Stasi

The Ministry of State Security (MfS), also known by the abbreviated name Stasi, was both an intelligence service and a secret police force in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and functioned as an instrument of government of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). Formally, it was a "Ministry of Armed Organs" within the Council of Ministers of the German Democratic Republic. The Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (HVA), the foreign intelligence service of the GDR, was also one of about twenty main administrations of the MfS.

The MfS was founded on February 8, 1950, and developed into a widely ramified surveillance and repression apparatus with a large number of personnel. In 1989, it had about 91,000 full-time employees and between 110,000 (Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk) and 189,000 (Helmut Müller-Enbergs) unofficial employees (IM). Müller-Enbergs identified political ideals as the main motive for cooperation. Money played only a subordinate role, and blackmailing cooperation with the GDR spy apparatus was rare. In terms of domestic policy, the MfS, which was used as an instrument of power, had a protective function for state organs and individuals.

People from the GDR population were targeted by the MfS if they were suspected of political resistance against the SED, espionage or Republikflucht. Methodically, the MfS used observation, intimidation, imprisonment, and so-called decomposition against opposition members and critics of the regime ("hostile-negative persons") as means. In the 1950s, physical torture was still used in Stasi prisons; later, sophisticated psychological methods were employed. In the 1980s, the Stasi repeatedly trained terrorists of the Red Army Faction (RAF) in the use of weapons and explosives.

In the course of the peaceful revolution in the autumn, the MfS was renamed the Office for National Security (AfNS) in November 1989, which ceased its activities as early as the beginning of December as a result of pressure from the citizens' committees and was completely dissolved by March 1990. Since 1990, the Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the Former German Democratic Republic (BStU) has been responsible for researching and managing the written legacy of the authority. The MfS is the only secret service in German history that has been comprehensively uncovered and reappraised.

With the Feliks Dzierzynski Guard Regiment, the MfS also had its own military-operational force, which in 1990 comprised about 11,000 men. In addition to the MfS, there was another intelligence service in the GDR, the Military Reconnaissance of the National People's Army, based in Berlin-Köpenick. This - like the border troops and the rest of the NVA - was controlled by the MfS's Hauptabteilung I (MfS Military Defense or Administration 2000).

Legal and social reappraisal

Stasi Records Act

The dissolution of the State Security Service did not end with reunification on 3 October 1990. On 29 December 1991, the Stasi Records Act (StUG), which the German Bundestag had passed by a large majority, came into force. The central concern of this law was the complete opening of the files of the former State Security Service, and in particular the access of those concerned to the information which the State Security Service had stored on them. For the first time, citizens were thus given the opportunity to inspect documents that a secret service had kept on them. This was ensured by the Office of the Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former GDR, often referred to as the Gauck, and later the Birthler and Jahn Authorities, after their heads.

According to the provisions of the Stasi Documents Act, the naming of IM is permissible for the purpose of reconnaissance and research. In March 2008, Holm Singer ("IM Schubert") obtained a temporary injunction before the Zwickau Regional Court against the exhibition "Christian Action in the GDR" organized by Edmund Käbisch. The exhibition was then temporarily suspended. The legal dispute was terminated by the Zwickau Regional Court on 24 March 2010 by default judgment: "It is ... not objectionable that the approach of the MfS is personalized, as it were, to the individual case and the activity of the defendant (Holm Singer) is concretized by the plaintiff (Edmund Kaebisch) with full naming. It is precisely the concretization on the basis of individual fates that serves, as is well known, to make it easier for historical laypersons to familiarize themselves with historical topics that are otherwise difficult to understand... The concretizing presentation thus makes it possible to make clear the entire extent of the MfS's involvement on the basis of an individual fate and to show in what way the MfS was able to infiltrate and manipulate even relatively closed opposition circles...".

Rehabilitation of victims

The Criminal Rehabilitation Act (Strafrechtliches Rehabilitierungsgesetz), which came into force in 1992, regulates the annulment of punitive measures and deprivations of liberty that are grossly contrary to the rule of law. Compensation payments are linked to the criminal rehabilitation. In the opinion of the victims' associations, the rehabilitation legislation does not fully cover the losses suffered by Stasi victims: for example, imprisonment contrary to the rule of law or a ban on working are not taken into account when calculating pensions. Today, those affected have to live below the poverty line, while former employees of the Ministry for State Security receive a pension for their activities in the Stasi regime.

Historical revisionism of former Stasi cadres

Decades after the dissolution of the secret service, former Stasi cadres still engage in historical revisionism, glorify and beautify the SED dictatorship and attempt to defame the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen memorial and former victims.

In April 2006, Marianne Birthler, then Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service, declared that former full-time employees of the MfS, now organized in associations, were trying "to improve the reputation of the GDR in general, and of the Stasi in particular, to lie about the facts". They also draw the cynical conclusion that "it couldn't have been that bad" from the fact that out of 30,000 preliminary proceedings against MfS employees, there were only about 20 convictions. The only reason why there were hardly any convictions was that in a constitutional state only acts that were already against the law at the time they were committed could be punished (non-retroactivity, nulla poena sine lege). Thus, if there had been no violation of GDR laws at the time of the offence, it could not be sentenced today because of it. Only in the case of felonies and homicides not treated as criminal offences, such as the execution of the shoot-to-kill order, would the principle come into play that unjust laws of dictatorships could have no validity (Radbruch's formula). Thus, it was unfortunately a fact that in the case of unjust acts of the MfS against prisoners or persons under surveillance who became victims of the MfS's methods of subversion, no convictions could be handed down. "But to conclude from this that this is not an injustice is the height of cynicism."

Memorials

In the premises of the former central remand prison of the Stasi, where from 1951 to 1989 mainly political prisoners were physically and psychologically tortured, exists today the memorial Berlin-Hohenschönhausen. The main Stasi building in Berlin is now home to the Normannenstraße Research and Memorial Centre. The memorial Museum in the "Runde Ecke" is a Stasi museum in Leipzig. Furthermore, there is the memorial Bautzner Straße Dresden. The Bautzen Memorial devotes a thematic focus to the Stasi special prison Bautzen II (1956 to 1989).

Order

The MfS was first and foremost the GDR's secret police, which functioned without parliamentary or administrative-legal control as the SED's organ of surveillance and repression and controlled GDR society in all areas. Only secondarily is the MfS to be seen as a foreign intelligence service.

The focus of the tasks was reflected in the numerical distribution of the personnel. Under the direction of the Stasi, a total of 33,000 political prisoners were deported from the GDR to West Germany in the years 1964 to 1989 in prisoner ransom transactions, for a per capita payment of between DM 40,000 and DM 95,000.

Among the methods used were confessions, sometimes forced under torture, and theatrically staged show trials, including the preparation of their sentences.

By decision of the SED Politburo of September 23, 1953, it was determined that the Ministry of State Security was to function as a military organ, both as a domestic and foreign intelligence service. This included the following areas of responsibility:

Domestic

Domestically, it included the conduct of agent activities, e.g. the control of mass organizations and the targeted disintegration and splitting of potential opposition circles, such as intellectuals, dissidents, as well as the church and its youth groups. It also involved the comprehensive surveillance of GDR citizens and, in some cases, their relatives outside the GDR, disregarding their civil rights. In jargon, this was also called "uncovering and eliminating hostile decomposition activities". This took the form of spying, censorship of the press and films, and suppression of freedom of expression, among other things.

The domestic intelligence service was also responsible for the investigation and pre-trial detention of criminal offences such as Republikflucht (Republikflucht) pursuant to Section 213 of the GDR Penal Code (referred to there from 1968 as "unlawful border crossing") and anti-state agitation. In addition, he was responsible for the control ("protection") of all armed organs of the GDR (border troops, NVA and People's Police), the control ("protection") of the state apparatus (other ministries), the control ("protection") of the national economic organs (combines and enterprises) as well as the control ("protection") of transportation and tourism. In the transport sector, from 1982 onwards there were also work assignments for the Deutsche Reichsbahn ("traction current" order of 12/82), in particular in the construction and supervision of the line electrification work in the Berlin area (demonstrably until 1987).

Furthermore, its activities included cooperation between security organs and the People's Police, personal protection of party and state functionaries, and surveillance of so-called "privileged persons" (diplomats, accredited press, and businessmen).

After deaths at the Berlin Wall or the inner-German border, the MfS took over the investigation of the events and their concealment from the public and the relatives. In doing so, the MfS "legendized" the cases in order to either give them little or no attention or to direct attention in a certain direction. Killed border guards were stylized by the MfS as heroes for whose deaths enemy agents or criminals were responsible. Crime scene investigation reports, death certificates and other documents were falsified for this purpose. Furthermore, the MfS controlled the whereabouts of the bodies and the circumstances of the funerals. Relatives were obliged to keep quiet about the circumstances of the deaths or were told fictitious stories. In 1975, Mielke described his ministry as a "special organ of the dictatorship of the proletariat".

Abroad

Abroad, the tasks included the conduct of covert operations typical of the intelligence service (MfS term: active measures) and espionage by the Central Intelligence Agency (HV A). They also included reconnaissance work in West Germany and West Berlin with the aim of obtaining information from all important institutions of the Western Allies (Bonn government, industry, research).

The foreign intelligence service continued to take on the active counterintelligence and defense against attacks by private and state organizations, as well as the active influencing of public life in the West through the penetration of MfS informants into all important areas (for example, through active disinformation).

In the context of foreign missions of the NVA, for example in Mozambique, "civilian missions" for construction projects and infrastructure were carried out with forces (among others of the guard regiment Feliks Dzierzynski), who did not appear in uniform, because of the possible danger of escape.

Assassinations

There is evidence of various assassination attempts by the MfS on opponents of the regime living in the West. After the Wall was built in 1961, the Stasi trained "fighters" who practiced liquidating people on a secret military training ground. For example, MfS agents repeatedly attempted to murder Wolfgang Welsch, an escape agent living in West Germany. In the case of the murder of the GDR dissident Bernd Moldenhauer, who lived in the West, circumstantial evidence suggests that the MfS had ordered the perpetrator. Siegfried Schulze, who had fled the GDR in 1972 and had undertaken spectacular actions against the Berlin Wall, became the target of an assassination attempt in 1975. It was suspected that the MfS had been involved in the accidental death of the football player Lutz Eigendorf. According to the report, Eigendorf had first been injected with alcohol and then blinded while driving. A former IM with multiple convictions also stated that he had received an order from the MfS to kill Eigendorf, but had not carried it out. However, the public prosecutor's office does not see any objective evidence that someone else was responsible for Eigendorf's death. Kay Mierendorff, an escape agent from Steglitz, was the victim of a letter bomb attack in 1982, which he survived with serious injuries; his wife died of the late effects. "Mierendorff's right hand was half shredded, both eardrums were destroyed (hearing loss), his right eye popped out of its socket, his face was covered with wounds, his abdominal wall and liver ripped open, his intestines injured and deep lacerations in his upper arm and chest." He had foiled several attacks by the Stasi, but "Germany became too hot" for him afterwards and he moved to Florida. Assassination attempts on Rainer Hildebrandt and Friedrichshain pastor Rainer Eppelmann were planned. The fugitive border guard Rudi Thurow was to be beaten to death with a 1000 gram hammer in 1963. The defector Werner Stiller was to be kidnapped or murdered in the GDR. The writer, civil rights activist and representative of the opposition in the GDR Jürgen Fuchs and his entourage were terrorized with numerous "Stasi decomposition measures" because he openly reported about the Stasi and the prisoner ransom. Assassination attempts followed. In 1986 a bomb exploded in front of Fuchs' house and his car brakes were sabotaged.

Assassinations were planned in close coordination with the Soviet secret service KGB, and the murder scenarios were personally approved by Erich Mielke. The victims included defectors from their own ranks, especially from the SED apparatus, the People's Police and the National People's Army, as well as German citizens who were involved in anti-communist organizations.

Terrorist attacks

Under the code name "Separate", the Stasi had maintained close contacts with the terrorist group of the Venezuelan terrorist Carlos since at least 1980. It has been proven that the GDR's State Security Service was involved in international terrorism via the left-wing extremist terrorist group Revolutionary Cells:

On 25 August 1983, a bomb attack was carried out on the Maison de France cultural centre on Berlin's Kurfürstendamm. One person was killed and 23 seriously injured. The 24 kilograms of explosives destroyed the top two floors of the building, which housed the French Consulate General, which was the target of the attack. In September 1990, a file came into the hands of the Federal Criminal Police Office at the Central Criminal Police Office in East Berlin, revealing the terrorist involvement of the Ministry for State Security: The Stasi had enabled German terrorist Johannes Weinrich, head of the Revolutionary Cells terrorist group, to prepare the terrorist attack from East Berlin: Weinrich, who was traveling on a Syrian passport, brought the explosives to East Berlin in 1982, where the Stasi temporarily confiscated them. When, during a search of Weinrich's hotel room in January 1983, Stasi agents gained insight into his plans for the planned explosive attack in Berlin, with which the terrorist Magdalena Kopp was to be released from French custody, he was given back his 24 kg of explosives. Because of this, Weinrich, who was also a member of the Organization of Internationalist Revolutionaries ("Carlos Group") and was considered the "right-hand man" of top terrorist Carlos, was sentenced to life imprisonment in the 1990s. The former Stasi lieutenant colonel responsible, Helmut Voigt, at the time head of Department XXII (the MfS's counter-terrorism unit), was sentenced to four years in prison for aiding and abetting murder in 1994.

According to research by the Forschungsverbund SED-Staat, the MfS was actively involved in the bombing of the La Belle discotheque in Berlin-Schöneberg on the night of April 4-5, 1986. Stasi documents have revealed that a Stasi unofficial employee (IM) was involved in the preparations for the nail bomb attack on the La Belle discotheque in Berlin on 5 April, which was mainly frequented by soldiers of the US armed forces and in which three people died and hundreds were injured. Stasi informer Yasser C., a Palestinian student at Berlin's Technical University with the alias Alba, had scouted three possible attack targets, including La Belle, he said. A call girl with connections to the Stasi, Verena C., had planted the bomb at the attack site.

Support for right-wing extremists

According to the Federal Prosecutor's Office, the Stasi helped German right-wing extremists to flee underground into the GDR. For example, neo-Nazi Odfried Hepp (who committed several terrorist attacks and bank robberies in Germany with a right-wing terrorist group in 1982) was helped to disappear into the GDR. The Stasi also helped German right-wing extremist and arms dealer Udo Albrecht to flee the Federal Republic. Both became employees of the GDR State Security.

"Combat meeting" in the Palace of the Republic in East Berlin on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the formation of the Ministry of State Security, 1985.