Table of Contents
What is the difference between the Stasi and the Gestapo?
The Stasi employed one secret policeman for every 166 East Germans. By comparison, the Gestapo deployed one secret policeman per 2,000 people. As ubiquitous as this was, the ratios swelled when informers were factored in: counting part-time informers, the Stasi had one agent per 6.5 people.
What did the Stasi do?
The Stasi, whose formal role was not defined in the legislation, was responsible for both domestic political surveillance and foreign espionage, and it was overseen by the ruling Socialist Unity Party. Under Erich Mielke, its director from 1957 to 1989, the Stasi became a highly effective secret police organization.
How many Stasi are informants?
The Stasi created a vast web of full-time agents and part-time spies, with some historians calculating that there was one informant for every 6.5 citizens.
How did the Stasi control East Germany?
Over the 40-year existence of communist East Germany, the Ministry of State Security built one of the most tightly controlled surveillance regimes in history. The Stasi created a vast web of full-time agents and part-time spies, with some historians calculating that there was one informant for every 6.5 citizens.
Did the Stasi execute people?
Teske’s sentence was posthumously overturned after German reunification when it was deemed unlawful by standards of East German law, and two jurists from his trial were prosecuted….
| Werner Teske | |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Intelligence officer |
| Known for | Last person executed by East Germany in June 1981 |
| Signature |
What is a Stasi informer?
listen); both from German inoffizieller Mitarbeiter), or euphemistically informal collaborator (informeller Mitarbeiter), was an informant in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) who delivered private information to the Ministry for State Security (MfS / Stasi).
What techniques did the Stasi use?
Tactics included questioning, repeated stop and searches, strange noises on telephone lines, conspicuous visits to the workplace so that bosses and colleagues were aware of the police interest etc.
Where do I find Stasi files?
Requesting to View One’s Own File. Requests to view one’s file can be submitted to the Stasi Records Archive in Berlin or to the regional offices. Request forms are available at all of our offices. You can request by telephone to have a form sent to you.
How many Stasi files are there?
The Stasi spied on almost every aspect of East Germans’ daily lives, and it carried out international espionage. It kept files on about 5.6 million people and amassed an enormous archive. The archive holds 111 kilometres (69 mi) of files in total….Stasi Records Agency.
| Stasi-Unterlagen-Behörde | |
| Archives overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | December 29, 1991 |
What happened to the East German Stasi?
After outraged demonstrators stormed the central Stasi buildings to prevent the shredding of files in 1989-1990, those in control agreed that all documents of the East German intelligence service were to be transferred to the state archive for the purpose of research and to enable public access.
How many people in East Germany were under Stasi surveillance?
More than one in three East Germans (5.6 million) was under suspicion or surveillance, with an open Stasi file. Another half million were feeding the Stasi information.
Who was in charge of the Gestapo in Germany?
On 20 April 1934, oversight of the Gestapo passed to the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, who was also appointed Chief of German Police by Hitler in 1936. Instead of being exclusively a Prussian state agency, the Gestapo became a national one as a sub-office of the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo; Security Police).
What were the Stasi?
Better known as the Stasi (the German acronym), these secret police were the ” Schild und Schwert der Partei ” (Shield and Sword of the Party). Their sole function was to keep the Communist Party in power.