Stasi

The Stasi, formally the Ministry for State Security (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, MfS) of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was the state’s secret police and intelligence service. Established in 1950, it conducted internal surveillance and external intelligence gathering to protect the socialist regime and suppress political opposition. Its long-time head was Erich Mielke, who led the MfS from 1957 to 1989.

Organized as a centralized core with a broad network of unofficial informants (IMs), the MfS employed tens of thousands of full‑time staff and accumulated extensive files on the population. It used surveillance methods such as wiretaps, mail interception, stakeouts, and “Zersetzung”—covert actions designed to destabilize dissidents.

Dossiers reportedly covered millions of residents, with informants embedded in workplaces, churches, youth groups, and government bodies. The MfS worked alongside other state organs to control mobility and political life, and abuses included arbitrary detention, coercion, and persecution of perceived opponents.

After German reunification in 1990, the MfS was dissolved and its archives opened under the oversight of the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records (Bundesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen DDR, BStU) established in 1991. The Stasi’s legacy remains central to studies of surveillance and post‑war German memory.