العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
EspañolMINISTERIUM FüR STAATSSICHERHEIT (GDR)
(Redirected from Stasi)
:''This article is about 'Stasi', the secret police of East Germany. See Commission Stasi for its other common meaning.''
The '''Ministerium für Staatssicherheit''' (MfS / Ministry for State Security), commonly known as the 'Stasi' (from '''Sta'ats'si'cherheit''), was the main security (secret police) and intelligence organization of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). The Stasi was headquartered in East Berlin, with an extensive complex in Lichtenberg and several smaller complexes throughout the city. It was widely regarded as one of the most effective – or most repressive, depending on your politics – intelligence and secret police agencies in the world. The Stasi's motto was ''"Schild und Schwert der Partei"'' (Shield and Sword of the Party), showing its connections to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the equivalent to the CPSU of the Soviet Union. Another term used in earlier years to refer to the Stasi was ''Staatssicherheitsdienst'' (State Security Service).
The Stasi was founded on February 8, 1950. It was modeled on the Soviet MGB, and was regarded by the Soviet Union as an extremely loyal and effective partner.
Wilhelm Zaisser was the first Minister of State Security of the GDR, and Erich Mielke his deputy. Zaisser was removed by Walter Ulbricht, the leader of East Germany, in 1953 and replaced by Ernst Wollweber. Wollweber resigned in 1957 after numerous clashes with Walter Ulbricht and Erich Honecker, and was succeeded by his deputy, Erich Mielke.
Since March 27th, 1953, the ministry has its own ''Sportvereinigung Dynamo'' (sports association).
Also during 1957, Markus Wolf became head of the ''Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung'' (HVA) or General Reconnaissance Administration, its foreign intelligence section. As intelligence chief, Wolf achieved great success in penetrating the government, political and business circles of West Germany with spies. The most influential case was that of Günter Guillaume which led to the fall of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt.
However, the Stasi also played another, more external, role; it saved the lives of many leftist activists and politicians during the 1970s, especially in South America. For example, it is alleged that immediately after the Pinochet Coup in Chile (September 1973), Stasi agents organised the rescue and transportation to the GDR of hundreds of members and cadres of People's Unity.
In 1986, Wolf retired and was succeeded by Werner Grossmann.
In 1989, just before the dissolution of East Germany, the Stasi was renamed the Office for National Security and headed by Stasi general Rudi Mittig.[1]
The Stasi infiltrated almost every aspect of GDR life. In the mid-1980s, a civilian informants network, the ''Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter'' (IMs, Unofficial Collaborators), began growing in both Germanies, by the time East Germany collapsed in 1989, the Stasi employed an estimated 91,000 employees and 300,000 informants; about one in fifty East Germans collaborated with the Stasi — one of the most extensive infilitrations of a police apparatus in history. Additionally, Stasi infiltrated and undermined West Germany's government and spy agencies. While the Stasi succeeded in infiltrating West Germany, the Stasi, purportedly, never was much infiltrated by Western spies.
The Stasi monitored political behavior among DDR citizens, and is known to have used torture and intimidation to mute dissent. During the Peaceful Revolution of 1989, Stasi offices were overrun by enraged citizens, but not before the Stasi destroyed a large amount of secrets. When the remaining files were published for review, they revealed that subjects learned that their friends, colleagues, spouses, and relatives had regularly filed reports with the Stasi. These wounds on civil society have not yet entirely healed.
Other files (the Rosenholz Files), which contained the names of East German spies abroad, led American spy agencies to capture them. After German reunification, it was revealed that the Stasi had secretly aided left-wing terrorists such as the Red Army Faction. The loss of Stasi financial support was a major factor in the dissolution of such terrorist groups.
In 1999, an article in ''Der Spiegel'' alleged that the Stasi intentionally irradiated political prisoners with high-dose radiation, possibly to provoke cancer(s) in them. [2]
The opening of Stasi archives exposed informants, some of whom today hold high office, e.g. in Finland, presidential advisor Alpo Rusi was suspected of having been a Stasi informant; he was cleared.
During the regime's final days in 1989–90, Stasi officials shredded documents with paper shredders and by hand. The new government found and confiscated the hastily stored bags of shredded paper. In 1995, the German government began reassembling the documents; six years later the three dozen archivists commissioned to the projects had only reassembled 300 bags; they then used computer-assisted data recovery to reassemble the remaining 16,000 bags — estimated at 33 million pages. [1]
In 1992, following a declassification ruling by the German government, the Stasi files were published, leading people to look for their files. Timothy Garton Ash, an English historian, wrote ''The File: A Personal History'' after reading the file compiled about him while he completed his dissertation research in East Berlin.
CIA acquired some Stasi records after looting the Stasi archives. The Federal Republic of Germany has asked for their return and received some in April 2000. BBC
The Anti-Stalinist Action Normannenstraße (ASTAK), an association founded by former GDR Citizens' Committees, has transformed the former headquarters of the Stasi into a museum. It is divided into three floors:
★ Ground floor
The ground floor has been kept as it used to be. The decor is original, with many statues and flags.
★ Between the ground and first floor:
★
★ Surveillance technology and Stasi symbols: Some of the tools that the Stasi used to track down their opponents. During an interview the seats were covered with a cotton sheet, to collect the perspiration of the victim. His name was written in a glass and the sheet was kept in the archives. Other common ways that the scents would be collected is through breaking into a home and taking parts of garments. The most common garment taken was underwear, because of how close the garment is to the skin. The Stasi would then use trained dogs to track down the person using this scent. Other tools shown here include a tie-camera, cigarette box camera, and an Ak-47 hidden in luggage.
★
★ Display gallery of Directorate VII. This part of the museum tells the history of the Stasi, from the beginning of the GDR to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
★ First floor
★
★ Mielke's offices. The decor is 60s furniture. There is a reception room with a TV set in the cafeteria. They still serve coffee in it.
★
★ Office of Colonel Heinz Volpert
★
★ Lounge for drivers and bodyguards
★
★ Office of Major-General Hans Carlsohn, director of the secretariat
★
★ Secretariat
★
★ The Cafeteria
★
★ Kitchen
★
★ The Minister’s Workroom
★
★ The Conference Room with a giant map of Germany on a wall—one of the most impressive rooms.
★
★ The cloakroom
★ 2nd floor
★
★ Repression - Rebellion - Self-Liberation from 1945 to 1989
Photo gallery:
Ex-Stasi officers continue to be politically active via the ''Gesellschaft zur Rechtlichen und Humanitären Unterstützung e. V.'' (Society for Legal and Humanitarian Support) (GRH). Former high-ranking officers and employees of the Stasi, including the Stasi's last director, Wolfgang Schwanitz, make up the majority of the organization's members, and it receives support from the German Communist Party, among others.
Impetus for the establishment of the GRH was provided by the criminal charges filed against the Stasi in the early 1990s. The GRH, decrying the charges as "victor's justice", called for them to be dropped. Today the group provides an alternative if somewhat utopian voice in the public debate on the GDR legacy. It calls for the closure of the museum in Hohenschönhausen and can be a vocal presence at memorial services and public events. In March 2006 in Berlin, GRH members disrupted a museum event; a political scandal ensued when the Berlin Senator (Minister) of Culture refused to confront them.[3]
Behind the scenes, the GRH also exerts pressure on people and institutions promoting opposing viewpoints. For example, in March 2006, the Berlin Senator for Education received a letter from a GRH member and former Stasi officer attacking the Museum for promoting "falsehoods, anticommunist agitation and psychological terror against minors". [4] Similar letters have also been received by schools organizing field trips to the museum. [5]
★ Wilhelm Zaisser (1950–1953)
★ Ernst Wollweber (1953–1957)
★ Erich Mielke (1957–1989)
★ Vic Allen [5]
★ Gert Bastian
★ Ibrahim Böhme
★ Richard Clements [6]
★ Tom Driberg [7]
★ Gwyneth Edwards [8]
★ Raymond Fletcher [9]
★ Torsten Gütschow, footballer
★ Katarina Witt, figure skater [10]
★ Günter Guillaume (who spied upon Willy Brandt, the West German Chancellor)
★ Lutz Heilmann—today Member of the Left Party and the first former Stasi official elected into the Federal Legislature (Bundestag)
★ Martin Kirchner
★ Ulf Kirsten
★ Charlotte von Mahlsdorf
★ Robin Pearson [11]
★ John Roper, Baron Roper of Thorney Island [12]
★ Wolfgang Schnur
★ Manfred Stolpe—former German transportation minister (2002–2005) and minister-president of Brandenburg (1990–2002)
★ Christa Wolf - famous German writer and intellectual
The Academy Award-winning German film ''Das Leben der Anderen'' (''The Lives Of Others'').
The Legend of Rita ''(Die Stille nach dem Schuß)'', a 2000 film directed by Volker Schlöndorff, dwells heavily on the relationship between the Stasi and the general population of East Germany. The second-most prominent character is the Stasi "control" for the title character.
At its zenith, the STASI had records on some 6 million people. It also had an archive of sweat and body odor samples.
STASI was known for the radical, fantasical methods it employed. One of the most common methods was having suspects contact a radioactive material, then using Geiger counters to follow them.
STASI's Leipzig building "Runde Ecke" was preserved in its original condition, and now is a museum with some 3,000 daily visitors.
Experts think that at its zenith, STASI had a network of some 300,000 informants.
Urban legend has it that the STASI archive documents can form a 180-km-long domino pattern.
★ Verfassungsschutz
★ Mass surveillance
★ Stasiland
★ Felix Dzerzhinsky Watch Regiment
★ Stasi 2.0
1. Koehler (1999)
2. ''Dissidents say Stasi gave them cancer''—BBC, Tuesday 25 May 1999.
3. ''Stasi Offiziere Leugnen den Terror''. ''Berliner Morgenpost'' 16 March 2006. [2]
4. Backmann, Christa. ''Stasi-Anhänger schreiben an Bildungssenator Böger''. ''Berliner Morgenpost'' 25 March 2006. [3]
5. Schomaker, Gilbert. ''Ehemalige Stasi-Kader schreiben Schulen an''. ''Die Welt'', 26 March 2006. [4]
★ ''Stasi'' by John O. Koehler, West View Press, 1999, ISBN 0-8133-3409-8.
★ More about Stasi victims
★ Office administering the Stasi files
★ Stasi Museum in Stasi office, Berlin-Lichtenberg
★ Homepage of the ''Gesellschaft zur Rechtlichen und Humanitären Unterstützung''
★ Interview with a stasi victim, vlog by amadelio''
★ Official website of award winning film The Lives of Others
★ Photos of Stasi Headquarters in Berlin
★ Read about the Defection of a Stasi Agent
★ "Support Group For Spies: From East German Spooks to West German Victims" by Khuê Pham, ''Spiegel Online'', June 11, 2007.
Logotype of the DDR's Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS or Stasi) / Ministry for State Security
:''This article is about 'Stasi', the secret police of East Germany. See Commission Stasi for its other common meaning.''
The '''Ministerium für Staatssicherheit''' (MfS / Ministry for State Security), commonly known as the 'Stasi' (from '''Sta'ats'si'cherheit''), was the main security (secret police) and intelligence organization of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). The Stasi was headquartered in East Berlin, with an extensive complex in Lichtenberg and several smaller complexes throughout the city. It was widely regarded as one of the most effective – or most repressive, depending on your politics – intelligence and secret police agencies in the world. The Stasi's motto was ''"Schild und Schwert der Partei"'' (Shield and Sword of the Party), showing its connections to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the equivalent to the CPSU of the Soviet Union. Another term used in earlier years to refer to the Stasi was ''Staatssicherheitsdienst'' (State Security Service).
History
Mielke and Stasi Officers
The Stasi was founded on February 8, 1950. It was modeled on the Soviet MGB, and was regarded by the Soviet Union as an extremely loyal and effective partner.
Wilhelm Zaisser was the first Minister of State Security of the GDR, and Erich Mielke his deputy. Zaisser was removed by Walter Ulbricht, the leader of East Germany, in 1953 and replaced by Ernst Wollweber. Wollweber resigned in 1957 after numerous clashes with Walter Ulbricht and Erich Honecker, and was succeeded by his deputy, Erich Mielke.
Since March 27th, 1953, the ministry has its own ''Sportvereinigung Dynamo'' (sports association).
Also during 1957, Markus Wolf became head of the ''Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung'' (HVA) or General Reconnaissance Administration, its foreign intelligence section. As intelligence chief, Wolf achieved great success in penetrating the government, political and business circles of West Germany with spies. The most influential case was that of Günter Guillaume which led to the fall of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt.
However, the Stasi also played another, more external, role; it saved the lives of many leftist activists and politicians during the 1970s, especially in South America. For example, it is alleged that immediately after the Pinochet Coup in Chile (September 1973), Stasi agents organised the rescue and transportation to the GDR of hundreds of members and cadres of People's Unity.
In 1986, Wolf retired and was succeeded by Werner Grossmann.
In 1989, just before the dissolution of East Germany, the Stasi was renamed the Office for National Security and headed by Stasi general Rudi Mittig.[1]
Influence
Statue of workers and Stasi officer in front of the Stasi archives, Mitte district, Berlin. (The officer has been pelted with eggs.)
The Stasi infiltrated almost every aspect of GDR life. In the mid-1980s, a civilian informants network, the ''Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter'' (IMs, Unofficial Collaborators), began growing in both Germanies, by the time East Germany collapsed in 1989, the Stasi employed an estimated 91,000 employees and 300,000 informants; about one in fifty East Germans collaborated with the Stasi — one of the most extensive infilitrations of a police apparatus in history. Additionally, Stasi infiltrated and undermined West Germany's government and spy agencies. While the Stasi succeeded in infiltrating West Germany, the Stasi, purportedly, never was much infiltrated by Western spies.
Chief Mielke and Stasi generals singing
The Stasi monitored political behavior among DDR citizens, and is known to have used torture and intimidation to mute dissent. During the Peaceful Revolution of 1989, Stasi offices were overrun by enraged citizens, but not before the Stasi destroyed a large amount of secrets. When the remaining files were published for review, they revealed that subjects learned that their friends, colleagues, spouses, and relatives had regularly filed reports with the Stasi. These wounds on civil society have not yet entirely healed.
Other files (the Rosenholz Files), which contained the names of East German spies abroad, led American spy agencies to capture them. After German reunification, it was revealed that the Stasi had secretly aided left-wing terrorists such as the Red Army Faction. The loss of Stasi financial support was a major factor in the dissolution of such terrorist groups.
In 1999, an article in ''Der Spiegel'' alleged that the Stasi intentionally irradiated political prisoners with high-dose radiation, possibly to provoke cancer(s) in them. [2]
The opening of Stasi archives exposed informants, some of whom today hold high office, e.g. in Finland, presidential advisor Alpo Rusi was suspected of having been a Stasi informant; he was cleared.
Recovery of Stasi archives
Stasi archives
During the regime's final days in 1989–90, Stasi officials shredded documents with paper shredders and by hand. The new government found and confiscated the hastily stored bags of shredded paper. In 1995, the German government began reassembling the documents; six years later the three dozen archivists commissioned to the projects had only reassembled 300 bags; they then used computer-assisted data recovery to reassemble the remaining 16,000 bags — estimated at 33 million pages. [1]
In 1992, following a declassification ruling by the German government, the Stasi files were published, leading people to look for their files. Timothy Garton Ash, an English historian, wrote ''The File: A Personal History'' after reading the file compiled about him while he completed his dissertation research in East Berlin.
CIA acquired some Stasi records after looting the Stasi archives. The Federal Republic of Germany has asked for their return and received some in April 2000. BBC
Museum in the old headquarters
Stasi HQ in Lichtenberg
The Anti-Stalinist Action Normannenstraße (ASTAK), an association founded by former GDR Citizens' Committees, has transformed the former headquarters of the Stasi into a museum. It is divided into three floors:
★ Ground floor
The ground floor has been kept as it used to be. The decor is original, with many statues and flags.
★ Between the ground and first floor:
★
★ Surveillance technology and Stasi symbols: Some of the tools that the Stasi used to track down their opponents. During an interview the seats were covered with a cotton sheet, to collect the perspiration of the victim. His name was written in a glass and the sheet was kept in the archives. Other common ways that the scents would be collected is through breaking into a home and taking parts of garments. The most common garment taken was underwear, because of how close the garment is to the skin. The Stasi would then use trained dogs to track down the person using this scent. Other tools shown here include a tie-camera, cigarette box camera, and an Ak-47 hidden in luggage.
★
★ Display gallery of Directorate VII. This part of the museum tells the history of the Stasi, from the beginning of the GDR to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
★ First floor
★
★ Mielke's offices. The decor is 60s furniture. There is a reception room with a TV set in the cafeteria. They still serve coffee in it.
★
★ Office of Colonel Heinz Volpert
★
★ Lounge for drivers and bodyguards
★
★ Office of Major-General Hans Carlsohn, director of the secretariat
★
★ Secretariat
★
★ The Cafeteria
★
★ Kitchen
★
★ The Minister’s Workroom
★
★ The Conference Room with a giant map of Germany on a wall—one of the most impressive rooms.
★
★ The cloakroom
★ 2nd floor
★
★ Repression - Rebellion - Self-Liberation from 1945 to 1989
Photo gallery:
Society for Legal and Humanitarian Support
Ex-Stasi officers continue to be politically active via the ''Gesellschaft zur Rechtlichen und Humanitären Unterstützung e. V.'' (Society for Legal and Humanitarian Support) (GRH). Former high-ranking officers and employees of the Stasi, including the Stasi's last director, Wolfgang Schwanitz, make up the majority of the organization's members, and it receives support from the German Communist Party, among others.
Impetus for the establishment of the GRH was provided by the criminal charges filed against the Stasi in the early 1990s. The GRH, decrying the charges as "victor's justice", called for them to be dropped. Today the group provides an alternative if somewhat utopian voice in the public debate on the GDR legacy. It calls for the closure of the museum in Hohenschönhausen and can be a vocal presence at memorial services and public events. In March 2006 in Berlin, GRH members disrupted a museum event; a political scandal ensued when the Berlin Senator (Minister) of Culture refused to confront them.[3]
Behind the scenes, the GRH also exerts pressure on people and institutions promoting opposing viewpoints. For example, in March 2006, the Berlin Senator for Education received a letter from a GRH member and former Stasi officer attacking the Museum for promoting "falsehoods, anticommunist agitation and psychological terror against minors". [4] Similar letters have also been received by schools organizing field trips to the museum. [5]
Chairmen of the Stasi
★ Wilhelm Zaisser (1950–1953)
★ Ernst Wollweber (1953–1957)
★ Erich Mielke (1957–1989)
Alleged Informants
★ Vic Allen [5]
★ Gert Bastian
★ Ibrahim Böhme
★ Richard Clements [6]
★ Tom Driberg [7]
★ Gwyneth Edwards [8]
★ Raymond Fletcher [9]
★ Torsten Gütschow, footballer
★ Katarina Witt, figure skater [10]
★ Günter Guillaume (who spied upon Willy Brandt, the West German Chancellor)
★ Lutz Heilmann—today Member of the Left Party and the first former Stasi official elected into the Federal Legislature (Bundestag)
★ Martin Kirchner
★ Ulf Kirsten
★ Charlotte von Mahlsdorf
★ Robin Pearson [11]
★ John Roper, Baron Roper of Thorney Island [12]
★ Wolfgang Schnur
★ Manfred Stolpe—former German transportation minister (2002–2005) and minister-president of Brandenburg (1990–2002)
★ Christa Wolf - famous German writer and intellectual
In fiction
The Academy Award-winning German film ''Das Leben der Anderen'' (''The Lives Of Others'').
The Legend of Rita ''(Die Stille nach dem Schuß)'', a 2000 film directed by Volker Schlöndorff, dwells heavily on the relationship between the Stasi and the general population of East Germany. The second-most prominent character is the Stasi "control" for the title character.
Trivia
At its zenith, the STASI had records on some 6 million people. It also had an archive of sweat and body odor samples.
STASI was known for the radical, fantasical methods it employed. One of the most common methods was having suspects contact a radioactive material, then using Geiger counters to follow them.
STASI's Leipzig building "Runde Ecke" was preserved in its original condition, and now is a museum with some 3,000 daily visitors.
Experts think that at its zenith, STASI had a network of some 300,000 informants.
Urban legend has it that the STASI archive documents can form a 180-km-long domino pattern.
See also
★ Verfassungsschutz
★ Mass surveillance
★ Stasiland
★ Felix Dzerzhinsky Watch Regiment
★ Stasi 2.0
Footnotes
1. Koehler (1999)
2. ''Dissidents say Stasi gave them cancer''—BBC, Tuesday 25 May 1999.
3. ''Stasi Offiziere Leugnen den Terror''. ''Berliner Morgenpost'' 16 March 2006. [2]
4. Backmann, Christa. ''Stasi-Anhänger schreiben an Bildungssenator Böger''. ''Berliner Morgenpost'' 25 March 2006. [3]
5. Schomaker, Gilbert. ''Ehemalige Stasi-Kader schreiben Schulen an''. ''Die Welt'', 26 March 2006. [4]
References
★ ''Stasi'' by John O. Koehler, West View Press, 1999, ISBN 0-8133-3409-8.
External links
German
★ More about Stasi victims
★ Office administering the Stasi files
★ Stasi Museum in Stasi office, Berlin-Lichtenberg
★ Homepage of the ''Gesellschaft zur Rechtlichen und Humanitären Unterstützung''
★ Interview with a stasi victim, vlog by amadelio''
English
★ Official website of award winning film The Lives of Others
★ Photos of Stasi Headquarters in Berlin
★ Read about the Defection of a Stasi Agent
★ "Support Group For Spies: From East German Spooks to West German Victims" by Khuê Pham, ''Spiegel Online'', June 11, 2007.
This article provided by Wikipedia. To edit the contents of this article, click here for original source.
psst.. try this: add to faves
