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Stasi

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Ministerium für Staatssicherheit
Seal of the Ministry of State Security of the GDR
Agency overview
FormedFeb. 8th, 1950
HeadquartersEast Berlin, GDR
Employees68 000 (without SV Dynamo and Felix Dzerzhinsky Watch Regiment
Agency executives
WebsiteMFS-Insider
This article is about Stasi, the secret police of East Germany. See Commission Stasi for its other common meaning.

The Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS / Ministry for State Security), commonly known as the Stasi (from Staatssicherheit), was the main security (secret police) and intelligence organization of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). The Stasi was headquartered in East Berlin, with an extensive complex in Berlin-Lichtenberg and several smaller facilities throughout the city. It was widely regarded as one of the most effective – and repressive – intelligence and secret police agencies in the world. The Stasi's motto was "Schild und Schwert der Partei" (Shield and Sword of the Party), showing its connections to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), the equivalent to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Another term used in earlier years to refer to the Stasi was Staatssicherheitsdienst (State Security Service).

History

File:Stasi 004 540px.jpg
Mielke and Stasi Officers

Creation of the Stasi

The MfS was founded on 8 February 1950. It was modeled on the Soviet MGB, and was regarded by the Soviet Union as an extremely loyal and effective partner. Wilhelm Zaisser was the first Minister of State Security of the GDR, and Erich Mielke his deputy. Zaisser was removed by SED First Secretary Walter Ulbricht following the June 1953 uprising and replaced by Ernst Wollweber. Wollweber resigned in 1957 after numerous clashes with Walter Ulbricht and Erich Honecker, and was succeeded by his deputy, Erich Mielke.

Also in 1957, Markus Wolf became head of the Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (HVA) (General Reconnaissance Administration), its foreign intelligence section. As intelligence chief, Wolf achieved great success in penetrating the government, political and business circles of West Germany with spies. The most influential case was that of Günter Guillaume which led to the downfall of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt. In 1986, Wolf retired and was succeeded by Werner Grossmann.

Dealings with Foreign Leftist and Terrorist Organizations

However, the Stasi also played another, more external, role; it saved the lives of many leftist activists and politicians during the 1970s, especially in South America. For example, it is alleged [citation needed] that immediately after the Pinochet Coup in Chile (September 1973), Stasi agents organised the rescue and transportation to the GDR of hundreds of members and cadres of People's Unity. Evidence also exists concerning the Stasi's efforts to shelter and equip members of the Red Army Faction (RAF) when the RAF was an active terrorist organization in West Germany.

End of the Stasi

On 7 November 1989, in response to the changing political and social situation in the GDR in the fall of 1989, Mielke resigned. On 17 November 1989, the Council of Ministers (Ministerrat der DDR) renamed the MfS as the "Office for National Security" (Amt für Nationale Sicherheit - AfNS), which was headed by Generalleutnant Wolfgang Schwanitz. On 8 December 1989, GDR Prime Minister Hans Modrow directed the dissolution of the AfNS, which was confirmed by a decision of the Ministerrat on 14 December 1989.

As part of this decision, the Ministerrat originally called for the evolution of the AfNS into two separate organizations: a new foreign intelligence service (Nachrichtendienst der DDR) and an "Office for the Protection of the Constitution of the GDR" (Verfassungsschutz der DDR), along the lines of the West German Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, however, the public reaction was extremely negative, and under pressure from the "Round Table" (Runden Tisch), the government dropped the creation of the Verfassungsschutz der DDR and directed the immediate dissolution of the AfNS on 13 January 1990. Certain functions of the AfNS reasonably related to law enforcement were handed over to the GDR Ministry of Internal Affairs. The same ministry also took guardianship of remaining AfNS facilities.

Influence

Statue of workers and Stasi officer in front of the Stasi archives, Mitte district, Berlin. (The officer has been pelted with eggs.)

The Stasi infiltrated almost every aspect of GDR life. In the mid-1980s, a network of civilian informants, Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter (IMs, Unofficial Collaborators), began growing in both German states; by the time East Germany collapsed in 1989, the Stasi employed an estimated 91,000 employees and 300,000 informants. About one of every 50 East Germans collaborated with the Stasi — one of the most extensive police infiltrations of a society in history.In 2007 an article in BBC stated that "Some calculations have calculated that in East Germany there was one informer to every seven citizens." [1] Additionally, Stasi agents infiltrated and undermined West Germany's government and spy agencies. While the Stasi succeeded in infiltrating West Germany, the Stasi, purportedly, did not suffer much infiltration by Western spies.[citation needed]

File:Mielke generaele.jpg
Minister Mielke and Stasi generals singing

The Stasi monitored political behavior among GDR citizens, and is known to have used torture and intimidation to mute dissent. During the Peaceful Revolution of 1989, Stasi offices were overrun by enraged citizens, but not before the Stasi destroyed a large amount of secrets. When the remaining files were published for review, many people learned that their friends, colleagues, spouses, and relatives had regularly filed reports with the Stasi. These wounds on civil society have not yet entirely healed.

Other files (the Rosenholz Files), which contained the names of East German spies abroad, led American spy agencies to capture them. After German reunification, it was revealed that the Stasi had secretly aided left-wing terrorists such as the Red Army Faction. The loss of Stasi financial support was a major factor in the dissolution of such terrorist groups.

In 1999, an article in Der Spiegel alleged that the Stasi intentionally irradiated political prisoners with high-dose radiation, possibly to provoke cancer(s) in them.[2]

Recovery of Stasi archives

File:Archiv2 300 203px.jpg
Stasi archives (not in original shelving)

During the regime's final days in 1989–90, Stasi officials shredded documents with paper shredders and by hand. The new government found and confiscated the hastily stored bags of shredded paper. In 1995, the German government began reassembling the documents; six years later the three dozen archivists commissioned to the projects had only reassembled 300 bags; they then used computer-assisted data recovery to reassemble the remaining 16,000 bags — estimated at 33 million pages.[3]

In 1992, following a declassification ruling by the German government, the Stasi files were published, leading people to look for their files. Timothy Garton Ash, an English historian, wrote The File: A Personal History after reading the file compiled about him while he completed his dissertation research in East Berlin.

The CIA acquired some Stasi records during the looting of the Stasi archives. The Federal Republic of Germany has asked for their return and received some in April 2000.[4]

Museum in the old headquarters

File:StasiHQ.jpg
Stasi HQ in Lichtenberg

The Anti-Stalinist Action Normannenstraße (ASTAK), an association founded by former GDR Citizens' Committees, has transformed the former headquarters of the Stasi into a museum. It is divided into three floors:

  • Ground floor

The ground floor has been kept as it used to be. The decor is original, with many statues and flags.

  • Between the ground and first (upper) floor:
    • Surveillance technology and Stasi symbols: Some of the tools that the Stasi used to track down their opponents. During an interview the seats were covered with a cotton sheet, to collect the perspiration of the victim. His name was written in a glass and the sheet was kept in the archives. Other common ways that the scents would be collected is through breaking into a home and taking parts of garments. The most common garment taken was underwear, because of how close the garment is to the skin. The Stasi would then use trained dogs to track down the person using this scent. Other tools shown here include a tie-camera, cigarette box camera, and an Ak-47 hidden in luggage.
    • Display gallery of Directorate VII. This part of the museum tells the history of the Stasi, from the beginning of the GDR to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
  • First (upper) floor
    • Mielke's offices. The decor is 60s furniture. There is a reception room with a TV set in the cafeteria. They still serve coffee in it.
    • Office of Colonel Heinz Volpert
    • Lounge for drivers and bodyguards
    • Office of Major-General Hans Carlsohn, director of the secretariat
    • Secretariat
    • The Cafeteria
    • Kitchen
    • The Minister’s Workroom
    • The Conference Room with a giant map of Germany on a wall—one of the most impressive rooms.
    • The cloakroom
  • Second (upper) floor
    • Repression - Rebellion - Self-Liberation from 1945 to 1989

Photo gallery:

Ex-Stasi officers continue to be politically active via the Gesellschaft zur Rechtlichen und Humanitären Unterstützung e. V. (Society for Legal and Humanitarian Support) (GRH). Former high-ranking officers and employees of the Stasi, including the Stasi's last director, Wolfgang Schwanitz, make up the majority of the organization's members, and it receives support from the German Communist Party, among others.

Impetus for the establishment of the GRH was provided by the criminal charges filed against the Stasi in the early 1990s. The GRH, decrying the charges as "victor's justice", called for them to be dropped. Today the group provides an alternative if somewhat utopian voice in the public debate on the GDR legacy. It calls for the closure of the museum in Hohenschönhausen and can be a vocal presence at memorial services and public events. In March 2006 in Berlin, GRH members disrupted a museum event; a political scandal ensued when the Berlin Senator (Minister) of Culture refused to confront them.[5]

Behind the scenes, the GRH also exerts pressure on people and institutions promoting opposing viewpoints. For example, in March 2006, the Berlin Senator for Education received a letter from a GRH member and former Stasi officer attacking the Museum for promoting "falsehoods, anticommunist agitation and psychological terror against minors."[6] Similar letters have also been received by schools organizing field trips to the museum.[7]

Ministers of State Security

Alleged informants

In the arts

The Academy Award-winning German film Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives Of Others).

The Legend of Rita (Die Stille nach dem Schuß), a 2000 film directed by Volker Schlöndorff, dwells heavily on the relationship between the Stasi and the general population of East Germany. The second-most prominent character is the Stasi "control" for the title character.

Stasiland a 2004 best-selling book by Anna Funder. Awarded the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2004.

Trivia

At its zenith, the Stasi had records on some 6 million people. It also had an archive of sweat and body odor samples.

The Stasi was known for the radical, fantastical methods it employed. One of the most common methods was exposing suspects to a radioactive material, then using Geiger counters to follow them.

The Stasi's Leipzig building "Runde Ecke" was preserved in its original condition, and now is a museum with some 3,000 daily visitors.

Experts believe that at its zenith, the Stasi maintained a network of some 300,000 informants.

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ Computers to solve stasi puzzle-BBC,Friday 25 May 2007.
  2. ^ Dissidents say Stasi gave them cancer—BBC, Tuesday 25 May 1999.
  3. ^ The New York Times: "Picking Up the Pieces."
  4. ^ BBC: "Stasi files return to Germany."
  5. ^ Stasi Offiziere Leugnen den Terror. Berliner Morgenpost 16 March 2006. [1]
  6. ^ Backmann, Christa. Stasi-Anhänger schreiben an Bildungssenator Böger. Berliner Morgenpost 25 March 2006. [2]
  7. ^ Schomaker, Gilbert. Ehemalige Stasi-Kader schreiben Schulen an. Die Welt, 26 March 2006. [3]

References

German

English

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