God's Spies: The Stasi's Cold War espionage campaign inside the Church

by Elisabeth Braw

Overview

When the Berlin Wall came down, the files of the East German secret police, the much-dreaded Stasi, were opened and read. And among the shocking stories revealed was that of the Stasi's infiltration of the Church. Almost 10% of the Lutheran Church's workforce were, it appears, busy involved in spying on each other, and on the Church's congregations. The Lutheran Church was the only semi-free space in East Germany, where those who rebelled against the regime could find a way of living at least a little out of the government's iron grip. Even the organisations that smuggled Bibles were infiltrated.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780745980089
Publisher:	Lion Hudson
Publication date:	10/18/2019
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.12(w) x 7.75(h) x (d)

About the Author

Elisabeth Braw is a former journalist and leader of RUSI, Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, the oldest defence and security think tank in the world. She regularly writes op-eds for The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The Times, and other prestigious newspaper publications. She is the author of God's Spies.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS
Preface 7
Introduction 12
Prologue 20
Dramatis personae 22
1 Establishing the Stasi 28
2 Pastor agents 47
3 A growing threat: seminaries 66
4 The fine art of recruiting 71
5 East Germans, escaping 92
6 Agents’ vanities 114
7 Cunning infiltration 128
8 An exotic foreign assignment 141
9 Target: international organizations 152
10 Intercepting Bible smugglers 156
11 A literary underground railroad 177
12 Agents and their rewards 187
13 Spying and doing one’s part for East Germany 196
14 An indispensable Bible smuggler (and Stasi spy) 213
15 Losing motivation 239
16 A crucial foreign mission 250
17 Churches spreading opposition 266
18 East Germany on its knees 278
19 The Berlin Wall collapses 285
20 Destroying the evidence 290
21 Anxiously waiting pastor spies 296
22 God’s spies: what was the point? 310
Index 321

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"This is a work of more than historical interest. Elisabeth Braw's shrewd and often scathing analysis of the characters involved and the issues they are dealing with leads us to draw many lessons for the modern world, and to wonder how things could be diffrent. Well worth reading. " James Arbuthnot, the Rt Hon Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom

"God's Spies is a gripping account of the sinister work of East Germany's Stasi secret police in its decades-long attempt to manipulate and exploit people's most sacred and private personla beliefs. Elisabeth Braw writes with insight and sympathy, based on unique material from not only the victims, but also - in a rare feat of reporting - from the perpetrators [...] you will find this book unputdownable." Edward Lucas, author and columnist for The Times.