Based on interviews and the voluminous materials in the archives of the SED, the Stasi and central and regional authorities, this volume focuses on several contrasting minorities (Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews, 'guest' workers from Vietnam and Mozambique, football fans, punks, and skinheads) and their interaction with state and party bodies during Erich Honecker's rule over the communist system. It explores how they were able to resist persecution and surveillance by instruments of the state, thus illustrating the limits on the power of the East German dictatorship and shedding light on the notion of authority as social practice.

Based on interviews and the voluminous materials in the archives of the SED, the Stasi and central and regional authorities, this volume focuses on several contrasting minorities (Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews, 'guest' workers from Vietnam and Mozambique, football fans, punks, and skinheads) and their interaction with state and party bodies during Erich Honecker's rule over the communist system. It explores how they were able to resist persecution and surveillance by instruments of the state, thus illustrating the limits on the power of the East German dictatorship and shedding light on the notion of authority as social practice.

The East German Ministry of State Security, popularly known as the Stasi, was one of the largest and most intrusive secret police systems in world history. So extensive was the system of surveillance and control that in any given year throughout the 1970s and 1980s, about one in fifty of the 13 million East German adults were working for the Stasi either as an officer or as an informer. Drawing on original sources from the Stasi archives and the recollections of contemporary witnesses, The Stasi: Myth and Reality reveals the intricacies of the relationship between the Stasi enforcers, its agents and its targets/victims, and demonstrates how far the Stasi octopus extended its tentacles into people's lives and all spheres of society. The origins and developments of this vast system of repression are examined, as well as the motivation of the informers and the ways in which they penetrated the niches of East German society. The final chapters assess the ministry's failure to help overcome the GDR's inherent structural defects and demonstrate how the Stasi's bureaucratic procedures contributed to the implosion of the Communist system at the end of the 1980's.

The system transformation after German unification in 1990 constituted an experiment on an unprecedented scale. At no point in history had one state attempted to redesign another without conquest, bloodshed or coercion but by treaties, public policy and bureaucratic processes. Unification was achieved by erasing the eastern political and economic model. However, in the meantime it has become clear that the same cannot be said about social transformation. On the contrary, social and cultural attitudes and differentiation have continued and resulted in deep divisions between West and East Germany. After unification, the injustices of politics seemed to have been replaced, in the eyes of most former GDR citizens, by unexpected injustices in the personal spheres of ordinary people who lost their jobs and faced unknown realities of deprivation and social exclusion. These are the main concerns of the contributors to this volume. Incorporating new research findings and published data, they focus on key aspects of economic, political, and social transformation in eastern Germany and compare, through case studies, each area with developments in the west.

A study of the powerful and much-feared East German Ministry of State Security from its establishment in 1950 to its fall in 1990.

The Stasi was a central institution of the GDR, and this book illuminates the nature and operation of the entire East German regime, addressing one of the most important topics in modern German history. The emphasis is primarily on the key years under Erich Honecker, who was Head of State from 1976 and ousted in 1989. The book looks at all aspects of the control, operation and impact of the security police, their methods, targets, structure, accountability, and in particular the crucial question of how far they were an arm of the ruling communist party or were themselves a virtually autonomous political actor.

Las Vegas. October, 2003. Sandra Blake is dead. A bullet in her forehead. Her ex-husband wants former private investigator Jack Barnett to find the killer. The investigation leads Barnett into a high-powered world of shady characters and a rising body count, all for control of a seemingly unimportant slice of vacant land in a seedy area of downtown Las Vegas. A mysterious case of wine rests at the center of it all, and everyone wants it. Can Barnett find the killer before the whole thing blows up in his face? THE DOWNTOWN DEAL is a novel, the third hardboiled entry in the Jack Barnett / Las Vegas series, once again dragging the reader alongside the reluctant ex-PI down the darkest streets of Sin City, USA.

A young, headstrong, performer with white-hot talent. A president of a small record company with big ambitions. A nervous nation coping with a new, dangerous music. It's Memphis, 1958. It's rock & roll, brother It's... CADILLAC'S COMIN'

What if a total stranger gave you $95,000 in cash as he lay dying in the street? Do you keep it? Even after knowing who it really belongs to? Ex-private investigator Jack Barnett is handed such an envelope on a back street in Las Vegas. He needs the money, but as he learns more about it, he is drawn deeper into the world of a shady real estate mogul, whose reach extends all the way to a Texas border town, where bribery is the way things get done. HARD CASH is the second installment in Mike Dennis' Jack Barnett / Las Vegas Series, pulling the reader down the darkest streets of Sin City, USA. "Mike Dennis is a crafty writer and a huge asset to the world of PI fiction." -- SONS OF SPADE

"Mike Dennis is a modern master of noir." MAX ALLAN COLLINS, author of Road To Perdition It's hot in the Florida Keys in August. For Teddy Myles, it's even hotter as he tries to outrun both the law and his partners in crime. He flees to Key West to set up a new identity and an escape to the Caribbean. But he meets up with Gail, a sexy local, who has other things in mind for him. Soon, he finds himself trapped into pulling one more job, this one for over a million. His former partners are tracking him, the cops are onto him, and a hurricane is coming. Time is running out, but will it be on his side? MAN-SLAUGHTER is the third gripping novel in Mike Dennis' Key West Nocturnes Series, designed to reveal Key West as a true noir city.

In the world of small-time bookie Eddie Ryan, only the cop cars are black and white. Everything else swirls in a kind of gray soup. Overcome by greed, lust, and the survival instinct, Eddie takes part in a high-stakes heist, stepping into a morally treacherous world where no one can be trusted, and where life expectancy is short. Set in the dim half-light of the Houston and New Orleans demimondes, THE TAKE is a fast-paced, nerve-jangling ride. The book also includes a preview of SETUP ON FRONT STREET, the first entry in Mike Dennis' Key West Nocturnes Series, a group of novels designed to lift the lid off Key West, revealing it as a true noir city. The series takes the reader behind the margaritas and the sunshine deep into the dark shadows and alleys where the tourists never go.

"The ghost of Mike Hammer moves through these pages, as Dennis nicely executes several unexpected twists and turns..." -- JONATHAN WOODS, author of Bad Juju & Other Tales Of Madness And Mayhem "Fans of Elmore Leonard should find Mike Dennis an author worth watching - and worth reading." -- BOOKSANDPALS.com "His writing is tight, to the point, like a line drawing." -- NOIR JOURNAL Jack Barnett has had it with the private eye business. They took his license away in LA, and fearing criminal prosecution, he split town in the middle of the night and headed for Las Vegas, where anyone can become anonymous. He swears off the business, but his money runs low and when a man offers him $5000 to find his missing daughter who has disappeared into the sex trade of Las Vegas, he agrees. He soon wishes he hadn't when the haunting memory of a woman from his past gets in the way. TEMPTATION TOWN is a novelette, about 12,000 words, the first of the Jack Barnett series from Mike Dennis. Set in the steaming underbelly of Las Vegas, these tales of a reluctant ex-private investigator drag the reader down the darkest streets of Sin City, USA, a town in constant need of fresh blood for its own survival.

"THE GHOSTS HAVANA will keep you riveted. Author Dennis nails both noir tone and thriller plotting perfectly " -- JEFFERY DEAVER "THE GHOSTS OF HAVANA opens on a chill winter night in Key West, where blood runs thick on the floor of a Duval Street nightclub. From that noir beginning, Mike Dennis takes us on a thrill ride to uncover a long hidden secret, a race against death. Dennis' staccato prose keeps the pages turning to the surprising ending. Unputdownable." --- JONATHAN WOODS, author of "Bad Juju & Other Tales of Mayhem And Madness" "A relentlessly fast-paced conspiracy thriller...Mike Dennis does a terrific job of revealing the seamy side of Key West." -- HEATH LOWRANCE, author of "The Bastard Hand" "The seamy, steamy side of Key West is the setting for Mike Dennis's well-crafted, hard-hitting, muscular action novel. Compelling, provocative, and tension-filled, THE GHOSTS OF HAVANA will leave the reader reeling."--TOM PICCIRILLI, author of "The Last Kind Words" *** The second exciting novel in Mike Dennis' Key West Nocturnes series, THE GHOSTS OF HAVANA is a tale of old vendettas that will not die. Mike Dennis continues to lift the veil off Key West, revealing it as a true noir city, on a par with Los Angeles, New Orleans, or Miami.

"Mike Dennis is a modern master of noir." -- MAX ALLAN COLLINS, author of Road To Perdition "Dennis writes true noir." -- VICKI HENDRICKS, author of Cruel Poetry "Noir with panache." -- CHARLIE STELLA, author of Johnny Porno From the other side of the human condition comes this collection of noir tales by Mike Dennis. 1. FULLY LOADED It's 1984 and Biloxi, Mississippi has seen better days. Sherry Lamar, used car saleswoman, is feeling the pinch. Then one day, a stranger walks onto her small car lot and ushers her into a world of steamy sex and murder. 2. THE DEVIL DRIVES A BIG MERCEDES An incident between a seven-year-old boy and his two younger sisters starts him on a downward spiral into self-doubt and later, depravity, that will last his entire life. 3. BLOCK A famous crime fiction novelist develops writer's block on her novel-in-progress and is unable to continue, until a mysterious early-morning phone caller claims to have the answers.