The history of the Stasi : East Germany's secret police, 1945-1990 / Jens Gieseke ; translated by David Burnett.
Material type:
TextLanguage: English Original language: German Publisher: New York : Berghahn Books, 2014Description: 1 online resource (277 pages)Content type: - text
- computer
- online resource
- 9781782382553 (e-book)
- Mielke-Konzern. English
- 363.28/30943109045 23
- HV8210.5.A2 G53513 2014
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Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
No detailed description available for "The History of the Stasi".
Originally published under title: Mielke-Konzern. Stuttgart : Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2001.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Antifascism, Stalinism, cold civil war : origins and influences, 1945 to 1956 -- The safest GDR in the world : the driving forces of Stasi growth -- The unofficial collaborator : a new type of informer -- Blanket surveillance? state security in East German society -- Resistance, opposition, persecution -- Wolf and Co. : MFS operations abroad -- Final crisis and collapse, 1989-90 -- Legacy, aufarbeitung, culture of memory : the second life of the Stasi.
Description based on print version record.
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest, 2015. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest affiliated libraries.
Reviews provided by Syndetics
CHOICE Review
The two most notable characteristics of the security apparatus of the German Democratic Republic were its enormous size (at its peak, one policeman or security agent for every 77 East Germans) and its growing reliance upon an elaborate network of unofficial collaborators--180,000 of them in 1975--whose task was to spy on fellow citizens. Gieseke (Centre for Contemporary History, Potsdam, Germany) treats these and many other issues with careful and lucid analysis, confining himself to the known facts. He rejects the hyperbolic in favor of more mundane explanations. The truth is bad enough. The notorious Stasi (secret police), composed of true believers, careerists, and a fair number of corrupt individuals, and the Ministry for Security, of which it was the most sinister part, constantly sought to increase their functions and personnel. Gieseke notes that the Stasi was slower to ameliorate its brutal methods (torture, beatings, blackmail, etc.) or reduce its hectic growth than other Eastern bloc secret police agencies. He argues that this was ultimately a recognition by the communists that their system rested on too fragile a basis: a majority of the citizenry yearned for a much different and self-determined sort of life, free of ubiquitous surveillance and intimidation. --Richard S. Levy, University of Illinois at ChicagoThere are no comments on this title.