The Stasi, East German State Security, went through a number of phases in its existence between 1950 and 1990. It was the "shield and sword" of the Socialist (former Communist) party and all its activities were aimed, one way or another, at keeping the party in the driving seat. As it evolved it came to understand that the only kind of surveillance that would keep the system together was total surveillance. So staff (full time and part time and informants) expanded and methods became more technically refined. In the early days it was more crude but when the era of "peaceful coexistence" came along it had to adopt a more subtle approach.

To give an idea of the scale of the thing: between 1950 and 1989, the Stasi employed a total of around 274,000 people. In 1989, it employed 91,000 full-time along with 173,000 unofficial informants. A former Stasi colonel estimated that the figure could be as high as 2 million if occasional informants were included. Thats more than one person in ten of the entire population.

The main building of the former Stasi Headquarters is now a Stasi museum. The full HQ consisted of a massive block between four streets and with a large inner courtyard, and a further building across the street.

A €1 excess on the admission charge allows you to take photos on your trip around this grim building, which is kept as it was during its active life. This leads to a very plain and clunky presentation which is all the more scary for its plainess. Taking photos in Stasi HQ is a totally weird feeling. Spying, however belatedly, on the ultimate spies themselves.

In theory there was no crime in the DDR (Deutsche Democratische Republik = East Germany). You couldn't therefore have police cars and paddy wagons screaming around the place. That would give the game away. So the paddy wagons were disguised as normal delivery vans like the one above. It's one of the first things you meet on your way into the museum and it sets the tone for much of what is to follow.

I'm not sure that they fooled anyone when you saw them from the other side or the back, but the fiction was attempted and presumably served some purpose.

The little curtain might suggest some attempt at civilisation but a quick look in through the door confirmed the unwelcoming environment.

So it's upstairs to an office corridor. You certainly get a feeling you are in an institution, whether it be a hospital, school, or what it really was. There is no great big exhibition hall here. You have to make your way in and out of the various little offices which have now been converted to display rooms. Each has its own theme and most also have a display panel honouring and telling the story of someone who opposed the régime.

An obvious activity to be reminded of, even though here it is just a picture on the wall. What strikes you now is how primitive the whole setup was compared with today's digital age. Nevertheless it was a blindingly efficient system using the cutting edge equipment of its day. What it lacked in technology of the future it made up for in manpower. It was a staggering operation, both at HQ and at its local bases. And it would compare more than favourably with today's NSA operation, if the comparison was standardised to allow for today's superior/digital equipment. And don't forget that the Germans had behind them a long tradition of manufacturing quality recording and photographic equipment.

No opportunity was missed by the régime to reinforce the impression that all was well and that the citizens were living in the best of all possible worlds. Happy posters were churned out at every conceivable anniversary of the State's existence. I'm not sure if anyone believed all this rubbish but certainly if you didn't go along with it you'd end up in deeper shit. And there is, of course, one positive aspect to the thing which is often forgotten. Provided you went along with the prevailing ideology and didn't create a fuss, you at least had a roof over your head and probably a reasonable health service. We should not allow ourselves to get too arrogant in these matters.

This one is a real tearjerker, in child's copy book style. The child tells us that her daddy is the same age as the State (or vice versa). Got his schooling (10 years courtesy of the State), learnt a trade, married the mammy, built a few skyscrapers, joined all the right groups, and is still studying to further better himself. But his class really shows in his voting for National Front Candidates. Good girl Silke.

No, this is not a bust of Ruairí Quinn. This is Walter Ulbricht who ran the DDR from 1950 to 1971, and very much personified it for my generation.

Ulbricht was followed by Erich Honecker, who ran the State from 1971 to 1989 when it was starting to fall apart. Then Ergon Krenz took over and lasted about three months as the place came tumbling down. You can see the three guys in the picture (left to right) above.

The pièce de résistance for me, a former civil servant, was the whole floor described as the Minister's room, but the word "room" here had more to do with lebensraum than your average sitting room. The Minister in question was Erich Mielke who was the political head of the Stasi from 1957 to 1989, that is for three quarters of the lifespan of the DDR. He had plenty of time to bed himself in and ended up with a whole floor to himself. I have chosen to introduce the floor with the conference room to give an idea of the sort of space involved.

This is just a small corner of another large room showing the Minister's chair and desk. The scope of the phone console testifies to the extent of his hands-on direct dealings with a wide range of subordinates and others. Note the personal shredder behind the chair. Though I didn't specifically photograph them, the floor is littered with built-in safes and steel cupboards of one sort or another. Though they are all now empty and open, the mere look of them would send a chill down your spine.

Then the wee sitting room with the Minister's personal bathroom in the background.

The Ministerial bedroom for sleeping over or under as the case may be.

Another Ministerial conference or rest room with radio, large reel to reel tape recorder and large loudspeakers. We can be quite sure that many an overheard conversation eventually found its way onto that recorder and over those speakers.

Finally, two modern day visitors, no doubt a bit shell-shocked at the extent of the surveillance and luxury in the heart of this former socialist republic, try to regain their bearings by leafing through the Minister's precious map collection.

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I hope you got a slight feeling for the building from the above, and that you are not too disappointed at the absence of medieval interrogation and torture rooms. This was the administrative HQ of the Stasi and that is what the museum is about. There is a video playing in a downstairs conference room outlining the Stasi's history and showing the detention/interrogation rooms which are in a different location.

If you want to see the Stasi in action, including briefly in this building, and, at the same time watch a good film with an excellent plot, check out The Lives of Others. Make sure you have the version with subtitles. The version of the DVD with the English title should automatically ensure that. If you want the technical details on the film check it out on Wikipedia and, if you have any intention of watching the film itself, don't read the plot in advance.