All language subtitles for stasi.a.state.against.its.people.2022.1080p.hdtv.h264-cbfm_track3_[eng]

The headquarters of the East German
Ministry for State Security.

Two months after the fall
of the Berlin Wall.

The shredders were
running through the night

as agents of the Stasi,
the East German political police,

tried to destroy their files.

For 40 years they had spied on,
manipulated,

and imprisoned their own people,

in order to keep
the Socialist Unity Party

the East German communist party
in power.

But the hour of reckoning had come.

On the 15th of January, 1990,

citizens of the German
Democratic Republic

stormed the Stasi headquarters
to keep their files from vanishing.

The citizens' raid
saved from destruction

hundreds of thousands of personal
files, records, photos and films.

Among the spoils were 16,000 bags

filled with 600 million
pieces of paper:

hand-torn documents that the agents
hadn't had time to get rid of.

The reunified Germany
took up the challenge

of uncovering the whole truth
about the Stasi

and the lives it had shattered.

Over the next 20 years,
550 bags would be processed,

with documents pieced together
by hand

or by purpose-built virtual
reconstruction software,

which was faster
and more efficient.

30 years on from
the fall of the Wall,

former agents have
broken their silence.

Their testimonies
and those of their victims,

and the revelations
from the archives,

shed new light on the Stasi
and the dictatorship it protected.

The labyrinthine Stasi archives tell
a story that began with the Cold War.

After the Second World War,
two German states were born.

In the West, the Americans,
the British, and the French

sponsored the creation of
the Federal Republic of Germany,

a parliamentary democracy.

In the East,
in the Soviet zone of occupation,

Stalin set up
the German Democratic Republic

and imposed on it the
"dictatorship of the proletariat".

The German Democratic Republic,
or GDR,

was modelled on
its Soviet big brother.

The East German state
featured a planned economy,

collectivised agriculture,
and nationalised industry.

It also recruited youngsters
from the age of six

into the Party's
youth organisations:

the Free German Youth
and the Pioneers.

Karl Alich was seven years old
when the GDR was created.

West Berlin lay deep inside
the new Communist state,

and up to 1961 East Germans
were allowed to visit the city.

This openness triggered a rivalry
between the two systems.

The GDR had little to counter
the seductive offerings of the West.

The daily life of its citizens,

dominated by ration cards,
parades, and propaganda,

was nowhere near enough
to ensure majority support.

The German Communists knew
that in order to stay in power,

they needed control and repression.

For that there was the Stasi,

founded in 1950 as Staatssicherheit,
or State Security.

Based in the Lichtenberg district
of Berlin,

where it occupied
a number of huge buildings,

it was modelled on the original
Soviet secret police, the Cheka.

I t was the "sword and shield"
of the Party.

(Automatic weapons fire)

The Stasi really
took off in 1957

with the appointment
of Erich Mielke.

A Communist activist
from an early age,

Mielke was involved in the murder
of two policemen in 1931.

To escape justice
he fled Berlin for Moscow,

where he was trained in Party schools
in the pure Stalinist mould.

Erich Mielke was a psychopath.

Erich Mielke was
a small pugilistic man,

obsessed with guns, paranoid.

Cynical and dogmatic,
Erich Mielke was the ideal man

to make the Stasi a tool of
repression and control.

He was obsessed with fighting
what he called

Politisch-ideologische Diversion,

political-ideological diversion,

or PID,
in the jargon of the Stasi.

(Pop music)

Rock 'n' roll, jeans, long hair...

in Mielke's eyes, any deviation
from the socialist norm was suspect,

including possession of a Bible.

And prevention was better than cure.

From his office on the second floor
of Stasi headquarters,

Mielke set up one of the most
comprehensive secret services

in the world.

With 91,000 staff,
or one agent for every 180 citizens,

the Stasi far out-did the KGB.

Fifteen regional branches,
each equipped with its own prison,

spread across East Germany.

The Stasi even had its own army:

the Felix Dzerzhinsky
Guards Regiment, 11,000 strong.

Its members, dubbed
the "Knights of the Revolution",

were recruited from families
close to the regime.

Well paid and enjoying
many privileges

in a country subject to
all kinds of privations,

Stasi officers
were part of the elite.

The regime reserved apartments
and special shops

for the high-ranking officers.

It was a community set apart
from the common man.

Everything was done in secret.

In Potsdam, near Berlin,

the Stasi even had
its own university.

Its existence was revealed
when the archives were opened.

Paranoid, the Stasi also sent
its recruits beyond the borders,

and naturally to its rival,
West Germany,

where its agents
carried out sabotage

and disinformation operations.

The information collected
was shared with the KGB.

Its agents learned how
to search apartments

with the help of training films
like this one.

To keep its citizens under control,

the Stasi recruited
a vast network of amateur spies

from the general population.

They were called 'inoffizielle
Mitarbeiter', or IM -

"unofficial collaborators".

The recruitment process
took nine months on average.

IMs were volunteers
friends, co-workers,

and even family members
of the suspect.

All made written commitments
to the Stasi,

operated under codenames,
and submitted regular reports.

The Stasi was in the churches,
the Stasi was in the kindergartens,

the Stasi was in the schools.

The Stasi was in
the apartment block.

The Stasi was in
the artists' collective.

The Stasi was in the newspapers.
The Stasi was everywhere.

There was no separation,
in fact,

not only between the state
or the Party and the Stasi,

but life and the Stasi.

In the archives, IM files are
recognisable by their orange covers.

The reconstruction of the archives

revealed the existence of recruits
with disturbing profiles.

Behind the codenames
'Sternberg' and 'Erwin Mohr'

were former members of the SS.

One of them was Josef Settnik,
a former guard in Auschwitz.

This discovery undermined the myth
of an anti-fascist East Germany,

which had often accused
West Germany

of leniency towards former Nazis.

Ignoring its own professed
principles,

the Stasi tightened its grip
on the population.

For all its efforts,
the regime was unable

to prevent its population
from leaving for the West.

By 1961, three million citizens
of the GDR had already gone.

As a result,
the Party made a radical decision.

13th of August, 1961.

A wall of East German police
stands at the Brandenburg Gate.

All communication between the
Eastern sector and those of the West

has been cut as though by a knife.

On August the 13th,
the GDR sealed off East Berlin

and began to build a wall
through the city,

calling it an 'antifaschistischer
Schutzwall',

or "anti-fascist protection barrier".

The Stasi backed up the police
and the army.

Preventing executives and ordinary
citizens from fleeing the GDR

would remain its priority
until the end.

Moving to the West
had become a crime.

Manfred was 18 when
he decided to flee to the West.

His file, found in the archives,

details his downward spiral
in over 2000 pages.

The denunciation
by an unofficial collaborator...

his attempt to flee by car...

and finally his arrest
on the highway.

While in custody in a Stasi prison,
Manfred learned for the first time

about the methods
of the secret police.

Manfred spent two months
in Stasi jails

before appearing in court.

Accused of attempted flight
and terrorism,

he was sentenced to four years
in prison after a public trial

intended to deter
anyone else from fleeing.

At the age of 18,

Manfred was subjected to
forced labour in harsh conditions

in several different prisons.

In the 50s and 60s, violence,
kidnappings, and political murders

were committed to keep
16 million citizens on a leash.

But that wasn't the worst.

Virtual reconstruction
has uncovered the details

of a top-secret contingency plan:
Directive 1/67.

It was a plan to round up

some 80,0000 people
considered dangerous by the regime

in just 24 hours.

These files recorded
the smallest detail,

down to whether
you had a doorbell.

Updated every year, Directive 1/67
was the Stasi's ultimate weapon.

In the event of a crisis,

it had to protect the Party
from its own people.

Rewarded for his services,

the head of the Stasi
rose through the ranks

to become a member
of the Politburo,

the country's highest
political authority.

In 1971, the new leader of
the Socialist Unity Party

was Erich Honecker.

The atmosphere was one of detente,
as East and West grew closer.

In the Stasi, there was panic.

The GDR played the detente card

in a bid to prop up
its faltering economy.

Desperate for hard currency,
Erich Honecker sought loans

from Helmut Schmidt,
his West German counterpart.

In return,
the regime had to permit

more exchanges between
the two Germanys

and allow West German journalists
access to the GDR.

To hide its obvious
human rights violations,

the Stasi had to adjust its methods.

It was in this context
that Tatjana Sterneberg,

a young employee
at a Berlin hotel,

fell in love with Antonio,
an Italian living in West Berlin.

The couple decided
to get married,

but Antonio did not want
to live in the East.

So Tatjana made an official request
to leave the GDR.

But she was turned down.

The case of the hotel employee
suspected of attempting to flee

became what the Stasi called
an 'operativer Vorgang'

a monitoring operation.

Her file,
retrieved from the archives,

reveals every stage
of the relentless surveillance.

Photos were taken
using concealed devices.

Mail was opened using
purpose-built machines.

An entire Stasi department was
responsible for developing technology

to fight "the enemies of the people".

There was also the IM network.

In her file, Tatjana discovered

she had been monitored
by 12 people in her circle,

particularly by one of
her colleagues at the hotel.

The Stasi was spying on everyone.

It was collecting
everyone's biographies.

It was, it was stealing
your life story

and then it was changing
your life story.

So it was extremely sinister.

The plan drawn up by a colleague
was used by the Stasi

to proceed with Tatjana's arrest.

Sentenced to three years in prison
for planning to flee,

she was released in 1976
and managed to move to the West.

There, she reunited with Antonio
and married him in Naples.

But the marriage did not last.
The Stasi had shattered their lives.

In the mid-70s,
the mood of detente

saw the first dissident movements
emerge in the GDR.

Notably in the university city
of Jena,

where Siegfried Reiprich
was studying history.

Despite his long hair
and passion for rock music,

he was a pure product
of the regime.

A Pioneer from the age of six,

Siegfried became the leader

of the socialist student section
called Agit-Prop,

for "agitation and propaganda".

But in the GDR, it took
one mis-step to arouse suspicion.

Wolf Biermann was an East German
singer popular in the West.

His popularity protected him,

but in the eyes of the regime
he was a dangerous enemy.

During his interrogation,

the Stasi invited Siegfried
to become an unofficial collaborator.

But when he refused,
the punishment was swift.

At the age of 21, Siegfried
was expelled from university.

Like Siegfried, many were
socially downgraded and sidelined

for opposing the Party line.

The former Pioneer
and socialist militant

became a target for surveillance
by the secret police.

His Stasi file, 3000 pages long,

reveals the importance
he held for them.

His mail was systematically opened.

Unofficial collaborators reported his
every move to their liaison officers.

But the Stasi didn't just
gather information

about Siegfried and his wife.

It used particularly underhand
methods

to put pressure on the couple.

The couple were victims of what
the Stasi called 'Zersetzung',

or psychological breakdown.

An insidious method of torture

raised to a science
by the secret police.

The techniques of
psychological breakdown

were taught
at the Stasi university.

The discipline even had
its own chair.

The reconstruction of the archives

has uncovered doctoral theses
on the subject.

Agents used them to devise
methods of destabilisation.

But indirect means did not
replace strong-arm tactics.

In Jena, Stasi agents
went over to the offensive

and arrested many dissidents.

To his surprise,
Siegfried was spared.

The Stasi had other plans for him:

he was to be the linchpin in a plot
to shatter the unity of his group.

The effect of it is really to break
the fundamental human bonds

that keep a society going.

So the Stasi was a system
that ran on fear and betrayal

to run a nation
and to ruin its own people.

In 1981, Siegfried and his wife

were stripped of their East German
citizenship and deported to the West,

a method frequently used
by the regime

to get rid of rebellious elements.

In exile, Siegfried tried to
reconnect with his friends,

but rumours spread by the Stasi
had poisoned their relationships.

Siegfried found himself isolated.

It would take ten years
to find his file in the archives

and clear his name
of any suspicion.

Psychological breakdown,
surveillance, arrests.

In the 1980s, the system of
repression was at its peak.

The Stasi's obsession with control

meant that the archives
grew exponentially.

One-sixth of the ministry's officers
were busy managing 41 million files.

They collected on their own people
more information in written records

than in the rest of German history
since the Middle Ages.

This was an obsession.

It was perfectionising, as they
say in German, 'perfektionieren'.

It was obsessive and meticulous.

The Stasi was also expanding
its network of IMs,

the unofficial collaborators.

With 189,000 people,

it had become twice as large
as the number of agents.

It included minors,
such as Angela Marquardt.

As the daughter of parents
who were both IMs themselves,

she was easy prey.

At age 15,
encouraged by her parents,

Angela signed the declaration of
commitment to the Stasi.

Her codename... Katrin Brandt.

The Stasi tested the young Angela

because it was preparing
the next generation.

When she grew up, she was
supposed to infiltrate churches,

a plan she discovered thanks to
the opening of the archives.

The archives revealed
that some 1300 minors

were recruited
in the schoolyards.

The youngest of them
was 12 years old.

But just as Angela was signing
her commitment to the Stasi,

a political earthquake struck.

On the 11th of March, 1985,
in Moscow,

Mikhail Gorbachev was appointed
General Secretary

of the Communist Party.

Aware of the enormous difficulties
facing the Communist world,

Gorbachev launched
a program of reform.

In the Eastern bloc,
this triggered a genuine Gorbimania

that left no one unaffected,
not even Stasi agents.

(Rock music)

Encouraged by this wind of freedom
blowing from Moscow,

popular opposition began
to emerge in East Germany.

Starting in 1989, peaceful
demonstrations were organised

throughout the country.

The Stasi was there
to film and arrest people.

But its intimidation tactics
were less and less effective.

It was in this poisonous atmosphere
that the GDR

celebrated its
40th anniversary

on the 7th of
October, 1989,

in the presence
of Mikhail Gorbachev.

The official footage
showed everyone smiling.

Yet away from the festivities,
in front of the Stasi cameras,

the ranks of the demonstrators
were growing.

Spoiling the GDR's anniversary
was the ultimate affront.

The next day,
at the Ministry for State Security,

the situation was critical.

For Mielke, it was time
to bring out his secret weapon:

Directive 1/67,
in place since the 1960s.

The head of the Stasi
even had Honecker's support.

But, faced with these
fathers and mothers

strolling with their children,

Directive 1/67 deflated
like a balloon.

Peacefully defeated by its people,
the Party renounced violence.

Now powerless,

the Stasi settled for filming
the banners denouncing it.

Realising that the tide had turned,
some departments

were already destroying
their most compromising archives.

That evening,

the anti-fascist rampart
so strictly guarded by the Stasi

gave way.

Better yet, it was a Stasi officer
who, faced with the crowd,

had no choice but to open the first
checkpoint at Bornholmer Strasse.

(Ominous music)

(He chuckles)

While reunification was
still at the planning stage,

it quickly became clear that without
a communist party to protect,

the East German secret police
had no reason to exist.

On the 30th
of June, 1990,

the Stasi was
simply dissolved,

after 40 years of
obsessively loyal service.

Ironically, the omnipresent
and omnipotent Stasi

had a contingency plan
for everything...

except for its own downfall
and that of the regime it protected.

Captions (c) SBS Australia 2024