These files are now maintained by the Stasi Records Agency. ==Creation== The Stasi was founded on 8 February 1950.
This system comprised prison camps for political, as opposed to criminal, offenders. ==Operations== ===Personnel and recruitment=== Between 1950 and 1989, the Stasi employed a total of 274,000 people in an effort to root out the class enemy.
The number of IMs peaked at around 180,000 in that year, having slowly risen from 20,000 to 30,000 in the early 1950s, and reaching 100,000 for the first time in 1968, in response to Ostpolitik and protests worldwide.
Zaisser tried to depose SED General Secretary Walter Ulbricht after the June 1953 uprising, but was instead removed by Ulbricht and replaced with Ernst Wollweber thereafter.
Following the June 1953 uprising, the Politbüro decided to downgrade the apparatus to a State Secretariat and incorporate it under the Ministry of the Interior under the leadership of Willi Stoph.
The Stasi held this status until November 1955, when it was restored to a ministry.
Wollweber resigned in 1957 after clashes with Ulbricht and Erich Honecker, and was succeeded by his deputy, Erich Mielke. In 1957, Markus Wolf became head of the Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (HVA) (Main Reconnaissance Administration), the foreign intelligence section of the Stasi.
In 1986, Wolf retired and was succeeded by Werner Grossmann. ==Relationship with the KGB== Although Mielke's Stasi was superficially granted independence in 1957, until 1990 the KGB continued to maintain liaison officers in all eight main Stasi directorates, each with his own office inside the Stasi's Berlin compound, and in each of the fifteen Stasi district headquarters around East Germany.
The number of IMs peaked at around 180,000 in that year, having slowly risen from 20,000 to 30,000 in the early 1950s, and reaching 100,000 for the first time in 1968, in response to Ostpolitik and protests worldwide.
It preferred to paralyze them, and it could do so because it had access to so much personal information and to so many institutions. |- |style="text-align: left;"|—Hubertus Knabe, German historian |} By the 1970s, the Stasi had decided that the methods of overt persecution that had been employed up to that time, such as arrest and torture, were too crude and obvious.
The most influential case was that of Günter Guillaume, which led to the downfall of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt in May 1974.
Mielke believed that the best informants were those whose jobs entailed frequent contact with the public. The Stasi's ranks swelled considerably after Eastern Bloc countries signed the 1975 Helsinki accords, which GDR leader Erich Honecker viewed as a grave threat to his regime because they contained language binding signatories to respect "human and basic rights, including freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and conviction".
In 1978, Mielke formally granted KGB officers in East Germany the same rights and powers that they enjoyed in the Soviet Union. ==Organization== The Ministry for State Security was organized according to the Line principle.
In 1986, Wolf retired and was succeeded by Werner Grossmann. ==Relationship with the KGB== Although Mielke's Stasi was superficially granted independence in 1957, until 1990 the KGB continued to maintain liaison officers in all eight main Stasi directorates, each with his own office inside the Stasi's Berlin compound, and in each of the fifteen Stasi district headquarters around East Germany.
A Swiss source reported in 1986 that the troops of the Ministry of State Security also had commando units similar to the Soviet Union's Spetsnaz GRU forces.
This system comprised prison camps for political, as opposed to criminal, offenders. ==Operations== ===Personnel and recruitment=== Between 1950 and 1989, the Stasi employed a total of 274,000 people in an effort to root out the class enemy.
By the time that East Germany collapsed in 1989, the Stasi employed 91,015 employees and 173,081 informants.
The Stasi also maintained contacts, and occasionally cooperated, with Western terrorists. Numerous Stasi officials were prosecuted for their crimes after 1990.
In 1986, Wolf retired and was succeeded by Werner Grossmann. ==Relationship with the KGB== Although Mielke's Stasi was superficially granted independence in 1957, until 1990 the KGB continued to maintain liaison officers in all eight main Stasi directorates, each with his own office inside the Stasi's Berlin compound, and in each of the fifteen Stasi district headquarters around East Germany.
Less mentally and academically endowed candidates were made ordinary technicians and attended a one-year technology-intensive course for non-commissioned officers. By 1995, some 174,000 inoffizielle Mitarbeiter (IMs) Stasi informants had been identified, almost 2.5% of East Germany's population between the ages of 18 and 60.
Administration 2000 operated a secret, unofficial network of informants within the NVA.
Administration 2000 was the name of the division in NVA documentation.
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Page generated on 2021-08-05