path: root/paper.md

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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/cambridge-university-press-author-date
papersize: a4
nocite: '@*'
---

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Throughout the GDR, the Stasi performed surveillance and intervened
when it seemed necessary in order to support the ruling dictatorship
and act to prevent that which the party wanted to [@purpose]. The
Stasi operated until the recent reunification of Germany. The example
of the Stasi might, therefore, be a rather useful one in the
consideration of surveillance and the widespread implications that it
has. The identification of various characteristics of surveillance
through their visibility in East Germany paints a picture of
surveillance, the way it can behave like other political measures, and
how it is useful and potentially essential for modern totalitarianism.

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 head of
the Stasi, Erich Mielke, had great power politically as a member of
the ruling inner circle, the Politburo. His position and the fear of
both him and his organisation [@guardian-mielke] reflects the tie
between the Stasi and the state.

Great power and flexibility was 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 throughout East
German 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. By this method of infiltration,
surveillance is a useful tool to those who wish to effectively control
their populations. 

Groups or individuals that the state wishes to silence or remove can
be effectively handled through surveillance.  Surveillance creates a
covert and effective 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, surveillance 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 and thereby who or what
the Stasi was or was at least made of is important.  The number of
Stasi informants was far greater than the number of full-time Stasi
officers [@popular-involvement]. Here we can see one of the Stasi's
most powerful tools for effective surveillance: seeping into the small
parts of our societies. In schools, factories, churches, and families
the Stasi had total surveillance on a truly low level with individuals
informing on the actions of others without having to be fully employed
by the Stasi. Surveillance could occur on a much more significant
scale and impact every single person.

Consideration of the scale of the Stasi and the methods by which it
was achieved has major implications with the development of technology
more recently. There is a 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 and use in
our daily lives. The Stasi's attempts at hiding cameras and
microphones without raising suspicion to infiltrate people's private
lives is rather startling considering the telecommunications devices
that we are so often surrounded by and think nothing of.

There often seemed a need to justify the actions and existence of the
Stasi, either politically or to the people. The East German
authorities presented themselves as acting for the people and in
particular particularly against Fascism as part of a very strong
reaction to the actions of the Nazi party who had previously ruled in
a united 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.

These presentations and justifications of surveillance are rather
telling of the nature of surveillance.  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
surveillance should not impact those that are innocent and exists only
to catch wrongdoers.  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."[@stasiland] 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.

Naturally, the Stasi required a large number of peeople to work with
them or rather for them in order to carry out surveillance on the
scale that they did [@popular-involvement] and perhaps the
fabrications of the Stasi encouraged this: the belief that working for
the Stasi 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.’"
[@stasiland]


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 was a part of. 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 is what sealed the fate of the surveillance
organisation once the all powerful state that had created it and
allowed it to exist had started to fade away.  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.

The Stasi was somewhat successful in the control of communications and
telecommunications.  Although the regulation of items such as
typewriters or printing equipment were highly regulated, the Stasi was
not able to prevent a rather powerful weapon that was used by the
western powers.  The state engaged in heavy censorship of materials
such as books and engaged in absolute control of East German radio,
television, and print media. Nonetheless, 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.
Parallels may be drawn to modern authoritarian regimes that
potentially pay more attention to these matters which pays dividends
for those in control.

Arguably, this is the most significant area in which 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 it is one that could have been even more
effectively used the Stasi given that surveillance agencies have the
potential to discover and regulate the spread of information in many
ways.  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.

The Stasi represents more than just surveillance as it has been seen
otherwise historically. East Germany is arguably the first example of
modern surveillance state: one which leverages technology and modern
methods in order to monitor and potentially control the public.
Arguably the most important characteristic of surveillance of is that
it might be essential for modern authoritarianism: it certainly was
for the SED and its lack of public support [@purpose].  Learning from
the Stasi and the regime it was created by may be key in
preventing such regimes in the future or such inhumane, widespread,
and totalitarian surveillance in our own time.

The Stasi shows the nature of surveillance rather well. Although the
Stasi does not define surveillance it does show a very successful,
powerful, and heavily used version of it and gives an example that
reflects the ways in which surveillance can be successful and
unsuccessful.  We can observe, for example, that a modern
authoritarian state must, potentially though surveillance, engage in
careful censorship and limit the use of technology to bypass state
censorship.

The Stasi existed for the state and it seems that surveillance is so
useful to authoritarians that it might even be considered essential
given the nature of modern society.  The close relationship between
authoritarianism and surveillance is one to note. If a state does not
wish to act in an authoritarian way then its uses for heavy
surveillance are questionable, particularly given the large
investments required, yet for an authoritarian state,the benefits of
surveillance are obvious in modern times as shown by the Stasi. The
Stasi undoubtedly shows the progression of surveillance into the
modern era: no longer a romantic endeavour of espionage and trickery,
but instead a vast process, a machine that can eat up and spit out
entire populations which the East German authorities were able to
create a very powerful version of which has clearly inspired imitators
and thinkers to attempt to build one in the Stasi's image, perhaps
without its shortcomings  and perhaps to further advance the modern
science of surveillance.

# References and bibliography