Germany The Pain of Purification

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Bespectacled and goateed, Lothar de Maiziere always looked less like a politician than a classical musician. In fact, before he became East Germany's first -- and last -- freely elected head of government in April 1990, De Maiziere was once a professional violist. After a nerve ailment ended his orchestral career, he took to defending dissidents in court against the Communists who then ruled the East. Last week he resigned as Minister Without Portfolio from Chancellor Helmut Kohl's government after he was labeled with another vocation: informant.

De Maiziere had twice outlasted rumors of Stasi links since his rise from political obscurity. Not this time. In early December the weekly Der Spiegel claimed that under the old regime he regularly provided information to the infamous Ministry of State Security, popularly known as Stasi. The magazine reproduced a Stasi file card indicating that an informant lived at De Maiziere's Berlin address. His code name: Czerny, the surname of a 19th century Austrian composer.

De Maiziere protested his innocence, but there are some indications that Czerny could have been De Maiziere. Though he quit the government, De Maiziere vowed to keep his seat in parliament "and at the same time undertake everything in my power to clear up the suspicion."

The Stasi stain, however, will be almost impossible to erase -- for De Maiziere as well as tens of thousands of other former citizens of East Germany. At its height, the ministry was the most powerful arm of the communists and had at its command 85,000 full-time workers, 109,000 paid informants and innumerable unofficial snoops who kept tabs on everything from visiting foreigners to the affairs of their neighbors. It kept files on 4 million of the country's citizens as well as 2 million West Germans. Placed end to end, the Stasi's records would reportedly stretch 65 miles, and they have yet to be properly evaluated by the new unified government. The potential for disrupting ordinary lives -- of those guiltless as well as those in secret desperation -- is immense.

In the final days of East Germany, the country's parliament was scandalized by the discovery that 56 of its 400 deputies, including 15 ministers, had Stasi ties. In fact, De Maiziere became leader of the conservative coalition that was elected to rule East Germany only after its most likely prime- ministerial candidate, civil rights lawyer Wolfgang Schnur, resigned in the wake of charges that he was a Stasi informant. Stasi officials remain in control of much of the newly privatized sector of the eastern economy.

At the archives, some material still lies in sacks, a reminder of the confusing citizens' takeover of Stasi headquarters in the early days of the East German revolution. Last week rules were issued that permitted access to those charged with collaborating with the Stasi and those seeking rehabilitation from past slanders, among others. So far, several inquiries have been government background checks. Security and intelligence agencies are barred from the files.