24 Lawmakers Linked to Secret Police
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EAST BERLIN — Twenty-four members of Prime Minister Lothar de Maiziere’s party in Parliament once worked for the Stasi, the now-disbanded secret police in East Germany, two newspapers reported Saturday. A key party official denied the reports.
The East Berlin newspaper Der Morgen, in reporting on the alleged connection, said it based its information on a letter sent to 24 members of the Christian Democratic Union faction in Parliament.
Der Morgen said the 24 received a letter from Guenter Krause, the party’s parliamentary faction chairman, in which he asked them not to take on any “important political mandate” in a future all-German parliament.
The newspaper said the letter followed background checks on all parliamentarians for possible Stasi connections.
Der Morgen said several high-ranking party leaders confirmed the letter’s existence. A respected Munich-based newspaper, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, carried a similar report.
Neither newspaper named the 24 parliamentarians in question. The Christian Democrats won 164 seats in the 400-seat Parliament in East Germany’s first free election on March 18 following a democratic revolution.
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