Freya Klier

Freya Klier (born 4 February 1950) is a German author and film director. Before 1989/90, she was an East German civil rights activist.

Life Early years and confrontations with state authority Freya Klier was born in Dresden, the child of working-class parents. Her father, who worked as a painter and decorator, became involved in a fight when she was three, defending his wife. The man whom he hit was an off-duty policeman. Klier's father spent the next twelve months in prison while her mother was switched to night shift work. Freya and her four-year-old brother were sent to a state orphanage. The family were reunited a year later, but the children were from this point marked out as the children of political prisoners, a stigma that affected them adversely until the East German dictatorship finally crumbled into history in 1990.

In 1966 her brother, at the time barely seventeen years old, was accused of "slandering the state" and sentenced to a four-year jail term, following which she resolved to emigrate. As a result of the slaughter of war in the 1940s and massive emigration in the 1950s East Germany was desperately short of working-age population. By 1966 leaving the country – even temporarily – was for most people "against the rules" and impossible. Freya Klier nevertheless devised a plan to escape with an acquaintance from a Swedish theatre group, armed with a false passport and travelling aboard a Swedish merchant ship. Shortly before the ship was due to sail, in July 1966, she was betrayed and arrested. She was sentenced "for attempting to flee the Republic" (wegen "versuchter Republikflucht")

Theatre career In 1970, thanks to the intervention of a Socialist Unity Party of Germany secretary, Klier was able to embark on a study course at the Theatre Academy in Leipzig, emerging with a degree in 1975. Krawczyk had by this time become something of an iconic figure, especially for younger East German fans: later in 1985 he and Klier were both served with what amounted to a nationwide ban on professional work (Berufsverbot), which was linked with exclusion from the national "Theatrical Union" ("Theaterverband"). The authorities, with a characteristic absence of subtlety, sought to destroy Krawczyk's fan base, describing him as a "national enemy" ("Staatsfeind") and even as the "new Wolf Biermann".

While Klier and Krawczyk were still in East Germany she communicated the results of her researches in Samizdat publications, and incorporated them into presentations critical of the social system that she continued to give in churches or private homes. The Ministry for State Security (Stasi) subjected them both to a programme of intense monitoring, identified in their files as "Operation Sinus" ("OV Sinus"). As a result of Stasi interventions it became increasingly difficult to organise presentations. Their car was tampered with several times: on at least one occasion the brake cable on one side was cut. Krawczyk experience a nerve gas attack as he was opening the car door. In addition to conventional harassment techniques Klier and Krawczyk were subjected to the ministry's infamous Psychological Degradation ("Zersetzung") tactics which were, as intended, psychologically damaging. Nevertheless, unlike her sixteen-year-old self, Freya Klier was now determined to stay the course and not to abandon East Germany. The letter criticised social conditions in East Germany and called for extensive reforms. At the same time Klier and Krawczyk agreed together to take part in the annual mass parade held each year in January to honour Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, two pioneers of German Communism who had been assassinated during months of revolution that followed the First World War. The 69th anniversary of the killings was to be commemorated on 17 January 1988, a Sunday. It was an officially sanctioned and promoted celebration. However, Klier and Krawczyk intended to attend it in order to display banners of their own devising. The idea was to draw attention to their own work bans and to highlight more generally their criticisms of the East German social structure. However, at the last minute they learned that other dissident demonstrators had planned to use the event to highlight government refusal to permit them to emigrate to the west, an issue that had never gone away. It was anticipated that western television teams would attempt to report the demonstration, and in order to avoid the risk of "mixed messaging" Klier and Krawczyk decided to leave their own alternative banners at home. (Other sources give the number arrested as 160.) Those arrested included Vera Wollenberger, Herbert Mißlitz and Stephan Krawczyk. A few days later there was another wave of arrests. Leading opposition figures targeted now included Regina and Wolfgang Templin, Werner Fischer, Bärbel Bohley, Ralf Hirsch and Freya Klier herself. East German media launched a reinvigorated defamation campaign against those detained, but in West Germany and from opposition groups in other Soviet sponsored states in central Europe there came various declarations of support and solidarity. Nevertheless, there were also certain West German politicians who placed on record their "understanding" for the measures taken.

In fact the demonstrations and the subsequent arrests were being discussed at the highest level. A Politburo meeting took place on Tuesday 2 February 1988.

Threatened with long years of imprisonment, Klier and Krawczyk agreed to expulsion from East Germany. Most (though not all) of the other dissidents arrested at the same time, each subjected to their own differing sets of pressures and conditions, were persuaded to reach the same conclusion. However, in the west Klier and Krawczyk were the most "high-profile" of the dissidents expelled.

There were many church representatives and others, committed to a "softly softly" approach to trying to bring Glasnost to East Germany, who criticised the decision by Klier and Krawczyk to encourage publicity for their situation. However, neither Klier nor Krawczyk had, in recent years, shown much interest in "low-profile" activism. In the dissident congregations and meetings in East Germany there is reason to believe that the events that followed the 17 January 1988 demonstration, and the publicity they attracted, served only to increase pressure on the state authorities

Family Freya Klier's daughter, , has achieved notability on her own account as a Berlin-based photographer and filmmaker.

Output (selection) Books

Abreiß-Kalender – Ein deutsch-deutsches Tagebuch München: Kindler, 1988; 2. Aufl. München: Droemer-Knaur, 1989.

Lüg Vaterland. Erziehung in der DDR München: Kindler, München 1990. Die DDR-Deutschen und die Fremden. Essay. In: Hans Eichel (Hrsg.): Hass & Gewalt – Halt! Brovi-Konzepte, Frankfurt am Main 1994. 55–59.pdf horch-und-guck.info (PDF; 43 kB; 5 Seiten) In: Horch und Guck, Heft 18, 1/1996. Die Kaninchen von Ravensbrück. Medizinische Versuche an Frauen in der NS-Zeit. 2nd edition. Droemer Knaur, München 1995. – on the Nazi criminal Karl Gebhardt. Penetrante Verwandte. Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main . Verschleppt ans Ende der Welt. Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main . Wir Brüder und Schwestern. Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main 2000 . Gelobtes Neuseeland. Flucht deutscher Juden ans Ende der Welt. Aufbau, Berlin 2006 . (English translation: Promised New Zealand: Fleeing Nazi Persecution. Otago University Press, 2009 .) Oskar Brüsewitz. Leben und Tod eines mutigen DDR-Pfarrers. Bürgerbüro, Berlin 2004, ; 3., unveränderte Auflage bei: Polymathes, Leipzig 2013. Michael Gartenschläger. Kampf gegen Mauer und Stacheldraht. Bürgerbüro, Berlin, 2009. Wie schmeckte die DDR? Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2010. Wir letzten Kinder Ostpreußens: Zeugen einer vergessenen Generation. Verlag Herder, Freiburg 2014.

Die Oderberger Straße (co-written with Nadja Klier). be.bra verlag, Berlin 2017.

Films

Verschleppt ans Ende der Welt – Dokumentarfilm 1993 Johanna, eine Dresdner Ballade – Dokumentarfilm 1996 Das kurze Leben des Robert Bialek – Dokumentarfilm 1997 Die Odyssee der Anja Lundholm – Dokumentarfilm 1998 Flucht mit dem Moskau-Paris-Express – Dokumentarfilm 2001 Die Vergessenen. Tod, wo andere Urlaub machen – Dokumentarfilm 2011 Wir wollen freie Menschen sein! Volksaufstand 1953 – Dokumentarfilm 2013

Stage presentation

Schwarzer Rotgold – premier 1991 in "East" Berlin

Essays

Links – eine Denkfalle SFB Im Takt des Fortschritts SFB Berlin ist nicht Bonn SFB 1999 Wir müssen ja jetzt Westen sein SFB Die dritten Deutschen SFB Deutschland in der Schieflage SWR Gesichter des 17. Juni SFB 2003 Der lila Drache und das Märchen von der schönen DDR WELT 2008