Stasi row derails German Left party leader [View All]

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Luke Harding in Berlin
Thursday October 20, 2005
The Guardian


The leader of Germany's Left party was at the centre of a damaging row last night over allegations that he worked as an informer for East Germany's secret police.

Lothar Bisky, the head of the Left party, suffered a humiliating rebuff on Monday when MPs meeting for the first time since last month's general election refused to back him for a key parliamentary post. MPs from both Gerhard Schröder's Social Democrats and Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats joined forces to block Bisky's appointment as the new vice-chairman of parliament - shooting down his candidacy in three separate votes.


The move follows claims that Bisky, 64, worked as an informal collaborator for East Germany's secret police, the Stasi. According to yesterday's Berliner Zeitung, Bisky's name crops up twice in the "Rosenholz" files rescued from the Stasi archives by a CIA agent after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Bisky denies the claims.
He admitted writing reports on his West German trips but says he has no idea what happened to them. Last month Marianne Birthler, the head of the Stasi archive, said several MPs in the Left party had collaborated with the Stasi. Yesterday Left party officials accused Germany's mainstream parties of a conspiracy, and said the claims against Bisky were fabricated. "We are not going to allow others to dictate who our candidate should be," said Hendrik Thalheim, the party's press spokesman.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,2763,1596161,00.html