All language subtitles for Forbidden.History.S05E02.The.Stasi.Behind.The.Berlin.Wall.1080p.UKTV.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-BTN_track3_[eng]

The Stasi.

For the citizens of East Germany,

few words were more guaranteed
to chill the blood.

It was the official
state security service.

Its purpose, to keep the ruling
Socialist regime in power.

And it went to extraordinary
lengths to achieve it.

Using a vast network
of spies and informants,

the Stasi had virtually all of East
German society under surveillance

on an unprecedented scale.

But what were its methods?

How did it listen in on those

who were thought to harbour
treacherous ideas?

And how did it use
psychological oppression

to quite literally drive
the enemies of the state insane?

The Stasi was
the Ministry for State Security,

a terrifying organisation
that spied on its own population,

the people of East Germany,

for something like 40 years,

using all kinds of methods of
surveillance

and using the people themselves

to spy on their neighbours
and families.

Well, the Stasi were
masters of disorientation.

They believed that they would
weaken their enemies,

if the enemies were discombobulated,

if they didn't really know where
they were or what they were doing.

The control the Stasi had over the
East German people was more severe

than anywhere else in
Communist Eastern Europe.

Their stranglehold was almost total.

They were the most oppressive and
surveillance obsessed secret police

quite possibly in history.

Founded in 1950

and headquartered here
in East Berlin,

the Stasi were one of the most

feared intelligence agencies
of the Cold War.

And to ensure the people's obedience
and deference to communism,

the Stasi spied on
the East German population.

Anyone even remotely suspected
of opposing the regime

was dealt with brutally.

But such surveillance wasn't
just carried out by Stasi agents.

Key to the organisation's power
was a vast network of informants.

These were ordinary citizens who,

in support, or more likely
in fear, of the regime,

denounced friends, colleagues and
family members to the secret police.

The Stasi is short for

"Staatssicherheit", state security.

But they weren't security.

They were a secret police.

Secret police are
what dictatorships have.

They were feared, they were loathed,

and they were the most powerful
in the Eastern Bloc.

Life during the Cold War
in East Germany was really dark,

it was dangerous,

and it was full of paranoia.

Why? The Stasi.

You knew that if you went
to a family dinner,

statistically
there was someone there

listening and recording
everything you said.

And as you're on the train,

as you're walking through the park,

you know there's spies everywhere

and they're going to report on you.

I mean, the whole environment
is just one of,

"I'm being watched and
I need to make sure

"that I appear to be
as normal as possible".

In the early years,

the Stasi focused on arresting
political opponents,

filling half a dozen prisons with
tens of thousands of prisoners.

The organisation continually
expanded both in number and power

and, with the construction of the
Berlin Wall in 1961, the population

of East Germany essentially
became prisoners of the state.

Life in East Berlin
at the time of the Stasi

was unbelievably repressive.

A Nazi hunter even said it was more
repressive than the Gestapo.

This was on the threshold of the
sort of Communist East, if you like,

and the capitalist West.

And particularly in Berlin,

you could see you have this
sort of thriving capitalist,

sort of mini city-state

literally metres away from a kind of
run-down, sort of grey, drab,

gloomy, repressive state.

And I think it's a measure of
the insecurity of the status quo,

of the ruling authorities,

that they felt the need
to subject their citizens

to such a rigorous degree
of repression.

By our standards,
it was grim and a bit surreal.

Um, so you were in
a totalitarian state,

you had a one-party rule,

it was after the war
so it was a bit shabby,

and the city was under the iron hand
of the Communist Party,

and behind them, of course,
the Soviet Union.

Bit of a squeeze.
How does this work?

One of the most iconic images
of the era was this Trabant,

an affordable vehicle

that would have been seen
everywhere on the streets of Berlin.

It truly was a product
of the socialist state.

It's dull, cramped
and uncomfortable -

a fitting description for the lives
of East Germany's citizens.

I'm on my way to
the former Stasi HQ,

located on Normannenstrasse
in East Berlin.

Behind these doors was the nerve
centre of the entire operation

where, from 1957,
everything was controlled

by its director Erich Mielke.

Felix Mueller, a guide
at the former Stasi's HQ,

is an expert on the day-to-day
operations of this building,

including the director's
personal office.

This was his office
through here, was it?

Um, that was the secretariat.

Basically, you had to go
the long way to his office,

through all his secretariats,

um, so he could show,
basically, who's boss.

And...

..you can still see the same
furniture still here,

the same typewriters.

Nothing really changed.

And, um,

it's basically as it was
left by the Stasi itself.

Wow, it's like a kind of
time capsule. So this is...

Nothing has changed?
Nothing has changed, no.

There aren't many rooms left
that look like that.

But, um...

..it doesn't even look
very interesting, I think,

because at that time every office

in East Germany basically
looked like that.

So this was his secretary's office?

Yeah. This is the secretariat

and the personal secretary
is in the next room.

Right, OK.

Wow, look at this.
This is the kitchen?

Well, of course. Someone had to
do the coffee for the boss.

Right. So, um...

..there was a kitchen in here.

Wow, so this was where, uh...

..Erich's meals were prepared?

Um, yes, sometimes.
Yeah, his breakfast, uh, um...

..assuredly because we've found a
little note in here that describes

how exactly his breakfast
was supposed to...

Really? ..to be made.

What did the head of the Stasi
have for breakfast?

Well, marmalade, bread,
an egg that had to be, I think,

three and a half minutes,

and poked,
so it had a big hole in it.

Right. And, um, it had to be...

And, of course, coffee.

A flask of coffee.

OK. Yeah. So is this his office?

This is not his office.

That's his personal secretary's
office.

And she prepared basically
everything for him.

She was also the one
who had to basically

maintain the relationships
to everyone,

make sure that only the important
people got through to him.

So his secretary had a secretary?

Yes, exactly. Of course.

So the Stasi HQ was like
a city within a city

and at the top of
it was Erich Mielke,

you know, a veteran Communist
who was almost, if you want,

Stalinist royalty.

You know,
he lived in splendid style,

an entire floor for himself,

probably more room than the US
president has in the White House.

And underneath him was this
kind of mini city, you know.

There was a theatre,
there was canteen facilities,

there was a supermarket and so on.

And it was a great career
for people, you know,

in a very dull, grey society.

You know, want a future?
Go and join the Stasi.

So...

Wow, this is it. This was
where the boss had his office.

It looks quite a bit old-fashioned.

Um...

..the reason is that
this office never had to change.

It was built in 1961

and from that time onwards,

um...

..nothing had to change because
no-one else moved in.

Yeah?

And even behind these panels
there are some...

..some things hidden.

For example, behind here, there is
the personal safe of the minister.

And you... Actually, it's a big one.

He had, I think, a pistol in here,
and some of his paper...

Some of the most important paper.

And you can still see that these
safes were sealed

before leaving the room,
so that you could see if someone,

uh, someone opened them in
the absence of the minister.

So every one had a little seal.

And press it into what was basically
like Play-Doh modelling clay that

was smeared over the crack
between door and frame. Right.

The citizen informants,
and all the other spies,

were keeping tabs on anybody

who might have anything
connected with the West.

And there was a whole department

devoted to going through
rubbish bins, trash cans,

looking for food wrappers
from the West,

things like this. And, you know,

that gives a whole new meaning
to dishing the dirt on somebody.

In the East, it really was about
sort of paying people to monitor

the most trivial
everyday occurrences,

people walking their dog,
people going to the supermarket,

people taking their kids to school,

and entrusting this to paper
and writing it down,

almost in a sort of state of frenzy

as though these
were nuclear secrets,

when really they were not.

So that seems absurd and surreal.

But at the same time, if the aim
was to generate a forensic overview

of people's lives
then they did succeed.

So this is where the...

where the head of the Stasi
would have sat here, presumably?

Yeah, exactly. This is where
Erich Mielke would have sit...

..sat. Beside him, the...

..a representative
of the party leadership,

and the rest of
the leadership of the Stasi.

So would they have, uh, would
there have been spies in here?

Would they have briefed the spies
before missions, or what would...?

Not in here. But there were cases
when spies who came back,

basically, from the enemy,

were received here
and got some chocolates

and some medals
and things like that.

Oh, spies that would have
been in the West...

Yeah, yeah.
..would then have been...?

When they were caught, for example,

and were then exchanged for
Western spies on the other side.

So that is what happened
from time to time.

On the Bridge of Spies.

On the Bridge of Spies,
for example, yeah,

at Bornholmer Strasse,
or at Potsdam.

And, yeah, this is where
that happened.

The thing about totalitarian
Communist governments

is that it shows human nature
at its very worst.

Although the whole point of
Communism was always sold as,

"We're all in this together,
we're all equal,"

obviously, some are
more equal than others.

And when you get to the top,

especially in the Stasi,
the secret police,

or you are one of
their pet informants,

basically, you have a nice life,

you know, you have a nice office,

you have all sorts of minions
running around after you,

you have a big car, you know.

And that's how they got some of
the informants, anyway.

They promised them extras

when their lives were very drab
and they had very little.

Mind you, you'd be very foolish
to turn them down.

Exact numbers are hard to come by

but, between 1950 and 1989,

it's believed that the Stasi
employed a total of 274,000 people.

Now, to put that into
some kind of perspective,

the Soviet Union's
secret police, the KGB,

employed one agent
per 5,830 of its citizens.

The Nazi's Gestapo,
one per 2,000 people.

But if you include informants,

the Stasi had one agent
per 166 citizens.

And if you include both regular
and part-time informants,

the ratio was one agent
per six or seven people.

While the numbers
don't tell the whole story,

the way Nazi Germany operated
was very different

to Communist East Germany,

but they do show that the Stasi
undertook surveillance

on an unprecedented scale.

East Germany became a country
that spied on itself.

The Stasi understood
one thing more than

most other secret police services,

and that was that
they could use people,

they could use the ordinary
people of eastern Germany.

This was an incredibly effective,

but corrosive thing to have done.

Their network of informants
was colossal.

It stretched, it's been alleged,

up to possibly two million people.

And we know that a significant
proportion of them were under 18.

This was children informing
on their parents,

people in building blocks
informing on their neighbours.

On a day-to-day basis,
the Stasi leveraged

the ordinary people of East Germany
and made them their spies.

This was really a way
of dividing society.

You know, dividing it,
keeping it weak,

making sure it couldn't
unite against

this rather abrasive
intelligence services.

And you even had husbands and wives

who were being spied upon
by each other.

Every single apartment block would
have someone connected to the Stasi.

They knew exactly
what visitors had come,

which lovers had come,
which prostitutes.

They really had their finger
on the pulse of society

and, in quite a totalitarian way,
tried to control every aspect of it

just to kind of cement
this gruesome hegemony

that they'd been
perpetrating for so long.

Once back at my hotel,

I found out that it was
a favourite haunt for the Stasi.

It used to be called
Hotel Stadt Berlin,

reserved primarily for
important guests of the state,

who were all extensively bugged

by hidden cameras and
microphones in these rooms.

Now, the Stasi used cameras
identical to this one,

coupled with hidden microphones,

to watch and listen to what
went on in rooms at this hotel.

But they went even
further than this.

Guests would often receive
a knock on the door

from a prostitute
organised by the Stasi itself.

And if they were persuaded
to partake in her services,

then these actions would also
be recorded on the film rolls,

providing the Stasi with useful,
incriminating blackmail material

for their archives.

Now, how this would work is
that the operative would

drill through the wall,
into the room next door,

feed this long lens through

and then spy on whatever was
going on in the room next door.

And it wasn't just room-to-room
surveillance

that would happen here
in this hotel.

As you can see, there's an
extraordinary vantage point

looking out across East Berlin

and they would use their cameras,
both still and film cameras,

to monitor all of the activity
that was going on outside.

The point was that they
would have VIP guests there,

particularly from the West.

And essentially, what they did
is they spied on them.

You went in and your room was
basically bugged and being filmed.

And just to spice things up a bit,

particularly if they wanted
to compromise you,

they'd make sure that you got
into some kind of liaison

with a prostitute who'd be arranged,
and that would be filmed.

So you'd then be... You know,
they'd have something on you.

There were cameras installed,
there were bugs,

there were even little
holes drilled in the walls

so they could hear
what these Western dignitaries

and visitors were saying.
And it was all part

of their monumental
intelligence-gathering efforts.

You can still visit it today

and imagine you're being sort of
spied upon by the shadowy Stasi.

Such is the interest in
the techniques of the Stasi,

there is even a spy museum
in Berlin today.

I'm meeting Dr Christopher Nehring,

who has a number of objects
in the collection

that reveal just what it was like
to be a Stasi agent at the time.

What is this? This is obviously
a briefcase here, right?

It's, er...

..one of the Stasi's...
hidden devices.

You could, er...just hide
everything inside the suitcase.

What it did was, to use it for
secret searches of your home.

What you have built
inside the suitcase

is a camera and
two reduced flashlights.

It's a camera?
It's a camera inside here

and it was used
to take pictures of documents.

You put a document on here.

So the Stasi would take pictures.

Picture after picture
of your personal documents.

And this is a handbag. I can
recognise this. Can I touch this?

You can touch it.

Well, you call it a handbag
or woman's purse... Yeah.

..which means that
the Stasi's trick actually worked,

because what you have
inside is a camera.

Wow! OK.

It's another hidden camera
which will take pictures

through that little lens here.

This is the lens? This is the lens.

And you can trigger it
while walking.

What were they hoping to do?
What were they taking photos of?

Anything, basically,
they would deem suspicious.

Right.

This, as you can see,
was built for use outdoors.

Yes. But it's mainly for
surveillance, following people...

Right. ..or taking pictures of
larger gatherings of people.

Surveillance was so rife
in East Berlin,

Stasi-managed Germany,

that it probably exceeds any
other time in recorded history

for oppressive surveillance.

You were always being watched.

And more than just watched,
you were being videotaped.

There was cameras in your bedroom,

cameras in the hotel.

People had special briefcases and
cameras mounted on their watches.

They put them everywhere

cos they wanted to listen to
everything that you had to say.

And there were so many of them,
throughout the course of your day,

you were probably being videotaped
a dozen different times.

Now, I know what this is.
Deodorant, right?

It looks like deodorant.

It doesn't work any more,
but it used to work.

And what it actually did...

..was a so-called container.

That is, you have
a secret compartment here

and only a little bit of deodorant,
of actual deodorant.

So, it would actually work?
It would work.

For example, it was used
to smuggle films

or small documents across borders.
Microfilm?

Microfilms, secret messages.

And if the border police
would try whether it works,

it would actually work.
I mean, you can...

If you smell it,
it still smells like deodorant.

It's not bad, it's not bad.

We mustn't forget that the Stasi
were a Cold War intelligence agency

as well as being
a secret police service.

And in that, they did the same
as almost all the others.

They had Q-branch-type
objects for spying.

You can see the briefcase that
dismantles into a photocopier,

the bra that has
a secreted camera in it,

the deodorant bottle that untwists
and is there for passing messages.

They had developed all of these
capabilities for their internal

and also external espionage
activities, which were significant.

And this... Well, another briefcase.

I'm getting used to these now. What
is it, a camera in this, or a...?

Can I open it? Check it out, yeah.

Oh, wow! Wow!

OK. Well, that's
a little bit more serious.

This is pretty serious.

That's a machinegun?
It's a machinegun.

This is a Czech machinegun
the Stasi used.

Not so much for intelligence work.

This is reported to
have been used by bodyguards

or the security people at embassies.

Right, OK. So this is obviously
a little bit more...

This is all surveillance,

but this is something
on a very different level.

This is really, really serious.

So it was pretty hard to get
your hand on stuff like that.

And the bodyguard...

I'll show you.
..would carry the briefcase around.

Yeah. And in case of an attack,
hold it up like this,

press it against the body, which
would trigger the machinegun inside.

Oh, so, this is a...
The whole thing is a gun?

The whole thing is a gun.
Would shoot from out here.

You're kidding me! Oh, I thought
this was a case to hide the gun.

No. This is a concealed weapon.

So, where does it fire...?
So, you push it here?

Here. And that would fire?
This would fire.

Oh, my word, that is extraordinary!
I've never seen anything like it!

That is amazing!

It's incredible that the Stasi went
to such extraordinary lengths

to spy on their own people.

You'd be in a park

and there'd be a camera
in the tree next you

or it might be in a walking stick
that some old person

walking past you nonchalantly,

was actually filming you
with the walking stick.

I mean, it's absolutely bizarre.

And, of course, the items
that you see in the Stasi museum

point to a paranoia that we simply
can't get our heads around.

But what happened to people who
crossed swords with the regime?

The answer was that many were
sent to the Hohenschoenhausen,

a Stasi prison that was
a central detention centre

for nearly 40 years.

Now, the prison was located
in an exclusion zone

which meant that it didn't
appear on any maps,

and this gave the Stasi
free rein to treat the prisoners

in some pretty horrific ways.

The prison has over 200 cells
and interrogation rooms.

Peter Keup was an East Berlin
resident who tried to escape

the regime and spent years
as a Stasi prisoner.

Well...

So, this is the car I was,
you know, transported with.

Probably my worst experience in the
whole time when I was in prison.

Because they picked me up
from the train,

they asked me 40 hours
in a row if I wanted to escape.

40 hours, I said no.

And then, you know,
it was just too much for me.

I collapsed and I said,
"Yes, I want to escape,"

because it didn't add up to
say no any longer.

And then they, you know,
they gave me handcuffs,

then they forced me to
get in a car like this.

So there was a ramp, so to say,
where I had to get up,

and then, you know,
I had to get around the corner.

You see, a little cell, like there.

You see, there was just as much
space as a human being need.

So the van would come in here.

Can you sort of walk me
through what would happen?

You would walk through here,
is that how it would work? Yeah.

I mean, first of all, the van, you
didn't know where the van goes to.

The van came through this door.

Then this door would have
been closed.

Shut, yeah. And then this van
stopped, and after so many hours,

you realise that
something's going on.

Then they open up the door.

Then they open up
the first cell door,

then they screamed "Raus!" which
is the German word for "get out".

Raus, which sounds even more...
And then you had to get out.

And now imagine,
four hours in complete darkness.

And then it was completely
white painted,

with packages of neon lights

that means you couldn't
see anything.

So you're blinded as you
came out of the van. Yeah.

So you'd be picked up
by the Stasi on the streets,

you'd be bundled into
a windowless van,

you'd be driven around for hours,
in complete darkness.

People outside would think
it was a grocery van.

You'd then be taken to
the Stasi prison.

The moment the doors are flung open
there'd be bright lights

shining on you.
The whole thing was theatre

to completely disorientate you,
to break you down,

and, more importantly, to get
an early confession out of you.

So, those bars were closed
until you had to get through.

And it must have been terrifying
for anyone being brought in here...

Yeah. ..for the first time.
I mean, always the comment...

I mean, in front of this closed bar
they told you, "Face the wall."

You always had to
face the wall first.

Then they opened up a bar, then
you were allowed to get through.

And so, the whole procedure
was so unreal, so bizarre.

And also dehumanising, I guess...

Yeah. ..which was quite an important
part of what they were doing.

Yes, because the fact was
they informed you that you were not

allowed to look into their faces.

You always had to look down.

Oh, you're not allowed to look
at the guards' faces?

Yes, yes, yes. You were not allowed
to turn around, for instance.

So they ordered, you know,
you have to look down

and you're not allowed
to look into their faces.

So is this the kind of cell
that you were held in? Yeah.

That's the kind. So, yeah, first of
all, you know, these glass bricks.

It is like a wall.

I mean, you have daylight but, as
you see, you can't look through.

So you are in a, you know,
in a cell completely isolated

from the rest of the world.

How does it feel, for you,
being in this cell now?

I remember how it felt,
you know, when the door...

..when they closed the door,
and they locked it up.

And then you are in this
chamber, you know.

And the first time when I came into
this cell, I realise the toilet...

And the toilet actually showed me
that I have to stay for longer.

It is strange. It was like
an enemy, this thing

because I thought, "That makes it
possible that I spend here,

"you know, plenty of time."

Because everything is here -
a water place, a toilet.

No need to open up the door.

Imprisonment with the Stasi

was a psychologically
searing imprisonment.

The Stasi worked on
people's identity.

They worked on their mental state.

They put people into states of
isolation and cut them off

totally from everything they knew.

That was the horror of being
captured by the Stasi.

It was complete detachment
from the world.

There was the basic things
like sleep deprivation,

but also interrogating people
over long periods of time.

And also little things

like, you know,

you would find yourself
lying in your cell at night,

you were forced to look up
at the ceiling.

And the light would come on
every ten minutes,

so you were sleep deprived,

and then you were taken to
a room where the only person

that you're allowed to talk to
for months was your interrogator.

And that's basically how
they deconstructed people

and destroyed them from the inside,

so that they'd then
denounce, of course,

alleged traitors in the DDR.

So, have you ever come face-to-face

with any of your captors
since your release? Yes.

So, first I avoided any contact.

Of course, I lived in West Germany

and there was no reason
to get back to East Germany.

I even had problems
to get back to this place.

Then in 2013, I found out that
my brother was with the Stasi.

So he was a Stasi spy.

I applied for his Stasi file.

And there I had to find out
that my brother, you know,

worked close with them.

He signed up a contract to spy
on my parents, to spy on me.

You're joking? Yeah. So your own
brother was spying on your family?

I don't know if he did.

It was his order.

I cross fingers that
he was maybe under pressure,

so they took pressure
on him until he signed up,

and he never spied on us.

But I can't be really sure.

They would tell you things that
would make you begin to doubt

what you had previously believed.

They'd tell you things
about your family,

about what people were reputed
to have said about you.

Much of it false, but the idea
was just to make you crack.

And then you would sign
whatever declaration,

or say whatever it was
that they wanted you to say.

And you can still see, very visibly,
the cells where so many people

buckled and gave into these
sinister interrogators.

The Stasi were not just respected,
because they had to be,

they were feared. I mean, you knew
that if you were perceived

as being somehow as a dissident,
in one way or another,

that you could be put in prison

just because of something you said
after you had a couple of beers.

These people were watching
your every move, and you knew

that no-one could be trusted.

Not your boss at work,

not your father, not your lover.

It was that prevalent.

The Stasi's horrific treatment
of suspected enemies of the state

was not just restricted
to its detention centres.

Beyond the prison walls,
they carried out something

far more devious
to silence their opponents

called Zersetzung, which literally
translates as decomposition.

Zersetzung was a process

of psychological torture

that aimed to isolate and paralyse
what were thought to be

subversive members of society.

Now, this Stasi directive
rather clinically describes

what this meant.

And I quote...

"It is a systematic degradation
of reputation, image and prestige.

"A systematic organisation of social
and professional failures for

"demolishing the self-confidence
of the individual.

"Stimulation of doubts with respect
to perspective on the future,

"stimulation of mistrust or
mutual suspicion among groups."

They would even poison food,
destroy relationships,

or even break into people's
houses and move things around

when they weren't there.

They quite literally drove
enemies of the state insane.

There was something that
they did called gas lighting,

which was actually terrifying.

You would go home one day,
no sign of a break in.

Neighbours hadn't heard anything.

You'd be going about your business
and think, "Wait a minute,

"there's something slightly
different about my flat.

"Surely I didn't buy
that brand of coffee?"

And then your alarm clock
goes off at a different time.

And gradually they up the oddness.

Basically, you think
you're becoming unhinged.

Say you had one fish
in your goldfish bowl.

You'd go in one day,
and there's two fish.

Well, that's impossible.
So you really must be going mad.

You know this kind of thing.

They tried to kind of
break men and women,

make them feel like
they were going mad,

like they had nothing to live for.

And this was something
that could be denied,

because it was actually
very subtle in some instances,

but also something that would

get rid of the will to live
from these people.

These people would be crushed
and they wouldn't really want

to get up in the morning
let alone engage in subterfuge

or treasonous activities.

So they were crafty, very subtle,
but arch-psychological manipulators.

The psychological oppression
the Stasi imposed

divided the East Berlin citizens.

Those who thought of escaping
to the West questioned themselves,

and those around them.

If they did overcome
their psychological border

and try to escape, then they were
met with a physical one.

In a divided Germany, the border
between the two opposing regimes

was of paramount importance.

The inner German border, as it was
called, was over 850 miles long

and, by 1982, it had 19 checkpoints
along its length.

Although it was never
entirely sealed,

movement was severely restricted,
especially for East Germans.

This is Checkpoint Charlie,

arguably the most famous crossing
point between East and West Germany.

From 1961 to 1990, it was the main
entry point into East Germany

for journalists,
diplomats and non-Germans.

In October 1961 it became
a flash point of the Cold War.

Soviet and American tanks faced
each other in a stand-off

across this checkpoint, in an event
that nearly sparked World War III.

Berlin was unique
during the Cold War,

for that juxtaposition of East and
West, and all eyes were on it.

Much of what happened there
does read like

Cold War spy movies
because that's the way it was.

I had the opportunity to cross
into East Berlin a number of times

when it was still East Berlin.

Going across Checkpoint Charlie
and seeing these places,

and they are exactly
as you see them in the films now.

This was where the Cold War
was the most concentrated.

You go to Checkpoint Charlie today
and you expect there to be some

bit of atmosphere that from the...

No, not at all.
McDonald's is on this side,

Kentucky Fried Chicken on this side.

It's like a huge tourist site.

It has none of
the essence of importance

of a historical site
that epitomised the Cold War.

This was once

a kind of perilous, mortal crossing

and it can seem a little
bit distasteful

that the whole thing is almost
like, parasitically,

you've got all these
fast food joints,

whereas this is actually quite
a grave and sobering site,

or it should be.

I know a lot of people are very
unhappy that it's now

been completely commercialised,
but I suppose, in a sense,

that's the new Germany,
you know. I suppose,

we could almost celebrate the fact
that Checkpoint Charlie now,

it's impossible to imagine
the horror that went there,

that people died trying
to get across the wall.

Burying underneath it,
rushing to get through it,

ramming a tank into it,
ramming a car into it.

All the things they did
to try and get out.

You can't imagine it now.

Well, maybe in some ways it's
a good thing

that we can't imagine that
that ever happened there.

And let's hope it
doesn't happen again.

On the 9th of November 1989,

a poorly managed press conference

led to one of the biggest
blunders in history -

the accidental announcement

that people could cross freely
between the East and the West,

for the first time in
nearly 30 years.

And this was the beginning
of the end for the Berlin Wall,

and the German Democratic Republic

was about to crumble
in a similar way.

It's difficult now to piece together
exactly why the Stasi allowed

the Berlin Wall to fall.

It may be an extension
of their general idea,

which was not to bang enormous
numbers of people up in jail

throughout their 40 years, instead,
they broke them down mentally.

They didn't want the outside world
to know about their, if you like,

civil rights abuses
or human rights abuses.

They didn't want to risk
starting a war by machine-gunning

their own citizens. There was also
just the sheer number of people.

This wasn't just one or two people.

This was waves and waves of
people gushing through, like,

with their husbands and their
wives and their young children.

It would have been a public
relations disaster

if they'd just turned the whole
thing into a bloodbath.

I mean, what was
so extraordinary in 1989 was

we knew the Soviet Union
was changing but East Germany,

you know, that was THE most
Stalinist police state, you know,

behind the Iron Curtain.

And yet, the Stasi itself
seemed to know the game was up,

you know, that it was over.

And so when people climbed onto the
Berlin Wall and disrespected it

and started going into the West,

incredibly, the Stasi
just gave up the game.

The Stasi knew it was
living on borrowed time

and the last few weeks of 1989
saw black smoke rising

from the courtyards
of Stasi offices.

They were burning the files.

On the 13th of January
the Stasi was formally dissolved

and it ramped up efforts to
destroy the records they held.

When the poorly made
East German shredders broke down,

they desperately
tore the files up by hand,

all in an attempt to
cover up their crimes.

But a couple of days later
word got out that this was going on

and a large crowd
of protesters grew here,

outside the Stasi's headquarters.

Desperate to ensure the evidence of
the Stasi's crime was not erased,

they overcame the police and
gained entry to the building.

Once inside, the angry mob
sacked the building,

and were able to save the majority
of files from destruction.

A staggering 160 kilometres
of Stasi files were recovered

across East Germany.

They reveal just how in control of
East Germany the Stasi really were

and also how they had acted
well beyond the rule of law

and in complete disregard of
human dignity and civil rights.

The Stasi were unique in many ways

and one of the extraordinary things
is, because East Germany

wasn't conquered militarily

but it collapsed
under its own internal struggles,

the entire Stasi infrastructure
was left in place

and the people of
East Germany protected it

because they wanted
access to the files

and they have had access
to the files subsequently.

The new unified Germany passed
an Act of Parliament

to allow and enable that access, so
what's been left to us by the Stasi

is an extraordinary record
of their thoroughness,

and it's preserved
almost in its entirety.

They kept the most meticulous
records of things

that were, seemingly,
utterly trivial.

Well, like, you know, when someone
would take their dog for a walk,

what they'd been getting up to
when they go out at night.

And this really became manifest when
the Berlin Wall fell in '89

and the Stasi seemingly just
walked away from their offices

and the forces of the West moved in.

And they were astonished to find
not just a few filing cabinets

or a few index cards,
but hundreds of kilometres

of these meticulous records.

Decades before the NSA,
Facebook, Google or Yahoo

trawled our every move
with cookies on the internet

and noted our likes and dislikes,

the Stasi were doing the same thing
in East Germany.

We find 160 kilometres
worth of files

with the same kind of information
that is being recorded on us today

by Facebook, for instance.

You know, just mundane things.

"I went to the grocery store today.

"I bought three cartons of milk.

"Last week I only bought one.

"And then I went home
and I took a nap."

Things that just seem ridiculous.

Why would anyone care?

But they were recording everything.

It was really quite obsessive.

The vast amount of secret data
left behind by the Stasi

is a fascinating
yet disturbing insight

into life behind the Berlin Wall.

It truly exposes the scale and
effectiveness of their operation.

The way the Stasi operated

was a system that required people
to believe in it.

People had to be afraid
for that fear to work.

What happened in 1989 was that
people stopped being afraid.

And when that many people, en masse,
are disobedient and rebellious,

a system like the Stasi's
no longer functions

and it disintegrated quickly.

You know, I look back
on the Stasi period today

and I think, "Wow."

I mean, the ingenuity,

the length that they went
without any real technology, right,

to record and monitor all of
the movements of their people,

it's really quite impressive.

But on the other hand,
it's really very revolting.

And now we realise it seems
to have served as a precursor

for the surveillance
we're all under today.

Has anything really changed?

I'm not so sure.

For 40 years,
the German Democratic Republic

had used the Stasi to perpetuate a
reign of terror over its population.

Its colossal web of spies
and informants built up

a collection of files on
approximately 6 million

German citizens, more than
a third of the population.

It is often said that Nazi Germany
left behind mountains of corpses.

Here in East Germany,
it was mountains of files.

And both left scars on Germany
that can be felt to this day.

I'll see you next time.

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