“I’d conscripted voluntarily in 1987 in order to be able to study music. In the GDR, if you wanted to study anything that wasn’t a standard profession, you had to join the army for three years first, and studying music was one of only two ways to become a musician. An alternative would have been to do what people do today and simply make music, but in the GDR you’d be considered antisocial if you did that, so normal people like me didn’t even think of it.

“Our lives at the regiment had certain routines: We would have guard duties for three weeks — I controlled pedestrians at the Ministry for State Security’s main entrance, for 134 days in total — , then an ‘extended short vacation’ for three days, then three weeks of training.

“Starting in June 1989, we weren’t allowed to receive visitors or letters, or to leave the barracks except for our guard duties. We knew even less of what was happening than before. We only got the official info about ‘counter-revolutionaries’ and heard rumors, for example that a mob had hanged a border guard from the clock at Alexanderplatz. We believed them. When you’re in a cocoon like that, you believe anything, and especially when anything else is simply unimaginable. We felt there was something evil out there that wanted to harm the state.

“On October 7, at 6:30 p.m., the alarm sounded. Protests at the Palace of the Republic, where the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the GDR was happening that day. There were practice alarms regularly, but this time, we all received live ammunition. I asked my commanding officer what would happen if I refused to shoot. He smiled. ‘Then I will first shoot you, then the mob!’ On the way to Alexanderplatz, our platoon leader was crying. That’s when we really woke up. Would we shoot or not? I stood on a bridge and heard the shouting from afar. The order never came. But that night, we knew we were screwed. We couldn’t leave — once you’d conscripted, if you left, you’d never get a job. You’d end up in a mine somewhere.

“A week or so after November 9 we finally got furlough again, and that’s when we first found out what had been happening the past three to four months. I was with my then girlfriend and friends, all of whom had been beaten up by police. That’s who the mob was — our friends. That’s when we realised we were the assholes, the bad guys. I immediately submitted my petition for release. Why? Because I felt abused. I knew I would have shot.

“On December 13 I was released. ‘You rat, we’ll get you,’ the last officer I saw told me. I got a job at the Stefanus monastery’s daycare for the disabled children of members of the opposition. My group was run by Evelyn Zupke, who organized all the anti-election protests. When I told her I’d been with the Stasi, she replied: ‘Look, I’ve been arrested by the Stasi more often than I can count, and the only reason I’m still alive is because I live on church grounds, and you are the stupidest Stasi spy I’ve ever seen.’ We soon became great friends. I stayed for a year and a half.

“I had no expectations from the fall of the Wall. It simply happened. I had no contact with the alternative or counter-revolutionary movement. We were fine. I didn’t want to join the West, I wanted to join the Party! But I wasn’t disappointed, either, because over the next six months or so, everything started. I did whatever I wanted. I wasn’t too concerned about the whole East-West thing in our building, either — I think our neighbors, at number 30, are more West German and more political. We just made music together. The only thing I never wanted again was to be in a situation where someone used me. That was the most important thing.”