---
title: The Stasi and the nature of surveillance
author: Mohit Agarwal
date: July 2021
bibliography: ["reference.bib"]
link-citations: true
csl: https://www.zotero.org/styles/apa-6th-edition
papersize: a4
nocite: '@*'
---

<!-- *y -->

The Stasi's mission throughout the GDR was to practise surveillance on
the population of the country. The Stasi's operated until the recent
reunification of Germany. The example of the Stasi might, therefore,
be a rather useful one in the consideration on surveillance and its
impacts for both those conducting it and those it is being conducted
against.

We can find important identifying characteristics of surveillance and
what they mean for people through study of the Stasi and what it did.
This can lead us to suggest that the nature of surveillance is one
that can very effectively server authoritarian leadership, is one that
attempts to justify itself, and

The example of the Stasi makes it very clear that surveillance can
meaningfully serve the state and its need for power.  The Stasi
existed to act for the ruling party in East Germany and to ensure that
those under the regime were kept within certain limits.  The work of
the head of the Stasi, Erich Mielke, in East German surveillance
operations led him to great power politically as a member of the
ruling inner circle, the Politburo. This was because of the power and
flexibility afforded to the rulers of the state by the actions of the
Stasi, leading the party to encourage and fund the work of the Stasi.
The leadership could through high level politics outsource involvement
on a much lower level to the Stasi and maintain their authoritarian
positions more effectively. In this way, surveillance is much like
propaganda.  In a way that is not immediately obvious, surveillance 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 related actions due to 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. Surveillance creates a covert root to
attack those an authoritarian state wishes to, rather than other
methods which are more easily noticeable and preventable. On the other
hand, methods such as propaganda and traditional policing cannot
prevent those working actively to escape the reach of those in power
or spreading their own ideas in secret. Furthermore, this has the
ability to create an atmosphere of fear, where one is unaware of who
may be an informant. This forces one to become acutely aware of what
not to say to others and can practically silence the spread of
unwanted information.  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.

Whilst the Stasi operated, there often seemed a need to justify its
actions, either politically or to the people. The East German
authorities presented themselves as acting for the people and
particularly against Fascism as part of a very strong reaction to a
previously Nazi Germany.  Just as the authorities held mock elections,
where the SED would always win and the description of the Berlin Wall
as an Anti-Fascist measure (*Antifaschistischer Schutzwall*), the
actions of authoritarianism are often explained in some way that
appears genuine.  Similarly, surveillance by the Stasi was presented
as acting for the protection of people.  In our own lives we may see
heavy surveillance explained as preventing crime or terrorism.
Similarly the Stasi's supposed purpose is visible in its name: the
Ministry for State Security (*Ministerium für Staatssicherheit*). Here
the reasoning for surveillance is presented just as the elections and
wall were; as a genuine and necessary part of East German society.

Such presentations and justifications of surveillance are rather
interesting.  The Stasi alongside other authoritarian measures in the
GDR justified their existences to the people in a rather dangerous
way.  By presenting itself as protecting the people whilst instead
working against them and treating many of them as enemies of the
state, the Stasi presented outwardly a rather different image to what
it was.  Although many East Germans surely knew of its true purpose,
the naming and presentation gives the opportunity for one to see the
actions of the Stasi in a good light and accept as necessary as it
described itself.  We may often here in discussions of state
surveillance, that if one has nothing to hide then there is no issue
in heavy usage of surveillance. It is this sentiment that Anna Funder
describes in Stasiland when discussing her conversation with a man in
the park in reference to the Berlin Wall: "I know this argument as
well: if you didn’t buck the system, then it wouldn’t harm you.  But,
from what I have seen, it probably would." The potential for one to
accept or ignore the authoritarian measures of a surveillance agency
may have to do with the image they assert, as looking out for people.
It is by this that might have drawn people to join the Stasi and work
for the state: the belief that doing so is upholding the law and
living in the right way.  Funder's Stasiland discusses this also
when an ex-Stasi officer, Herr Christian, describes his reasons
for joining the Stasi: "but he stayed with the Firm [Stasi]. ‘I’ve
always had an acute sense of duty to obey the law,’ he says,
‘and I thought it was the right thing to do.’"


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 equipment were highly regulated,
particularly before the beginning 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 influence to West Germans and
NATO in East German borders with relatively little effort
[@npr-radio;@nyt-television].  Censorship can thusly be viewed as a
very powerful tool of authoritarianism and one that can be performed
by surveillance organisations. The Stasi's failure to prevent people
watching and listening to foreign broadcasts may have disintegrated
the other tools of propaganda and disinformation that the authorities
were naturally trying to simultaneously leverage. The information
people were given now had a basis for being untrue through West German
broadcasting and may have indeed had a large contribution to the
events at the end of the East German state.

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 

Surveillance exists in an interesting 

# References and bibliography