Who is to keep the keepings

The embarrassment of riches in the Stasi museum; what to do, what to do?

For academics dealing with the past, the Stasi archive is irreplaceable, says Richard Schröder, chairman of the center's advisory board. “You can tell the history of the GDR is the best researched part of German history, because of the access to the files that is made possible.”

However, a quarter of a century after the end of the GDR dictatorship, more and more citizens are questioning the agency's purpose. Jörg Drieselmann, the director of the Stasi museum in Berlin, answers that very question, “I don't think we need it."

But they have it;

The most obvious possibility would be to use what already exists. ”The files could be given to the federal archives,“ he [Schröder] argues. A proposal, which Drieselmann says can offer lot: “There is a huge amount of expertise to handle this material.”

Furthermore, as the director of Berlin's Stasi museum says, the work at the federal archive is better organized than the Stasi records agency.

Better organized than the Stasi? Say it ain't so.