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Berlin Journos Say They Were Stasi Spies

Two top Zeitung editors admit informing for East German police

By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff

Posted Apr 3, 2008 3:07 PM CDT

(Newser) – Two top journalists for a Berlin paper have admitted they worked as informants for the Stasi, East Germany’s secret police, prompting an investigation of the paper’s editorial staff, the Guardian reports. Berliner Zeitung’s top editor ordered an inquiry after a senior stafffer was identified as a 1970s informant; two days later, another editor told colleagues he’d spied for a decade.

The first staffer had written articles condemning a fight for legal action against Stasi officers. The news is a blow to the credibility of the Zeitung, one of the main East Berlin papers during Communist rule, and which in the past fired workers associated with the regime. “We are the newspaper that can least get away with something like this,” the editor said.

Head of the Magdeburg office of German Stasi Archives Joerg Stoye looks for files in the archive of the former East German Stasi secret police in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, Monday, Aug. 13, 2007.
Head of the Magdeburg office of German Stasi Archives Joerg Stoye looks for files in the archive of the former East German Stasi secret police in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, Monday, Aug. 13, 2007.   (AP Photo/Eckehard Schulz)
Two reporters for a Berlin paper have admitted ties to the Stasi, East Germany's secret police.
Two reporters for a Berlin paper have admitted ties to the Stasi, East Germany's secret police.   (Shutterstock.com)
Head of the Magdeburg office  of Germany's Stasi Archives, Joerg Stoye, presents a file of a former Stasi informer.
Head of the Magdeburg office of Germany's Stasi Archives, Joerg Stoye, presents a file of a former Stasi informer.   (AP Photo/Eckehard Schulz)
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