Charles River Editors - The Stasi: The History and Legacy of East Germany’s Secret Police Agency

A picture of East Germans protesting outside the Stasi building in Berlin

The Stasi

[T]he Stasi often used a method which was really diabolic. It was called Zersetzung, and it's described in another guideline. The word is difficult to translate because it means originally "biodegradation". But actually, it's a quite accurate description. 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

The history of East Germany was closely intertwined with the development of its security services, specifically the Stasi. In an era of totalitarian countries dominated by repressive state agencies, the Stasi stood out for its size, and the sheer breadth and depth of its surveillance. Films such as Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) encapsulated post-unification attitudes and conceptions of both life in East Germany and the activities of the Stasi.

Despite its notoriety, the legacy of the Stasi is contested in modern Germany. Former West Germans, and Westerners more generally, closely align the East German state and the Stasi, framing a Stasi State. Those in the former East Germany, however, resent the patronizing attitudes and conflation of the two institutions, preferring to focus on the social elements of the East German state. Uwe Spiekermann, of the German Historical Institute, succinctly sets out the impressions of many when considering East Germany and its culture of surveillance: In retrospect, the Stasi has become a symbol for the GDR [East Germany].

The East German State Security Service, or Staatssicherheitsdienst in German (abbreviated to Stasi) was formed in 1950. It purported to be the states shield and sword and closely monitored much of the population for the next 40 years. Some of the figures are startling. By the end of the 1980s, Stasi files were kept on six million out of 18 million inhabitants. When the Stasi archives were opened in the 1990s, files were discovered that stretched for 178 kilometers. Over the course of East Germanys existence, up to two million people acted as spies, and 90,000 people worked at the Ministry, not to mention the numerous unofficial informers.

East Germany also had a much-feared foreign intelligence arm of its intelligence services, the HV A (German: Hauptverwaltung A or central department), which proved expert at infiltrating West German society and running operations in numerous other countries. But why did the Stasi form, and how did it prove so effective? Answering those questions requires understanding the unique circumstances in which East Germany was formed, as well as politics in Germany at the end of World War II and the start of the Cold War.

The Stasi: The History and Legacy of East Germanys Secret Police Agency examines the history of one of the most notorious agencies in history. Along with pictures depicting important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Stasi like never before.