Totalitarian efficiency

Anne was keen to go to the Stasi museum, and that turned out to be an inspired choice because it was fascinating. The Stasi were the Ministry of State Security (MfS) in the GDR, in other words, they were the secret police. I liked the fact that they had not built a specially designed museum but rather it was located in House 1 on the former grounds of the headquarters of the MfS. It was built in 1960-61 as the offices of Erich Mielke, who served as Minister for State Security from 1957 until the end of the GDR. His offices are preserved in their original condition and form the centrepiece of the historic site.

The museum begins in the car park with a timeline display from the creation of the GDR through its eventual collapse and the reunification of Germany. With lots of photographs, documents and many personal stories, the display walks you through the key events and people involved in that journey. However, it also sets it in the context of the social and political changes that were taking place across Europe and the wider world.

We then moved into the MfS HQ, and went through the building floor by floor and room by room. It was a real insight into the psychology of totalitarianism, and why such regimes tend to be quite brutal - they live in constant fear of revolution that will overthrow those in power.

At one stage 1 in 10 people in the GDR were spying for the MfS. I was particularly struck by one display of a wedding photograph, the bride and groom and best man all laughing joyfully together. It turned out that the best man had been spying on the couple and continued to do so. It was as if they had a siege mentality, much like North Korea today, living in constant fear of being attacked by the West.

I was struck too, by the enormity of effort and organisation and administration that went into the whole operation. Like the Nazis before them, they kept meticulous records, records they tried to destroy but that would lead to the unmasking of thousands of Stasi spies, some of whom were in powerful political positions.
It made me wonder what happened to those kinds of relationships after the GDR collapsed and the scale of Stasi spying on the populace was made known. How could you reconcile with people, family and friends who had been spying on you for MfS?

We were at the museum for ages but it was well worth it. Afterwards, the ever talented Anne went to a ceramics class, and Rob, Anita and I went to the Neues Museum, and we managed to get there ourselves without getting lost, though to be fair there is a station at museum island as it is called. Just near the cathedral a Scots piper was busking, playing the bagpipes, he was playing Flower of Scotland, our unofficial national anthem, I was very generous with my coins.

The museum mostly housed Egyptian and Roman exhibits, with a world famous papyrus collection and of course the famous bust of Nefertiti, so famous it had a room to itself. You could take photographs of everything except that...well they wanted to sell you lots of Nefertiti stuff in the gift shop, which of course you had to go through to exit the building.

We decided to have a quiet night in as we planned to go to Potsdam in the morning, so, after a dinner of leftovers (still fab) and a chat, it was off to bed. It had been another good day.Read more