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https://theconversation.com/chernobyl-at-40-secret-stasi-files-reveal-extent-of-soviet-misinformation-campaign-over-nuclear-disaster-274930>
"On April 26, 1986, Soviet engineers at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant were
conducting a safety test. Doomed by a fatal design flaw and pushed to the limit
by human negligence, reactor 4 exploded amid an attempted shutdown during a
routine procedure, setting off a chain of events that ultimately released
radioactive material hundreds of times greater than that of the atomic bomb
dropped on Hiroshima.
Although the accident occurred north of Kyiv, Ukraine, near the border with
Belarus, radioactive fallout was soon detected throughout northern and central
Europe. Yet the Soviets did what they could to prevent the spread of
information that would reveal the true horror of what had occurred.
For decades, researchers, political leaders and advocacy groups have worked to
uncover the story of the explosion. While science has allowed us to understand
the circumstances of the explosion itself, it has taken much more work to
uncover the layers of mismanagement, negligence and misinformation that
resulted in human suffering, ecological disaster and economic damage.
One of the problems is that many of the official Soviet records of the event,
such as the KGB files, are located in Moscow and are inaccessible to all but a
few Russian government agencies.
But there is a partial workaround: Because East Germany was a Soviet satellite
state and not a full member of the Soviet Union, official documents remained in
the country after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1991, after the reunification
of Germany, the German government passed a law allowing for the
declassification of certain files from the Stasi, East Germany’s secret police
and intelligence service. These files can now give us further insight into the
mismanagement of Chernobyl, since the East German Stasi and the Soviet KGB were
in communication on the matter.
I have spent the past three years reading Stasi files and researching the
creation of misinformation in the former Eastern bloc, meeting with Stasi
archivists in Berlin and viewing the original archival rooms in the former
Stasi headquarters.
Looking at formerly top secret communication between the KGB and Stasi, it is
clear that despite publicly insisting everything was under control, both
intelligence agencies knew the explosion was absolutely devastating. They kept
detailed records of hospitalizations, casualties, damaged crops, contaminated
livestock and radiation levels.
But only the very top officials in East Germany and the Soviet Union had access
to these numbers. The main fear for both the KGB and Stasi was not the
radiation that would harm affected populations but the damage done to their
respective countries’ reputations."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
