29 Facts About Christa Luft

From 1963 to 1971 Luft was registered as a Stasi informant under the code name IM Gisela.

Christa Luft Hecht was born into a working-class family at Krakow am See, a small market town in the flat countryside to the south of Rostock in northern central Germany.

Christa Luft's mother was in charge of a schools kitchen.

Christa Luft's father was away for years at a time during the war, but after 1944 he came safely home, and while she was still small the family moved to Wismar in connection with her father's work.

Christa Luft attended junior school in Bobitz between 1945 and 1952, and then upper school at Grevesmuhlen, still in the Rostock area.

Christa Luft was required to attend an interview before arrangements could be finalised, which from a western perspective seems to have been intended to verify her "political reliability".

Christa Luft was able to confirm that she had no close relatives beyond the increasingly impenetrable "inner frontier" in "the other Germany", and knew to keep her indignation to herself when asked almost casually how she felt about the church.

Christa Luft travelled to the west with this working group in 1966 for a study visit to the Krupp heavy-industry conglomerate in Essen: they visited Bremen for a meeting with Carl Katz, the co-chairman of the Committee for inter-German trade.

In 1968 Christa Luft received her habilitation, a higher academic qualification which would have opened the way to a full-time academic career, though her own career trajectory would include a parallel political channel.

Christa Luft's habilitation was supervised by Gertrud Grabig and Horst Tiedtke.

Christa Luft was a regular visitor to "the Academy for Foreign Trade and Tourism " at Maribor, a city in the northern part of what was at that time known as Yugoslavia.

Christa Luft held a guest professorship at the academy in Maribor which was a partner institution of the HfO.

Christa Luft was able to build on her contacts with comrade-academics from other socialist countries, representing The Institute at international gatherings and at conferences organised by the United Nations in Geneva and New York City.

From 1985 Christa Luft was involved in setting up regular one and two term study visits for HfO students of Foreign Economics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business.

Christa Luft initiated a collaboration programme with East European specialists at the Sorbonne in Paris.

In 1987 Christa Luft was appointed a corresponding member of the German Academy of Sciences.

In 1989 Christa Luft entered politics at a time of national transition.

Christa Luft served as chair of the parliamentary budget committee.

Christa Luft regularly wrote a column on politics and economics in Neues Deutschland between 2002 and 2012, in a feature that included regular contributions from Harry Nick, Robert Kurz and Rudolf Hickel.

Christa Luft has been a member of the Learned Leibnitz Society since 1993.

Between 2002 and 2008 Christa Luft chaired the Kuratorium of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.

Christa Luft herself had denied having had any contact with the security services.

Christa Luft was a member of the Bundestag between 1994 and 2002: the nature and extent of any past associations she might have had with the Stasi were naturally of interest to the parliamentary authorities.

Christa Luft had been recruited shortly before receiving her doctorate.

Christa Luft never denied the existence of the assignment, although her recollections of it, at a detailed level, were differently nuanced:.

In June 1995 Christa Luft made a personal application to the Gauck Commission to try and find out what information the Stasis had held on her.

Christa Luft's work had given her far more access to foreigners than most East German citizens, and there had been concerns that she might betray state secrets to the West German intelligence services.

Christa Luft was particularly troubled to learn that in 1977 the security services had arranged to obtain a duplicate key to her apartment.

Christa Luft was indignant that no one from the records agency had bothered to tell her that they were holding a copy of her front door key.