Sascha Anderson

In that situation someone comes and wants something from you and if you’re egotistical and altruistic enough then you say “Okay, let’s do it. I’ll do what I can and you’ll do what you can”. That’s fine. I’m not the sort of person who makes decisions based on an idea, so if the Devil looks good, I might say to him: “How can I help you, dear Devil?”

[laughs]In the place that I was, I was the top informer. I had the feeling that I wasn’t just an ordinary spy. Of course, I told them everything.

He has commented that he wanted to be recruited as a "top spy" by the KGB and was surprised that he was not approached by them, and has described his relationship with Stasi officers as a father-son one. In another interview, he said "To me it's all the same...To me it meant nothing ... I had no moral problems. In 2019, he told another interviewer his motive was antifascism.

In interviews, Anderson has given a number of reasons for becoming an informant. In 2009, speaking in a documentary he answered:

His novel, published in 2002, was largely unsuccessful despite being launched in a series of well-attended promotional events. Many reviews were "dismissive and openly sarcastic" of the book.

In 1995 he faced charges relating to his work as an informant. He was acquitted, but received a fine. Since the dissolution of the Stasi in 1990, the Stasi Records Agency has worked to reassemble and organise the records held by the secret police and citizens have the right to request to see their own records. These documents have also been used to identify Stasi agents and informants. In 1999, Anderson's informant file was published

Before he was revealed as an informant, Anderson had received a number of prizes for his literary works including a residency at the Villa Massimo. Afterwards, he was ostracised by the literary community, and was described as "for a time... one of the most reviled men in Germany." When he took up the year-long Villa Massimo residency in 1993, other recipients refused to stay in the accommodation with him, and he ended up moving out of the villa for his stay in Rome. When Annekatrin Hendel's documentary Anderson - Anatomie des Verrats [Anderson - Anatomy of Betrayal] was released in 2014, there were protests at screenings.

In 1991, singer-wongwriter Wolf Biermann was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize. During his acceptance speech, he made reference to a number of Stasi spies, including "the untalented babbler Sascha Arschloch [asshole]... who is still playing cool and hoping his files won't show up". The announcement caused immediate outcry amongst Anderson's friends and supporters; when asked by Schleime and Endler, he had repeatedly denied working as a spy.

Since the mid 1990s, he has lived in Frankfurt with the writer and artist Alissa Walser. where he has worked as a freelance typesetter and organised events for an investment bank.

The East German secret police, known as the Stasi, had one of the most extensive and effective intelligence networks to have ever existed. By 1989, it was estimated there were at least 189000 informants in every sphere of East German society, and files on millions of citizens. By the late 1970s, the Stasi had moved from overt persecution to a programme of psychological harassment known as Zersetzung. The goal was the "fragmentation, paralysis, disorganization, and isolation of the hostile and negative forces, in order to preventatively impede the hostile and negative activities" of political opponents.

In 1989, protests in East Germany culminated in the fall of the Berlin Wall. In a documentary in 2009, Anderson said, "It was incredibly exciting...it never crossed my mind that I was with the Stasi. I was there very quickly, standing on top of the wall. It was a beautiful feeling and I wanted to be part of it. I couldn’t stand by and watch it from afar." A friend recalls that Anderson swore at the sight of the open wall, although Anderson says he does not recall this.

In 1986, Anderson emigrated to West Germany, but continued organise cultural events in the East, and to report to the Stasi. While in West Berlin, he worked as a private secretary for A. R. Penck. Six months after he moved to the West, the Stasi opened a file on Anderson and may have been under surveillance even earlier.

The information provided to the Stasi by Anderson included "accurate and detailed psychograms of all artist friends" "No critical word, no rebellious eye, no precarious love had escaped" from the reports. He organised events, and then reported on them to the police. He also wrote about himself in his reports: in 1986, he wrote to the Stasi: "Sometimes I had the feeling that I am being paid to monitor myself". His reports were "precisely articulated and contained incriminating evidence against his fellow writers".

Anderson moved from Dresden to Berlin in 1981, and based himself in the Prenzlauer Berg district. He has been described by those who knew him as "fascinating", "charismatic" and "an idol"; he immersed himself in the East Berlin alternative scene, became a singer in a punk band, and quickly gained a reputation as an organiser of cultural events. He arranged for the screening of films and publication of books and magazines, and found spaces for artists to work, perform and exhibit. For some time, he lived with Ekkehard and Wilfriede Maaß and their apartment and workshop became a meeting place for artists and bohemians. Ekkehard and Anderson held readings and exhibitions in their home, and it became a literary salon, attended by Heiner Müller, Christa Wolf, Volker Braun and Franz Fühmann. Allen Ginsberg and Yevgeny Yevtushenko also visited; it has been speculated that the well-known participants may have protected the gatherings from being persecuted by the Stasi.

In 1976 Wolf Biermann, a prominent singer-songwriter in the scene, had his citizenship revoked while on a tour of West Germany; another member, philosopher Rudolf Bahro, was arrested and imprisoned in 1977 after he admitted having written The Alternative, a critique of East German socialism. These events triggered a wave of emigration in the counter-culture scene, and left what the ceramicist Wilfriede Maaß described as a "deep void".

In the 1960s Prenzlauer Berg had become a home to East German artists, intellectuals and the gay community; in the 1970s and 80s, the district was known as a "legendary Bohemia" which attracted artists like Cornelia Schleime and poets Adolf Endler and Bert Papenfuß-Gorek.

Alexander "Sascha" Anderson (born 24 August 1953) is a German writer and artist who was an influential figure in the alternative scene in pre-unification East Berlin in the 1980s. Anderson was nicknamed "the culture minister" due to his role in organising cultural events and promoting young artists. In 1991, it was revealed that he had been an informal collaborator for the East German Stasi since 1975.

Anderson was born in Weimar in 1953 to a theatre director/actor father and architect mother. As an adult, he moved to Dresden where he trained as a typesetter and used his skills to print and disseminate political leaflets and poetry, for which he was imprisoned twice, in 1970 and 1972. Anderson's first reports to the Stasi came after his prison sentences. Anderson's code name was Fritz Müller