Professor denies spying for East Germany

Stasi files list him as “unofficial co-worker”

print this

A file of documents has emerged in Berlin confirming that a Finnish university professor had been used by the East German intelligence organisation Stasi as an unofficial co-worker of.
      The existence of the Stasi file on Lassi Päivärinta, Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Helsinki, was confirmed to Helsingin Sanomat on Thursday by BStU, the German Federal Commissioner for the Stasi records.
      According to information in the file, Päivärinta was given the code name “Larsen”.
     
The case was discussed in a television documentary programme aired in its entirety by the ARD and RBB channels on Thursday. The programme includes an interview with Päivärinta.
      Päivärinta denies that he ever worked for Stasi. “It is nonsense”, he said to Helsingin Sanomat.
      Unofficial co-workers of Stasi provided information to the organisation, and were usually paid.
     
Päivärinta says that in 1980 and 1981 he sent scientific publications to his friends at the mathematics faculty of the University of Jena. He had lived in Jena in 1978 and 1979, where he worked on his doctoral thesis.
      “Researchers there asked me for [the publications] and it is not against the law in Finland to send normal published material that can be found in a library.”
      According to Päivärinta it was quite normal to copy research material for colleagues in the East Block. “It was the only way for them to keep abreast of scientific development. Subscriptions to West German scientific publications had to be paid in Deutschmarks, and they only had East German marks or roubles.”
     
According to the documentary, Päivärinta’s friend at the time, Thomas Runst, who is currently a professor at the University of Jena, was also Päivärinta’s Stasi contact. Runst admits as much in the programme.
      Runst was one of those who asked Päivärinta to supply him with material.
      “I didn’t know that he had any contact with Stasi”, Päivärinta says.
     
Päivärinta says that he received one suspicious payment in 1981. In the previous year he had met two men at Runst’s home who said that they were representatives of the optics company Carl Zeiss. The two also wanted scientific research information from Finland.
      The two paid for Päivärinta’s holiday visit to Budapest. Päivärinta travelled to the Hungarian capital along with his wife. He also brought with him material that Runst had asked for.
     
“Suddenly these guys appeared there and said that they want to pay for my trip. It was the money that I took. At the time I thought that well, I did bring this material, and I was a poor student.”
      “It was a mistake”, Päivärinta says now.
      However, he adds: “I don’t think that there is anything illegal in someone paying for my travel. Especially as I did not know who made the payment. I imagined that it was the University of Jena.”
     
Päivärinta was interviewed by the Finnish security police SUPO in the early 1990s. He says that he got a statement from SUPO director Eero Kekomäki that he had not done anything illegal.
     


Previously in HS International Edition:
  German TV: Finnish academic supplied information to East German spy (19.1.2012)

Links:
  German Federal Commissioner for the Stasi records

Helsingin Sanomat