, immediately after their opening, and has been following the club of the House of Young Talents since 1986, that is, since its foundation. The Stasi document from the regional headquarters of the organization in Leipzig on March 15, 1985 reports another group from East Berlin, consisting of "80 computer lovers" who have joined forces and are planning to meet in Dresden. The document notes that "people participating in this union call themselves freaks."

At that time, home computers like the C64 were a completely new phenomenon: computers first appeared in homes, and in East Berlin the mid-1980s (to a much greater degree than in the rest of East Germany) there was a significant amount of C64. Stasi was engaged in tracking data security in government agencies and GDR companies. Similar tasks were performed by a department called the Central Working Group for the Defense of the State Secret (ZAGG), which also served as a liaison between the various departments of the Ministry of State Security. Many of these departments followed the emerging computer clubs and their individual members. The communist state, whose management announced in 1977 that microelectronics would be a key industry, obviously wanted to know what people were doing with their computers.

On November 28, 1988, the head of the State Secret Protection Working Group (AGG), a local counterpart of ZAGG in the Stasi district administration in Berlin, issued a preliminary report on “exploring ways to use decentralized computer technology at your leisure.” The four-page document, stunning with its understanding of technology, today looks like a quick glance at the emerging information age. Of course, in the end, the state organizations of the GDR did not have to deal with the changes that brought new technologies: the Berlin Wall fell only a year later, and another two years later, East Germany also ceased to exist.

However, at the end of 1988, the head of AGG at the regional headquarters of the Stasi in Berlin could not predict this. In his report, the lieutenant colonel first listed the “interest groups” of private computer owners in the GDR, including the HdjT club in Berlin, the C-16 Club in Dresden, the Commodore Club in Jena and the Atari Interest Group in Rostock. He pointed out that club activity usually consists of “exchanging software as well as exploring a variety of ways to expand equipment capabilities.”

Clearly negative attitude

Also, the agent Stasi issued a notice to his colleagues in other departments: “Given that interest groups and computer clubs have people with a proven negative attitude towards the socialist state and order, there is a possible threat that such groups or clubs will go wrong direction. For example, representatives of the political underground are increasingly using computers that are imported and mined through church circles. ” He also noted that “some owners of private computer equipment are actively involved in the exchange of equipment and software. In many cases, such software is a copy of the NSW (non-socialist economic zone, that is, from the West), which are then distributed in the GDR. " The fear was that floppy disks imported from the West may be in the computers of state-owned companies and cause damage to cars, infecting them with viruses. The phenomenon described by the Stasi officer at that time was known to very few.

He also gives many recommendations on "preventive protective measures." These include “defining conditions that simplify the penetration of enemy interest groups and computer clubs”, “detecting acts of hostility committed by individuals using personal computer equipment” and “detecting people involved in speculative trading in hardware and software, especially prohibited by revanchist software , anti-communist and anti-Semitic content. "

“This could cause serious problems.”

He also described a new problem: “Recently, there have been growing tendencies in attempts to acquire acoustic communications or to receive information through them. This technology can be used for uncontrolled data transfer to the NSW via the Deutsche Post direct long-distance automatic telephone system. (At that time, the Deutsche Post was an East German postal system.) In a short period of time, it is possible to transfer fairly large amounts of data. It has already been confirmed that there are cases of private use of such technology. ”

By 1988, the forerunner of the Internet appeared in East Germany — modern data transmission over telephone lines. In the future, the Stasi employee wrote, no more physical media will be needed to distribute software. And this in turn will mean that it will no longer be possible to intercept them under customs control.

But many citizens of the GDR, especially the young ones, did not even have access to the telephone line, not to mention an acoustic modem that can be connected to a telephone set to transmit code in the form of sound signals. For them, computer clubs were a place where they could exchange programs, as the head of the AGG wrote, regardless of the informant sniffing out information in the House of Young Talents.


“We exchanged games until we rubbed the cassettes to holes,” recalls Timo Ullmann, who was only 16 years old in 1988. He is referring to the data storage mechanisms on tapes that were used in the first home computers. At home, Ulmann had his own C64, which means that he often occupied the parents' TV set - unlike many other computers, the Commodore did not need a special monitor, it could be connected to a regular TV. Ullmann's father, who worked in foreign trade, bought a computer for Deutsche marks in West Germany. “When I received it, I spent the first year on all the games I could reach, including the C64 classic - Defender of the Crown and The Last Ninja,” says Ulmann. "At that time, my father thought he had made a huge mistake by purchasing the C64." However, for a long time Ulmann did not have any connections with people like him. But then he came across the official announcement of the Komsomol movement FDJ, which referred to the computer club in HdjT.

Legal piracy

For many players, the exchange in such clubs was the only chance to get access to computer games from the West, because they were not sold in regular stores. They could only be purchased at state-owned Intershop stores by paying Deutsche Marks of West Germany. And since a pack of 10 empty discs cost up to 600 Eastern European brands, young computer users usually chose a cheaper, albeit less sophisticated version of the data collector - tape cassette.

Interestingly, East Germans did not break the law by copying games, because the software in the country was not copyrighted. The District Court of Leipzig made this important decision in September 1979. He considered that the software "is neither a scientific work nor the result of creativity."

Given the active copying of software that took place in the House of Young Talents, the Stasi most likely had many sources by which it was possible to determine which games and software exchanged the participants. The documents received by ZEIT ONLINE contain a list of games that, according to the Stasi, were available to the computer club in East Berlin for July 1987. Paubel said that even he did not know everything that goes around in the club.

The list of five pages contains the names of 261 games for the C64. Most of the games had English names, but the Stasi generously translated them into German. For example, it includes "Samantha Fox Strip Poker" - a card game in which a popular British pop singer, also starring topless for newspapers, appears nude. The name of the game is translated as "Samantha Fuks' Striped Poker (Fuchs in German - fox, fox)". Today it takes a fraction of the imagination to restore the original titles of the games in English.

Frogger

The Stasi also discovered one of the most popular (and absolutely harmless) games for C64: Frogger in the House of Young Talents.


It is interesting not only the content of the report, but also its source: Deputy Head of Department XV (“Defense Intelligence Technologies and Mechanical Engineering”) engaged in foreign espionage for the General Intelligence Directorate of the State Security Ministry, handed it to a colleague from the Berlin Stasi regional headquarters, allegedly at the request of a colleague. In this letter dated September 2, 1987, the person from the foreign intelligence service called the “source”, without providing any further information about him.

Based on the documents received by ZEIT ONLINE, it is impossible to know the identity of this source. However, it can be said that at the Main Intelligence Directorate, “sources” were usually called operational informants, that is, persons working abroad. It could be a so-called “type A source” who had contact with someone who worked in the area or field of interest to intelligence. It could also be an “O type source”, who himself worked in a certain place, or a classic agent who spies directly in favor of the Ministry of State Security.

Raid over Moscow

Twenty-three games in the list are marked with the word "index", that is, they are regarded as "having a particularly militaristic or inhuman essence." Interestingly, the Stasi list was almost the same as the similar list of the West German government, containing games that were considered potentially dangerous for minors. Most of these games belong to the shoot 'em up genre, including “Commando”, “Blue Max”, “Rambo” and the infamous “Raid Over Moscow”, which the Stasi called “Attack on Moscow”. (At the beginning of the original article there is a built-in version of the 1980s Raid Over Moscow, which you can play absolutely legally.)

Rambo: First Blood Part II

This game, dated 1986, is almost as unpretentious as the Rambo movie itself: the player alone runs through Vietnam, killing people.


The task of the player in Raid Over Moscow is to destroy the arsenal of nuclear weapons of the Soviet Union, which naturally made it a political issue for the authorities of East Germany. Ulmann argues that if the Stasi found a copy of the game in a teenager, "this could lead to big problems." He adds: "But the love of video games won out over the fear of being caught by the Stasi."

Compared to modern games, “Raid Over Moscow” looks almost harmless, but it seemed overkill to West Germany’s juvenile protection agencies and was placed on the list in 1985. To justify this move, the authorities stated: “The game can lead to physical tension, anger, aggressiveness, irritation, difficulties with concentration, headaches, etc. older teens ”The game, which has not been played for many years, was removed from the list in 2010. List items are automatically removed from it after 25 years, and after that there were no requests to return it to the list.

Komodore and Adari

In the 1980s, Stefan Paubel, who worked in the House of Young Talents, wanted to be sure that the computer club would not be closed due to the games that they exchange there. Paubel found a solution, both smart and simple at the same time: he placed a sign on the wall "It is forbidden to play games in the club that glorify the war." Problem solved.

Stasi was trying to remove from circulation the strategic game “Kremlin”, developed by the small Swiss publisher Fata Morgana Games. In Kremlin, the player plays the role of a Soviet politician fighting with others to become the head of the party. One of the Stasi documents states that the game "is contrary to the interests of the GDR because of its anti-Soviet statements." Therefore, it was decided that the import of “Kremlin” should be prevented by any means. As evidence, a review of the Kremlin was attached to the case, published in the West German magazine C64 Happy Computer. Meanwhile, the Stasi studied the user guides for other games. For example, a branch office in Leipzig procured instructions for the Elite game (a space simulator released in 1984).


Gaming in 1985: the C64 computer could be connected to a TV, and when readers opened Happy Computer magazine, they first read game reviews. The Stasi readers did the same thing.

Folker Strubing C64 games allowed to escape into the "new world from the often depressive daily life in East Germany." In 1988, Strubbing, like Timo Ullmann, was only 16 years old, and he often visited the computer club in HdjT. These meetings created a closely related group of young people in East Berlin, who played video games in their free time. Soon they began to develop their own programs, and, as Strybing, to write music on the C64. Strübing bought his computer at Intershop East Berlin, having received the hard currency necessary for this from his grandfather from West Berlin.

Every Wednesday, the guys wrapped their computers in towels, put them in bags and went to HdjT, where they no longer cared if they would get them free cars. “By the standards of the GDR, we and our C64 were very privileged,” says Strybing.

At the same time, the customs officers of the GDR and the Stasi were more and more desperate in their attempts to control the spread of Western video games. In a document in October 1986, the inspector claims that there were many more disks smuggled into the GDR than in the previous year. According to the inspector, only in East Berlin 18 000 drives reached the stores every month.

Military combat operations

In order to resist the unlimited distribution of allegedly undermining the foundations of software, individual regional departments of the Stasi conducted random checks of disks in the back, looking for prohibited content. For example, in a case filed by ZEIT ONLINE, it is written that in the city of Glauchau (Saxony), Stasi staff found "computer equipment of western origin with a compatible game program," which the local state-owned factory of woolen and silk products purchased at the Merane shop. Obviously, the Stasi agents were not very familiar with computer brands - in their notes the computers are called “Komodore” and “Adari”. Anyway, what was found on the disks was much more serious: “military games in which you can simulate military combat operations with tanks with a red star”.

Blue max

The 1983 game Blue Max also hit the Stasi list. In it, the players are British pilots of the First World War fighters.


A young soldier and informer Stasi, who first visited HdjT on January 6, 1988, soon began to track the presence of any potentially dangerous games there. And at the next meeting of the computer club, he found what he was looking for. An eleventh-grader brought “a huge number of disks on which there were mostly war games,” the informant later said in a second operational information report for January 16, 1988.

The informant copied a simulator of Ace of Aces airplanes from an eleventh-grader, and then informed his commander that in this game "it is possible with the help of airplanes, submarines and other weapons to attack and bombard cities or destroy military targets throughout Europe." At the end of the document it is written that the informant was ordered to get more information at the next meeting in two weeks. He was to receive the “personal details necessary for establishing the identity” of an eleventh-grader, and “establish close contacts” with him. Also, he should again try to "talk to the leader (meaning Paubel)."

This is the last document from the ZEIT ONLINE collection, which mentions a young informant following a computer club in HdjT. In the case there are no more data shedding light on the further actions of the informant, and no other reports of Stasi officers, reporting on his further steps. And neither Stefan Paubel, nor Timo Ulmann, nor Volker Strybing can recall any meetings with such a curious young man. Also, there were no significant consequences for the computer club, which could have been caused by such surveillance by the Stasi. Paubel continued to conduct lectures about Western computers, and Ulmann and Strybing actively exchanged games.

"The happiest time of my life"

Only in July 1989, just a few weeks before the start of the mass exodus of East German citizens across the Hungarian-Austrian border, another unofficial informant “with basic computer knowledge” visited a computer club in the House of Young Talents. He quickly realized that the club “basically holds meetings for software exchange. For the most part they exchange programs and computer games. ”

The informant met there also adults, in particular, an informatics teacher who owned C64 and “participated in a private software exchange network”. The documents state that the informant suggested identifying the informatics teacher and coordinating further actions with a working group dedicated to protecting state secrets. However, he did not consider it necessary to install more serious surveillance of the club, for example, to use listening equipment. The informant definitely believed that the club was not a source of subversive political activity.

Computers are becoming a threat

Just a few months later, the political situation completely changed: mass protests began on the streets of East Germany. On October 10, 1989, the same AGG head of the Stasi Regional Office in Berlin, who described the private use of computers in the GDR a year ago, reported that materials from the New Forum “ related to increasing political activism” were found on several diskettes in Berlin . The New Forum organization had a major impact on the civil protest movement.


"Critical reviews of new games": West German magazine Happy Computer was in the 1980s compulsory reading for players throughout Germany.

A Stasi officer wrote that it was necessary to create a list of suspicious individuals who "own printers and distribute political texts and games of a fascist nature." Computers and computer software, be it games or text editors, are now viewed as a threat to the existence of the state. The regime desperately tried to control the rapid spread of data carriers and software. But an attempt to censor owners of computers in any form has never been implemented. One month later, the Wall fell.

Recalling the events that had unfolded three decades ago, Stefan Paubel said that he was rather disappointed with the content of the Stasi documents. “I think the informants were extremely naive. Reports are too positive. ” But at the same time, he believes that at that time he himself was a bit naive, because he had a matrix printer, and the Stasi considered these devices as a potential way of disseminating political appeals. In addition, he may have been a little reckless, making copies of Western Computer's Happy Computer magazine in the city administration (he paid for this service with schnapps). But similar tricks, which now look comedic, remained undetected at that time. “Sometimes it helps a lot when luck is on your side,” says Paubel.

Volker Strübing also finds it surprising that the Stasi has not taken a tougher position regarding computer clubs and young gamers. “In their reports there were all signs of a threat: software exchange, a complete list of all games glorifying the war, and computers from the West. But they did not seem to understand what all this really means. " For example, that although the games did not allow East Germany to physically escape, they were equal to escape from the ideals of the state.

But instead of fearing negative consequences, the youth from the computer club HdjT, according to Timo Ullmann, used their advantages. He claims that the club members were welcome applicants from the East Berlin Polytechnic College. Moreover, since 1988, the government has reduced compulsory military service for computer science students to nine months.

Microelectronics, according to Paubela, was a “sacred cow” for the GDR. “Young people were attracted to computers, which coincided with official political goals, so the authorities turned a blind eye to many things.” Paubel believes that probably because of this, visitors to the computer club forgiven a lot and they had such opportunities that were impossible anywhere else in East Germany.

Moreover, academic literature on the activities of the Ministry of State Security of the 1980s also proves that secret surveillance and covert repression were more typical at that time than open repression. The GDR regime in the 1980s worried his reputation, and therefore he began to act in many areas much more carefully than in the 1960s.

Legal Notice

Stefan Paubel called work in the computer club of the House of Young Talents "the happiest time of life." After the fall of communism, Paubel first worked in a computer store, and then became a designer.

Today, with the help of a photomontage, he creates a new look for streets and cities, and also wrote two books: “Old well hatches in Berlin” and “Old well hatches in Europe”, and now he is working on a third one. Paubel still has that old C64.

In 1990, Volker Strybing and other members of his gang from the computer club developed the Atomino puzzle game for the German gaming studio Blue Byte. In the 1990s, he helped organize a series of public readings in Berlin called LSD (shortened in German from “love, not drugs”). These readings are still being held. Since May 2007, Streubing has been creating on YouTube an animated sitcom “Kloss und Spinne”. He continues to write articles about C64.

Timo Ullmann is the only one of our three heroes who is still professionally involved in games. After the fall of the communist regime, he studied computer science and worked with other members of the HdjT club at the Terratools gaming company located in Potsdam. In 1999, they founded Yager with four colleagues. The company is one of the largest German computer games developers and has more than 100 employees. “All this takes its roots from the C64 and the computer club in HdjT,” says Ullmann. "It was an amazing time."

The computer club of the House of Young Talents continued to exist for a while after the fall of the Berlin Wall. But the Ministry of State Security in 1990 was dissolved. At about the same time, players from the GDR began to have difficulty finding copies of Western games and exchanging them. They began writing about wanted games on bulletin boards. But they are not engaged in the power of the collapsing GDR. Gamers began to receive warnings from lawyers - this was the first acquaintance with the wonders of the capitalist world, which will soon be replaced.

In August 1990, two months after the unification of the country and the end of the GDR, the remaining members of the computer club of the House of Young Talents announced its dissolution.