Section 2: Anteroom

Rundgang 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Surveillance as a means of self defence – internal security

Until 1989, the museum anteroom was divided into two. A line on the ceiling shows where the dividing wall used to be. Behind the wall and invisible to those entering the anteroom was the central office used for the external surveillance of the building. Closed-circuit TV cameras mounted on the facade beamed images of what was happening outside to monitors positioned here. (One of the cameras is shown in the entrance hall). This equipment is now housed in a display cabinet in the original room and is partly used for the presentation of photographs showing the occupation and the disbandment of the Stasi’s district headquarters.

The other part of the anteroom consisted of a narrow corridor which was entered through a one-way door from the entrance zone. The door has been preserved in its original condition. It has a regular door-handle on the outside, but inside only a door knob. At the end of the corridor was (and is) the door to the three visitors' rooms, which were used by Stasi officers to talk to members of the public, and which were fitted with bugs and video cameras. Visitors usually came on their own initiative to report something or to bring a charge against someone. Such people, who were not part of the Stasi, were generally considered to be a risk. The Stasi feared for example, that the visitors could steal internal documents, which explains the function of the door as mentioned above: Nobody was able to leave the building again without the permission of the Stasi-officer.