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The Grey Men
- Pursuing the Stasi into the Present
- Narrated by: B. J. Harrison
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
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The Grey Men
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Summary
By 1990, the Berlin Wall had fallen and the East German state security service folded. During 40 years, they had amassed more than a billion pages in manila files detailing the lives of their citizens. Overnight, almost 100,000 Stasi employees, many of them experienced officers with access to highly personal information, found themselves unemployed. This is the story of what they did next.
Former FBI Agent Ralph Hope uses critical insider knowledge and access to Stasi records to track and expose ex-officers working everywhere from the Russian energy sector to the police and even the government department tasked with prosecuting Stasi crimes. He examines why the key players have never been called to account and, in doing so, asks whether we have really learned from the past at all. He highlights a man who continued to fight the Stasi for 30 years after the Wall fell, and reveals a truth that many don’t want spoken. The Grey Men comes as an urgent warning from the past at a time when governments the world over are building an unprecedented network of surveillance over their citizens.
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What listeners say about The Grey Men
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Rossano Nocera
- 19-11-21
Insightful look into the organs of repression of a failed state.
Really enjoyed the anecdotes and narrative about the remnants of the stasi, the ‘sword & shield’ of the socialist party party in the GDR.
Well narrated, well written.
Enjoyed it !
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- ibielterrible
- 04-06-23
Great impassioned view of fall of communism and the mimicry of the dreaded nomenclature and their progeny in united Germany
If u substitute with the relevant nomenclature this was the script that executed all over satélite Eastern Europe. Communism and its horrors were never punished, so these days we have people walking around with the signage of the communist states and exalting the “achievements”, meanwhile nobody is talking about half a century of terror, concentration camps etc … the real face of communism.
Let’s not forget how the progeny of nomenclature, turned into powerful businessmen overnight, meanwhile the bating had to pay billions of foreign borrowing during communism
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Michael Tynan
- 01-07-21
Great historical insights but bias is clearly on show
Wonderfully well researched and thoughtful book. However, the terrible crimes of the GDR have clearly left the author with a strong bias against left wing groups/ ideas of all kinds regardless of they’re history or beliefs. This is quite blatant and can be jarring to hear all left wing groups including those in the social democratic tradition in Europe tarred with the one brush.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Setright
- 21-01-22
Eye opening and shocking
I thought I knew how the Stasi operated.
I did, but I had no idea they still operate!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 13-09-21
A terrible warning for the future
This is a must-read for anyone who sees the rightful position of Germany in the last two or more decades as one of the best democracies in Europe. It shows how the Stasi, the secret police of the most repressive communist country of the Cold War East Germany, murdered and ruined the lives of hundreds of thousands of its own citizens with complete impunity. How, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, they worked hard to cover their tracks, How they took over important positions in modern Germany, And how they are still working hard to rewrite history to further cover their tracks and to promote their murderous regime. It is quite shocking to read how influential they still remain, perhaps more than ever as Angela Merkel (an impressively open-minded socialist conservative), leaves her throne. This has to be one of the most impressive exposes of corruption and evil in a basically good country in modern times.
I really didn't like the reading style but still very well worth the time spent listening.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Gail Link
- 24-06-21
A Must Read
Absolutely brilliant. I have learned so much from reading this book. I visited Hohenschönhausen two years ago and it is a visit I will never forget.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Sean Fleming
- 04-09-22
Propagandist hogwash
Horribly biased, politically motivated. If it’s a factual story you’re after, you won’t find it here. The author has a political axe to grind and seems content to twist things to make them fit the narrative he’d like us all to swallow.
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