The Surveillance of Subcultures: Gay Spies, Everyday Life, and Cold War Intelligence in Divided Berlin

Abstract

Abstract Although gay espionage is a well-established Cold War trope, this article analyzes new evidence that intelligence agencies in divided Berlin actively sought to recruit gay men. They did so because they believed that gay men’s contacts in the opaque and class-crossing queer subculture made them ideally suited for the purposes of intelligence work. Using files from the archives of the East German secret police, this article sheds light on these practices through the experiences of a gay agent recruited in 1960. It analyzes his experiences in order to question the relationship between sexuality and the modern security state. In so doing, the article highlights a gap in the Foucauldian model of surveillance, revealing not only how surveillance could play a permissive, rather than a disciplinary, role in queer lives, but also how the paranoias of the security state could reinforce themselves through the surveillance of subcultures.