Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and end to Germany's Iron Curtain, David Molyneaux returns for the celebrations. This is his sixth blog.
Folks who live in Leipzig, Germany, are proud of the museum dedicated to the horrors of the old East German secret police, the Stasi. Truth gains value after you live in a world of lies for four decades.
The Stasi Museum in Leipzig is operated by a community group that continues to work at saving old records and keeping the past alive — making certain, they say, that nothing from the secret days remains hidden from the public.
During the past 20 years — since the end of the Iron Curtain across Germany and the decrepit East German government — wives and husbands have found out about spouses who were spying on them for the Stasi.
Parents discovered their children kept tabs on their anti-government feelings. Neighbors learned of sneaked peeks when window shades were not drawn, when, perhaps, families were breaking the law by watching television shows from the west.
Some of the secrets never will be known, as they sit in 15 tons of wetted wads of paper, a product of East German paper shredders (right) that destroyed files in the waning days of 1989 and turned them into mounds of a form of paper mache. Museum workers estimate that the paper wads are the result of more than 100 miles of personal files.
Oh, look, a secret code for grandma
Today's visitors can see how ordinary mail was intercepted by police, envelopes steamed open, their contents read, then resealed and placed back in the mail. The Stasi could look at 1,500 to 2,000 letters a day, concentrating on those coming from and going to western countries.
Some letters and postcards were confiscated, particularly ones that the Stasi did not understand, such as the exhibit of a child's drawings — which never got to grandma in Leipzig at Christmas. The Stasi also recorded telephone conversations, overwriting confiscated music tapes to economize.
Museum workers found lists of the city's "unofficial collaborators" who reported suspicious activities by citizens. Museum officials said there is no evidence of violence toward collaborators after their names were made public starting in 1990.
The museum emphasizes one of the ironies of East Germany and its secret police: The Stasi's greatest frustrations were the result of the peace movement and its protests against the government. Because the official position of the government was peace, the Stasi could not openly use force to control the peace movement.
Next: The peaceful revolution of candles and prayers
Information on Planning a trip to Germany
Also from Berlin: Coffee at Brandenburg Gate
To read the entire series:
Back in Berlin again, 20 years after the fall of the wall
Poking about pieces of the old Berlin Wall
Guns, dogs, and fear along the old Iron Curtain
When East met West on peaceful soil in 1989
Lies and dreams east of the old Iron Curtain
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