The History of the Stasi: East Germany's Secret Police, 1945-1990

by Jens Gieseke

A well-balanced and detailed look at the East German Ministry for State Security, the secret police force more commonly known as the Stasi. “This is an excellent book, full of careful, balanced judgements and a wealth of concisely-communicated knowledge. It is also well written. Indeed, it is the best book yet published on the MfS.”― German History The Stasi stood for Stalinist oppression and all-encompassing surveillance. The “shield and sword of the party,” it secured the rule of the Communist Party for more than forty years, and by the 1980s it had become the largest secret-police apparatus in the world, per capita. Jens Gieseke tells the story of the Stasi, a feared secret-police force and a highly professional intelligence service. He inquires into the mechanisms of dictatorship and the day-to-day effects of surveillance and suspicion. Masterful and thorough at once, he takes the reader through this dark chapter of German postwar history, supplying key information on perpetrators, informers, and victims. In an assessment of post-communist memory politics, he critically discusses the consequences of opening the files and the outcomes of the Stasi debate in reunified Germany. A major guide for research on communist secret-police forces, this book is considered the standard reference work on the Stasi.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Germany, European History, Politics, Espionage

268 pages, Library Binding

First published February 28, 2006

Reviews

[Phil]

I had rather hoped for a more humanistic treatment of the subject, but the author took a more dispassionate and sterile approach to describing the functioning of the East German Ministry of State Security (STASI). Not a bad book, but only useful for people who are trying to understand the mechanics and not the human impact of the Stasi on the lives of ordinary East Germans.

[Steven Godin]

List of Abbreviations
Introduction

1. Antifascism—Stalinism—Cold Civil War: Origins & Influences 1945 to 1956
2. The safest GDR in the World: The driving Forces of Stasi Growth
3. The Unofficial Collaborator: A New Type of Informer
4. Blanket Surveillance? State Security in East German Society
5. Resistance—Opposition—Persecution
6. Wolf & Co.: MfS Operations Abroad
7. Final Crisis and Collapse, 1989-90
8. Legacy—Aufarbeitung—Culture of Memory: The Second Life of the Stasi

Appendices
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

[Spencer Willardson]

An interesting book about the extent and operations of the Stasi in East German society. Pretty straightforward.

[PottWab Regional Library]

ESK

[maciexox]

₊˚⊹ this book taught me how dramatic men are for no gd reason ˖.