Section 9: Room 109

Rundgang 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Everything under control – data procurement, eavesdropping and scent storage

In the Stasi’s view virtually everyone was a potential suspect and therefore it tried to gather as much information about people as possible. Often information was supplied voluntarily to the Stasi – such as by the Leipziger Volkszeitung, at that time the district newspaper of the socialist party, which for example passed on critical readers’ letters. Ordinary people sometimes also handed in opposing leaflets they had found. The Stasi treated such cases as if they were the worst crimes imaginable, launching full investigations. As a support fingerprints and samples of saliva and handwriting were stored, and the Stasi even kept samples of body scent.

Department XX and the local branches were responsible for ‘processing’ supposed and actual members of the opposition. They conducted “operational personal checks” and “operational procedures”. This process often ended with arrest and sentencing for a fabricated ‘crime’, or alternatively with the inconspicuous “disintegration” of the member of the opposition. This method aimed to bring the target into disrepute among friends, neighbours and colleagues, to organise a crisis in life or quarrels, or even to alienate parents and children from each other. Supposed enemies were put under strain through worries, doubts about themselves, professional and personal problems, until they had no strength for opposing activities anymore. The Stasi officers studied how disintegration worked at Stasi's secret law college in Potsdam, which got a chair for “Operational Psychology”. The lecturers also taught how to optimise the work with unofficial personnel.