Stasi
The Ministry for State Security, commonly known as the (),An abbreviation of . was the state security service of the East Germany from 1950 to 1990. The Stasi's function was similar to the KGB, serving as a means of maintaining state authority, i.e., the "Sword and Shield of the Party" (). This was accomplished primarily through the use of a network of civilian informants. This organization contributed to the arrest of approximately 250,000 people in East Germany. The Stasi also conducted espionage and other clandestine operations abroad through its subordinate foreign intelligence service, the Office of Enlightenment, or Head Office A (german: Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung). They also maintained contacts and occasionally cooperated with West German terrorists. The Stasi was headquartered in East Berlin, with an extensive complex in Berlin-Lichtenberg and several smaller facilities throughout the city. Erich Mielke was the Stasi's longest-serving chief, in power for 32 of t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Erich Mielke
Erich Fritz Emil Mielke (; 28 December 1907 – 21 May 2000) was a German communist official who served as head of the East German Ministry for State Security (''Ministerium für Staatsicherheit'' – MfS), better known as the Stasi, from 1957 until shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. A native of Berlin and a second-generation member of the Communist Party of Germany, Mielke was one of two triggermen in the 1931 murders of Berlin Police captains Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck. After learning that a witness had survived, Mielke escaped arrest by fleeing to the Soviet Union, where the NKVD recruited him. He was one of the key figures in the decimation of Moscow's German Communists during the Great PurgeJohn O. Koehler, ''The Stasi; The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police'', page 51. as well as in the Stalinist witch-hunt for ideological dissent within the International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War. Following the end of World War II in 1945, Mielke r ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Stasi Records Agency
, commonly known as the ) , dissolved = June 17, 2021 , superseding1 = , agency_type = Former Secret Police Archive , jurisdiction = , status = Dissolved, now part of the German Federal Archives , headquarters = Karl-Liebknecht-Straße31/33Berlin-Lichtenberg, Germany , coordinates = , motto = , employees = 1,313 () , budget = , chief1_name = Roland Jahn , chief1_position = Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records , parent_department = , parent_agency = , website = (in English) , agency_id = , map = , map_size = , map_caption = Location on a map of Berlin. , map_alt = , footnotes = , embed = The Stasi Records Agency (german: Stasi-Unterlagen-Behörde) was the organisation that administered the archives of Ministry of State Se ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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East Germany
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state was a part of the Eastern Bloc in the Cold War. Commonly described as a communist state, it described itself as a socialist "workers' and peasants' state".Patrick Major, Jonathan Osmond, ''The Workers' and Peasants' State: Communism and Society in East Germany Under Ulbricht 1945–71'', Manchester University Press, 2002, Its territory was administered and occupied by Soviet forces following the end of World War II—the Soviet occupation zone of the Potsdam Agreement, bounded on the east by the Oder–Neisse line. The Soviet zone surrounded West Berlin but did not include it and West Berlin remained outside the jurisdiction of the GDR. Most scholars and academics describe the GDR as a totalitarian dictatorship. The GDR was est ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Stasi Museum
The Stasi Museum (also known in German as the ''Forschungs- und Gedenkstätte Normannenstraße'') is a research and memorial centre concerning the political system of the former East Germany. It is located in the Lichtenberg locality of Berlin, in the former headquarters of the Stasi (officially the ''Ministerium für Staatssicherheit''), on Ruschestraße, near Frankfurter Allee and U-Bahn station Magdalenenstraße. History The centrepiece of the exhibition is the office and working quarters of the former Minister of State Security – i.e. head of the Stasi – Erich Mielke. The museum is operated by the ''Antistalinistische Aktion Berlin-Normannenstraße'' (ASTAK), which was founded by civil rights activists in Berlin in 1990.Trägerverein ASTAK e.V. From the home page. [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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General Reconnaissance Administration
The Main Directorate for Reconnaissance (german: ; german: , ) was the foreign intelligence service of the Ministry of State Security (''Stasi''), the main security agency of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), from 1955 to 1990. The HVA was an integral part of the Stasi, responsible for operations outside of East Germany such as espionage, active measures, foreign intelligence gathering, and counterintelligence against NATO-aligned countries and their intelligence agencies. The Stasi was disbanded in January 1990 and the HVA's mode of operation was revealed to the public, including its internal structure, methods, and employees. The HVA became the subject of broad interest and intensive research under the responsibilities of the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records. The HVA is regarded by some as the most effective foreign intelligence service during the Cold War and the second largest after Soviet Union's intelligence forces. It provided up to 80 percent ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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