Stasi

For the regular police in East Germany, see Volkspolizei.

The Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Ministry for State Security), commonly known as the Stasi [ˈʃtazi] (abbreviation Staatssicherheit, literally State Security), was the official secret police of East Germany. The MfS 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 MfS 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 MfS was Staatssicherheitsdienst (State Security Service or SSD).

History

Creation of the MfS

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 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 May 1974. In 1986, Wolf retired and was succeeded by Werner Grossmann.

End of the MfS

On 7 November 1989, in response to the changing political and social situation in the GDR in late 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

The MfS 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 MfS employed an estimated 91,000 employees and 300,000 informants. About one of every 50 East Germans collaborated with the MfS one of the most extensive police infiltrations of a society in history. In 2007 an article in BBC stated that "Some calculations have concluded that in East Germany there was one informer to every seven citizens. Additionally, MfS agents infiltrated and undermined West Germany's government and spy agencies.

The MfS monitored political behavior among GDR citizens, and is known to have used torture and intimidation to mute dissent. During the Peaceful Revolution of 1989, MfS offices were overrun by enraged citizens, but not before the MfS destroyed a number of documents (approximately 5%) When the remaining files were published for review, many people learned that their friends, colleagues, spouses, and relatives had regularly filed reports with the MfS. 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 MfS had secretly aided left-wing terrorists such as the Red Army Faction. The loss of MfS financial support was a major factor in the dissolution of such terrorist groups.

In 1999, an article in Der Spiegel alleged that the MfS intentionally irradiated political prisoners with high-dose radiation, possibly to provoke cancer in them.

Recovery of MfS archives

During the regime's final days, MfS officials shredded documents with paper shredders and by hand. As people heard of this, they quickly formed a committee of citizen on 4 December 1989. In a public demonstration they gained access to the MfS headquarters on 15 January 1990 and halted the destruction.

With the German Reunification on 3 October 1990 a new government agency was founded called the BStU (Office of the Federal Commissioner Preserving the Records of the Ministry for State Security of the GDR).

In 1992, following a declassification ruling by the German government, the MfS 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.

In 1995, the BStU began reassembling the shredded documents; 13 years later the three dozen archivists commissioned to the projects had only reassembled 327 bags; they are now using computer-assisted data recovery to reassemble the remaining 16,000 bags estimated at 45 million pages. It is estimated that this task may be completed at a cost of 30 million dollars.

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

Alleged assassinations

MfS has been accused of a number of assassinations against political dissidents and other people both inside and outside the country. Examples include the East German football player Lutz Eigendorf and the Swedish journalist Cats Falck.

In September 2003, a 53-year-old man from Berlin, named as "Jürgen G" in a press release from the German Prosecutor-General, was arrested on suspicions of having been a member of a death squad that carried out a number of assassinations on orders from the East German government from 1976 to 1987. The man was eventually released for lack of evidence.

Museum in the old headquarters

The Anti-Stalinist Action Normannenstraße (ASTAK), an association founded by former GDR Citizens' Committees, has transformed the former headquarters of the MfS 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 MfS symbols: Some of the tools that the MfS 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 MfS 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 MfS, 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.
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:

Society for Legal and Humanitarian Support

Ex-MfS 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 MfS, including the MfS 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.

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. Similar letters have also been received by schools organizing field trips to the museum.

Alleged informants

Vic Allen
Gert Bastian
Nicholas Berubé — former member of the French Underground
Ibrahim Böhme
Richard Clements
Tom Driberg
Gwyneth Edwards
Raymond Fletcher
Football club Dynamo Dresden had more than 18 agents
Katarina Witt, figure skater
Ingo Steuer, figure skater
Günter Guillaume — spied upon West German Chancellor Willy Brandt
Lutz Heilmann — member of the Left Party and the first former Stasi official elected into the Federal Legislature (Bundestag)
Martin Kirchner
Charlotte von Mahlsdorf
Robin Pearson
John Roper, Baron Roper of Thorney Island
Holm Singer („IM Schubert“)
Wolfgang Schnur
Manfred Stolpe — minister-president of Brandenburg (1990–2002)
Christa Wolf — famous German writer and intellectual

In the arts

The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film-winning German film Das Leben der Anderen (aka The Lives of Others) involves the monitoring of the cultural scene of East Berlin by agents of the MfS.

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

Stasiland is a 2004 best-selling book by Anna Funder. It was awarded the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2004.