Stasi museum
November 5, 2009
Along with Dresden, Magdeburg and Berlin, Leipzig was a starting point for the now famous Monday prayers and protests against the former East German government. For weeks, demonstrators in Leipzig placed burning candles in front of the headquarters of the Ministry for State Security. Then on December 4, 1989, the demonstrators managed to occupy the building.
Their actions effectively ended the surveillance and informing upon suspect citizens that were the central tasks of the agency, referred to as the Stasi. It was the beginning of a long process of recovery.
Eavesdropped and spied on
Here in the museum, it smells like linoleum floors and old files. This is no coincidence, since today's Stasi Museum occupies the same rooms formerly used by the Ministry for State Security. Now the museum belongs to the Leipzig Citizens' Association.
Twelve rooms are devoted to the museum's permanent exhibit, called "Stasi – Power and Banality." The museum recreates the history of the Stasi and of the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR). With the Stasi's help, the GDR extinguished its citizens' rights to privacy and freedom of opinion.
The museum's 40,000 exhibit pieces provide insight into all aspects of the Stasi. Their methods were manipulative and dehumanizing. Visitors are shown wiretaps and tapes used to eavesdrop on citizens, Stasi uniforms, surveillance cameras and the disguises used by the complicit citizens who worked as unofficial informers. Photos and original documents from the Stasi headquarters tell the rest of the story.
Original building
The museum is one of only a handful of buildings being used that once belonged to the Stasi. Its location underscores the repression and psychological damage inflicted by the Security Ministry over several decades.
An original cell from an interrogation unit demonstrates the disturbing conditions faced by those the Stasi imprisoned. Another part of the exhibit concerns the death penalty in the GDR and memorializes those who were sentenced to death by the regime. The GDR's former execution chamber in Leipzig sheds further light on these deaths and is occasionally open to visitors.
A memorial and a warning
The Leipzig Citizens' Association operates the museum, which is open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. There is no entrance fee. Guided tours are led at 3 p.m. Those interested in a tour should meet at the museum's main entrance at Dittrichring 24. Group tours in other languages including English, French, Hungarian and Spanish are available for registered parties.
Author: Victoria von Gottberg/gw
Editor: Trinity Hartman