According to the Federal Audit Office, the project for the virtual reconstruction of destroyed Stasi files “completely failed”. Even the time-consuming reconstruction of the scraps of paper by hand is faster than the IT process, writes the federal authority in a recent report. According to this, since work began in 1995, the pieces of paper have been assembled manually from 500 of a total of 16,000 bags – 3.1 percent of the total inventory. With the IT process started in 2007, however, only 23 bags were successfully processed, i.e. 0.1 percent of the inventory – at a total cost of 17 million euros for this alone. In total, at the current rate, it would take another 847 years to restore all the documents, writes the financial control body.
Thousands of bags not yet processed
The reconstruction efforts involve Stasi documents that were torn up in the Ministry for State Security (MfS) in autumn 1989 until civil rights activists were able to put a stop to them. Five years after reunification, the snippets were put back together by hand in order to make the GDR secret police documents accessible to those affected. The time-consuming procedure should then be accelerated with IT after the turn of the millennium. But that didn’t work at all and has been since 2014 according to the Federal Audit Office no more documents scanned. Since then, there have only been little fruitful negotiations about a reorientation of the project.
The paper snippets were the responsibility of the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi documents until 2021. In the meantime, the holdings have been transferred to the Federal Archives, and the documents are being restored its legal duty. But while she hasn’t made any progress for almost ten years, the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media who is responsible for this does not see the virtual reconstruction project as a failure. Only the pilot project “came to a negative result,” an inherent risk in research contracts. Since 2017, the aim has been to get the commissioned Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology to adapt the scanning technology and the puzzle software. Because it does not go into this, the contracts are now to be terminated. After that, the virtual recovery should be approached again.
The Federal Audit Office is not convinced by the Federal Government’s statement and points out that one cannot assume for 10 years that there is no alternative procedure without examining it. The research project had to be evaluated and, if necessary, ended by 2013 at the latest. Not only the expenses of 17 million euros are criticized, for which there was almost nothing in return. The authority points out that it is not just a matter of complying with a legal mandate, but also “that those entitled to information can still view the documents during their lifetime”.
(my)
