Review of Stasi: The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police

I have just completed reading the book “The Stasi: The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police” by John O. Koeler. On a scale of 1 to 10 I would give this book a 7. This non-fiction work is written from an anti-German Democratic Republic stance, which I found offensive. I am a strong supporter of the German Democratic Republic and believe that the Stasi did not commit any crimes throughout the 40 year government of the DDR. The book was well written, however some of the stories the author described became repetitive, which made a few chapters drag.
The book begins with the early origins of the Stasi going back to the 1930’s with the assassination of a Berlin Police Chief carried out by future Stasi General Erich Mielke. Following the assassination, Mielke moved to Moscow where he studied under Communist Party supervision. After the Great Patriotic War, Mielke moved back to Berlin where he participated in the Socialsit Unity Party and became chief of the Ministry for State Security. He became Chief of the Stasi in 1957 and remained as head until the untimely and unfortunate fall of the German Democratic Republic in 1989.
My favourite chapter of the book was the chapter entitled “Safe Haven for the Red Army Faction”. This chapter dealt with the complicated relationship the Stasi had with the Red Army Faction. It was interesting to read that the Stasi had the most contact with the Third Generation of RAF revolutionaries and little or no contact with the Baader-Meinhof Group. It was fascinating to read about the Third Generation’s courageous and revolutionary acts. It was actually at the Baader-Meinhof website where I first discovered this book.
A chapters that I thought would be interesting were “Stasi Operations in the Third World” and “The Stasi and Terrorism”. These chapters turned out to be disappointing. The chapter entitled “Stasi Operations in the Third World” was disappointing because it focused on only one nation in which the Stasi was involved in. The chapter discussed East German involvement in Nicaragua. Although it was interesting to see Stasi involvement in Nicaragua, the chapter became repetitive and regurgitated the same information it discussed in the first few pages of the chapter. I would have preferred if the author discussed Stasi involvement in Chile and South Yemen more than it did as I think the German Democratic Republic had more involvement in these countries as opposed to Nicaragua.
The Chapter “The Stasi and Terrorism”, greatly discussed Libyan involvement in the Democratic Republic. This chapter was very disappointing. This chapter almost exclusively discussed the La Belle Bombing. The attack on the discotheque, la Belle occurred shortly after 1:00am on a Saturday night in West Berlin. The first half of this chapter gives the general details of the attack, the plan of attack and the results. The remainder of the chapter simply regurgitated the previous statements that were made. This chapter surprisingly dragged, because the author was extremely repetitive.
Although I thoroughly enjoyed the book, I certainly feel that the author did not go as in depth as he could have when it came to various events in the Stasi’s history. The author did not follow through with many thoughts and constantly repeated statements he made. I also strongly opposed his political stance. As I have written before I believe that the German Democratic Republic may be the best country in history, and I would most certainly have loved to live in it