A visitor makes his way down a corridor leading to interrogation rooms in the former prison of the East German, communist-era secret police, known as the Stasi, at Hohenschoenhausen in Berlin

Lost lives

But some secrets hidden in the files just make things worse.

"The worst shock came from reading the file," says 74-year-old Edith Fiedler, who spent 20 months in prison because of tales told to the Stasi by a "jealous" sister-in-law. "I only found that out when I read my file," she said, recalling how authorities took away her nine-year-old son and put him in a home.
[!break!]
Sitting opposite her, her son, Daniel Fieldler, now 41, remembers how he was lied to and told his mother was in a coma after a road accident.

"The Stasi took my life away," he said.

Several in the group have gone through periods of depression. Some have considered suicide.

Tatjana Sterneberg, 57, who was betrayed to the Stasi as she prepared to flee East Germany with her Italian boyfriend, suffers to this day.

"In jail, I didn't get enough to drink, I didn't get enough to eat, I was given psychoactive drugs,” she said. “They put me in a straightjacket.”

She and her boyfriend were held for some three years before being "bought" by the West German government.

But the couple was never able to get over it. They divorced and in 1996, she was hospitalised for depression.

"We are victims of the Stasi but we have a credibility problem,” said Sterneberg. “We have to prove we suffered.”

"We need this support group because we can relate to one another," added Fiedler.

Proof

Adam Lauks, 59, agrees. Once married to an East German, he was jailed for seven years on charges of smuggling.

Today he is obsessed with the thought his former wife might have betrayed him.

"I'm sure of it but there's no proof,” he said. “It's killing me."

The only "real" spy at the table is Werner Krueger, 73, who spent eight years and three months in jail before being exchanged for another spy.

"The Stasi was never able to destroy me," he said. The others kept quiet.

Audrey Kauffmann/AFP/Expatica