The Stasi Schild und Schirm der Partei. The Stasi in Numbers Nazi Germany : 1 Gestapo agent for...
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Transcript of The Stasi Schild und Schirm der Partei. The Stasi in Numbers Nazi Germany : 1 Gestapo agent for...
The Stasi
Schild und Schirm der Partei
The Stasi in Numbers
Nazi Germany : 1 Gestapo agent for every 2000 people
GDR : 1 Stasi agent for every 63 people
In 1989 :
91 000 Full-time employees
173 000 Unofficial Informants (Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter)
Reasons for GrowthThe Stasi incentivised people to collaborate through many ways• Personal Gain : Financial, Professional, Family,
Friends…• Communist Ideologies, Fight against Western
influence• Culture of denunciation from Nazi Germany
But mostly :
• Blackmailing and coercion
Methods of the Stasi
• Constant Surveillance
• Interception of all Mail and Communication
• Isolation, Sleep-deprivation, torture
Zersetzung (corrosion)
Infiltration in the FRGStasi infiltration in the West was an overwhelming success :
• MAD (Militarische Abschirmdienst)
• Gehlen Organisation• Bundesamt für
Verfassungsschutz
“Since the late 1960s the HVA (Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung) could monitor and thwart all relevant West German intelligence efforts on GDR territory.”
Stasi and SEDSword and Shield of the Party
• Physical and psychological torture to make population ‘malleable’
• Bribing CDU parliamentarians• Infiltration of governmental instiutions• Assuring dominance of SED
West German Security Services and the Constitution
Three different institutions :• Gehlen Organisation (Sovereign in 1956, later to
become BND)• Militarische Abschirmdienst (MAD)• Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV)
Legacy of WWII and Gestapo
Separation of Police and Intelligence Services
Miscommunication with other Western Intelligence Services
Lack of Information