---
title: The Stasi and the implications of surveillance
author: Mohit Agarwal
date: July 2021
bibliography: ["reference.bib"]
link-citations: true
csl: https://www.zotero.org/styles/apa-6th-edition
nocite: '@*'
---

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The Stasi's mission throughout the GDR was to practise surveillance on
the population of the country. The methods and impacts of the
organisation that operated until the recent reunification of Germany
may demonstrate the way in which a state can organise surveillance
against its own people and the implications it has for those in power
and those under their authority.

A government may get involved in the regular surveillance of its
citizens for many reasons. The interception of communications are
readily visible (inelegant) including the interception of mail in the
American colonies by the British in the years before the American
Revolution. This also included the change and destruction of
information, yet the purpose remains the same as modern surveillance:
to watch over citizens that the ruling authority does not trust or
claims cannot be trusted. Those who wish to monitor modern electronic
communications may suggest that such an operation exists in the
interest of the safety of the public, by stopping crime and terrorism.

Much of the Stasi's strength came from its numbers. The Stasi was able
to infiltrate every facet of the East German society to an astounding
extent. The reputation of the Stasi is well deserved from the power to
plant the seeds of doubt within the population. 

The methods of the Stasi are often described as inducing fear in
citizens.

The tools of surveillance served the state, and in return the state
served the Stasi. Just as to us, surveillance agencies and government
may appear separate, in East Germany they were demonstrably not. There
is arguably a great deal more power and flexibility was afforded to
the rulers of the state by the actions of the Stasi. The authoritarian
stance of the ruling party existed not only in high level politics,
but in the daily lives of the individual. In this way, survaillance is
much like propaganda. Surveillance, often in a way that people may not
at first initially recognise, is able to have a widespread impact on
individuals according to the wishes of those in power.

In the GDR, those in power wanted to actively control the lives of
their citizens, and ensure behaviour according to the rules of the
state. Surveillance might serve those who want control particularly
effectively. The Stasi was able to influence people through their
surveillance and their spread to all assets of society. The Stasi was
able to make its way into the groups it considered 'enemies', such as
the Church. Many members of the church were Stasi members or
informants, and by this method of infiltration, surveillance can
empower those who wish to control their populations to find and
silence dissenters. This has the ability to create an atmosphere of
fear, where one is unaware of who may be an informant and is aware of
what not to say to others. A consideration of who 'worked for' the
Stasi is important. The number of Stasi informants were much larger
than full-time Stasi officers [@popular-involvement]. This is the tool
of controlling surveillance: seeping into the small parts of our
societies; in schools, factories, churches, and families the Stasi had
far greater power and knowledge than it would on a higher level.

This consideration has major implications with the development of
technology following the end of the Stasi's operations, given the
prevalence of sophisticated devices with microphones and cameras,
which the Stasi went to great lengths to plant in private places, but
that we carry around with us as granted.

The Stasi came to an unexpected end. Following the declining interest
of the previously heavily invested Soviet Union in maintaining a
powerful regime in East Germany, and the later fall of the Berlin Wall
as part of "The Peaceful Revolution" in 1989, the Stasi fell with the
regime it worked under. The Stasi and the state enjoyed a symbiotic
relationship, serving each others needs. Towards the end of the end of
the GDR, the Stasi struggled to maintain its grip on the people. In
turn the GDR began seeing an increase in pro-democracy sentiment and
mobilisation. Arguably the tightly knit relationship between the Stasi
and the state sent the system into a downwards spiral at the end. Here
we may be able to gather that in modern authoritarian systems,
surveillance is not only beneficial to, but essential for those in
power. Those who desire to rule authoritatively over people in modern
states with high population cities and technology such as printers,
typewriters, radio, and television which can be used to turn the
people against authorities need surveillance in order to ensure these
very things become non existent.

In this the Stasi was somewhat successful. Although the regulation of
items such as typewriters or printing equipent were highly regulated,
particularly before the beggining of the end for the Stasi, the Stasi
was not able to prevent a rather powerful weapon used by the western
powers. Although the state engaged in heavy censorship of materials
such as books, and the state control of radio, television, and print
media, people were still able to receive western broadcasting on their
radio and television sets. Despite the illegality of this, the
authorities were unwilling or unable to thoroughly police this and
people were able to see broadcasting such as news from the outside
world, breaking down the highly censored walls of the GDR, and
allowing in outside knowledge.

Arguably, this is where the Stasi could have done more work to further
exert and maintain control over the people. The ability of people to
listen to outside broadcasting afforded great influence to West
Germany and NATO in East German borders. Censorship can thusly be
viewed as a very powerful tool of authoritarianism, and the lack of
limitation by the Stasi on what people were watching and listening to
may have disintegrated the other tools of propaganda and
disinformation that the authorities were naturally trying to
simultaneously leverage.

In a sense the reality of the Stasi and the ways in which it impacted
the lives of people in East Germany present us with an opportunity to
look carefully at a surveillance state that so recently fell apart.
There are many people alive today who have lived under the influence
of the Stasi and are yet to share their stories. It is by
understanding the Stasi that we can understand the increasingly
visible surveillance in our current societies, and avoid reliving the
experiences of others that we don't expect to through naivety and
don't wish to once we are shown them.

The nature of surveillance and the way in which technology enables it
is something that we cannot ignore, given our knowledge of the past.
Mass surveillance and the impacts it has are naturally not limited to
the Stasi, yet the bizarre and terrifying nature of events in East
Germany feel like looking clearly through a lens, given that the Stasi
no longer exists and we are able to understand it in way that we may
not be able to with current events.  Thus the opportunity information
about the Stasi provides is a very valuable one, given the clear view
and judgement we are able to have on it and thus our potential to
learn more from it than other examples of surveillance.

<-- horrible ending

# References and bibliography