Stasiland_ Stories From Behind the Berlin Wall - Anna Funder [74]
Between 1945 and 1950 the Russian secret police imprisoned POWs, Nazis, and others like infantryman Heinz Koch who might have got in their way. They re-used the Nazi concentration camps of Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald and other places, and when they were full they built new prisons, or sent people to Russia. It is estimated that some 43,000 of these people died from illness, starvation or violence after the war. In Lindau, the people helped the victors punish their fellows and called it fair.
After nearly a month in custody, on 22 October 1946, Enke came to visit his prisoner. Heinz thought his time was up. Enke started in on an unusual tack.
‘It’s your wife’s birthday today, I gather,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘Wouldn’t it be a nice birthday surprise for her if you came home? What would you say to that?’
Heinz was confused. He had been steeling himself for transportation. ‘Is that…possible?’ he asked.
‘Sure it is. I am mayor, after all, and what I say goes.’
There was a pause, then it became clear. ‘What are the conditions?’ Heinz asked.
‘Relax, comrade, relax. It’s simple, really. All you need to do is quit the Liberal Democrats and come over to us. Become a member of the Socialist Unity Party. Just as soon as that happens I can take you home. In fact, I could take you home today.’
Koch is looking at me closely. ‘What would you do?’ he asks. ‘How should my father decide?’
‘For the wife and life, of course,’ I say.
Koch is pleased, smiling and nodding and waving the mike. ‘So,’ he says, ‘on his wife’s birthday Heinz changed parties and went home.’
In this way the Lindau Communist Party annihilated its opposition and at the same time installed one of their own as the local primary school teacher, under threat of deportation to a POW camp. They had him where they could keep an eye on him: there was only one school, and the children of all the Party members were there.
Later that same year Hagen started school. Heinz taught all his pupils the doctrine of Communism, including his little boy. He found himself educating good socialist citizens for a regime that had tried to ruin his family, and his life.
In late 1946 the Communists founded the Pioniere, a youth organisation designed to instil in young children a love of Marx and country. For the older ones the Free German Youth was established. The scheme mirrored exactly the Nazis’ Pimpfe for small children and the Hitler Youth for adolescents. People joked that the Free German Youth and the Hitler Youth were so similar that only the colour of the neckerchiefs distinguished them. In both, there were meetings, torches, oaths of allegiance and a confirmation ceremony for thirteen-year-olds, complete with candles and prayer-like incantations.
All small children were required to join the Pioniere. But this came too soon for the villagers of Lindau. They baulked at seeing their children once more in line and marching and refused to put them in uniform again for the powers that be. Heinz Koch was arrested and taken into custody.
Enke said, ‘Why should the other children join up if the teacher’s own son does not?’ It was necessary for Heinz Koch to set an example through his son. He was released and given one more chance to show why he should not be deported.
Koch turns to his box and pulls out a small blue scarf. ‘So, as a result, on 13 December 1946 I was the first child to wear this kerchief around my neck.’
This is how Hagen Koch became a Musterknabe, a poster boy for the new regime. My gaze has wandered to the wall behind him. Next to the gold plate hangs a girly calendar displaying a naked woman’s torso in a forest. The photographer has cut off her head and her legs below the knee. The caption reads, ‘Wilderness Area’.
Hagen Koch turns back to his box, his collection of strange talismans from a bygone world. ‘Let me show you this beetle,’ he says, pulling out a poster. He unrolls it: ‘STOP THE AMERICAN BEETLE!’ is written in large capitals across the top. Below there’s