The physicist Werner Hartmann was one of the most important and innovative German researchers of the post-war period. He had already presented a one thousand-line TV screen in 1938, was forcibly redeployed by the Nazis to develop weapons and was deported by the Soviets in 1945 where he was forced to conduct war research for the “other side”. In 1955, he received permission to return to the GDR, where he founded the Centre for Molecular Electronics in 1961 and therefore briefly connected the GDR to Western computer technology.

However, he did not succeed in securing political support for his work and naïvely believed that he could earn freedom through performance. That was the worst of all attitudes one could adopt towards the [Stasi]. So, Hartmann was soon regarded as someone who “dared to put the fundamental laws of physics above the official political line of the [socialist] party”.

The [Stasi] restricted his freedom to travel and broke up his marriage. It systematically spied on his private life for twenty years, but never found any tangible evidence of political renegade. Hartmann was simply apolitical, which had not been envisioned in the [Stasi]’s system. When one of his closest associates tried to flee to the West, the trap slammed shut.

The [Stasi] accused Hartmann of complicity and the former employee was imprisoned for fifteen years. Hartmann was initially suspended and then dismissed from his post. He was accused of having a “bourgeois, anti-communist and anti-Soviet attitude”. His salary was reduced by eighty-four percent, he lost all social ties and was no longer allowed to conduct research in the GDR. Suffering from severe depression, which could of course not be treated in the GDR, he spent the rest of his life until his death in 1988 on his bed staring at the ceiling.

From his apolitical nature, he disliked the way the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED, Socialist Unity Party of Germany – the ruling party in the GDR) characterized and split the German people into two categories, either “party members” or “non-members”. This resulted in allegations of “non-political conformity” and “disloyalty to the SED”, a direct result from the SED's suspicious view of members of the industrial elite who were not members of the Party. Furthermore, it was even alleged that he spent too much time writing scientific articles.