Our friends at Ein Magazin über Orte recently published their latest issue dedicated to Berlin, and I’m really happy that they asked to include a few images of a series that I started working on quite a few years ago (and since then shamefully neglected), on the city’s layered past, in this case its East German past in particular, photographing a series of buildings that used to house central departments of the infamous Ministry for State Security.
The Ministerium fuer Staatssicherheit (MfS) as it was called in German, more commonly known as the Stasi, was the official security service of East Germany and widely feared as one of the most effective and repressive intelligence agencies in the world. At its demise in 1989, it had more than 91,000 employees, with an additional 174,000 unofficial informants, approximating around 2.5% of East Germany’s population.
Apart from its official headquarters, the Stasi owned thousands of buildings and apartments, in almost every street of all major cities of the GDR to sustain its unprecedented machinery of control and espionage. These buildings now blend seamlessly into the German landscape, partly deserted, partly used for residential, governmental or commercial purposes. Only few of them indicate the sinister history that took place behind their walls.
Photography: Kai von Rabenau
Above:
OTS
Freienwalder Strasse, Berlin Hohenschoenhausen
Employees: 1080
Laboratory for Criminal Technology
VRD
Normannenstrasse, Berlin Lichtenberg
Employees: 3733
Administration Rear Services
VRD
Normannenstrasse, Berlin Lichtenberg
Employees: 3733
Administration Rear Services
Abteilung N
Gotlindestrasse, Berlin Lichtenberg
Employees: more than 1500
Information Services
WACHREGIMENT BERLIN FELIKS E. DZIERZYNSKI
Ahrensfelder Chaussee, Berlin Ahrensfelde
Employees: 10211
Military Corps of the MfS
HVA
Normannenstrasse, Berlin Lichtenberg
Employees: 4126
Central Intelligence Administration
VRD
Normannenstrasse, Berlin Lichtenberg
Employees: 3733
Administration Rear Services
HA KuSch
Gotlindestrasse, Berlin Lichtenberg
Employees: 1077
Department for Training and Education
Abteilung XII
Freienwalder Strasse, Berlin Hohenschoenhausen
Employees: 350
Central Secret Archives
Abteilung XIV
Freienwalder Strasse, Berlin Hohenschoenhausen
Employees: ca. 250
Penitentiary of the MfS
