Last year, in Browsers Bookshop I saw "Stasiland" by Anna Funder.
It depicts the struggles of East Germans at the hands of the Stasi (secret police) prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Her post-wall investigations were sobering but balanced, as she explored Stasi headquarters and spoke to both ex-stasi officers and victims of the regime.
A few months later I saw the film "The Lives of Others". It focused on a writer and his opera singer wife perceived to be unsympathetic to the regime.
The book highlighted the number of spies in the country. Each spy needed to report on only three people to cover the entire population.
It is hard to imagine fear controlling a country. Yet poverty and possible torture drove citizens to prove their loyalty to the government by becoming informers.
I would recommend both the book and the film.
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