Politicians Seek Stasi Check

Politicians in eastern Germany have called for a systematic testing of all western German politicians and civil servants for links to the Stasi, the former East German police. Justice ministers of the states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia said in the future, everyone should be checked for Stasi links, as experts continue to wade through the infamous Rosewood files. The files, which contain thousands of names of Stasi collaborators, were recently returned to Berlin from the CIA in Washington and are expected to unmask thousands of former spies from both East and West Germany. Although it is thought to be very few, “we do know that there were some West Germans who did work together with the Stasi,” Rainer Eppelmann, a former East German civil rights campaigner and the last GDR defense minister told public radio Deutschlandfunk.