The File: A Personal History

I did not read this book for the reasons I ended up enjoying it. Timothy Garton Ash's delving into his Stasi file is a peek into the madness and organized obsurdity of the East German State. The reader is presented with a wonderful feel for what it was like to live in East Berlin as well as the motives and workings of both Stasi IMs and the Federal Authority which now oversees the administration of the Stasi files.On another level it is a book about a middle aged man looking back on his Romantic youth, on a man he can not remember well, and sees again through the eyes of the slightly paranoid and slightly inaccurate secret police.In the end though, this is a frightening book that leaves the reader wondering what are in the secret intelligence files of the Western style democracies.

this story is exceptional, ans depcits the horrifying lengths that the Stasi went to in order to secure their state. Ash's account delivers a candid look at the East German Secret Polic and then an open look a Intelligence Organizations in today's society. Excellent story with real accoutns

It reads like a spy-thriller, but Timothy Garton Ash's book 'The File' is based on research and personal experience. Garton Ash's language is compassionate, gripping, and educated. An exciting look into the effect the Stasi had on the people of the GDR and the effect that the opening of the secret police files is having now, this book will make good reading for both scholars and laypersons alike.

Get ready to read a book that won't let you go. Reporter Ash opens his STASI (East German Secret Police) file and finds old friends were really spies, living in an Orwellian world turned real. He tracks them down and asks why they betrayed him. One cause is the cynical, fear-based totalitarianism they lived under. Another is a common trait among the "old friends" themselves: The lack of fatherly love. Their fathers were either away at war or lost in the Holocaust, or were distanced from their families by professional obligations. The story comes full circle, when Garton Ash takes a lesson in this discovery, turns off his computer and goes to be with his sons. Hmmm.