After a day's work in October 1960, Heinz Brandt and a colleague decided to go to a bar in Charlottenburg, a well-to-do district in West Berlin. There Brandt met a young woman, Eva Walter. The encounter was by no means accidental: Both Walter and the colleague were informal collaborators in the Stasi, the East German secret police.
A plan was in motion to capture Brandt, a former employee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), and repatriate him to East Berlin, the capital of the GDR. Within 18 months, the Stasi achieved its goal: Brandt was drugged in Walter's apartment and taken to the Hohenschönhausen detention center on the communist side of the city.
Read more: Former inmates recall life in Erich Honecker's GDR prisons
Over half a century later, that same prison, today the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial, is the site of a "Stasi in Berlin: Monitoring and repression in East and West" exhibition, the result of two and a half years of research into over 10,000 pages of official Stasi files.
Revealing stories like Brandt's, the research has also helped to create an unprecedented map of thousands of addresses across Berlin used by the GDR's secret police to monitor and prosecute dissidents. Moreover, it allows visitors to follow the destiny of individuals subject to surveillance measures, kidnappings and arrests on both sides of Berlin.
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Berlin's former Stasi slammer
Old building with a dark history
In 1945 the Soviet occupying forces turned the former commercial kitchen compound into an internment camp. The cellar was converted by the prisoners into a remand center. Victims reported that they were tormented by sleep deprivation, beatings, kickings, being forced to stand for hours or subjected to water torture. Food, clothing, and hygiene standards were terrible. Some 1,000 people died.
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Berlin's former Stasi slammer
Prison known as 'U-Boot'
In 1951 the newly-formed East German secret state police, the Stasi, took over the prison. During the 50s most inmates were those opposed to the communist dictatorship, such as reformers and strike leaders involved in the 17 June 1953 uprising. As there was never any daylight in the damp cells, the inmates nick-named the prison 'U-Boot," German for submarine.
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Berlin's former Stasi slammer
New building
At the end of the 50s a new building with more than 200 cells and interrogation rooms replaced the old cellar jail. Physical violence was replaced by psychological torture. After the Berlin Wall was built in 1961 most inmates were those who had attempted to escape or leave East Germany, but also writers and civil rights activists.
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Berlin's former Stasi slammer
Disguised prisoner transports
In the 70s most prisoners were brought through the city to the jail in Hohenschönhausen in these Barkas B 1000 vehicles. Made to appear outwardly as fish or vegetable delivery vans, these vehicles had five tiny windowless cells, which meant inmates had no idea where they had been taken. The Stasi succeeded in pressuring 90 percent of inmates to make damning statements in their first interrogation.
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Berlin's former Stasi slammer
Loneliness of a cell block
In prison every inmate was addressed not by name but by their cell number. To socially ostracize them they were often put into isolation cells for months, where even talking to the guards was forbidden. The only human contact was therefore with the interrogator - an insidious way to make inmates talk.
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Berlin's former Stasi slammer
Prison cell
Up to three inmates were housed in the different sized cells. They were unable to see anything through the cell windows, which were made of glass blocks. A mirror and hot water was only made available as of 1983. During the day inmates were not allowed to lie on their cots, at night they had to assume the same position: lying on their backs, facing the door with their hands on top of the blanket.
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Berlin's former Stasi slammer
Spy in the door
Inmates found being permanently watched in their cells through the spy hole in the door very stressful. Guards would keep a check on the prisoners even when they were washing or using the toilet. At night the lights would be switched on every ten to twelve minutes. Heating and light could only be controlled from outside the cells. This all served to make the inmates feel utterly powerless.
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Berlin's former Stasi slammer
Alarm system
A wire was mounted along the walls of the cell block corridor. When a prisoner was taken from his cell to be interrogated, the guards pulled the wire, which made red warning lights light up. Any inmate in the corridor would then have to face the wall immediately. This was intended to prevent prisoners encountering one another.
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Berlin's former Stasi slammer
Interrogation block
The cell block and the interrogation rooms where separated by barred doors. To this day the linoleum floor still smells of the disinfectant used in East Germany. All 120 interrogation rooms were equipped with double padded doors, behind which inmates where subjected to hours of questioning over several months. Prisoners were expected to incriminate themselves so that they could be sentenced.
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Berlin's former Stasi slammer
Interrogation
Stasi police used elaborate psychological interrogation methods. Initially they would threaten the inmate with long prison terms or the arrest of their family members. Panic and uncertainty were intended to wear them down. Those who cooperated were promised an easing of detention conditions: medical attention, a book, or half an hour of yard exercise.
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Berlin's former Stasi slammer
Prison yard
In these cell-like compounds inmates could see the sky and breathe some fresh air. They themselves called the yards "tiger cages." It was forbidden to talk, sing, stop, or to go anywhere near the four-meter (4.1-yard) prison wall. An armed guard was always on patrol above the wire mesh.
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Berlin's former Stasi slammer
Memorial site
The fall of the Berlin Wall put an end to the Stasi remand center. But only few interrogators were ever made accountable for what had happened behind these walls, and none were sent to jail. As the prison buildings and the interior survived unharmed, today's memorial site of Hohenschönhausen gives an authentic insight into the former East German justice system.
Author: Elisabeth Jahn
Social control
"We were the first to make this map; not even the official apartments had been mapped," Jochen Krüger, one of the three researchers involved in the project, told DW. He added that every address in West Berlin that formed part of a vast surveillance network had to be rediscovered since the Stasi destroyed the relevant files.
The Ministry for State Security, or Stasi, was set up by the SED in 1950 under the direct guidance of the Soviet Union's secret police, and was charged with suppressing any "subversive" behavior. It maintained so-called local offices in major companies and universities, and carried out arbitrary arrests and mass blackmails while destroying reputations. When it was dissolved in January 1990, the Stasi had 91,000 official employees — about 40,000 in Berlin alone.
Read more: East German civil rights activists praised in Bundestag 30 years on
But few have known the details of the Stasi's specific "social control" apparatus in Berlin that utilized at least 4,200 locations, including 3,459 residences and so-called "conspiratorial apartments" where collaborators met with agents. Oderberger Strasse in Prenzlauer Berg alone hosted 11 such apartments.
The immersive display allows visitors to cross the Stasi map of Berlin by foot
Krüger explains that a lack of records, and the fact that addresses changed frequently, makes this labyrinthine Stasi network difficult to track. "There was a list of conspiratorial apartments, but we did not know exactly when they were used," he said. The research team therefore decided to only analyze sites used between 1988 and 1989.
The subsequent unearthing of documents, photos, videos, and audio has allowed the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial to create an interactive, multimedia exhibit in which visitors walk on a map of Berlin and explore, with the help of a tablet, the locations used by the Stasi in its operations.
Read more: 'Balloon' depicts miraculous escape from the GDR
Wiretapping and technology theft
The Memorial research highlights the Stasi's omnipresence on both sides of the Berlin Wall. Before the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, abductions of dissidents such as Brandt in the western part of the city were commonplace, with around 400 such cases recorded.
"Softer" strategies were later adopted, including espionage and the recruitment of informants in West Berlin's political and administrative spheres.
"The Stasi was quite familiar with West Berlin, but its activities considered the strong presence of Western counter-espionage and police," Jens Gieseke, a Stasi expert at the Center for Contemporary History in Potsdam, told DW. "Thus, it behaved with extreme caution."
The former Stasi prison in Berlin's Lichtenberg district, with its watchtower still intact, now serves as a memorial site
But dissidents in West Berlin were not beyond the Stasi's reach. "The Stasi wanted to prevent any kind of opposition. It went after dissidents even on the other side of the wall," explained Jochen Staadt, a Stasi specialist at the Freie University of Berlin. "It had people around them and infiltrated in their groups. It blackmailed and disturbed dissidents in any way possible."
The Stasi listened to telephone conversations in the West and even recorded calls between the local police and West German authorities, Staadt notes. "The Stasi in Berlin" exhibition shows how, even by the late 1980s, there were 25 monitoring stations in Berlin to record telephone calls. Between 400 and 600 of those calls were captured daily.
One of the several objectives of the Stasi's operations in West Berlin — and in West Germany as a whole — was to obtain information on politicians, parties and government officials dealing with East German affairs.
Read more: Study confirms that Stasi infiltrated Greens
"They [Stasi agents] wanted to know in advance what West Germany was planning and doing, especially for negotiations between the two countries," said Staadt.
Moreover, the East German authorities had economic motivations, using spies to gain access to industrial research institutions. "They gathered information and used it in East Germany's industries without permission," Staadt said. "They saved a lot of money by stealing technology."
Prelude to a coup
The GDR secret police infiltrated every aspect of citizens' lives in East Berlin, but few in West Berlin imagined they were undergoing similar surveillance.
With an East German company operating the busy Zoologischer Garten station in West Berlin during the divided years, the Stasi took advantage by having its agents running the ticket counters and booking offices. Furthermore, hundreds of secret agents took up prominent positions in bureaucracies in West Germany — and beyond.
Rainer Rupp was one powerful spy who worked at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) headquartered in Brussels. "From [there] he sent hundreds of secret documents to the East," noted Gieseke.
The Stasi's strong presence in West Berlin was also related to plans to militarily invade this last remnant of free market democracy in the East, including attacks on bridges, train stations and airports. "The last plan we found was from 1987," Staadt said.
He added the Stasi also kept an up-to-date list of political leaders, police officers, journalists and civil servants who would be detained after the invasion. But on the 30 year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, one is reminded how such plans spectacularly backfired.
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10 highlights of the Berlin Wall Trail
The Berlin Wall Trail
The Berlin Wall divided West and East Berlin for 28 years. Just as many years have gone by since reunification in 1990, progressively erasing the differences between both former cities. Still, one of the best ways to explore the remaining traces of the Cold War is the Berlin Wall Trail. This round tour covers some 160 kilometers, identified with the sign "Berliner Mauerweg."
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10 highlights of the Berlin Wall Trail
The Berlin Wall Memorial
The tour can easily be started anywhere you want, as bikes can be brought on Berlin's public transport network. An interesting place to begin is the Berlin Wall Memorial. Following the Wall's former location on Bernauer Strasse along 1.4 kilometers, it shows how the border fortifications were set up and pays tribute to the people who fled East Berlin as well as to the victims of the death strip.
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10 highlights of the Berlin Wall Trail
Cobblestone markings
These lines of cobblestones will help you recognize the exact former location of the Wall in the center of the city. However, it is not continuously documented this way throughout the urban part of the border, which covered some 40 kilometers. When the Wall came down on November 9, 1989, East and West Germans were eager to get rid of all traces of it.
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10 highlights of the Berlin Wall Trail
The Brandenburg Gate
Following the bike path down towards Mitte, you will reach the government district by the Spree River and the Brandenburg Gate. This famous Berlin landmark landed in a no-man's land after the Wall was built. Although the Wall officially blocked it from West Berlin, a smaller wall also restricted access to the monument for East Germans as well.
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10 highlights of the Berlin Wall Trail
Checkpoint Charlie
Checkpoint Charlie remains the most famous former crossing point between East and West Berlin. Tourists now stop there to get their picture taken with actors dressed as military policemen and of a replica of the famous sign: "You are leaving the American sector." If ever you're tempted by a Red Army hat or a gas mask sold there, be aware that many rather see this spot as a Cold War Disneyland.
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10 highlights of the Berlin Wall Trail
Watchtower near Potsdamer Platz
More than 300 watchtowers used to overlook the Berlin Wall, allowing border guards to catch people trying to flee East Berlin. Only a few were left standing, such as this mushroom-shaped surveillance platform near Potsdamer Platz, now listed as an historical monument. Larger, square towers later replaced this model from 1966. An example of this type of tower can be found near Treptower Park.
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10 highlights of the Berlin Wall Trail
East Side Gallery
Another classic attraction that can't be missed on the Berlin Wall bike path is the East Side Gallery. International artists painted this 1.3-kilometer-long remaining stretch of the Wall in 1990, making it one of the longest open-air galleries in the world. This depiction of Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker kissing is one of the most iconic paintings of the gallery.
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10 highlights of the Berlin Wall Trail
The Glienicke Bridge
Beyond the urban section of the bike path, the route continues through the suburbs of Berlin. Just before reaching Potsdam is the Glienicke Bridge, where spies used to be exchanged during the Cold War. A 1962 trade of a KGB agent for an American pilot that took place here is featured in Stephen Spielberg's recent film, "Bridge of Spies." Many villas can be spotted in that area too.
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10 highlights of the Berlin Wall Trail
Watchtower Museum in Hennigsdorf
Large parts of the bike route are in the middle of the forest, allowing you to realize how green Berlin and its surroundings still are. Right on the bank of the Havel River, this watchtower in Hennigsdorf, about 20 kilometers northwest of Berlin, houses a small museum on the history of the Wall and how it affected that town. It is free to visit.
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10 highlights of the Berlin Wall Trail
Cherry tree avenue in Pankow
Returning to the city, you'll be greeted by a cherry tree avenue in Pankow, which is most spectacular towards the end of April, when the trees are in full bloom. The Japanese donated some 10,000 trees "to bring peace in the hearts of the people." They were planted in different sections of the former Wall. This avenue is right by Bösebrücke, the first crossing to open on the day the Wall came down.
Author: Elizabeth Grenier
