MfS (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, Stasi)

Founding

On 8 February 1950 the GDR’s People’s Chamber (Volkskammer) unanimously passed the law establishing the Ministry for State Security; it had been preceded, at the end of January, by a secret resolution of the SED Politburo. The ministry was created by transforming the Main Administration for the Protection of the National Economy.^1,2

According to the Bundesarchiv, at the outset (February 1950) the MfS had about 1,100 staff, about 4,500 by the end of 1951 and about 8,800 in 1952. In practice, control lay with officers of the Soviet MGB; its main task was to detect and arrest opponents of the GDR.²

Leadership and end

The ministers were Wilhelm Zaisser (1950–1953), Ernst Wollweber (state secretary 1953–1955, minister 1955–1957) and Erich Mielke (1957–1989), who had become state secretary on 16 February 1950.^1,2

When Hans Modrow’s government was formed on 17/18 November 1989, the MfS was renamed the Office for National Security (Amt für Nationale Sicherheit); it was subsequently dissolved.¹

According to the Bundesarchiv, on 4 December 1989 citizens occupied Stasi offices to stop the destruction of files. On 13 January 1990 the interim government decided to dissolve the MfS without a successor, and the occupation of its Berlin-Lichtenberg headquarters on 15 January 1990 gave that decision symbolic weight. The MfS was legally dissolved on 30 June 1990; its full-time staff had been discharged by 31 March 1990.^3,4

Functions and scale

The MfS was at once a secret political police, an intelligence service and an investigative body in criminal cases, especially political ones; it described itself as the “shield and sword of the Party”.^1,3

According to the MfS-Lexikon, on 31 October 1989 the full-time apparatus numbered 91,015 people, which, relative to the population, made it one of the largest security apparatuses in the world. In 1956 the figure had been about 16,000; the fastest growth came in 1968–1982. About 7,000 staff worked in the headquarters complex.^3,4

The MfS’s main weapon was its unofficial collaborators (Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter, IM). In 1989 there were about 189,000 of them – one for every 89 GDR citizens; about 620,000 in total over 1950–1989. In West Germany, at least 3,000 West German citizens were working for the MfS in 1989.⁵

Foreign intelligence, the Hauptverwaltung A (HV A), had 4,600 full-time staff in 1989 and about four times as many IMs.³

The Stasi and Poland

Tytus Jaskułowski (Institute of National Remembrance, IPN) describes the MfS’s relations with the Polish Ministry of Internal Affairs (MSW) as a “friendship of convenience”: the 1974 ministerial agreement was extremely vague and was concluded mainly because the KGB had initiated similar agreements. In the author’s view, the Stasi’s outpost in Warsaw was the price of East German material assistance with the MSW’s preparations for martial law.⁶

According to Jaskułowski, an attempt by East German diplomats to infiltrate the intelligence school at Stare Kiejkuty was detected a few months before the first course began.⁶

The HV A helped prepare the spy swap on the Glienicke Bridge on 11 June 1985, in which, among others, the Polish People’s Republic intelligence officer Marian Zacharski was released from a US prison (see spy swap).⁷

Records

Since 17 June 2021 the Bundesarchiv has been responsible for the Stasi records; citizens can consult them under the Stasi Records Act (Stasi-Unterlagen-Gesetz).³