Stasi: The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police

click here for more details, find new or used items	John O. Koehler Our price £10.06 (£9.84) New from £6.70 Used from £4.01 Pages: 480 (Paperback) ISBN: 0813337445 Pub: Basic Books Inc.,U.S. Pub date: 2000-07-27 Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 173976

Reader Reviews:

Poorly written and a tough read (0/0 people found this helpful)

Bought the book and expected much more. The icing on the cake was the amount of typos and mistakes throughout the book. Just shows the mark of a quality read, I suppose ... not!!! Nothing memorable in this book at all. Had I bothered to go to the library, I would have saved myself the bother of starting to read it. Look for another book on the same theme - you won't be disappointed then. Sorry mate!

Right-wing crusader's rant (0/0 people found this helpful)

I've just got to page 4. Already the Eastern Block is backed by the armed might of the Soviet Union, but West Germany is protected by the shield of the USA and its NATO allies. Oh, and West Germany is a modern economically powerful democracy governed by the rule of law, but the other Germany is wallowing in a morass of Government-sponsored crimes.
Written by a bloke who was adviser to Reagan's Press Secretary, do not expect an objective assessment of the role of the Stasi. Read Markus Wolf's book too, then make your own mind up.
On we go.

Squandered opportunity (2/3 people found this helpful)

There is much that is interesting in this book, but the tone and bias of the author squander his privileged access - a wire journalist, former US intelligence officer and Reagan advisor writing on this subject - beyond the obvious irony - could make for compelling reading if Koehler could take a step back. Sadly he can't. Ideologues don't necessarily write bad history - Richard Pipes's books on late Russian Imperial and Soviet History are brilliantly distilled and argued - even if I personally find his politics abhorrent. Sadly Koehler lacks the rigour. One doesn't have to be a communist apologist to find his approach lacking insight, and the word 'freedom' used here sound sadly ironic given how Koehler's various employers have so abused it...

Objective? Not in any way imaginable! (14/18 people found this helpful)

If this author had not declared himself to be A) American and B) a former US Army intelligence officer, we would have had a fair idea of those facts after reading this. Placing himself somewhere on the right of the most rabid neo-conservative, the author does both the subject and the access to print grave injustices. The common thread throughout the book is that of the crusade against Communism, Socialism and basically anything that doesn't run with the American ideal. It is no coincidence that the 5 star reviews of this book come from across the pond! The increasing access to both SED and Stasi files blows a lot of the material in this book well and truly out of the water. There are so many good books on the subject of the former German Democratic Republic and its many security organs - unfortunately this cannot be counted as one of them.

Still an untold story. (8/13 people found this helpful)

This is populist,subjective and not a good objective study.There are far better items of research around.Save your money and search elsewhere.

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