An entry from Col's Diary

Saturday 8th September 1962

They gave me back my diary today; it’s been five days. I know because I’ve been counting them since we walked into the Dusseldorf army HQ asking for political asylum. They took everything from us then, including our clothes and my diary. I ended up with some sort of one-piece overall. Once the legs and sleeves were rolled up, it sort of fitted me like a potato sack and that’s what I wore for a couple of days until they found some English clothes to fit me. I never got back my original clothes.

I’m making this entry as they clearly expect me to write one – so they can read it. But I’m the child of a Staatssicherheitsdienst officer and know that writing things down is dangerous, so I will keep this to what they already know.

Hello there, British security people. I hope that doesn’t disappoint you.

Who are ‘they’ I hear you ask, dear diary? Well, I’m not exactly sure as ‘they’ have been in civilian clothes since they brought us here – to ‘somewhere in England’ – but they are British security, whether military or civilian. And the ‘us’, of course is Mutti and me.

We’ve been well treated – apart from being kept apart for much of the time – but they are being very cautious, which is understandable. They need to make sure we are not spies. They also want to get as much information from us as possible: the wife of a Stasi officer would not fall into their hands very often.

So let’s start there, with my father – Major Axel Schmidt of the Stasi Leipzig office.

I actually don’t know what year he was born, but I do know that he shares (to his annoyance if people mention it) a birthday with Adolf Hitler, 20th April. During the war, he was an officer in the Ordnungspolizei, the civilian police known as the Orpo. He was a member of the Nazi party, but I hear it was impossible to have a career unless you were in the party (much like East Germany now), so that doesn’t mean anything really, lots of current DDR bureaucrats were members too.

After the war he was recruited into the Stasi. His police experience would have been useful to them. In Leipzig, he met and married my mother, though she is much younger than him. To me, he was always a rather distant person and I never experienced much affection from him – but my parents were not overtly affectionate to one another. Fortunately, Mutti hugged me tight and often.

When you are a child, your parents and how you live are ‘normal’. It was only as I started to venture out into the world that I realised that they – and as a result, me as well – were not normal.

I first noticed something at Kindergarten: the teachers treated me slightly differently from the other children. They were more solicitous of my welfare and I began to wonder if I had some terrible sickness needing extra care. It was there also that I felt the other children keeping me at a slight distance. I found out why this was so in my first year at what later was called the Polytechnische Oberschule in central Leipzig. One day, I was involved in a verbal fight with an older student over something trivial (so trivial I can’t remember the cause) and was called a Stasi-Schnüffler (Stasi snooper). When I asked Mutti about it that evening, she explained that Vati worked for the police and some people didn’t like police. It took several years for me to understand that the Stasi were not ordinary police. As those years passed, I became increasingly isolated as no-one wanted me as a friend, but they were very polite about holding me at arm’s length.

Mutti is Frida Maria Schmidt. She was born in Leipzig on May 1st, 1929. Her parents were communists who died during the war – but Mutti won’t talk about what happened. I don’t know Mutti’s story, but she is regarded as some sort of local hero by the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands– the ruling communist party in East Germany. When I ask her about it, she always deflects me, telling me to wait until I’m older.

Mutti works – worked, I suppose – as a translator for the government. She speaks and writes English, Russian, Polish and of course German. At home, we spoke Russian together quite a lot to help me with the compulsory Russian classes at school. Perhaps I have inherited some of Mutti’s ability with languages as the teachers seem genuinely pleased with my progress.

As for me, I’m Col Schmidt, born on 15th March, 1950. I’m a dark-haired, dark-eyed, socially isolated twelve-year-old. My school results are excellent – possibly because I’m not distracted by friends and I read a lot. Somehow, I don’t think my social isolation is going to be relieved by being a defector…certainly not until I can speak English.

I’ve asked Mutti and the people that come and speak to me what’s going to happen to us. So far, the best answer I have had is ‘don’t worry, we’ll take care of you’ – which is supposed to make me feel better. Unfortunately, I know how the Stasi deal with people they do not trust and so ‘being taken care of’ by the British equivalent does not allay my fears.

Quite the opposite.

(Hello again, British security people. I’m sure you understand why I’m nervous. Perhaps if you bought me some books I would be less anxious.)

More later – it’s lunchtime.

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This excerpt from Col's diary occurs a few weeks before Col and Will meet at the start of Through my Eyes. Again.

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