 It was necessary to supply the new West German government with moral and political legitimacy in the former states of East Germany. This demanded the prosecution of past crimes under the prior regime, but also a purge of Communists and Stasi collaborators from the civil service. No post-Communist country has yet devised a lustration scheme with the golden balance addressing these two competing needs. East Germany was no exception, despite—or perhaps because of—the rigor with which lustration was pursued.