Berlin history at the Stasi museum

Berlin has so many different faces. Friedrichshain has a lot of old buildings and even the new flats are build to resemble the old style. Nothing is really bigger than about 6 floors and the neighborhood feels like a town within a city. A 30-minute walk from my house it’s like you’re in a different city. Big, simple flats dominate along a busy road, hiding everything else out of sight. Behind one of those flats is a terrain with dreary looking concrete buildings. It’s the former headquarters of the Stasi.

The Stasi, or ministry for state security, was an infamous organisation of the GDR and former East Berlin. Many films and books were made about the Stasi since they had an enormous network of official and unofficial spies to make sure the people of Eastern Germany were good GDR citizens. Everyone with different thoughts or opinions was at risk of being caught and imprisoned.

The Stasi had offices in pretty much every district, but their headquarters were right here in Berlin-Lichtenberg. The buildings are still there and house all the files that have been rescued after the Stasi was dissolved. Besides that, there is a museum where you can learn about the Stasi’s activities. I started my visit with a guided tour. Because of COVID-19 the tour went around the grounds of the Stasi and not inside the museum. That, we could explore afterwards.

It’s hard to imagine that Lichtenberg was once a quiet little town next to Berlin. Berliners came here to enjoy the countryside. Our guide has a photo of what the little hill on the Stasi terrain used to look like. There is a mill on top of it, so it could catch the wind. None of the big buildings surrounding it were there. Now there’s a former Stasi-building on the little hill. Lichtenberg was sort of in the center of East Berlin and therefore a great place for the ever growing Stasi headquarters. Other buildings were destroyed so the Stasi could expand. A church had to be moved to build a Stasi shopping mall. It did actually happen and the church still exists to this day. Our guide is full of information and brings the boring-looking buildings to life.

After the tour I have look inside the museum. I start at the second floor, where the offices can still be seen as they were left behind. Fun fact I learned from our guide: the second floor was renamed to first floor because the minister Erich Mielke could of course only work from number 1. They invented new names for the floors below it because the whole system was messed up. Even the building had to be rebranded as “the first building”, though it wasn’t the oldest. It’s like I step back in time. The furniture is super retro and could probably be sold for a decent amount these days. There are safes hidden in closets everywhere. There is a print of the note the minister left to his secretary about how he wanted his breakfast to be laid out. It’s all a bit bizarre.

The GDR had strict rules, also for the people working at the ministry. There is still a radio with some pieces of tape on it. They were put there to make sure you were on the right frequency. Imagine any official listening to radio from the West! If your frequency was out of the marked area you were in big trouble! Further exhibitions show stories from people who worked for the ministry and how they felt about it, equipment that was used spying like a camera briefcase, and the history of the Stasi. It certainly is an interesting place to visit.