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The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, pronounced [minɪsˈteːʁiʊm fyːɐ̯ ˈʃtaːtsˌzɪçɐhaɪ̯t]; abbreviated MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (pronounced [ˈʃtaːziː] ⓘ, an abbreviation of Staatssicherheit), was the state security service and secret police of East Germany from 1950 to 1990.
The Stasi Records Agency (German: Stasi-Unterlagen-Behörde) was the organisation that administered the archives of Ministry of State Security (Stasi) of the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany). It was a government agency of the Federal Republic of Germany. It was established when the Stasi Records Act came into force on 29 ...
Directive No. 1/76 on the Development and Revision of Operational Procedures, which outlined the use of Zersetzung in the Ministry for State Security. The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, MfS), commonly known as the Stasi, was the main security service of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany or GDR), and defined Zersetzung in its 1985 dictionary ...
It had secret police, commonly referred to as the Stasi, which made use of an extensive network of civilian informers. [30] From the 1970's, the main form of political, cultural and religious repression practiced by the Stasi, was a form of 'silent repression' [31] called Zersetzung ("Decomposition").
The Stasi kept files on about 5.6 million people. [9] The Stasi had 90,000 full-time employees who were assisted by 170,000 full-time unofficial collaborators (Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter); together these made up 1 in 63 (nearly 2%) of the entire East German population. Together with these, a much larger number of occasional informers brought up ...
The Stasi added a new prison building (using prisoner labour) in the late 1950s. The new building included 200 prison cells and interrogation rooms. After the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the prison was primarily used to house those who wished or attempted to leave East Germany, although political prisoners were also held there.
The Stasi floors were set up to hold a maximum of 96 detainees; by 1962 there were 121, and by 1989, the year the Berlin wall was opened, there were over 300 inmates. [2] [6] The first director of the Stasi part of the prison was Lieutenant Willi Stettner, a former inmate of Buchenwald concentration camp. [25]
Stasiland by Anna Funder is a book first published in Australia by Text Publishing in 2002 about individuals who resisted the East German regime, and others who worked for its secret police, the Stasi. It tells the story of what it was like to work for the Stasi, and describes how those who did so now come to terms, or do not, with their pasts.