“This is like the Stasi”!
An angry German Chancellor Angela Merkel is said to have used these words lambasting Barack Obama, when her personal mobile phone was tapped by USA’s National Security Agency, in December 2013.
This month, when the world is celebrating 25 years of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, I thought it pertinent to look at the dreadful role ‘Stasi’ played in the tightening of the iron curtain during the cold war.
Stasi, the state security department of the former communist East Germany (German Democratic Republic) was the most hated and feared institutions.
Many consider it the most repressive intelligence and secret police agency to have ever existed.
Apart from spying on its population, through a network of some 90,000 people, mostly citizens turned informants, Stasi fought all opposition ruthlessly. Sometimes, even by hidden psychological destruction of dissidents.
But let us go back a little, into the past, to understand the reasons.
In 1945, when WWII ended with the division of the German land – into what became capitalistic West Germany, and communist East Germany - even the city of Berlin was split into east and west.
West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany) came under British Administration, and East Germany under Soviet Union.
On the dividing line were trenches, barricades and barbed-wire fences. But many east Germans wanted to escape to west which promised a better life.
‘Stasi’, however, was spying on people to find renegades, to fight dissidents, and to stop emigration.
In 1961, East Germany ensured that a solid wall was built splitting the country, and particularly, the city of Berlin. And immediately, families were divided, jobs were lost, and communication was cut.
Stasi would report on citizens trying to flee from east to west. Border guards would shoot anyone found trying to cross-over.
Angela Merkel knew this ‘Stasi’ very well. They were all around her in East Germany where she grew up. In fact, Stasi had even approached her and asked her to join them, but she did not.
The data Stasi collected about East German citizens is simply astounding.
I read in a report by BBC’s Matt Frei that “by 1989 Stasi had collected more than 6 million files - on a population of only 17 million!
“Even after an orgy of shredding, ripping and burning documents they still bequeathed the Western authorities 100 miles of files”.
Today, many of these files are open to public. And individuals can request to see the information Stasi had collected on them.
Here is a real example Matt Frei quotes from the file of Petra Weyer, a student of German literature: “Grounds for suspicion: Watches West German television for more than two hours every night. Maybe planning to flee the republic.
“October 14, 1987. Subject enters the Kafe Rose at 3pm. Sits by herself. Eats a piece of cake (cheese cake with cherries). Drinks three cups of coffee. Cream. No sugar. Stays one hour six minutes. Leaves. Goes home by bus (Number 15b)”.
Last week, on a BBC radio program, I heard a German lady say “The Stasi even knew the soap I used, and the lotion I applied to my skin”!
We may smile at the ridiculousness of it. But is ‘state snooping’ completely gone now ?
No. Many governments - and not just USA with its NSA - conduct ‘state surveillance’ in the name of security. And I think we have very little choice.
Stasi was dissolved in 1990. But look around us. Google reads my email. Facebook keeps a record of the profiles I searched for. YouTube knows the videos I watched and where I left off. My telecom company knows where I was and what calls I made from my mobile phone. And all this data is available for governments if they ask.
So, it looks like the Stasi is still with us - in just another new form.
An angry German Chancellor Angela Merkel is said to have used these words lambasting Barack Obama, when her personal mobile phone was tapped by USA’s National Security Agency, in December 2013.
This month, when the world is celebrating 25 years of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, I thought it pertinent to look at the dreadful role ‘Stasi’ played in the tightening of the iron curtain during the cold war.
Stasi, the state security department of the former communist East Germany (German Democratic Republic) was the most hated and feared institutions.
Many consider it the most repressive intelligence and secret police agency to have ever existed.
Apart from spying on its population, through a network of some 90,000 people, mostly citizens turned informants, Stasi fought all opposition ruthlessly. Sometimes, even by hidden psychological destruction of dissidents.
But let us go back a little, into the past, to understand the reasons.
In 1945, when WWII ended with the division of the German land – into what became capitalistic West Germany, and communist East Germany - even the city of Berlin was split into east and west.
West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany) came under British Administration, and East Germany under Soviet Union.
On the dividing line were trenches, barricades and barbed-wire fences. But many east Germans wanted to escape to west which promised a better life.
‘Stasi’, however, was spying on people to find renegades, to fight dissidents, and to stop emigration.
In 1961, East Germany ensured that a solid wall was built splitting the country, and particularly, the city of Berlin. And immediately, families were divided, jobs were lost, and communication was cut.
Stasi would report on citizens trying to flee from east to west. Border guards would shoot anyone found trying to cross-over.
Angela Merkel knew this ‘Stasi’ very well. They were all around her in East Germany where she grew up. In fact, Stasi had even approached her and asked her to join them, but she did not.
The data Stasi collected about East German citizens is simply astounding.
I read in a report by BBC’s Matt Frei that “by 1989 Stasi had collected more than 6 million files - on a population of only 17 million!
“Even after an orgy of shredding, ripping and burning documents they still bequeathed the Western authorities 100 miles of files”.
Today, many of these files are open to public. And individuals can request to see the information Stasi had collected on them.
Here is a real example Matt Frei quotes from the file of Petra Weyer, a student of German literature: “Grounds for suspicion: Watches West German television for more than two hours every night. Maybe planning to flee the republic.
“October 14, 1987. Subject enters the Kafe Rose at 3pm. Sits by herself. Eats a piece of cake (cheese cake with cherries). Drinks three cups of coffee. Cream. No sugar. Stays one hour six minutes. Leaves. Goes home by bus (Number 15b)”.
Last week, on a BBC radio program, I heard a German lady say “The Stasi even knew the soap I used, and the lotion I applied to my skin”!
We may smile at the ridiculousness of it. But is ‘state snooping’ completely gone now ?
No. Many governments - and not just USA with its NSA - conduct ‘state surveillance’ in the name of security. And I think we have very little choice.
Stasi was dissolved in 1990. But look around us. Google reads my email. Facebook keeps a record of the profiles I searched for. YouTube knows the videos I watched and where I left off. My telecom company knows where I was and what calls I made from my mobile phone. And all this data is available for governments if they ask.
So, it looks like the Stasi is still with us - in just another new form.
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