Stasi
East German watchers
Stasi is the informal name for the East German secret police, the Ministry for State Security, which operated from 1950 until German reunification in 1990.
The organization was notorious for its pervasive domestic surveillance, employing a vast network of informants to monitor citizens' activities, conversations, and associations.
The Stasi kept files on millions of East Germans.
The term now evokes totalitarian surveillance: The new monitoring program has a Stasi feel to it.
Former communist German state
- Berlin WallCold War partition
- Iron CurtainCold War's political divide
- Soviet UnionFormer communist superstate
- Warsaw PactSoviet-led military alliance
KGB · Checkpoint Charlie · defection · reunification · border guards · escape attempts
Covert phone surveillance
- buggingSecretly recording conversations
- eavesdroppingSecretly listening to others
- monitoringOngoing observation of something
- observationAttentive watching or remark
informant · spying · tracking · shadowing · tailing · interception · phone tapping · listening devices
Unconscious blocking of thoughts
- totalitarianismState controls everything absolutely
- dictatorshipUnchecked single-ruler government
- censorshipOfficial content restriction
- persecutionSystematic mistreatment of groups
control · suppression · fear · intimidation · arrest · detention · interrogation · torture
Realtime digital chat
- snitchOne who tells authorities
- betrayalBreaking of trust
- neighborPerson living nearby
- colleagueProfessional associate
recruitment · coercion · network · infiltration · mole · denunciation · report · handler
Stored historical documents
- victimsThose who suffer harm
- filesStored data collections
- lustrationCleansing rite or vetting
- memorialThing preserving remembrance
museum · records · remembrance · accountability · trauma · reconciliation · screening · coming to terms
East Germany
Former communist German state
- Berlin WallCold War partition
- Iron CurtainCold War's political divide
- Soviet UnionFormer communist superstate
Warsaw Pact · KGB · Checkpoint Charlie · defection · reunification · border guards · escape attempts
wiretapping
Covert phone surveillance
- buggingSecretly recording conversations
- eavesdroppingSecretly listening to others
- monitoringOngoing observation of something
observation · informant · spying · tracking · shadowing · tailing · interception · phone tapping · listening devices · operative
repression
Unconscious blocking of thoughts
- totalitarianismState controls everything absolutely
- dictatorshipUnchecked single-ruler government
- censorshipOfficial content restriction
persecution · control · suppression · fear · intimidation · arrest · detention · interrogation · torture · prison
IM
Realtime digital chat
colleague · recruitment · coercion · network · infiltration · mole · denunciation · report · handler · complicity
archives
Stored historical documents
- victimsThose who suffer harm
- filesStored data collections
- lustrationCleansing rite or vetting
memorial · museum · records · remembrance · accountability · trauma · reconciliation · screening · coming to terms · truth commission
- East BerlinBerlin Wall, TV Tower, East Berlin, state surveillance, death strip
- OstalgiaDDR
- espionagespy, spies, double agent, double agents, spying
- Cold WarBerlin Wall, Iron Curtain, arms race, Warsaw Pact, Cuban Missile Crisis
- German HistoryNazi, Prussia, Saxony, Reichstag, Napoleonic Wars
- German PoliticsBundesrat, CSU, Nazi Party, Greens, federal republic
Stasicivil liberties
Rights limiting government power
freedom of speech · privacy rights · ACLU · human rights organizations · Amnesty International
Stasidissidents
Political objectors
freedom fighters · resistance · peaceful revolution · samizdat · underground press
StasiBundestag
German federal parliament
constitutional democracy · German reunification · free elections · democratic institutions · rule of law