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120-413: The Treuhand was responsible for more than just the 8,500 state-owned enterprises. It also took over around 2.4 million hectares of agricultural land and forests, the property of the former Stasi , large parts of the property of the former National People's Army , large-scale public housing property, and the property of the state pharmacy network. On the day of reunification , 3 October 1990, it took over

240-562: 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

360-603: A central role in war as well as peace was first advanced in The Art of War and in the Arthashastra . In the Middle Ages European states excelled at what has later been termed counter- subversion when Catholic inquisitions were staged to annihilate heresy . Inquisitions were marked by centrally organised mass interrogations and detailed record keeping. Western espionage changed fundamentally during

480-634: A combination of the two." However, espionage and intelligence can be linked. According to the MI5 website, "foreign intelligence officers acting in the UK under diplomatic cover may enjoy immunity from prosecution. Such persons can only be tried for spying (or, indeed, any criminal offence) if diplomatic immunity is waived beforehand. Those officers operating without diplomatic cover have no such immunity from prosecution". There are also laws surrounding government and organisational intelligence and surveillance. Generally,

600-527: 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

720-661: A disguised spy and a disguised escaper. It is permissible for these groups to wear enemy uniforms or civilian clothes in order to facilitate their escape back to friendly lines so long as they do not attack enemy forces, collect military intelligence, or engage in similar military operations while so disguised. Soldiers who are wearing enemy uniforms or civilian clothes simply for the sake of warmth along with other purposes rather than engaging in espionage or similar military operations while so attired are also excluded from being treated as unlawful combatants. Saboteurs are treated as spies as they too wear disguises behind enemy lines for

840-435: 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

960-512: 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

1080-577: 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

1200-436: 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

1320-628: 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

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1440-674: A prison sentence until his death in 2023. Espionage laws are also used to prosecute non-spies. In the United States, the Espionage Act of 1917 was used against socialist politician Eugene V. Debs (at that time the Act had much stricter guidelines and amongst other things banned speech against military recruiting). The law was later used to suppress publication of periodicals, for example of Father Coughlin in World War II . In

1560-483: A prisoner of war. This provision does not apply to citizens who committed treason against their own country or co-belligerents of that country and may be captured and prosecuted at any place or any time regardless whether he rejoined the military to which he belongs or not or during or after the war. The ones that are excluded from being treated as spies while behind enemy lines are escaping prisoners of war and downed airmen as international law distinguishes between

1680-888: 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

1800-477: 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

1920-555: 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

2040-604: A theory of espionage foreshadowing modern police-state methods. During the American Revolution , Nathan Hale and Benedict Arnold achieved their fame as spies, and there was considerable use of spies on both sides during the American Civil War . Though not a spy himself, George Washington was America's first spymaster, utilizing espionage tactics against the British. In the 20th century, at

2160-453: 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

2280-616: A view to making profits for the German federal government. By 2007, having sold 45,000 properties in six years and reinvested 1.5 billion euros, it was still managing 1500 properties worth 1.4 billion euros. The planned privatisation of TLG itself was put on hold in July 2008 because of adverse economic conditions. In January 2020, TLG Immobilien was acquired by the Luxembourg-domiciled property company Aroundtown SA . In July 2008,

2400-474: 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

2520-440: Is also employed for an individual who is not an illegal agent, but is an ordinary citizen who is "relocated", for example, a "protected witness". Nevertheless, such a non-agent very likely will also have a case officer who will act as a controller. As in most, if not all synthetic identity schemes, for whatever purpose (illegal or legal), the assistance of a controller is required. Spies may also be used to spread disinformation in

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2640-410: Is always directed at the most secret operations of a target country. National and terrorist organizations and other groups are also targeted. This is because governments want to retrieve information that they can use to be proactive in protecting their nation from potential terrorist attacks. Communications both are necessary to espionage and clandestine operations , and also a great vulnerability when

2760-443: Is considered espionage. Many HUMINT activities, such as prisoner interrogation , reports from military reconnaissance patrols and from diplomats, etc., are not considered espionage. Espionage is the disclosure of sensitive information (classified) to people who are not cleared for that information or access to that sensitive information. Unlike other forms of intelligence collection disciplines , espionage usually involves accessing

2880-548: Is considered permissible as many nations recognize the inevitability of opposing sides seeking intelligence each about the dispositions of the other. To make the mission easier and successful, combatants wear disguises to conceal their true identity from the enemy while penetrating enemy lines for intelligence gathering. However, if they are caught behind enemy lines in disguises, they are not entitled to prisoner-of-war status and subject to prosecution and punishment—including execution . The Hague Convention of 1907 addresses

3000-399: Is more common usage. A case officer or Special Agent , who may have diplomatic status (i.e., official cover or non-official cover ), supports and directs the human collector. Cut-outs are couriers who do not know the agent or case officer but transfer messages. A safe house is a refuge for spies. Spies often seek to obtain secret information from another source. In larger networks,

3120-486: 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

3240-534: Is the person who does the spying. They may be a citizen of a country recruited by that country to spy on another; a citizen of a country recruited by that country to carry out false flag assignments disrupting his own country; a citizen of one country who is recruited by a second country to spy on or work against his own country or a third country, and more. In popular usage, this term is sometimes confused with an intelligence officer , intelligence operative , or case officer who recruits and handles agents. Among

3360-696: Is very much distinct from espionage, and is not illegal in the UK, providing that the organisations of individuals are registered, often with the ICO, and are acting within the restrictions of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). 'Intelligence' is considered legally as "information of all sorts gathered by a government or organisation to guide its decisions. It includes information that may be both public and private, obtained from much different public or secret sources. It could consist entirely of information from either publicly available or secret sources, or be

3480-471: 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

3600-620: The American Zone of occupied Germany . The U.S. codification of enemy spies is Article 106 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice . This provides a mandatory death sentence if a person captured in the act is proven to be "lurking as a spy or acting as a spy in or about any place, vessel, or aircraft, within the control or jurisdiction of any of the armed forces, or in or about any shipyard, any manufacturing or industrial plant, or any other place or institution engaged in work in aid of

3720-548: 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

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3840-776: The Office of Strategic Services was founded by Gen. William J. Donovan . However, the British system was the keystone of Allied intelligence. Numerous resistance groups such as the Austrian Maier -Messner Group, the French Resistance , the Witte Brigade , Milorg and the Polish Home Army worked against Nazi Germany and provided the Allied secret services with information that was very important for

3960-674: The Uniform Code of Military Justice . The United States, like most nations, conducts espionage against other nations, under the control of the National Clandestine Service . Britain's espionage activities are controlled by the Secret Intelligence Service . Source: A spy is a person employed to seek out top secret information from a source. Within the United States Intelligence Community , " asset "

4080-659: The Vietnam War . Some Islamic countries, including Libya , Iran and Syria , have highly developed operations as well. SAVAK , the secret police of the Pahlavi dynasty , was particularly feared by Iranian dissidents before the 1979 Iranian Revolution . Today, spy agencies target the illegal drug trade and terrorists as well as state actors. Intelligence services value certain intelligence collection techniques over others. The former Soviet Union, for example, preferred human sources over research in open sources , while

4200-441: The death penalty . Venice became obsessed with espionage because successful international trade demanded that the city-state could protect its trade secrets . Under Queen Elizabeth I of England ( r.  1558–1603 ), Francis Walsingham ( c.  1532–1590) was appointed foreign secretary and intelligence chief. The novelist and journalist Daniel Defoe (died 1731) not only spied for the British government, but also developed

4320-565: The 1947 National Security Act created the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to coordinate intelligence and the National Security Agency for research into codes and electronic communication. In addition to these, the United States has 13 other intelligence gathering agencies; most of the U.S. expenditures for intelligence gathering are budgeted to various Defense Dept. agencies and their programs. Under

4440-482: 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

4560-735: 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 ,

4680-692: 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

4800-779: The BVVG announced total privatization receipts of 3.5 billion euros since its establishment in 1992, which it had gained through the sale of around 525,000 hectares (1,300,000 acres) of agricultural land, with a similar amount of forest land and a small amount of other land. Total land sales amounted to around half the area of the state of Saxony-Anhalt . At the end of 2007, it still owned over 500,000 hectares (1,200,000 acres) of agricultural land and just under 100,000 hectares (250,000 acres) of forest land. Stasi The Ministry for State Security ( German : Ministerium für Staatssicherheit , pronounced [minɪsˈteːʁiʊm fyːɐ̯ ˈʃtaːtsˌzɪçɐhaɪ̯t] ; abbreviated MfS ), commonly known as

4920-573: 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

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5040-800: 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

5160-589: 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

5280-533: 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

5400-565: 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

5520-532: 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

5640-567: 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

5760-669: The Hague Convention of 1907, these Germans were classified as spies and tried by a military tribunal in Washington D.C. On August 3, 1942, all eight were found guilty and sentenced to death. Five days later, six were executed by electric chair at the District of Columbia jail. Two who had given evidence against the others had their sentences reduced by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to prison terms. In 1948, they were released by President Harry S. Truman and deported to

5880-764: 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

6000-685: 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

6120-656: The Renaissance when Italian city-states installed resident ambassadors in capital cities to collect intelligence. Renaissance Venice became so obsessed with espionage that the Council of Ten , which was nominally responsible for security , did not even allow the doge to consult government archives freely. In 1481 the Council of Ten barred all Venetian government officials from making contact with ambassadors or foreigners. Those revealing official secrets could face

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6240-413: 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

6360-808: The Soviet Union for the CIA, was shot down and captured. During the Cold War, many Soviet intelligence officials defected to the West, including Gen. Walter Krivitsky , Victor Kravchenko , Vladimir Petrov , Peter Deriabin, Pawel Monat and Oleg Penkovsky of the GRU . Among Western officials who defected to the Soviet Union are Guy Burgess and Donald D. Maclean of Great Britain in 1951, Otto John of West Germany in 1954, William H. Martin and Bernon F. Mitchell , U.S. cryptographers, in 1960, and Harold (Kim) Philby of Great Britain in 1962. U.S. acknowledgment of its U-2 flights and

6480-465: 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] ) –

6600-587: 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

6720-672: 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

6840-400: 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

6960-468: 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,

7080-489: 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

7200-500: 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

7320-430: 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,

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7440-493: 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

7560-441: 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

7680-495: The Treuhand ceased operations in 1994, it still retained much property and some other legal responsibilities. These were transferred to three successor agencies: The BvS ceased operations at the end of 2000, but it remains legally in existence; its remaining tasks are all delegated to other bodies. TLG and BVVG remain the largest real estate owners in the new federal states . In 2000, TLG was reoriented from focussing on privatisation of its assets to "active portfolio management" with

7800-442: The United States and some other jurisdictions can only occur if they take up arms or aids the enemy against their own country during wartime), or even executed, as the Rosenbergs were. For example, when Aldrich Ames handed a stack of dossiers of U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents in the Eastern Bloc to his KGB-officer "handler", the KGB "rolled up" several networks, and at least ten people were secretly shot. When Ames

7920-437: The United States has tended to emphasize technological methods such as SIGINT and IMINT . In the Soviet Union, both political ( KGB ) and military intelligence ( GRU ) officers were judged by the number of agents they recruited. Espionage agents are usually trained experts in a targeted field so they can differentiate mundane information from targets of value to their own organizational development. Correct identification of

8040-416: 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

8160-421: The adversary has sophisticated SIGINT detection and interception capability. Spies rely on COVCOM or covert communication through technically advanced spy devices. Agents must also transfer money securely. Reportedly Canada is losing $ 12 billion and German companies are estimated to be losing about €50 billion ($ 87 billion) and 30,000 jobs to industrial espionage every year. In espionage jargon, an "agent"

8280-538: 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

8400-502: The body involved should be issued with some form of warrant or permission from the government and should be enacting their procedures in the interest of protecting national security or the safety of public citizens. Those carrying out intelligence missions should act within not only RIPA but also the Data Protection Act and Human Rights Act. However, there are spy equipment laws and legal requirements around intelligence methods that vary for each form of intelligence enacted. In war, espionage

8520-441: 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

8640-532: 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

8760-419: 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

8880-463: 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

9000-466: 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

9120-611: The early 1990s. Supporters argued that not placing the former state-owned enterprises into private hands would have caused the loss of many more jobs and slowed economic recovery. On 1 April 1991, chairman of the Treuhand Detlev Karsten Rohwedder was shot dead by an unknown assassin (possibly the Red Army Faction ). He was succeeded by Birgit Breuel . When its operations ended in 1994, it had amassed 260 to 270 billion DM in debt. Although

9240-639: The early 21st century, the act was used to prosecute whistleblowers such as Thomas Andrews Drake , John Kiriakou , and Edward Snowden , as well as officials who communicated with journalists for innocuous reasons, such as Stephen Jin-Woo Kim . As of 2012 , India and Pakistan were holding several hundred prisoners of each other's country for minor violations like trespass or visa overstay, often with accusations of espionage attached. Some of these include cases where Pakistan and India both deny citizenship to these people, leaving them stateless . The BBC reported in 2012 on one such case, that of Mohammed Idrees, who

9360-431: The enemy in various ways. Counterintelligence is the practice of thwarting enemy espionage and intelligence-gathering. Almost all sovereign states have strict laws concerning espionage, including those who practice espionage in other countries, and the penalties for being caught are often severe. Espionage has been recognized as of importance in military affairs since ancient times. The oldest known classified document

9480-515: The exchange of Francis Gary Powers for Rudolf Abel in 1962 implied the legitimacy of some espionage as an arm of foreign policy. China has a very cost-effective intelligence program that is especially effective in monitoring neighboring countries such as Mongolia , Russia and India . Smaller countries can also mount effective and focused espionage efforts. For instance, the Vietnamese communists had consistently superior intelligence during

9600-448: 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

9720-650: The height of World War I , all great powers except the United States had elaborate civilian espionage systems, and all national military establishments had intelligence units. In order to protect the country against foreign agents, the U.S. Congress passed the Espionage Act of 1917 . Mata Hari , who obtained information for Germany by seducing French officials, was the most noted espionage agent of World War I. Prior to World War II , Germany and Imperial Japan established elaborate espionage nets. In 1942

9840-556: The intelligence reorganization of 2004, the director of national intelligence is responsible for overseeing and coordinating the activities and budgets of the U.S. intelligence agencies. In the Cold War , espionage cases included Alger Hiss , Whittaker Chambers and the Rosenberg Case. In 1952 the Communist Chinese captured two CIA agents and in 1960 Francis Gary Powers , flying a U-2 reconnaissance mission over

9960-508: The more common practice is to recruit a person already trusted with access to sensitive information, sometimes a person with a well-prepared synthetic identity (cover background), called a legend in tradecraft , may attempt to infiltrate a target organization. These agents can be moles (who are recruited before they get access to secrets), defectors (who are recruited after they get access to secrets and leave their country) or defectors in place (who get access but do not leave). A legend

10080-451: The most common forms of agent are: Less common or lesser known forms of agent include: Espionage against a nation is a crime under the legal code of many nations. In the United States, it is covered by the Espionage Act of 1917 . The risks of espionage vary. A spy violating the host country's laws may be deported, imprisoned, or even executed. A spy violating its own country's laws can be imprisoned for espionage or/and treason (which in

10200-437: The national defence with an intent, or reason to believe, that the information may be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation". Black's Law Dictionary (1990) defines espionage as: "... gathering, transmitting, or losing ... information related to the national defense ". Espionage is a violation of United States law, 18 U.S.C.   §§ 792 – 798 and Article 106a of

10320-467: 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

10440-494: The official name "Die Gedenk- und Begegnungsstätte im Torhaus der politischen Haftanstalt von 1933 bis 1945 und 1945 bis 1989" in November 2005. Espionage Espionage , spying , or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information ( intelligence ). A person who commits espionage is called an espionage agent or spy . Any individual or spy ring (a cooperating group of spies), in

10560-438: The organization can be complex with many methods to avoid detection, including clandestine cell systems . Often the players have never met. Case officers are stationed in foreign countries to recruit and supervise intelligence agents, who in turn spy on targets in the countries where they are assigned. A spy need not be a citizen of the target country and hence does not automatically commit treason when operating within it. While

10680-688: The organization in which they are planted, such as giving false reports about their country's military movements, or about a competing company's ability to bring a product to market. Spies may be given other roles that also require infiltration, such as sabotage . Many governments spy on their allies as well as their enemies, although they typically maintain a policy of not commenting on this. Governments also employ private companies to collect information on their behalf such as SCG International Risk , International Intelligence Limited and others. Many organizations, both national and non-national, conduct espionage operations. It should not be assumed that espionage

10800-423: The penalty for espionage in many countries was execution. This was true right up until the era of World War II ; for example, Josef Jakobs was a Nazi spy who parachuted into Great Britain in 1941 and was executed for espionage. In modern times, many people convicted of espionage have been given penal sentences rather than execution. For example, Aldrich Hazen Ames is an American CIA analyst, turned KGB mole, who

10920-517: The place where the desired information is stored or accessing the people who know the information and will divulge it through some kind of subterfuge . There are exceptions to physical meetings, such as the Oslo Report , or the insistence of Robert Hanssen in never meeting the people who bought his information. The US defines espionage towards itself as "the act of obtaining, delivering, transmitting, communicating, or receiving information about

11040-551: 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

11160-527: The problems to tensions caused by the Kashmir conflict . Espionage is illegal in the UK under the National Security Act 2023 , which repealed prior Official Secrets Acts and creates three separate offences for espionage. A person is liable to be imprisoned for life for committing an offence under Section 1 of the Act, or 14 years for an offence under Sections 2 and 3 Government intelligence

11280-511: The property of the political parties and the mass organisations of the German Democratic Republic . Its operations drew criticism for unnecessarily closing allegedly profitable businesses, misuse and waste of funds and layoffs that were claimed to be unnecessary. It also drew substantial protest from the workforces affected, as 2.5 million employees in state-owned enterprises (out of 4 million in total) were laid off in

11400-674: 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

11520-476: The purpose of acquiring intelligence are not considered spies but are lawful combatants entitled to be treated as prisoners of war upon capture by the enemy. Article 30 states that a spy captured behind enemy lines may only be punished following a trial. However, Article 31 provides that if a spy successfully rejoined his own military and is then captured by the enemy as a lawful combatant, he cannot be punished for his previous acts of espionage and must be treated as

11640-507: The purpose of waging destruction on an enemy's vital targets in addition to intelligence gathering. For example, during World War II , eight German agents entered the U.S. in June 1942 as part of Operation Pastorius , a sabotage mission against U.S. economic targets. Two weeks later, all were arrested in civilian clothes by the FBI thanks to two German agents betraying the mission to the U.S. Under

11760-411: 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

11880-532: 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

12000-485: 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

12120-405: The service of a government , company , criminal organization , or independent operation, can commit espionage. The practice is clandestine , as it is by definition unwelcome. In some circumstances, it may be a legal tool of law enforcement and in others, it may be illegal and punishable by law. Espionage is often part of an institutional effort by a government or commercial concern. However,

12240-467: 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

12360-435: The status of wartime spies, specifically within "Laws and Customs of War on Land" (Hague IV); October 18, 1907: Chapter II Spies". Article 29 states that a person is considered a spy who, acts clandestinely or on false pretences, infiltrates enemy lines with the intention of acquiring intelligence about the enemy and communicate it to the belligerent during times of war. Soldiers who penetrate enemy lines in proper uniforms for

12480-498: 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

12600-545: The target at its execution is the sole purpose of the espionage operation. Broad areas of espionage targeting expertise include: Although the news media may speak of "spy satellites" and the like, espionage is not a synonym for all intelligence-gathering disciplines. It is a specific form of human source intelligence ( HUMINT ). Codebreaking ( cryptanalysis or COMINT ), aircraft or satellite photography ( IMINT ), and analysis of publicly available data sources ( OSINT ) are all intelligence gathering disciplines, but none of them

12720-535: The term tends to be associated with state spying on potential or actual enemies for military purposes. Spying involving corporations is known as industrial espionage . One way to gather data and information about a targeted organization is by infiltrating its ranks. Spies can then return information such as the size and strength of enemy forces . They can also find dissidents within the organization and influence them to provide further information or to defect. In times of crisis, spies steal technology and sabotage

12840-529: 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,

12960-447: 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

13080-470: The war effort. Since the end of World War II , the activity of espionage has enlarged, much of it growing out of the Cold War between the United States and the former USSR . The Russian Empire and its successor, the Soviet Union , have had a long tradition of espionage ranging from the Okhrana to the KGB (Committee for State Security), which also acted as a secret police force. In the United States,

13200-602: 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

13320-645: Was a report made by a spy disguised as a diplomatic envoy in the court of King Hammurabi , who died in around 1750 BC. The ancient Egyptians had a developed secret service, and espionage is mentioned in the Iliad , the Bible , and the Amarna letters . Espionage was also prevalent in the Greco-Roman world , when spies employed illiterate subjects in civil services . The thesis that espionage and intelligence has

13440-490: 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

13560-502: Was arrested by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), he faced life in prison; his contact, who had diplomatic immunity , was declared persona non grata and taken to the airport. Ames' wife was threatened with life imprisonment if her husband did not cooperate; he did, and she was given a five-year sentence. Hugh Francis Redmond , a CIA officer in China, spent nineteen years in a Chinese prison for espionage—and died there—as he

13680-454: Was convicted of espionage in 1994; he is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole in the high-security Allenwood U.S. Penitentiary . Ames was formerly a 31-year CIA counterintelligence officer and analyst who committed espionage against his country by spying for the Soviet Union and Russia . So far as it is known, Ames compromised the second-largest number of CIA agents, second only to Robert Hanssen , who also served

13800-492: 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

13920-411: Was held under Indian police control for approximately 13 years for overstaying his 15-day visa by 2–3 days after seeing his ill parents in 1999. Much of the 13 years were spent in prison waiting for a hearing, and more time was spent homeless or living with generous families. The Indian People's Union for Civil Liberties and Human Rights Law Network both decried his treatment. The BBC attributed some of

14040-670: 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

14160-705: Was operating without diplomatic cover and immunity. In United States law, treason, espionage, and spying are separate crimes. Treason and espionage have graduated punishment levels. The United States in World War I passed the Espionage Act of 1917. Over the years, many spies, such as the Soble spy ring , Robert Lee Johnson , the Rosenberg ring , Aldrich Hazen Ames , Robert Philip Hanssen , Jonathan Pollard , John Anthony Walker , James Hall III , and others have been prosecuted under this law. From ancient times,

14280-454: 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

14400-552: 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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