Stasiland

Funder is reading some of the hate mail sent to the station when her coworker, Uwe, offers her a ride home. She tells him about what she wryly calls her “Adventures in Stasiland” (120). He suggests she meet with Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler (whose program, Funder remembers, Julia talked about having to watch). While trying to contact him, she watches the program in which he starred, called The Black Channel.

Von Schnitzler was “the most hated face of the regime" (121), hosting the channel that made disparaging commentary about all West German TV shows and movies. Funder visits the East German television station outside of Berlin. There, she finds Frau Anderson, a woman who still seems loyal to the East German state (and who openly admires von Schnitzler for sticking to what he said back then, even now). Funder gets set up and watches the propaganda tapes. Von Schnitzler makes a long argument that the shooting of two men trying to cross the Wall was done in the interest of peace.

She watches a tape where young dancers are telling everyone about a new dance and music called The Lipsi: “‘Lipsi’ is colloquial for ‘Leipzig’ but it wasn’t just the regime’s overt attempt to manufacture a trend for the masses, as if it had come from that hip city” (127).