An Interview with Professor Dr. Volker and Mechthild Hofmann
A retired pediatric surgeon, Professor Dr. Volker Hofmann spent most of his career at a Catholic hospital in the city of Halle, then in the Communist G.D.R. (German Democratic Republic). Born in Dresden just weeks before the outbreak of the Second World War, he was fortunate to be taken outside the city on the eve of the devastating Allied bombing raid of 13th February 1945. As a teenager, he was drawn to the city’s Reconciliation Lutheran Church, where he met and married the pastor’s daughter Mechthild—sister of Michael Kanig, who would also become a pastor (see pp. 1-5 in this issue). In 2018 Professor Dr. Hofmann published a fascinating autobiography, whose title is taken from Acts 8:39, “And he went on his way rejoicing” (Volker Hofmann, Er aber zog seine Straße fröhlich, Magdeburg: Janos Stekovics, 2018). The editor of the East-West Church Report met the Hofmanns in Halle in late October 2019. The original conversation took place in German.
Professor Dr. Hofmann, in your autobiography you note that your brother moved to West Germany in 1958, when people were still free to leave East Germany. Why did you decide to stay?
Volker: In my Christian student community in Leipzig I came to the realization that I should stay where I was put. Where God has placed us is where our assignment is. Who would change this miserable G.D.R., if not those who were able due to their disposition, education, and courage? That was one of the most difficult aspects of the G.D.R. Three million people left—the best ones, who knew they could find work in the West. It was a miracle that the peaceful revolution of 1989 succeeded despite the fact that those people were missing. [The departure of three million able people] was the fundamental reason why nothing changed here after 1990— or only very slowly.
Was your Christian student community seen as opposing the Communist state?
Volker: Yes. Living as a church community was essentially the only possibility of living in opposition to the state. You had a certain degree of protection—it was not so easy for the authorities to remove a pastor, for example. Although that did happen— back in 1957, our student pastor, Siegfried Schmutzler, was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison for leading Bible study in Böhlen, a workers’ settlement near Leipzig. He urged people to live as Christians—not to put up with everything and not to lie, but to live in truth. Anchored in the church, you could do many things for which you would otherwise lack the courage—the Christian community offered solidarity outside your immediate family.
Were you both naturally drawn to faith as children?
Mechthild: We were shaped by our father’s job as pastor. Faith was our daily life. To those in the ordinary world, pastors’ children always seemed isolated, but we felt protected. We were completely at home in the Kurrende [German: Protestant children’s choir]. When we were five years old, we began to learn the texts of all the hymns. Music shaped us to an incredible degree—Bach, Handel, Schütz… we learned it all.
Once you are a teenager, you wish to leave this confined space. But the socialist world appeared narrow in a different way. In high school we had a practical component—the socalled “workdays in production” [German: Unterrichtstag in der sozialistischen Produktion]. One day a week we would go into a manufacturing plant—often it was very stupid work that did not inspire us. Our world was more interesting, and I did not need anything very different.
Were you marginalized at school?
Mechthild: Often, because I never joined the F.D.J. [German: Freie Deutsche Jugend, the G.D.R.’s socialist youth organization]. We had lessons in atheism, and Christian pupils were asked questions like, “Where is your God?” When you are 14, you cannot answer that. I was only permitted to take the Abitur [school-leaving exams] thanks to one teacher who greatly supported me. He spoke very forcefully—he said that if I were not permitted, he would resign.
Volker: In dictatorships, people are coerced using their children’s education prospects.
Professor Dr. Hofmann, like your brother-in-law Pastor Michael Kanig, you attended Dresden’s Holy Cross School (German: Kreuzschule), with its famous choir?
Volker: Yes, a very old school. Its pupils mainly came from Christian families, naturally, because they sang Christian music. It was an island in a red sea. The G.D.R. even promoted it as an advertisement, in the same way as sports.
But my path to church in my youth was very different. My father left the Catholic Church. My mother remained, but she had no contact with it. Sunday mornings were always a bad time at home—my mother would sweep the rooms and scold because everything was dirty. Where could I go? On Sunday mornings, only church. I sat at the back and dozed. At confirmation it became more interesting—our Lutheran church youth group was the only point of convergence for young people who did not want to join the F.D.J. At university in Leipzig I took on further responsibility in my student congregation. It was a path that led ever further. Living in a Christian way seemed like the only thing that made sense. What the Communists said about the working class, justice, and so on did not apply to us. We had something quite different—the Sermon on the Mount, a completely new way of defeating hatred, ending wars.
The state supported militarization?
Volker: Yes, from the mid-1950s. Immediately after the [Second World] War, we children were strictly forbidden even to carry toy tanks in our satchels. But then weapons were brought into schools and military service was introduced. Everything was turned on its head.
In your book, you refer to the May 1968 demolition of St. Paul’s University Church in Leipzig as another point when opposition between the Christian community and the Communist regime crystallized. [A short video of the demolition may be viewed at https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2tnc81.]
Volker: Due to an official visit by Walter Ulbricht [then leader of the G.D.R.], the authorities decided that Leipzig should be remodeled as a socialist city. St. Paul’s Church would have to go from Karl Marx Square. St. Paul’s was a 13th-century Gothic church, Mendelssohn was married there [in 1837], and it survived the War practically unscathed. The city council approved its demolition almost unanimously. The only dissenting vote came from a member who was a Lutheran pastor. However, after 1989 it emerged that he had been working for the Stasi, and that this had just been a provocation to encourage others to speak out and so flush out any opposition. Mechthild: We went to watch the demolition. There was a huge crowd of people there. Right to the last moment before the explosion, no one could believe it. Afterwards, the bells of the churches all around rang out in protest.
Volker: That event changed many people’s minds. Up until that point, many people remained neutral. But together with the events of the same year in Czechoslovakia [the crushing of the Prague Spring in August 1968], this meant that a significant—if not large—portion of the population became politically engaged. Step by step, protest behavior began. The Helsinki Accords of 1975 brought demands for human rights, and then came the expatriations of [East German protest singer] Wolf Biermann in 1976 and [East German writer] Reiner Kunze in 1977. The mood of protest grew ever stronger. The authorities kept thinking that if they allowed a valve to open, pressure would be released, and they could carry on as before. Yet by the end in 1989, three million had left but the kettle was still at boiling point.
During this period you worked as a pediatric surgeon at St. Barbara’s Hospital here in Halle. It was a Catholic children’s hospital—was that something very unusual in the G.D.R.?
Volker: Church hospitals did not exist in any other socialist country—only in the G.D.R. There were 17 Catholic hospitals and some Protestant ones as well—they all existed before the War. Around 50 to 60 Catholic nuns worked in ours, but their number grew ever fewer as the older sisters died, and no novices joined.
Was religious activity restricted there?
Volker: We had complete freedom inside the hospital. Communists’ children dutifully prayed along! They had no clue what prayer was. They just liked it, and the nuns were kind—they were always there for the children.
From 1977 onwards, you were permitted to travel abroad, including to Western Europe and the U.S. How did that come about?
Volker: There were three reasons. My impertinence—I received an invitation to travel, and I wanted to accept it. If I were denied permission, I would have to tell the host the reason. The authorities did not want that—they did not want to be depicted negatively abroad. The second reason was that we had developed a method of ultrasound diagnosis for children, and I was an advertisement for this. The third reason was that I worked at a church hospital, so they did not care so much whether I returned. But I did come back—I always came back.
Did you have to pass on information to the East German authorities after your trips about the Westerners you had met?
Volker: Yes. I always had to give two reports—one political and one technical. In the technical report I could describe quite honestly where I had lectured, what logistical problems I had experienced, and so on. In the political report I wrote, for example, “In America they very much wish to get to know more colleagues in the G.D.R.” On the contrary, they wanted the opposite—not to have contacts. I was essentially saying how things should be. At the time, there were two or three pediatric surgeons in America who were way ahead of us in their operating methods, and we needed them to come to the G.D.R. so that we would have those possibilities too.
There is an important point here. When you force a dictatorship into dialogue—as on human rights with the Helsinki Accords—the dictatorship always loses. We were always the stronger ones in dialogue. Ultimately, that is why the whole edifice collapsed in 1989. Through the Helsinki Accords, demands for freedom of movement arose. It all came to a head in the 1980s. To start with, there were very few Ausreiser [“ones who leave,” i.e., people who demanded the right to leave the G.D.R.] They were badly treated— fired from their jobs or imprisoned. But that changed as their numbers grew—they could not imprison everybody. After waiting for around two years, it actually became possible to leave for the West.
But you still did not try to leave?
Volker: No, we were the Hierbleiber [“ones who remain”]. When friends who were leaving came to say goodbye, they said, “How long will you wait? Think of the children!” So the question did arise, but it was not possible, partly due to our older relatives here. There was also a certain defiance involved—the reflection that, if we go too, then we will be giving up this whole part of Germany to the Communists. Then they will get what they want—for everyone in opposition to leave and for them to have free rein here. We did not want that.
By this time the protest movement in the church was becoming influential.
Mechthild: Being active in our congregation, I experienced this from the early 1980s. Churches across the whole G.D.R. observed the so-called Friedensdekade [“ten days for peace”] in early November. What happened here in Halle was this: From all over town, people processed peacefully to the main church on Market Square. We were not allowed to carry placards, but people streamed from all directions, praying and singing. People called out, “Peace! Be peaceful!” The police were watching, but they never did anything.
The peaceful revolution of 1989 began with the Church. The Friedensdekade was a forerunner of it. This is frequently discussed now—did the Church really start it? Definitely. There is no doubt about it. The Church initiated people into the use of genuinely peaceful means to try to alter their circumstances. There were of course people who were not Christians who joined us—but the Church organized it.
Professor Dr. Hofmann, in the 1980s you yourself became active in a protest group called Christian Medics Taking Social Responsibility [German: Christliche Mediziner in sozialer Verantwortung].
Volker: That meant being opposed to the dictatorship in a specific way. We were against the introduction of military training for schoolchildren after 8th grade, including summer camps where they had to do shooting practice and perform military exercises. There was also instruction in how to defend against a nuclear attack—absurdities like lying in a corner. As medics, we maintained that the only defense was to disarm. That meant disarmament not only in the West, but also in the East. And that was a trigger for the regime: disarmament in the East! For them, such a demand could only come from class enemies and traitors—people who should be watched.And the Stasi did surveil you.
Volker: Yes, it began after my trip to America in 1987. While I was there, I contacted the I.P.P.N.W. [International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War], an international group founded by Americans and Russians. You could be an individual member everywhere except the G.D.R., where the members were a group of 40 Party comrades. Our group [Christian Medics Taking Social Responsibility] was opposed to them, and we wanted to become members. So while I was in Chicago I went to meet with the I.P.P.N.W. treasurer. I explained to him that we were not allowed to join, and suggested that they expel the official G.D.R. group—he had no idea about our situation. My appeal worked—the G.D.R. Politburo was forced to accept individual membership, and we were able to join about a year later.
But I don’t know what I was thinking—I was stupid. The Soviets sat at the top level of this organization. A Russian based in Chicago found out about my meeting and informed Moscow. From there, a directive went to the Stasi, who began 24-hour surveillance of me. My Stasi file begins with: “He is making unauthorized contact with the U.S. section of I.P.P.N.W.” For the regime, this was the worst thing a person could do—be politically active behind their backs in America. They began to surveil me in early 1988, and it became ever more intense. They conducted house searches, including here.
Where we are sitting now?
Volker: Yes. They wanted to know precisely what we were doing and with whom we were in contact. On one occasion, we noticed that every item in my desk had been moved—but with precision, so that we could still find everything. I went to take out some concert tickets, and they were not there. They were in a completely different compartment. So they had swapped the contents of the compartments in my desk without paying attention to what was in them, and everything was no longer in the right order. They entered our house very skillfully, using a skeleton key.
Mechthild: Later on, after 1989, we saw that they had a plan of our house, showing the entrances and where everything was situated. We were also watched by our neighbors on this street. At the time, we knew about the section representative [German: Abschnittsbevollmächtigter], who was responsible for this particular area.
Volker: They were like the block wardens [Blockwärter] that the Nazis had. He would ask me things like, “Are you going on another big trip?” He was not in the loop about whether my travel had been approved.
Mechthild: Then there was our immediate neighbor— we did not know about that at the time. Later on we asked her, and she said yes, they did ask her to do it, but that she only said good things about us. I did not expect it of the Catholic hospital, however. That totally dumbfounded me. We had limitless trust in that hospital—in the doctors, in the nuns.
Volker: There were three people there who informed on us. We had no idea at the time.
What happened when you found out?
How did these people respond? Volker: None of them admitted it—none of them came to us of their own accord. That would have been the best solution. To say, “Listen here, I’m sorry, I was pressurized, I was blackmailed,” or something like that. But none of them actually did that. They all said they had nothing to do with it. So naturally, I made copies of the Stasi reports about me and asked them to read them through. “Look, here’s your report. It says here, ‘Audio tape report from 28th March, 1988.’” I read it out to them. Their response was, “Then it must have been like that.”
Mechthild: Not one of them admitted it, even when it was simply placed in front of them. We could not understand how someone could act like this.
Were these people previously friendly towards you?
Volker: Very friendly, to the point that we trusted them completely. For example, I always told the hospital’s administrative director everything. He always knew exactly which schools I was going to visit, and it turned out that he prevented those visits. It did surprise me at the time— that when I arrived, the director of the school would say, “Unfortunately, we have to cancel today.” I did wonder how that could happen at such short notice. Later, I read all about it in my Stasi file. One teacher who let my visit go ahead despite everything was reprimanded by the Party.
If someone was previously very friendly towards you, but suddenly acts strangely on seeing these reports, that is an indirect admittance of guilt, in a way.
Volker: The thing is, none of them expected someone to come along later and say, “Listen here!” I headed a department at our medical association which organized hearings for medics burdened by this—who had gone against their professional honor by snitching on colleagues. Only one wrote to me afterwards to say that he was grateful for this hearing, that he was now relieved of a burden. (Sighs.) They all believed that this would never become known. Before people intervened, a great deal was burned back in 1989, so everyone believed—about themselves: “It’s gone, thank God!” The Stasi officers with whom they liaised all said, “Don’t worry, everything has been destroyed.” That is why there was this strange reaction.
You were in the unusual position of being granted access to your Stasi file in March 1992, somewhat earlier than the general public in Halle. Why did that happen, and how did it affect the impact of what you discovered?
Volker: Halle’s Martin Luther University was evaluated under the local law On the Renewal of the Universities [German: Hochschulerneuerungsgesetz, adopted in SaxonyAnhalt Region in July 1991 with the aim of purging Stasi collaborators from university staff]. But who would conduct this evaluation? It had to be people who themselves had been evaluated. I went through this process as a member of a round table that was to evaluate the medical faculty.
The archivist who gave me my file told me not to be shocked. I read it and requested the real names behind the aliases. My first reaction was, “Our administrative director— this cannot be true!” He was also the Catholic parish chairman, so in a very trusted position. No one knew, and the craziest thing about it was that his brother-in-law was the senior head of our hospital and so was his superior. He did not know either, and their wives did not know anything. They were all very close. “What do I do now?” I thought.
I went along to the clinic because I knew that this Dr. Willms, the senior head, would be in his office until at least 8 p.m. He was a little brusque with me because he wanted to finish his work. “I have something to report to you,” I said. It grew darker and darker, and we lit a candle. I told him everything. He could not grasp it—his whole world suddenly collapsed, that of his family as well as the hospital. First we agreed to say nothing about it. In the meantime, his brother-in-law [i.e. the collaborator] had become sick—he had developed a brain tumor. That is a curious thing in itself; so many people fell seriously ill during that period. Then we discussed at length— would we confront him, or not? We decided not to do it, because he was in the final phase of his illness.
We did not tell his wife either until after he had died. It was even more terrible for her. She could not take it in—she said to me, “How can you spread such things? My husband never did that! What you are doing is terrible!” But then she said, “Please come over to our house so we can talk about this.” I agreed, naturally, and I made sure to take copies of the transcripts of her husband’s taped reports to the Stasi. She sat with her daughters and said, “Now tell us again, how can this be the case? My husband only ever said good things about you. How can you spread such bad things about him?” I then read the taped reports to her. I left without saying anything. What else could I say?
Collaboration was her husband’s second life. And why did he do it? He was caught drunk driving and was told he would either lose his license—and so his job—or he could work with the Stasi. “Don’t worry, we will just visit you every two weeks, and you will tell us about what is going on at the clinic.” So that is what he did.
And the Stasi collaborators’ identities were later revealed publicly?
Volker: That only happened here in Halle, in no other city. All informants’ aliases and real names were published in the local newspaper [the local edition of Bild, during July and August 1992]. Every day they covered a different letter of the alphabet. Neues Forum [New Forum, an East German pro-democracy movement founded in September 1989] had made everything secure. In late 1989 there were fires everywhere—attempts to destroy government records. In Halle, Neues Forum blocked the Stasi offices—no one was allowed in or out, whereas in many other places much was destroyed or otherwise not processed. Here, every name was found and sorted—most crucially, the records containing people’s real names, not just their aliases.
Do you think the full transparency that took place here in Halle was preferable, and did it have significant consequences?
Volker: Definitely. For example, there was one collaborator who even used my name as an alias. He remained the medical director of a large local hospital right up until the names were published. The very next morning, he was fired. There was a clean up, and that should have happened in other cities. Relationships became clear. People who had nothing to do with the Stasi were no longer suspected, while people whom you might have considered your best friends were debunked. It certainly helped.
