12 - My Stasi file is as thick as a phone book - a podcast by Ian Sanders

We’re chatting with Mark Reeder a musician and music producer who has been involved in the Berlin and international music scene since 1978, starting as Factory Records German representative from 1978-1983.

Through contacts in the GDR he put on several secret punk gigs behind the Iron Curtain and his Stasi file is described as “as thick as a phone book”. He is however, denied access to the full file as it remains in the possession of the German Federal Intelligence Service...

He is also the founder and owner of the first East German electronic dance music label Masterminded For Success “MFS” which he started in 1990, after being the only and last Westerner to make an album in communist East Germany which was “Torture” by Die Vision in 1989.

His is a very interesting and unusual account with some great stories including how he smuggled a Volksarmee uniform across the Berlin Wall and the unusual currency needed to get your phone fixed.

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