Eyes of the Stasi

Inside a German secret agent’s unexciting life

“Comrades, we must know everything!”: Erich Mielke’s message was clear. As director of East Germany’s Ministry for State Security (commonly known as the Stasi) from 1957 to 1989, he oversaw the systematic surveillance of its citizens.

As per DW, Stasi informants could potentially be found anywhere, even among colleagues or friends. Their task was to detect people labeled as “harmful” to society. In the eyes of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) regime, this included anyone who criticised the system and cooperated with the so-called “class enemy.”

This reasoning legitimised the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, which the GDR called the “anti-fascist protection barrier” against the “imperialist” or “fascist” capitalists in the West.

To the GDR, the enemy was everywhere. For the Stasi secret police, which was founded in 1950, anything could arouse suspicion: From a joke about the chairman of the State Council, to listening to non-conformist music, to receiving letters with stamps from the West, or asking for a visitor’s permit to enter West Germany.

As “the shield and sword of the party,” the Stasi was in charge of maintaining the rule of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) by clamping down on any opposition.

Stasi officials would spy on people by reading their mail, wiretapping their calls and illegally entering their apartments. They would intimidate people and spread rumours — that they were alcoholic, or gay, for instance — to discredit them.

In an especially deceitful move, agents would sometimes even spread lies about someone working for the Stasi. Many GDR citizens were imprisoned after criticising the regime.

Working for the Stasi

Colloquially, the Stasi was known as “Die Firma” (The Company) or “Horch und Greif” (“Listen and Nab”). Around 90,000 people worked for the Stasi full-time, while 100,000-200,000 “informal collaborators” (depending on the source) worked as informants before November 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell.

These unofficial informants would spy on their friends and family — either willingly, or because they themselves were put under pressure.

But what made them work for the authoritarian regime?

That depends, said historian Philipp Springer, whose book, Die Hauptamtlichen (Staffing the Stasi) was published in July in Germany.

“One reason was the feeling of having power over your fellow citizens,” Springer explained of motivations for joining the Stasi. “And then there were the promises made by the ministry, which would claim that the job was interesting and might even allow for deployments abroad. At the end of the day, it was a very secure job to have — especially for people struggling with their career prospects.”

Not so exciting

When researching his book, the author rediscovered rare photographs of Stasi officials at work from the Stasi Records Archive.