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74-697: From January 1953 until February 1957 the Transportpolizei was part of the Ministry for State Security , in turn part of the Office of the Secretary of State. Starting from March 1957 it was transferred to the Volkspolizei , whose supervising inspector was Otto Auerswald. After German reunification in 1990 the Transportpolizei was dissolved, with some 1200 of its personnel transferring to

148-562: A State Secretary of State Security. The Stasi held this status until November 1955, when it was restored to a ministry. Wollweber resigned in 1957 after clashes with Ulbricht and Erich Honecker , and was succeeded by his deputy, Erich Mielke. In 1957, Markus Wolf became head of the Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (HVA) (Main Reconnaissance Administration), the foreign-intelligence section of

222-527: A crucial role" in the Stasi attempts to secure the financial future of Stasi agents and keep the intelligence network alive. During the Peaceful Revolution of 1989, Stasi offices and prisons throughout the country were occupied by citizens, but not before the Stasi destroyed a number of documents (approximately 5%) consisting of, by one calculation, 1 billion sheets of paper. With the fall of

296-435: A grave threat to his regime because they contained language binding signatories to respect "human and basic rights, including freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and conviction". The number of IMs peaked at around 180,000 in that year, having slowly risen from 20,000 to 30,000 in the early 1950s, and reaching 100,000 for the first time in 1968, in response to Ostpolitik and protests worldwide . The Stasi also acted as

370-512: A large elite paramilitary force, the Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment , that served as its armed wing. Known as "the shield and the sword of the party," the Stasi locked up opponents of the regime. Officers tortured prisoners by isolating them, depriving them of sleep and using psychological tricks such as threatening to arrest relatives. The Stasi also conducted espionage and other clandestine operations outside

444-577: A memorial and 'centre of encounter' in Gera in a former remand prison, originally opened in 1874, that was used by the Gestapo from 1933 to 1945, the Soviet occupying forces from 1945 to 1949, and from 1952 to 1989 by the Stasi. The building was also the district offices of the Stasi administration. Between 1952 and 1989 over 2,800 people were held in the prison on political grounds. The memorial site opened with

518-436: A modern government agency investigating the activities of the Stasi, claimed that 'unusual non-medical X-ray machines' found in political prisons could have been weapons and used to irradiate inmates. It was suspected that such exposure resulted in the deaths from cancer of a number of prominent dissidents. One great advantage of the harassment perpetrated under Zersetzung was that its relatively subtle nature meant that it

592-628: A perfected version. In 1978, Mielke formally granted KGB officers in East Germany the same rights and powers that they enjoyed in the Soviet Union. The British Broadcasting Corporation noted that KGB officer (and future Russian President ) Vladimir Putin worked in Dresden, from 1985 to 1989, as a liaison officer to the Stasi from the KGB. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov responded to

666-547: A place into which these records were returned. In 1988, the Federal Archives Act elevated the tasks of the Federal Archive into law, and granted it rights to the documents produced by West Germany's courts, public authorities, and constitutional institutions. The reunification of Germany in 1990 also led to the unification of West Germany's Federal Archive with East Germany's Central State Archive. In

740-888: A product was to the economy) and one tenant in every apartment building was designated as a watchdog reporting to an area representative of the Volkspolizei (Vopo). Spies reported every relative or friend who stayed the night at another's apartment. Tiny holes were drilled in apartment and hotel room walls through which Stasi agents filmed citizens with special video cameras. Schools, universities, and hospitals were extensively infiltrated, as were organizations, such as computer clubs where teenagers exchanged Western video games. The Stasi had formal categorizations of each type of informant, and had official guidelines on how to extract information from, and control, those with whom they came into contact. The roles of informants ranged from those already in some way involved in state security (such as

814-477: A proxy for the KGB to conduct activities in other Eastern Bloc countries, such as Poland , where the Soviets were despised. The Stasi infiltrated almost every aspect of GDR life. In the mid-1980s, a network of IMs began growing in both German states. By the time that East Germany collapsed in 1989, the Stasi employed 91,015 employees and 173,081 informants. About one out of every 63 East Germans collaborated with

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888-555: A term borrowed from chemistry which literally means " decomposition ". The goal was to destroy secretly the self-confidence of people, for example by damaging their reputation, by organizing failures in their work, and by destroying their personal relationships. Considering this, East Germany was a very modern dictatorship. The Stasi didn't try to arrest every dissident. It preferred to paralyze them, and it could do so because it had access to so much personal information and to so many institutions. —Hubertus Knabe, German historian By

962-453: A two-year officer training programme at the Stasi college ( Hochschule ) in Potsdam . Less mentally and academically endowed candidates were made ordinary technicians and attended a one-year technology-intensive course for non-commissioned officers. By 1995, some 174,000 inoffizielle Mitarbeiter (IMs) Stasi informants had been identified, almost 2.5% of East Germany's population between

1036-474: A wave of such takeovers across the country. The museum and memorial site was opened to the public in 1994. Remembrance and Documentation Centre for "Victims of political tyranny"  [ de ] - A memorial and museum at Collegienstraße 10 in Frankfurt-an-der-Oder , in a building that was used as a detention centre by the Gestapo, the Soviet occupying forces and the Stasi. The building

1110-428: A younger vintage were also contained in the original archive, much of which was contributed by non-governmental sources. Despite efforts to save the most valuable parts of the collection, almost half of the archive's total contents were destroyed during World War II .The most valuable part of the civilian archive was saved by relocating them, but the military part of the archives was almost completely destroyed. In 1946,

1184-486: Is now being used to reassemble the remaining 16,000 bags – representing approximately 45 million pages. It is estimated that the task may require 30 million dollars to complete. The CIA acquired some Stasi records during the looting of the Stasi's archives. Germany asked for their return and received some in April 2000. See also Rosenholz files . There are a number of memorial sites and museums relating to

1258-471: The Stasi ( pronounced [ˈʃtaːziː] , an abbreviation of Staatssicherheit ), was the state security service and secret police of East Germany from 1950 to 1990. It was one of the most repressive police organisations in the world, infiltrating almost every aspect of life in East Germany, using torture, intimidation and a vast network of informants to crush dissent. The function of

1332-548: The KGB continued to maintain liaison officers in all eight main Stasi directorates at the Stasi headquarters and in each of the fifteen district headquarters around the GDR . The Stasi had also been invited by the KGB to establish operational bases in Moscow and Leningrad to monitor visiting East German tourists. Due to their close ties with Soviet intelligence services, Mielke referred to

1406-774: The (West) German Bahnpolizei . On April 1, 1992 the Bahnpolizei was taken over by the German Federal Border Guard (now called the German Federal Police ). This German history article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This law enforcement agency article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Stasi The Ministry for State Security ( German : Ministerium für Staatssicherheit , pronounced [minɪsˈteːʁiʊm fyːɐ̯ ˈʃtaːtsˌzɪçɐhaɪ̯t] ; abbreviated MfS ), commonly known as

1480-482: The 1970s, the Stasi had decided that the methods of overt persecution that had been employed up to that time, such as arrest and torture, were too crude and obvious. Such forms of oppression were drawing significant international condemnation. It was realised that psychological harassment was far less likely to be recognised for what it was, so its victims, and their supporters, were less likely to be provoked into active resistance, given that they would often not be aware of

1554-735: 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. When the parliament of Germany investigated public funds that disappeared after the Fall of the Berlin Wall , it found out that East Germany had transferred large amounts of money to Martin Schlaff through accounts in Vaduz ,

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1628-692: The Andreasstrasse prison, which was one of 17 Stasi remand prisons in the GDR. On 4 December 1989, local citizens occupied the prison and the neighbouring Stasi district headquarters to stop the mass destruction of Stasi files. It was the first time East Germans had undertaken such resistance against the Stasi and it instigated the take over of Stasi buildings throughout the country. Gedenkstätte Bautzner Straße Dresden  [ de ] (The Bautzner Strasse Memorial in Dresden) - A Stasi remand prison and

1702-573: The Church, writers, artists, and members of youth sub-cultures were often the victims. Zersetzung methods were applied and further developed in a "creative and differentiated" manner based upon the specific person being targeted i.e. they were tailored based upon the target's psychology and life situation. Tactics employed under Zersetzung usually involved the disruption of the victim's private or family life. This often included psychological attacks, such as breaking into their home and subtly manipulating

1776-623: The Federal Archives Act of 1988 that established the department foundation provided for the Federal Archives came into force on 13 March 1992. The collection of the German Federal Archives today includes older documents from Germany's imperial past , Nazi Germany , civilian and military records from East Germany (including East German political parties and mass organizations), and the documents inherited from West Germany's Federal Archive. In addition to state records,

1850-846: The Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media ( Claudia Roth since 2021) under the German Chancellery , and before 1998, to the Federal Ministry of the Interior . On 6 December 2008, the Archives donated 100,000 photos to the public, by making them accessible via Wikimedia Commons . The federal archive for institutions and authorities in Germany, the first precursor to the present-day Federal Archives,

1924-853: The GDR and West Germany. This treaty took the Volkskammer law further and allowed more access and greater use of the files. Along with the decision to keep the files in a central location in the East, they also decided who could see and use the files, allowing people to see their own files. In 1992, following a declassification ruling by the German government, the Stasi files were opened, leading people to gain access to their files. Timothy Garton Ash , an English historian, after reading his file, wrote The File: A Personal History . Between 1991 and 2011, around 2.75 million individuals, mostly GDR citizens, requested to see their own files. The ruling also gave people

1998-589: The GDR army, along with 173,081 unofficial informants inside the GDR and 1,553 informants in West Germany. Regular commissioned Stasi officers were recruited from conscripts who had been honourably discharged from their 18 months' compulsory military service, had been members of the SED , had had a high level of participation in the Party's youth wing's activities and had been Stasi informers during their service in

2072-585: The GDR through its subordinate foreign-intelligence service, the Office of Reconnaissance , or Head Office A ( German : Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung or HVA). Its operatives also maintained contacts and occasionally cooperated with West German terrorists . The Stasi had its headquarters in East Berlin , with an extensive complex in Berlin-Lichtenberg and several smaller facilities throughout

2146-565: The GDR, and Erich Honecker, GDR head of state. Mielke was sentenced to six years' prison for the 1931 murder of two policemen. Honecker was charged with authorizing the killing of would-be escapees along the east–west border and Berlin Wall . During his trial, he underwent cancer treatment. Nearing death, Honecker was allowed to spend his final years a free man. He died in Chile in May 1994. Reassembling

2220-532: The GDR, the Stasi was dissolved. Stasi employees began to destroy the extensive files and documents they held, either by hand or by using incineration or shredders. When these activities became known, a protest began in front of the Stasi headquarters. The evening of 15 January 1990 saw a large crowd form outside the gates calling for a stop to the destruction of sensitive files. The building contained vast records of personal files, many of which would form important evidence in convicting those who had committed crimes for

2294-567: The GDR. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Stasi had more than 100,000 employees, 11,000 of which were in the Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment, and the rest in the agency's various departments. The MfS was organized into more than 40 different departments and branches, known as Hauptabteilungen (Main Departments), each covering a different aspect of its work: After German reunification, revelations of

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2368-811: The German Central Archive was founded in Potsdam, then in the Soviet occupation zone and later in East Germany . This archive, renamed the Central State Archive in 1973, was viewed as the successor to the original archive, in part because it was located in the same city. By the end of the 1950s, records that had originally been seized by the government of the Soviet Union in the aftermath of World War II had been returned to

2442-820: The Military. The candidates would then have to be recommended by their military unit political officers and Stasi agents, the local chiefs of the District ( Bezirk ) Stasi and Volkspolizei office, of the district in which they were permanently resident, and the District Secretary of the SED. These candidates were then made to sit through several tests and exams, which identified their intellectual capacity to be an officer, and their political reliability. University graduates who had completed their military service did not need to take these tests and exams. They then attended

2516-685: 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" (Runder 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

2590-413: The SED. Use of some form of blackmail was not uncommon. A large number of Stasi informants were tram conductors, janitors, doctors, nurses and teachers. Mielke believed that the best informants were those whose jobs entailed frequent contact with the public. The Stasi's ranks swelled considerably after Eastern Bloc countries signed the 1975 Helsinki accords , which GDR leader Erich Honecker viewed as

2664-465: The Stasi even more oppressive than the Gestapo. Stasi agents infiltrated and undermined West Germany's government and spy agencies. In some cases, spouses even spied on each other. A high-profile example of this was peace activist Vera Lengsfeld , whose husband, Knud Wollenberger, was a Stasi informant. The Stasi perfected the technique of psychological harassment of perceived enemies known as Zersetzung ( pronounced [ʦɛɐ̯ˈzɛtsʊŋ] ) –

2738-527: The Stasi in East Germany (the GDR) resembled that of the KGB in the Soviet Union ,⁠ in that it served to maintain state authority and the position of the ruling party, in this case the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). This was accomplished primarily through the use of a network of civilian informants who contributed to the arrest of approximately 250,000 people in East Germany. It also had

2812-672: The Stasi in former Stasi prisons and administration buildings. In addition, offices of the Stasi Records Agency in Berlin, Dresden, Erfurt, Frankfurt-an-der-Oder and Halle (Saale) all have permanent and changing exhibitions relating to the activities of the Stasi in their region. Memorial and Education Centre Andreasstraße - a museum in Erfurt which is housed in a former Stasi remand prison. From 1952 until 1989, over 5000 political prisoners were held on remand and interrogated in

2886-400: The Stasi officers as " Chekists ". The KGB used 'low-visibility harassment' in order to control the population, and repress politically incorrect people and dissidents. This could involve causing unemployment, social isolation, and inducing mental and emotional health problems. Such methods formed the basis of the Stasi's use of Zersetzung (trans. decomposition) which has been considered to be

2960-468: The Stasi were responsible. Many thought that they were losing their minds, and mental breakdowns and suicide were sometimes the result. Direct physical attacks were not part of the process, even covertly. In 2000, the research group Projektgruppe Strahlen disputed claims that the Stasi had used X-ray projection against victims. The claims persisted, however, and in 2001 the Gauck Commission,

3034-572: The Stasi's international activities were publicized, such as its military training of the West German Red Army Faction . Recruitment of informants became increasingly difficult towards unification, and after 1986 there was a negative turnover rate of IMs. This had a significant impact on the Stasi's ability to survey the populace in a period of growing unrest, and knowledge of the Stasi's activities became more widespread. Stasi had been tasked during this period with preventing

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3108-500: The Stasi's regional head office in Dresden. It was used as a prison by the Soviet occupying forces from 1945 to 1953, and from 1953 to 1989 by the Stasi. The Stasi held and interrogated between 12,000 and 15,000 people during the time they used the prison. The building was originally a 19th-century paper mill. It was converted into a block of flats in 1933 before being confiscated by the Soviet army in 1945. The Stasi prison and offices were occupied by local citizens on 5 December 1989, during

3182-430: The Stasi. 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 . Although Mielke's Stasi was superficially granted independence in 1957,

3256-547: The Stasi. By at least one estimate, the Stasi maintained greater surveillance over its own people than any secret police force in history. The Stasi employed one secret policeman for every 166 East Germans. By comparison, the Gestapo deployed one secret policeman per 2,000 people. As ubiquitous as this was, the ratios swelled when informers were factored in: counting part-time informers, the Stasi had one agent per 6.5 people. This comparison led Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal to call

3330-441: The Stasi. The protesters continued to grow in number until they were able to overcome the police and gain entry into the complex. Once inside, specific targets of the protesters' anger were portraits of Erich Honecker and Erich Mielke, which were torn down, trampled upon or burnt. Some Stasi employees were thrown out of upper floor windows and beaten after falling to the streets below, but there were no deaths or serious injuries. Among

3404-416: The ability to make duplicates of their documents. Another significant question was how the media could use and benefit from the documents. It was decided that the media could obtain files as long as they were depersonalized and did not contain information about individuals under the age of 18 or former Stasi members. This ruling not only granted file access to the media, but also to schools. Some groups within

3478-538: The ages of 18 and 60. 10,000 IMs were under 18 years of age. According to an interview with Joachim Gauck , there could have been as many as 500,000 informers. A former Stasi Colonel who served in the counterintelligence directorate estimated that the figure could be as high as 2 million if occasional informants were included. There is significant debate about how many IMs were actually employed. Full-time officers were posted to all major industrial plants (the extent of any surveillance largely depended on how valuable

3552-587: The archive. In West Germany , the Cabinet of Germany decided to create a new Federal Archive in Koblenz in 1950, a project that was realized in 1952. The United States and the United Kingdom , like the Soviet Union, also seized records from Germany following World War II in their respective zones of occupation . In 1955, a Military Archives Division was established as part of the Federal Archives as

3626-441: The capital of Liechtenstein , in return for goods "under Western embargo". Moreover, high-ranking Stasi officers continued their post-GDR careers in management positions in Schlaff's group of companies. For example, in 1990, Herbert Kohler, Stasi commander in Dresden, transferred 170 million marks to Schlaff for "harddisks" and months later went to work for him. The investigations concluded that "Schlaff's empire of companies played

3700-532: The city. Erich Mielke , the Stasi's longest-serving chief, controlled the organisation from 1957 to 1989 — 32 of the 40 years of the GDR's existence. The HVA, under the leadership of Markus Wolf from 1952 to 1986, gained a reputation as one of the most effective intelligence agencies of the Cold War . After the German reunification of 1989–1991, some former Stasi officials were prosecuted for their crimes and

3774-419: The contents, in a form of gaslighting i.e. moving furniture around, altering the timing of an alarm, removing pictures from walls, or replacing one variety of tea with another etc. Other practices included property damage, sabotage of cars, travel bans, career sabotage, administering purposely incorrect medical treatment, smear campaigns which could include sending falsified, compromising photos or documents to

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3848-518: The country's economic difficulties becoming a political problem, through suppression of the very worst problems the state faced, but it failed to do so. On 7 November 1989, in response to the rapidly changing political and social situation in the GDR in late 1989, Erich Mielke resigned. On 17 November 1989, the Council of Ministers ( Ministerrat der DDR) renamed the Stasi the Office for National Security (Amt für Nationale Sicherheit – AfNS), which

3922-574: The course of this development, the formerly separate National Film Archive and Military Archives of East Germany were also merged into the Federal Archives. With the unification of the two German archives in 1990, the traditions of the East Germany state authorities were absorbed into the Federal Archives. However, legal problems were encountered during this process in securing the archives and libraries of East Germany's political parties and mass organizations . Even though East Germany's political structure meant that these institutions had very close ties to

3996-466: The destroyed files has been relatively easy due to the number of archives and the failure of shredding machines (in some cases, "shredding" meant tearing pages in two by hand, making the documents easily recoverable). In 1995, the BStU began reassembling the shredded documents; 13 years later, the three dozen archivists commissioned to the projects had reassembled only 327 bags. Computer-assisted data recovery

4070-448: The former Stasi community used threats of violence to scare off Stasi hunters, who were actively tracking down ex-members. Though these hunters succeeded in identifying many ex-Stasi, charges could not be brought against anyone merely for being a registered Stasi member. The person in question had to have participated in an illegal act. Among the high-profile individuals arrested and tried were Erich Mielke, Third Minister of State Security of

4144-403: The government, they were not public institutions. Further problems arose as these records were separated from other East German documents, resulting in the Federal Archives presenting an incomplete picture of East Germany's history . In 1991, an initiative was implemented that placed the records in question into the possession of the Federal Archives. As a result of this initiative, a bill amending

4218-467: The newborn and the alcoholic". Others, such as West German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble , believed in putting the Stasi past behind them and working on German reunification. But why did the Stasi collect all this information in its archives? The main purpose was to control the society. In nearly every speech, the Stasi minister gave the order to find out who is who, which meant who thinks what. He didn't want to wait until somebody tried to act against

4292-556: The official name "Die Gedenk- und Begegnungsstätte im Torhaus der politischen Haftanstalt von 1933 bis 1945 und 1945 bis 1989" in November 2005. German Federal Archives The German Federal Archives or Bundesarchiv ( BArch ) ( German : Bundesarchiv , lit. "Federal Archive") are the National Archives of Germany. They were established at the current location in Koblenz in 1952. They are subordinated to

4366-551: The police and the armed services) to those in the dissident movements (such as in the arts and the Protestant Church ). Information gathered about the latter groups was frequently used to divide or discredit members. Informants were made to feel important, given material or social incentives, and were imbued with a sense of adventure, and only around 7.7%, according to official figures, were coerced into cooperating. A significant proportion of those informing were members of

4440-674: The protesters were former Stasi collaborators seeking to destroy incriminating documents. With German reunification on 3 October 1990, a new government agency was founded, called the Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former German Democratic Republic ( German : Der Bundesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik ), officially abbreviated "BStU". There

4514-411: The regime. He wanted to know in advance what people were thinking and planning. The East Germans knew, of course, that they were surrounded by informers, in a totalitarian regime that created mistrust and a state of widespread fear, the most important tools to oppress people in any dictatorship. —Hubertus Knabe, German historian Those on the other side of the debate argued that everyone should have

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4588-532: The reports by stating that 'The KGB and the Stasi were partner intelligence agencies'. The ratio for the Stasi was one secret policeman per 166 East Germans. When the regular informers are added, these ratios become much higher: In the Stasi's case, there would have been at least one spy watching every 66 citizens! When one adds in the estimated numbers of part-time snoops, the result is nothing short of monstrous: one informer per 6.5 citizens. It would not have been unreasonable to assume that at least one Stasi informer

4662-485: The right to see their own file, and that the files should be opened to investigate former Stasi members and prosecute them, as well as prevent them from holding office. Opening the files would also help clear up some of the rumors circulating at the time. Some believed that politicians involved with the Stasi should be investigated. The fate of the files was finally decided under the Unification Treaty between

4736-467: The source of their problems, or even their exact nature. International condemnation could also be avoided. Zersetzung was designed to side-track and "switch off" perceived enemies so that they would lose the will to continue any "inappropriate" activities. Anyone who was judged to display politically, culturally, or religiously incorrect attitudes could be viewed as a "hostile-negative" force and targeted with Zersetzung methods. For this reason members of

4810-423: The surveillance files that the Stasi had maintained on millions of East Germans were declassified so that all citizens could inspect their personal files on request. The Stasi Records Agency maintained the files until June 2021, when they became part of the German Federal Archives . The Stasi was founded on 8 February 1950. Wilhelm Zaisser was the first Minister of State Security of the GDR, and Erich Mielke

4884-473: The use of the files to capture former Stasi members and prosecute them, arguing that not all former members were criminals and should not be punished solely for being a member. There were also some who believed that everyone was guilty of something. Peter-Michael Diestel , the Minister of Interior, opined that these files could not be used to determine innocence and guilt, claiming that "there were only two types of individuals who were truly innocent in this system,

4958-447: The victim's family, denunciation , provocation , psychological warfare , psychological subversion , wiretapping , bugging , mysterious phone calls or unnecessary deliveries, even including sending a vibrator to a target's wife. Increasing degrees of unemployment and social isolation could and frequently did occur due to the negative psychological, physical, and social ramifications of being targeted. Usually, victims had no idea that

5032-602: Was a debate about what should happen to the files, whether they should be opened to the people or kept sealed. Those who opposed opening the files cited privacy as a reason. They felt that the information in the files would lead to negative feelings about former Stasi members, and, in turn, cause violence. Pastor Rainer Eppelmann , who became Minister of Defense and Disarmament after March 1990, felt that new political freedoms for former Stasi members would be jeopardized by acts of revenge. Prime Minister Lothar de Maizière even went so far as to predict murder. They also argued against

5106-432: Was able to be plausibly denied , including in diplomatic circles. This was important given that the GDR was trying to improve its international standing during the 1970s and 1980s, especially in conjunction with the Ostpolitik of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt massively improving relations between the two German states. For these political and operational reasons Zersetzung became the primary method of repression in

5180-411: Was established in Potsdam , Brandenburg in 1919, a later date than in other European countries. This national archive documented German government dating from the founding of the North German Confederation in 1867. It also included material from the older German Confederation and the Imperial Chamber Court . The oldest documents in this collection dated back to the year 1411. Photographs and film of

5254-433: 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

5328-665: Was his deputy. Zaisser tried to depose SED General Secretary Walter Ulbricht after the June 1953 uprising , but was instead removed by Ulbricht and replaced with Ernst Wollweber thereafter. Following the June 1953 uprising, the Politbüro decided to downgrade the apparatus to a State Secretariat and incorporate it under the Ministry of the Interior under the leadership of Willi Stoph . The Minister of State Security simultaneously became

5402-454: Was present in any party of ten or twelve dinner guests. Like a giant octopus, the Stasi's tentacles probed every aspect of life. — John O. Koehler , German-born American journalist Between 1950 and 1989, the Stasi employed a total of 274,000 people in an effort to root out the class enemy. In 1989, the Stasi employed 91,015 people full-time, including 2,000 fully employed unofficial collaborators , 13,073 soldiers and 2,232 officers of

5476-552: Was the Stasi district offices and a remand prison from 1950 until 1969, after which the Volkspolizei used the prison. From 1950 to 1952 it was an execution site where 12 people sentenced to death were executed. The prison closed in 1990. It has been a cultural centre and a memorial to the victims of political tyranny since June 1994, managed by the Museum Viadrina. Gedenkstätte Amthordurchgang  [ de ] ,

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