clients. When the charges surfaced again in 1996, the Bundestag
revoked his parliamentary immunity and proceeded with an inves-
tigation. The May 1998 report concluded that Gysi—working under
the code name gregor, then notar—had been an active collaborator
with the MfS from 1978 until the collapse of the GDR. Relying on
extensive documentation that had been evaluated by the Bundes-
beauftragte für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes
der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, the report
maintained that Gysi had not only supplied important details to the
department combating political opposition to the regime but even
made suggestions of his own. A parliamentary majority endorsed
these findings, despite dissents by the Freie Demokratische Partei
and the PDS.
Gysi strenuously denied the allegations, maintaining that the no-
tar file was based either on information from someone else in his
office or on electronic surveillance obtained without his knowledge.
His appeal to the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe was
denied but gave him a legal opening, as any designation of him as a
Stasi informer is expressly forbidden. He also retained his seat in the
1998 Bundestag elections, although two years later he resigned his
position as parliamentary leader of the PDS. With the victory of the
Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands and the PDS in Berlin’s
2001 municipal elections, he was appointed deputy mayor and sena-
tor for economics, labor, and women’s issues. Resigning abruptly af-
ter only six months in office, presumably because of a minor scandal,
he made a political comeback as the PDS’s lead candidate in the 2005
national election. Gysi also promoted the formation of the new Left
Party. His autobiography, Das war’s. Noch lange nicht (That Was
It—Not by Any Means), appeared in 1997.– H –
HAASE, DIETER (1937– ). An eccentric West German Bundeswehr
reserve officer recruited by the Verwaltung Aufklärung (VA), Di-
eter Haase was born in Berlin on 26 August 1937. In 1961, between
his legal studies in Würzburg and the Free University of Berlin,
Haase had his first contact with the VA through an uncle living in
HAASE, DIETER • 157