A GRITTY and emotional story about a disillusioned Stasi secret policeman has scooped all the leading prizes in the German Film Awards and stoked a debate about how the country should digest the Communist legacy of the East.

Das Leben der Anderen (The Life of Others), directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, won a record seven Lolas — the German equivalent of the Baftas — prompting critics and politicians at the weekend to predict the end of Ostalgia. That is the term for the sentimental view of East Germany that has set the tone for a decade. From feel-good films like Goodbye, Lenin! to Trabant fan clubs, the Communist state has been presented as absurd or misunderstood.

“At last we have a film that shows the East German state was not some kind of comedy show”, said Vera Lengsfeld, a former dissident who is now a Christian Democratic politician. After Germany reunited 16 years ago, she learnt that her own husband had been spying on her for the Stasi. “I know from my own experience how police surveillance systematically destroys the personality. It is relentless and merciless.”

The film depicts an agent who is ordered to bug the book-lined Berlin apartment of a young couple, an actress and a writer. The order has come down from a minister who covets the actress and wants the relationship destroyed. The Stasi man is drawn to the couple and feels disgust at his work.

Communism, argues the director, caused real psychological harm and it is time that Germany acknowledged the brutality of the regime. “Just because people don’t have scars to show, doesn’t mean that they escaped injury”, said Herr von Donnersmarck. In the film the Stasi agent is played by Ulrich Mühe, who in real life was married to a Stasi informant.

It has taken time for the dark side of East Germany to be aired properly. The staple fare for years has been films such as NVA, showing life in the East German army as a hilarious, if bruising, slapstick adventure.

Controversy, however, has followed a proposal to shift the emphasis from hunting down former agents. Marianne Birthler, a former dissident who runs the Stasi research agency, said yesterday: “That would be a victory for the old Stasi officers.”

Some have formed a noisy lobby and at some screenings of The Life of Others have shouted: “Rubbish!”

An opinion poll published in Der Spiegel magazine today suggests that 41 per cent of Germans believe that the country should continue to grapple with its eastern Communist past. Giving so many prizes to the film was not just an artistic gesture but a political one too.

FOR THE RECORD

John le Carré is said to have modelled Karla, his Soviet intelligence chief, on Markus Wolf, the Stasi foreign operations chief