Word: stasis
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...rare police vehicle. One reason for the lack of law enforcement is that eastern policemen are unfamiliar with the federal laws now in effect. The problem is compounded by a lack of manpower: thousands of police quit their jobs before unification or were dismissed because of party or Stasi connections...
...them former communist functionaries who, says one observer, "cannot believe they can hang up the socialist dream like a soiled coat." They remain loyal even though thousands have lost their jobs because of what Germans call Ausgrenzung, or discrimination against those linked to the communist hierarchy or the Stasi...
...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...
...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...
Other Germans disagree. "You cannot build a new start on a lie," says Barbel Bohley, a leading civil rights activist from Eastern Germany. She warns of the possibility of a "corruptible parliament with members susceptible to blackmail" for their Stasi past. Says Karl-Dietrich Bracher, a political scientist at the University of Bonn: "If we were to have a general amnesty, there would be a general disgust with politics. Some kind of purification is necessary...