Was my father really a spy, as his file in the former
East German Secret Service (STASI) suggests? This question marks the starting point of a son’s journey into his late father’s past which still remains somewhat mysterious even today. Eric Asch is looking for answers – in the Stasi
archives, at the NSA and in his own family history. The result is a very personal documentary which reports
ironically about the practices of secret service during the Cold War.
West Berlin in the late 1950’s: Robert Asch was part of an undercover intelligence mission in the former US Military Secret Service. In the 1960’s he is for the first time the aim of an secret service operation – the STASI – during his honeymoon in the GDR … Later in the 1980’s, he makes many new friends in the other part of Germany behind the iron curtain – many of whom turn out to be not such good friends: They report to the STASI. In his STASI file he
is identified as an ‘agent of an imperialistic intelligence service’ and thus receives a code name: ‘pirate’.
Director Eric Asch asks a lot of questions and tries to
find the answers: Why didn’t my father ever talk about the true meaning of his work with the US Army? Why did he
photocopy only certain parts of his STASI file? What do the other pages reveal? Who eavesdropped on whom? He searches in the STASI file and family albums, he meets former friends and students of his father and is welcomed by the NSA …
An IMBISSFILM production in cooperation
with ZDF / Das kleine Fernsehspiel
and zischlermann filmproduktion
Written and directed by: Eric Asch
DoP: Daniel Schönauer, Tobias Tempel
Sound: Daniel Seiler, Rainer Petershagen
Editors: Eric Asch, Benjamin Kaubisch, Jörg Hommer
Producer: Martin Rehbock
