Beautiful story until he returns to east Germany after reunification and his family rejects him and he kills himself 9 year later.
Indeed. It’s astounding how some people have the ‘crab bucket’ mentality, even towards their own family members.
It’s not just that, although that’s certainly part of it. As such a famous “traitor” he was a target of the Stasi, and as people knew from the Gestapo, operations don’t necessarily seize just because the organization is officially shut down.
Now, all in all, he wasn’t very important and nobody actually came for him, however, thanks to the panoptic nature of the GDR surveillance state you never knew what exactly was important and what wasn’t, who watched or if you were watched. So associating with a traitor was dangerous.
That is the nature of mass surveillance. And also a reminder for today. The Stasi would’ve creamed itself if it had a quarter of the tools available today.
Was the family punished or shunned for having a family member defect?
Leaving your family for 30 fucking years, maybe even without a word, tends to cause that.
Well shit… hope he led a good life at the very least
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Schumann
He lived in fear and then killed himself…
One must assume he had some good times as well, but the ending is certainly bleak.
My mom and her mother fled from east Berlin in the 50’s before they built the wall after being pressured by the Stasi. They put all their belongings in a stroller and fled in the night. Wild times, but certainly the right decision.
