Stasi is the abbreviation for Staatssicherheitsdienst.  In the GDR this referred to the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit.

The Stasi monitored the people of the GDR, especially those with contact to people in West Germany.  Letters were opened, read, and re-sealed.  Telephone calls were recorded.

Many people co-operated unofficially with the Stasi, the so-called “IMs” (inoffizielle Mitarbeiter) and reported information about their friends and neighbours.  The Stasi then archived this information, creating a large source of information about the people that they were monitoring.

Much of this information was destroyed before German re-unification, although there are projects that reconstruct these documents leading to new revelations about who informed on whom.

To hear a simple explanation and a short discussion in German, listen to the podcast:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

(Press the “play” button to listen to the podcast)

Download the MP3 file | Comment in the forum

Subscribe to the podcast | Listen by telephone

Tags: Überwachung, Staatssicherheitsdienst, Stasi

Some other posts that our readers enjoy:

• Listening by phone
• Frankfurt-Hahn Airport
• Introducing the “Schultüte”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 29th, 2008 at 8:04 pm and is filed under East Germany, German Words Explained, Podcasts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.