There is no privacy for the dead

The novel ‘A Woman in Berlin’ was published in 1954 by Anonymous. Within the book, the unnamed author recounts her time as a woman during the Rape of Berlin.

As the war approached its end, the Soviet forces invaded Berlin. If you’re as innocently ignorant as I am, you would assume the Battle in Berlin was just constant fighting as the Soviets rush to the Reichstag.

It wasn’t.

The battle saw on-the-fly logistics form as Soviets would capture an area, set up camp in the area, and wait, potentially until the end of the war, for orders as their comrades continued their assault. As a result, the Soviets, who harboured extreme hatred towards the Germans due to the Nazi’s war crimes, were living among the civilian populace.

The rule of law changed once those women left their bomb shelters. Justice belonged to the Soviets, and Soviet justice ceased to exist.

The woman, a journalist before the war, spoke Russian. She details the rapes, gang-rapes, and overall trauma experienced during this eight week period.

She wrote this anonymously. To write so candidly on such subject matter requires two of the three; extreme bravery, anonymity, a guarantee that nobody will read your work.

• Diary of a Young Girl has extreme bravery and a guarantee that nobody will read her work.
• A Woman in Berlin has extreme bravery and anonymity.
• Generation TikTok has anonymity and a guarantee that nobody will read my work

However, in September 2003, her identity was revealed by Jens Bisky, editor for the magazine Mittelweg 36 at the Hamburg Institute for Social Research. Legally he had every right to do so. Morally, I’m less convinced.

And what was the recourse? There was none. The same goes for Deep Throat, the identity of NYT journalist Ed Woodwards Watergate whistleblower.

Public backlash is minimal. People won’t riot over the revelation of their identities. There is no sentence for the snitches. There’s no financial backlash, in fact, there is potential financial gain.

Now imagine 80 years from now. When the data hoarded from you as a 13 year old reaches old age, and your grandkids want to learn more about grandad so they pay for the digital archeology, like an Ikea digital 23-and-me.