In none of the poems was this tendency more pronounced than in those of 18-year-old soldier Alexander Ruika, one of the few members of the circle with a genuinely interesting way with words. The Guards Regiment was not just an ordinary unit where East German teens could while away their military service. It was an elite training ground from which the Stasi would frequently recruit new talent for special missions, such as the “tunnel unit” that was tasked with preventing underground escapes to the west.

The poetic and political destiny of East Germany were intertwined: that had been the credo of an influential group of poets who had returned from exile after the second world war to take up political posts in the fledgling satellite state of Soviet Russia. One of them, poet-turned-culture-minister Johannes R Becher, argued that creative writing would not merely reflect the social conditions of East Germany, but shape them. I digress. In this case the Stasi convinced itself that one way to win the cold war was to convince the West that the their culture was not as good was by becoming better poets, hence the title of the book. If a sinner sins and knows not what they do, is it still a sin if someone doesn't point out that it is sinful? If it feels a bit odd that the Stasi report on the Stasi, don't be alarmed. Some 80,000 part-time domestic spooks reported to the professional spooks. It was a spooky world that even after all the attempts to pulp these files remains formidable to this day. As the Stasi men at the Adlershof House of Culture became increasingly accomplished poets, the man brought in to teach them verse turned spy again. Berger resumed his activity as an unofficial collaborator in October 1982 with a series of short profiles. One 20-year-old corporal was “clumsy” with a “low level of education”, but also “open and direct”, and therefore useful: he naively confessed that other comrades had warned him off joining the poetry circle because he would be forced “to wave the red flag” there.I paid our bill. Outside the cafe, before we waved our goodbyes, Polinske said something that I couldn’t quite make sense of at the time: “The question mark at the end of a poem is worth a hundred times more than a full stop. I know that now, after thinking about it for a long time. But I didn’t know that then.” In this article, I will discuss the importance of poetry circles and how they have impacted certain social groups for the better. I will also explain that I host a relaxed writing group free of charge and that everybody is welcome to join. If you are interested in joining a poetry circle, I encourage you to do so. You may be surprised at how much you enjoy it and how much you can learn from it. I normally present a shortlist of books for my store's book club to choose from and I like to throw in one non-fiction into the mix each time - there's so much great non-fiction out there and it doesn't seem to get much of a look-in. This was the first time the book club had actually gone for it and now I'm rather worried that I might have turned them off non-fiction now :(

Berger was also a snitch – one of the 620,000 informers on the Stasi’s books. When he wasn’t grassing on friends and neighbours (“an alcoholic”, “a bit senile”, “unstable”), he was sniffing out counter-revolutionary tendencies in the workshop he ran. As the Stasi’s institutionalised paranoia increased in the 1980s, so Berger became more vigilant. Ambiguity worried him. What was the poet hiding? Could he be an insurrectionist in the making?He snitched upon others, too. Oltermann points to the “unremarkable” quality of Berger’s own poems, despite the numerous prizes given to him by the regime. Spite got the better of him. He denounced more successful writers and poets, as well as his own editor when she was lukewarm about his work. Berger died in 2014, defending his actions to the end. The greatest aspect of this book, was that I learnt about a part of Cold War/East German history which I previously knew nothing about. Oltermann’s topic is very niche, but really brings to light an under-researched topic; that culture and the arts were weaponised by both East and West German ideological systems between 1945 and 1989. The Stasi Poetry Circle: The Creative Writing Class that Tried to Win the Cold War is just an amazing title for the book! The title alone made me want to read the book and learn more. I was hoping that the book would focus more on the Stasi Poetry Circle and for there to be more of the poetry in the book. Rather, it provides a good overview of the GDR, an overview of the political climate during the Cold War and up to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the context to the formation of the Stasi Poetry Circle, it focuses on a few of the more notable poets of the group as well as looking at other poets in the GDR at that time and how they were viewed and treated.

Nonetheless, it makes for a fascinating read. The fact that members of the Stasi would meet to workshop their poetry seems surreal, but it did happen. Being the GDR, nothing was completely as it seemed. The country was rife with informants and people being surveilled - even in this Stasi group, poets were watching and reporting on poets. You can find more episodes of Free Thinking exploring German history and culture including: Florian Huber, Sophie Hardach, Tom Smith and Adam Scovell on New angles on post-war Germany and Austria https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006sjx By 1984 morale within the Stasi was suffering. The Wall couldn’t keep out western influence. There were stirrings of a peace movement among the young. Even the military preferred Eric Clapton and Steven Spielberg to homegrown music and films. But the leaders of East Germany were old and the country was slower to accept glasnost than the rest of the Soviet bloc. At least the end was bloodless: whereas Nazi Germany went up in flames, in the GDR “there were no burnt bodies, only pulped files”. Weaving unseen archival material and exclusive interviews with surviving members, Philip Oltermann reveals the incredible hidden story of a unique experiment: weaponising poetry for politics. Both a gripping true story and a parable about creativity in a surveillance state, this is history writing at its finest.Over a period of 12 years, the poet without party membership had proved himself to be one of the most productive informants on East Germany’s literary scene. Berger borrowed friends’ unpublished manuscripts to report on their political leanings, or just to comment on them “being a bit senile”. He informed the Stasi which of his literary colleagues was suspected of having an affair with whom, which jokes they told and which western TV programmes they allowed their children to watch (a Tarzan film merited particular disapproval). Philip Oltermann is Berlin Bureau Chief for The Guardian and the author of The Stasi Poetry Circle: The Creative Writing Class that Tried to Win the Cold War Helen Roche is Associate Professor in Modern European Cultural History at the University of Durham. Her second book is The Third Reich’s Elite Schools: A History of the Napolas I suppose in the neurotic times of the early '80's and mutually assured destruction, when Ronald Reagan's 300-kiloton thermonuclear warheads were called "Peacekeepers", it's at least unsurprising that the GDR's Stasi could create a Wunderwaffe of their own out of sonnets, bathos and broken rhyme. It may have had its roots in the utopian days of building a "real existing socialism" with literature as a central pillar, extolling the virtues of the common man. Yet it ended with the writing circles' poetry and literature being co-opted by the out of touch dictatorship for its own ends. It certainly didn't bring out the best in people, or stop "das Volk" from turning against the state and looking westwards.

I host a relaxed writing group free of charge. The group is open to everyone, regardless of their level of experience. The group uses WhatsApp to stay connected and uses Google Docs to share work. We encourage members to offer editorial suggestions and praise. The 1920s Philosophy's Golden Age https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000q380 Wittgenstein changed his mind, Heidegger revolutionised philosophy (and the German language), and both the Frankfurt School and the Vienna Circle were in full swing. poets, including Ted Walter (1933 - 2012), who was for many years an associate member of Shortlands Poetry Circle. As far as Berger was concerned, however, the poetry circle was not for writing love poems. He believed verse was nothing if it was not political: “Poetry had to rouse emotion and boost the hunger for victory in class warfare.” Philip Oltermann (Photo: Sarah Bohn) When Knauer finished reading it to the circle, he told me over lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant in Marzahn in 2019, there was a moment of silence. An ashen-faced kitchen worker, who had joined the group for the first time that day, rushed to the toilet. All the remaining eyes in the room were on the circle’s artistic leader. Uwe Berger said the poem was very technically advanced, and he was impressed with the skills the Chekists had acquired.But what about the moment they left their desks? The Stasi needed someone to watch the watchers when they let their guards down. It had to find a method to gaze into their hearts to identify any desires that could grow into a temptation, to X-ray their souls for deviant fears and aspirations. It had a job for Uwe Berger. Ways in which the Stasi spied on its citizens, and kept a close eye on East and West German literature. Yet the political is also personal, which is where the story gets murkier. Stasi members were not themselves immune from surveillance – far from it – and writing verse can make poets vulnerable.