Gauck Commission

   Following the collapse of the East German state, the German government in Bonn established a commission under Joachim Gauck to collect, declassify, and release the records of the Ministry of State Security (Stasi). The records, more than a million linear feet, documented the history of a Leninist state through the eyes of the police and their agents. No such publication has appeared in Russia, though in Latvia and Lithuania many of the KGB’s records have been released. While the publication of the documents sparked more than a few divorces and assaults as spouses, lovers, and friends discovered who had been working for the Stasi, it did allow some degree of closure in Germany. Along with Bishop Desmond Tutu’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, it demonstrated the need for countries to face the truth of their past. There has been no Gauck Commission in Russia. Most of the research on repression has therefore been carried out by nonprofit organizations such as Memorial.