“Comrade, we must know everything!”: Arich Milke’s message was clear. From 1957 to 1989, as a director of the State Security Ministry of East Germany (usually known as Stasi), he oversee the systematic monitoring of his citizens.
Stocky informers can be found anywhere between Kolag or friends. His task was to find people with labels as “harmful” to the society. In the eyes of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) regime, it also includes any person who criticized the system and collaborated with the so -called “class enemy”.
This argument gave validity to the construction of the Berlin wall in 1961, which GDR called the “imperialist” or “fascist” capitalists in the West called “Anti-fascist protection barriers” against the capitalists.
Standy Methods: Monitoring and Threatening
For GDR, the enemy was everywhere. For Stayi Secret Police, which was established in 1950, anything can cause doubt: a joke about the President of the State Council, to listen to non-non-originistic music, to receive letters from the West, or to travel to West Germany.
As “The Shield and Sword of the Party”, Stasi was in charge of maintaining the rule of the Socialist Ekta Party (SED) of Germany by closing at any protest.
Stocky officials will read their mail and spy people, wire their calls and enter their apartments illegally. They will intimate people and spread rumors – that they were alcoholic, or gay, for example – to discredit them.
In a specific fraudulent trick, agents also read about someone working for stackers. Many GDR citizens were imprisoned after criticizing the government.
Why people worked for stassi
Colloquial, stassi was known as “company” (company) or “harch and greef” (“Suno and Nab”). Around 90,000 people worked full-time for Stocky, while 100,000–200,000 “informal colleagues” (based on source) served as informers, when the Berlin wall collapsed.
These informal informers will spy their friends and family – either voluntarily, or because they were placed under the press.
But what work did he do for the ruling rule?
It depends, the historian Philip Springer said, whose book, “The Full -Time” (“Stasie Stascy”) was published in July in Germany.
“One reason was that your fellow citizens had a feeling of power,” Springer spoke about the motivations to join the Stocky. “And then the promises made by the ministry, which claim that the job was interesting and even for deployment abroad could be. At the end of the day, it was a very safe task – uniquely for those struggling with their possibilities of care.”
‘Less exciting that you can imagine’
While researching his book, the author discovered rare photographs of stacked officers at work from Stocky Records Archive.
As detectives and informers, stassi employees were usually behind the camera, not in front. Looking at the photos, the promise of an exciting life as a secret service agent quickly fades.
Springer said, “If you were posted abroad and were involved in espionage, a gems can be some aspects of bond life.” ,[But] If you were not directly involved in detective, most of it was less exciting that you can imagine. ,
So that’s why the pictures in the book seem some dull and amateur: a man standing on a copy machine, for example, or someone else is sitting on his table. A woman working in the kitchen, or sometimes, reaches just one hand index card box.
“Of course, all are very common things to see thesis and are not real exciting,” Springer said. “But at the end of the day, all thesis stacked staff helped to continue the state system. They were all part of the system and were politically and ideologically trained … they were defending the socialist GDR against the West.”
‘Tiny clogs in this huge machine’
The author tried to include the autobiography of some subjects in the photographs, including the first lieutenant Elfi-Anl Martens, whose father had already worked for Stocky, as her husband did. Created as “ready for duty” and praised as “hardworking and service,” he promised to try to stop a relative from traveling to the West.
Martens said at that time, “My husband and I will talk to him again, and should he not be ready to cancel his journey, we will cut all the relationships with him.”
A corporal silke kinder, ie, was painted in the book, had secretly proposed to attach a camera under the shopping basket to take photos. Is Major General Horst Bohm so loyal to the government that he committed suicide even after the disintegration of GDR.
“You often think: Okay, they had just a small clogue in this huge machine,” Springer said. “But at the end of the day … he chose to invest a lot of time and energy to work for this ruling rule. And hence he would have to face the fact that there are files about them.”
Learn from the past
It eventually ended for GDR intelligence service in 1990 after the fall of Berlin Wall and German Reunion.
On January 15, 1990, thousands of protesters exploded at Stacey Headquarters. About 15,000 bags of destroyed stassi documents were discovered, but officials were able to preserve more than 1.7 million photos collected in decades, 41 million index cards and more than 1.7 million photos collected in decades.
Many Eastern German people submitted applications to see their personal files. Some came to know that the information was collected by friends and family. Still TOPY, former GDR citizens have many requests for files, Springer said.
“In my opinion, the matter should be paid more attention at a political or national level, as injustice was done here by an entry tool. It is imported to keep the memory alive,” he said.
He said that future generations need to understand what happened, “it is the responsibility of protecting our democratic system”.
This article was original in German.
Correction, August 1, 2025: Recalls the name of Elfi-ELFE Martens in the earlier edition of this article. DW waiver for error.
