LEIPZIG
A World Of James Bond
At East German Spy HQ
HE East German Ministry for
State Security, popularly known as the dreaded Stasi,
flourished during the Cold War. Its underground recruits
used all sorts of ingenious technical devices in their trade
to spy on real and imagined opponents of the regime.
The trade secrets from one of the
most feared spy agencies in history are on public display at
the Museum on the Round Corner, the Stasi Museum, at
Dittrichring 24, in the old city area of Leipzig. The
structure was built in 1911-13 as the head office of a fire
insurance company. After the Second World War it was
occupied by the American Army, followed by the Soviet KGB
and then the Stasi in 1950. The peaceful revolution of 1989
transformed the building into a people’s museum.
On my tour of the building I was
amazed to learn to what lengths the secret police engaged in
surveillance and control of the citizens of the German
Democratic Republic (GDR).
The fascinating exhibit reveals
the communist spy technology with its secret methods and
apparatus that enabled them to infiltrate Western industrial
and defense complexes to extract valuable information for
the benefit of the communist economy.
On view are officer uniforms and
armaments, as the Stasi was a military organization—even
cooks and cleaners had military ranks—and everyone had a
uniform and was armed.
along with such spy artifacts as
hidden cameras and vanishing ink, and the reconstruction of
jail cells and interrogation rooms. The disguise workshop
featured false beards, wigs, makeup kits, glasses and even
false stomachs. There were cameras in women’s purses,
listening bugs of all types in a fountain pen holder,
wristwatch and on a bedpost, and scent specimens from
citizens preserved in bottles.
 Resources
DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Germany
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Out of a total of 2,401 fulltime
agents of the repressive apparatus of the Stasi in the city,
a thousand worked in this headquarters building.
For an extensive knowledge of the
Stasi you must read Seduced by Secrets: Inside the
Stasi’s Spy-Tech World. Kristie Mackrakis, a professor
of history, technology and society at Georgia Tech, Atlanta,
delves deeply in the history, methodology and spymastercraft
of "one of the most effective and feared spy agencies and
secret police in the world."
Mackrakis shows how the Stasi,
whose chief target was West Germany, was so effective that
"it was capable of helping its East Bloc allies as they
fought the ‘imperialists’ abroad and extended communist
influence. Clearly the eavesdroppers’ main focus was not
dissidents; instead they took part in the worldwide
espionage game of spy-versus-spy and targeted their
counterparts in the West. It was a real surprise to
unsuspecting politicians when they fund out so many of their
conversations had been recorded."
It’s an intriguing book that reads
like a spy novel—only it’s Cold War truth. U.S. Naval
Institute, softcover, 392 pages, $24.95 at
usni.com/store/books.
