Hinterlassenschaft und Meute – Zu den Akten der rumänischen Securitate
Heritage and Haunter – The Files of the Romanian Securitate

Summary/Abstract: The main pillar of Romania’s Ceaucescu regime was the secret police Securitate, and the fear of it. After its forceful dissolution in December 1989, former Securitate professionals feared the revenge of the Romanian people. They dispersed and hid either in business, in politics or in the new secret service SRI that was established as early as in spring 1990. The continuity between the old and the new secret services in Romania was too obvious and became even more evident since the files (or what has been left over) have been opened recently. Ten years after the overthrow of the former dictator, a new authority, called CNSAS, was established, similar to the German “Gauck-Birthler Authority”. Its tasks comprise the thorough investigation of politicians and other officials, the handing over of files to the victims and their scientific processing. From the very beginning, CNSAS could not directly dispose of the files. The new security service supposedly treated the files not only in an archivist manner and handed over the files to the CNSAS very hesitantly. Only after an intervention by President Basescu, CNSAS received its own archive outside of Bucharest. Yet, it is unclear who had and has access to the archives. The author of the essay, a well-known German writer originating from Romanian Banat, after being granted access to his file about six months ago, noticed that his records had been “cleansed”, supposedly in mutual agreement by those in charge of “enlightenment” and those “covering-up”. The author asks some painful questions in this context, i.e., whether this means getting to terms with the past, a kind of reconciliation, or whether this was just the price to be paid for the opening of the files.

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