Stasi

The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit; abbreviated MfS), often called the Stasi, was the intelligence service and secret police of East Germany (the German Democratic Republic or GDR) from 1950 to 1990. It was one of the most repressive police groups in the world. It watched over almost every part of people's lives in East Germany. It used harsh treatment, intimidation, and a large network of informants to stop people from speaking out against the government.

The Stasi did a similar job to the KGB in the Soviet Union. It helped keep the government in power and protected the ruling party, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). It did this mainly with many ordinary people who secretly reported on others, called unofficial collaborators. Their reports led to many people being arrested. The Stasi also had a large special force, the Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment, which acted as its armed group. It was known as "the shield and the sword of the party." The Stasi locked up people who opposed the government. Officers treated prisoners very badly.

The Stasi also carried out espionage and other secret work outside the GDR through its foreign intelligence service, the Office of Reconnaissance, or Head Office A (German: Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung or HVA). Its agents also made contacts in West Germany and across the western world. It is claimed that they sometimes worked with West German far-right terrorist groups, such as the Hepp-Kexel-Group.

The Stasi had its headquarters in East Berlin. It had a large complex in Berlin-Lichtenberg and several smaller buildings around the city. Erich Mielke, the Stasi's longest-serving chief, led the organisation from 1957 to 1989. That was 32 of the 40 years the GDR existed. The HVA, led by Markus Wolf from 1952 to 1986, became known as one of the most effective intelligence agencies of the Cold War.

After the German reunification of 1989 to 1991, some former Stasi officials were put on trial for their actions. The surveillance files the Stasi had kept on millions of East German citizens were declassified. This meant that people could ask to see their own files. The Stasi Records Agency kept the files until June 2021, when they became part of the German Federal Archives.

Creation

The Stasi was founded on 8 February 1950. Wilhelm Zaisser was its first Minister of State Security, and Erich Mielke was his deputy. After the June 1953 uprising, Zaisser tried to remove SED General Secretary Walter Ulbricht. Ulbricht removed Zaisser instead and replaced him with Ernst Wollweber. After the uprising, the Politbüro made the Stasi a smaller State Secretariat under the Ministry of the Interior, led by Willi Stoph. It became a full ministry again in November 1955. Wollweber resigned in 1957 after arguments with Ulbricht and Erich Honecker. His deputy, Erich Mielke, took over.

In 1957, Markus Wolf became head of the Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (HVA), the Stasi's foreign-intelligence section. Wolf was very successful at placing spies in the government, politics, and business circles of West Germany. The most important case was that of Günter Guillaume. It led to the fall of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt in May 1974. In 1986, Wolf retired and was replaced by Werner Grossmann.

Relationship with Soviet Intelligence Services

See also: Eastern Bloc politics, Eastern Bloc information dissemination, and Active measures

Even though the Stasi was given some independence in 1957, the KGB kept officers in the Stasi's main offices and in each of the fifteen district headquarters around the GDR. The KGB also invited the Stasi to set up bases in Moscow and Leningrad to watch East German tourists who were visiting. Because the two groups worked so closely, Mielke called Stasi officers "Chekists." The KGB used quiet forms of harassment to control people it saw as political opponents. This could cause people to lose their jobs, feel alone, and suffer emotionally. These methods were the basis of the Stasi's Zersetzung (decomposition).

In 1978, Mielke officially gave KGB officers in East Germany the same powers they had in the Soviet Union. The BBC reported that KGB officer Vladimir Putin, who later became Russian President, worked in Dresden from 1985 to 1989 as a liaison officer to the Stasi. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov responded to these reports by saying that "The KGB and the Stasi were partner intelligence agencies."

See also: Censorship in East Germany

From 1950 to 1989, the Stasi employed many people to find and stop those it saw as enemies of the state. In 1989, it had about 91,000 full-time staff, along with many unofficial helpers. Officers were usually chosen from former soldiers who had been members of the SED, had been active in the Party's youth group, and had reported to the Stasi during their military service. They then had to pass tests and attended a two-year training course at the Stasi college (Hochschule) in Potsdam. By 1995, many inoffizielle Mitarbeiter (IMs) had been identified. Joachim Gauck suggested there could have been even more informers, and historians still debate how many IMs were actually employed. Full-time officers were placed in major factories, and one tenant in each apartment building reported to the Volkspolizei (Vopo). Schools, universities, hospitals, and computer clubs were also heavily infiltrated. Informants included people in the Protestant Church and the arts. The number of IMs peaked around 1975, the year Eastern Bloc countries signed the Helsinki Accords, which Erich Honecker saw as a serious threat to his government.

Main article: Zersetzung

By the 1970s, the Stasi had decided that open methods such as arrest and harsh treatment were too crude and drew criticism from around the world. It turned instead to Zersetzung, a term from chemistry meaning "decomposition". Its goal was to secretly weaken the self-confidence of people it saw as enemies, often through psychological harassment. Tactics included gaslighting, such as secretly moving furniture or swapping items in a victim's home, along with smear campaigns, denunciation, provocation, wiretapping, and bugging. Victims often did not know the Stasi was responsible. Because this approach was subtle, it could be plausibly denied, which was useful while the GDR was trying to improve its international standing during the Ostpolitik era of Willy Brandt. For these reasons, Zersetzung became the main method of control in the GDR.

Structure

By the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Stasi had more than 100,000 employees. About 11,000 of them worked in the Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment, and the rest worked in the agency's many departments.

The Ministry was split into more than 40 departments and branches, called Hauptabteilungen (Main Departments). Each one looked after a different part of the work. For example, one department handled internal security for the NVA and the Grenztruppen. Another handled internal security for the Volkspolizei. Another kept watch over the government, political parties, churches, sports, youth groups, and groups that disagreed with the government. The HVA worked on foreign intelligence, which means gathering secret information from other countries. Other departments ran border crossing permit offices in West Berlin and controlled telephones and wiretapping. The Arbeitsgruppe des Ministers handled special units, including the holding of people who were detained.

Directors

Timeline

International operations

See also: Main Directorate for Reconnaissance

After Germany was reunited, people learned about the Stasi's work in other countries. For example, it trained members of the West German Red Army Faction for military work. The Stasi and the KGB worked together in some Third World countries. The Soviets provided weapons, money and military advisors. The East Germans trained secret police and intelligence teams. Cuba was the first big test of this work. The newly independent Zanzibar soon asked for a state security service, and East Germany was the first country to recognize it. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana also asked for help, saying it was important to his Pan-African movement. The Derg government received help building a state security system. The Stasi also trained members of liberation movements in Rhodesia, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe, as well as members of the ANC. It was active in South Yemen, where it helped keep the port of Aden friendly so that weapons could reach the PLO.

The Stasi worked in many other countries. From 1957 to 1958, it helped train State Security organizations in Egypt under the Nasser government. This work ended in 1976, when Anwar Sadat stopped it. It also trained the Ba'athist Syrian Mukhabarat (secret police) under Hafez al-Assad and the Ba'ath Party. Its secret agent Günter Guillaume became a senior aide to Chancellor Willy Brandt and shared information about his work and personal life. Investigators said the Austrian businessman Martin Schlaff sent banned goods to East Germany. Stasi documents suggest that the Greek businessman Sokratis Kokkalis was a Stasi agent. The Stasi gave money and support to the Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof Group) and to Neo-Nazi groups in the West, in order to make the West look bad. A Stasi informant in the West Berlin police, Karl-Heinz Kurras, shot a demonstrator, Benno Ohnesorg. This helped stir up a wave of protest and violence. The Stasi helped the KGB spread false claims about HIV/AIDS through Operation Infektion. A German documentary reported that the KGB told the Stasi to cause trouble at the Sandoz chemical spill factory, to draw attention away from the Chernobyl disaster. A secret group linked to East Germany's government carried out several killings, including that of Swedish journalist Cats Falck. The Stasi also tried to harm the government critic Wolfgang Welsch using thallium, a poison. Stasi documents state that the KGB told Bulgarian agents to target Pope John Paul II, and the Stasi was asked to help hide the evidence. According to the National Review, a special Stasi unit helped Romanian intelligence take the Romanian dissident Oliviu Beldeanu out of West Germany against his will. In 1975, the Stasi secretly recorded a conversation between the West German politicians Helmut Kohl and Kurt Biedenkopf. It was later leaked to Stern magazine and presented as a transcript recorded by American intelligence.

Fall of the Soviet Union

It became harder to recruit informants as Germany moved toward unification. After 1986, more informants left the Stasi than joined it. This made it harder for the Stasi to keep watch on people during a time of growing unrest. More people learned about what the Stasi was doing. The Stasi had been asked to stop the country's economic problems from becoming political problems, but it did not succeed.

On 7 November 1989, Erich Mielke resigned as the situation in the GDR changed quickly. On 17 November 1989, the Council of Ministers (Ministerrat der DDR) renamed the Stasi the Office for National Security (AfNS). It was led by Generalleutnant Wolfgang Schwanitz. On 8 December 1989, GDR Prime Minister Hans Modrow ordered the AfNS to be closed down. The Council of Ministers confirmed this on 14 December 1989. At first, the Council planned to split the AfNS into a foreign intelligence service and an "Office for the Protection of the Constitution of the GDR," similar to West Germany's Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz. However, many people reacted very negatively. Under pressure from the "Round Table" (Runder Tisch), the government dropped this plan. It ordered the AfNS dissolved on 13 January 1990. Later, after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the parliament of unified Germany found that East Germany had sent large amounts of money to Martin Schlaff. The money went through accounts in Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein. In return, East Germany received goods "under Western embargo."

Recovery of Stasi files

During the Peaceful Revolution of 1989, citizens took over Stasi offices and prisons across East Germany. Before that, the Stasi destroyed many of its documents. After the GDR fell, Stasi workers destroyed even more files. On 15 January 1990, a large crowd gathered outside the Stasi headquarters and asked for the destruction to stop. Eventually, they got past the police and into the building.

After German reunification on 3 October 1990, a new government agency, the Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former German Democratic Republic, was set up to look after the files. People did not agree about whether the files should be opened. Some people, including Rainer Eppelmann, Lothar de Maizière, and Peter-Michael Diestel, worried that opening them could lead to revenge and violence. Others, such as Wolfgang Schäuble, wanted to move on from the Stasi past. Supporters of opening the files said that everyone should be able to see their own file. They also said that former members could be investigated and kept from holding office. The Volkskammer law was extended by the Unification Treaty, which allowed more people to see the files. In 1992, the files were opened, and many people asked to see their own. Timothy Garton Ash, an English historian, wrote a book about his own file. Some former Stasi members were arrested and put on trial, including Erich Mielke and Erich Honecker. Honecker was charged over deaths at the Berlin Wall. Shredded documents have been slowly pieced back together. Computers are now also being used to help rebuild the rest. The CIA had acquired some Stasi records, and Germany got some of them back in 2000. See also Rosenholz files.

Museums

Many memorial sites and museums about the Stasi are in former Stasi prisons and offices. The offices of the Stasi Records Agency in Berlin, Dresden, Erfurt, Frankfurt-an-der-Oder and Halle (Saale) also have exhibitions about the Stasi in their areas. In Berlin, the Stasi Museum is in a building on the former Stasi headquarters. The office of Erich Mielke, the head of the Stasi, has been kept as it was. The Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial is in Alt-Hohenschönhausen. It is in a former prison. Both the Soviet occupiers and the Stasi used it.

In Erfurt, the Memorial and Education Centre Andreasstraße is in a former Stasi prison in Erfurt. In Dresden, the Bautzner Strasse Memorial was a Stasi prison and regional office. In Frankfurt-an-der-Oder, a memorial and museum is in a building that was used by the Gestapo, the Soviet forces and the Stasi. In Gera, a former prison is now a memorial. In Halle (Saale), the Roter Ochse (Red Ox) is a museum and memorial in a former prison. Leipzig has the Memorial Museum in the "Round Corner," which was the former Stasi district headquarters. The Lübschützer Teiche Stasi Bunker is in Machern, a village near Leipzig. It was built as a fallout shelter for Stasi staff. In Magdeburg, the Moritzplatz memorial is on the site of a former prison. In Potsdam, a memorial at Lindenstraße tells the story of political persecution. The building was once a palace. Later it became a prison where people were held for their political views, including Jews who refused to wear the yellow star. After the Stasi used the site, it was reopened as a memorial, and the Neue Forum used the building as offices. In Rostock, the memorial is in a former Stasi prison. Part of the site is used by the University of Rostock. The state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern took ownership of the site in 1998.

Stasi officers after the reunification

Former Stasi agent Matthias Warnig (codename "Arthur") was the head of Nord Stream until 2023. Investigations have shown that some key managers at Gazprom Germania are former Stasi agents. Former Stasi officers also stay politically active through the Gesellschaft zur Rechtlichen und Humanitären Unterstützung (GRH, Society for Legal and Humanitarian Support). Most of its members were once high-ranking officers and staff of the Stasi, including the last Stasi director, Wolfgang Schwanitz. The group receives support from the German Communist Party, among others.

The GRH was started in response to criminal charges brought against the Stasi in the early 1990s. The group calls these charges "victor's justice" and wants them dropped. It also wants the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial to close. Sometimes the group speaks out at memorial services and public events. In March 2006 in Berlin, GRH members disrupted a museum event. This caused a political scandal, because the Berlin Senator (Minister) of Culture would not confront them. The GRH also writes private letters to people and groups with different views. In March 2006, the Berlin Senator for Education received a letter from a GRH member and former Stasi officer. The letter claimed the museum was spreading false information and upsetting young people. Schools that plan trips to the museum have also received similar letters.

Stasi agents

This section lists people who worked as agents for the Stasi. Each name below has its own article.

• Christel Boom
• Erich Bär
• Gabriele Gast
• Günter Guillaume
• Karl-Heinz Kurras
• Lilli Pöttrich
• Rainer Rupp
• Hans Sommer
• Werner Stiller
• Werner Teske
• Matthias Warnig
• Markus Wolf, who was often called the man without a face

Informants

Many well-known people were listed as Stasi informants, and some were given secret code names.

• Vic Allen, a professor at the University of Leeds.
• Helmut Aris, who helped start the Association of Jewish Communities in the GDR.
• Horst Bartel, a historian who followed Marxist–Leninist ideas.
• Almuth Beck, a politician in the SED and PDS parties.
• Jutta Braband, a civil rights activist and PDS politician.
• Siegfried Brietzke, a rower who won three gold medals at the Olympics.
• Georg Buschner, a football coach at FC Carl Zeiss Jena and the East Germany national football team. He was listed as an informant under the codename "Georg".
• Harald Czudaj, a bobsledder.
• Richard Clements, an adviser to Neil Kinnock.
• Diether Dehm, a singer, songwriter, music producer and politician (PDS, Left Party, Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht).
• 18 of the 72 players who played for Dynamo Dresden between 1978 and 1989 were listed as unofficial collaborators. These included Gerd Weber, who was listed under the codename "Wiehland", and Ulf Kirsten, who was listed under the codename "Knut Krüger".
• Gwyneth Edwards
• Horst Faas, a journalist.
• Uta Felgner, a hotel manager.
• Eduard Geyer, a former football coach at Dynamo Dresden. He was listed as an informant for more than ten years under the codename "Jahn".
• Horst Giese, an actor.
• Paul Gratzik, a communist writer.
• Gerhart Hass, a historian who followed Marxist ideas.
• Brigitte Heinrich, a politician for Alliance 90/The Greens.
• Anetta Kahane, a journalist, activist and founder of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation.
• Heinz Kahlau, a socialist writer.
• Heinz Kamnitzer, an academic who followed Marxist–Leninist ideas.
• Sokratis Kokkalis
• Karl-Heinz Kurras, a policeman who was involved in the death of Benno Ohnesorg.
• Christa Luft, a left-wing politician.
• Lothar de Maizière, the last prime minister of East Germany.
• Thomas Nord, a Left Party politician.
• Helga M. Novak, a writer.
• Robin Pearson (a lecturer at the University of Hull)
• Aleksander Radler, a Lutheran theologian.
• Bernd Runge, chief executive of the Phillips de Pury auction house
• Martin Schlaff, a billionaire businessman.
• Holm Singer
• Bernd Stange, a former coach of the East Germany national football team.
• Ingo Steuer, a figure skater who now trains others.
• Barbara Thalheim, a popular singer and songwriter.
• Christa Wolf, a socialist writer.