Forging Bonds: Recruitment Methods and Policies of the Ministry for State Security, 1950s-1970s

Introduction: Recruitment & Advancement

In their 2021 book, Alison Lewis states that “the Stasi forged bonds, often in inexplicable ways, no matter how elusive they may have appeared to new recruits. It spoke to their multiple needs” (Lewis 2021, 27). Recruitment methods employed by the Ministry for State Security (MfS), also known as the Staatssicherheitsdienst (Stasi), depended on several factors. Recruitment policies evolved dramatically over the many years that the Stasi was operational. Starting off as a small department, the influence and network of the MfS exponentially increased in the late 1950s. Recruitment and staff retention were capricious elements of the MfS. Staff turnover was consistently high and unpredictable. Thus, the department had to be pragmatic, dynamic, and adaptable in their recruitment strategies. During the 1950s, MfS departments and offices were routinely ill-equipped for the demands that came from espionage and secret police assignments. As this organization expanded, Stasi agents experimented with and utilized a variety of methods to persuade, coerce, trap, or force GDR (German Democratic Republic) citizens into becoming informers or agents of the MfS. Despite the material rewards and status incentives that came with the positions, one of the most consistent and popular methods of recruitment was blackmail.

Meager Beginnings and Steep Ascension

The MfS was created in 1950 and according to SED leaders and authorities was meant to serve as a security service created to defend the GDR against both domestic and international subversive elements that mean to undermine the state. The MfS was promoted as a stalwart protector of the people, capable of unearthing and destroying harmful elements of GDR society. According to the GDR’s Minister of the Interior, Karl Steinhoff, the MfS was a government body meant to:

“…protect the people’s own enterprises and works, transport and the people’s own

property against the plots of criminal elements as well as against all attacks, to conduct a decisive fight against the activity of enemy agents, subversives, saboteurs and spies, to conduct an energetic fight against bandits, to protect our democratic development and to ensure uninterrupted fulfilment of the economic plans of our peace economy” (Dennis 2003, 25).

This benevolent protector image was reiterated by the Minister of State Security, Erich Mielke, who painted the MfS as the “…sword of the revolution, as comrade Lenin called the organs of the Stasi in the USSR, for repelling spies, saboteurs, subversives, terrorists and other enemies” (Dennis 2003, 29). However, the image of the MfS that state officials promulgated was more of an ideal, than the present reality.

The MfS did not start as the powerful and influential government body that it later became. In 1950, the first year of their operations, the MfS recorded a meager total of 1100 employees. Two years later, the Ministry recorded an increase to approximately 8, 800 staff. As late as 1957 the Ministry did not even possess its own telephone network. However, after a series of state-wide tumultuous events, the late 1950s and 1960s saw a transformation of the MfS that was capable of a “comprehensive surveillance of society” (Dennis 2003, 31). The transformation is demonstrated in their employment numbers. In 1957, the Ministry recorded a staff of 17, 400 and by 1971, the staff had grown to 45, 500 (Dennis 2003, 31). Even before the technological revolution in the 1970s, Department 26 of the MfS could monitor 4000 calls at a time between East and West Germany (Schmeidel 2008, 23-24). The turbulent events of the late 1950s and early 1960s planted seeds of concern with state officials that subversive elements were challenging the legitimacy and power of the Sociality Unity Party (SED). As a result, the Stasi’s operational capacity, budget, and political influence saw a sharp rise during these transformative years.

The Impact of the June 1953 Uprising and the 1968 Prague Spring on the MfS

The events of the 1950s and 1960s laid the foundation of what would propel the MfS to statewide control and surveillance. On June 17, 1953, East Berlin authorities, especially the MfS, were shocked by the sudden outbreak of a popular uprising motivated by widespread dissatisfaction. Berlin protesters broke into the Stasi District Service Unit Buildings and occupied the spaces. In the aftermath of the violence and chaos, 4816 people were arrested. The revolt humiliated the MfS and by proxy the GDR. In the opinion of Minister President Otto Grotewohl, the security service failed “to protect the state against enemy subversion and agents and its ignorance of the planned putsch” (Dennis 2003, 28). The next couple of months were characterized by department-wide staff layovers at all levels. After a string of successful operations – such as Action Firework in October 1953 – slowly but surely, the Stasi began to recover their position (Dennis 2003, 28).

Despite the scapegoating and humiliation, the Stasi recovered their prior position roughly two years later, when the 1960s brought another major shift in state security policy. Late in the morning of August 13, 1961, construction of the Berlin Wall began. The Wall was constructed to prevent Republikflucht, resulting in the prevention of most East Germans, apart from a few special elite groups, from leaving the GDR (Pertti 2011, 17). Operation Vermin included Stasi agents monitoring the deportations of approximately 11 000 people from the Exclusion Zone who were deemed to be “a danger to public order” (Major 2010, 91). The general domestic surveillance particularly targeted towards youth. The 1950s were “threatening to morph into hotbeds of subversion and counterrevolution” (Lewis 2021, 26) within the GDR . In 1963, state authorities clashed with German youth when they began a campaign against “Western beat music.” In Leipzig, there was a riot between music fans and police over the withdrawal of licenses of local bands (Stibbe 2018, 106). Instead of focusing on foreign Western intervention, the MfS was directed towards monitoring internal subversive elements (Dennis 2003, 30). In 1966, Department 2 of Hauptabteilung XX was directed to devote surveillance resources towards youth and educational institutions (Stibbe 2018, 106). The Prague Spring of 1968 was a watershed event that would define the operations and policies of the MfS for the rest of their existence.

The Stasi experienced a positive reception by East Berliners regarding the Prague Spring of 1968, as they conducted operations to quell demonstrations and suppress protests in opposition to the Warsaw Pact’s invasion of Czechoslovakia (Dennis 2003, 30-31). Operation Genesung, an ongoing operation designed to “safeguard the GDR internally from pro-reform ideas brought into the country by Czechoslovak visitors and/or promoted by East German sympathisers” was altered to target GDR citizens. (Stibbe 2018, 110, 112). After the Prague Spring, the MfS diverted a great part of their resources into educational institutions, specifically universities. Novak studied journalism for seven years at the Institute for Journalism at a time when fears of the influence of Western youth culture on GDR youth dominated state security concerns (Lewis 2021, 13, 26). For instance, Jürgen Fuchs was being monitored by the Stasi after the Spring (Schmeidel 2005, 89). In 1969, a new Department was created – Department XX/7 – to monitor the cultural and education sector (Stibbe 2018, 116). According to Professor of Modern European History Matthew Stibbe, the Prague Spring “signalled, above all else, was the commitment of the higher echelons of the SED to a hard-line version of Marxism-Leninism, one that precluded any engagement with the cosmopolitan, European-integrative agenda” (Stibbe 2018, 116).

Enlisting the Home Front: Surveillance, Rewards, and Blackmail

MfS recruitment styles and processes shifted between negative and positive incentives depending on the candidate. The Stasi was aware that they could not rely on intrinsic motivations. One method of recruitment was to include incentives for economic and social mobility, be they tangible or intangible in nature. For instance, Stasi officers received better housing accommodations, permission for travelling, and opportunities for promotions (Lewis 2021, 1). These incentives were also available for informers (Lewis 2021, 3). Paul Wiens was recruited in 1962 due to his background as an “impeccable antifascist” (Lewis 2021, 7). In Stasi records, Paul Gratzik was selected due to his “‘impartial’ (unvoreingenommen) ideological outlook” (Lewis 2021, 27).

The Stasi looked for potential recruits that could form long-lasting, sustainable, and dependable relationships. Ideally, the Stasi favored recruits who demonstrated loyalty to the Party and State. The Stasi looked to recruit people who possessed “an affirmative attitude toward the state and a Marxist-Leninist political orientation” (Lewis 2021, 1). An ideal recruit was a “baseline loyalist” (Lewis 2021, 2) who could be motivated to join the organization based on patriotism. For instance, Sacha Anderson who was recruited in Dresden 1974, without prompting, “…composed a fifty-page strategy paper with suggestions about how to proceed against the artists, including detailed appreciations of whose star was rising, whose falling, and how personal problems might be exploited” (Schmeidel 2008, 90). Apart from party loyalty, the MfS also investigated a candidate's economic and family history. Stasi agents looked for recruits from “disadvantaged social backgrounds” (Lewis 2021, 25) who were more likely to be dependent or indebted to the State. Wiens was an orphan who “found [father substitutes] in either cultural mentors and superiors or fatherly secret-police officers” (Lewis 2021, 23). Former Stasi informer, Helga M. Novak was infatuated with the Party in the early years of the GDR. As part of her fanaticism, she viewed the Party as a surrogate family, seeing as she had no family of her own (Lewis 2021, 12-13).

As demonstrated above, Stasi recruitment tactics varied from case to case. Blackmail or coercion was not the ideal first method for recruiting. Barbara Miller (1999) in her chapter examining the Stasi recruitment process details the sheer amount of planning prior to the first meeting of a potential recruit. The potential candidate, their friends, family, and anyone else in their social network was thoroughly screened. Making a profile could sometimes take years to formulate (Miller 1999, 35). Most of the time, Stasi agents would make first contact at the candidate’s place of work or home. Other times, candidates were sent a police summons for a meeting. Usually the true intentions of the Stasi were kept from the candidate so that they did not “suspect the true purpose of the summons” (Miller 1999, 36). A common tactic that the Stasi employed was claiming that the organization required help because of collected reports that a child was being abused in the neighbourhood. Miller hypothesizes that “[t]he relief on the part of the candidates to discover that they were not to be rebuked for having done something wrong, but had rather been selected to assume a position of trust, may have been significant in their decision to agree to work as an informer” (Miller 1999, 37). Blunt coercion was usually ineffective. Candidates who were coerced into signing an agreement were more likely to defect across the Wall (Miller 1999, 38). Another common obstacle for recruiting was the negative perceptions surrounding spying. A means of counteracting this moral hesitancy was the implementation of a “language-hygiene program” (Lewis 2021, 5). Before the Prague Spring, terms such as “informant”, “secret employee”, and “secret informant” were replaced with “unofficial collaborator” (Lewis 2021, 5).

Trust was an essential component of the recruitment process. As noted by Alison Lewis, “Secrecy was crucial to protect the MfS from its enemies. It was also needed to protect informants themselves and was, moreover, essential for developing a ‘close relationship of trust’ (enges Vertrauensverhältnis) between officer and informer” (Lewis 2021, 5). When Helga M. Novak was being recruited, Höpcke told her that she does not “have to be alarmed, it happens to everyone here sooner or later. We are going to become the leading cadres of the nation, it is only natural that we are being controlled” (Lewis 2021, 14). As noted with Novak’s background, the Stasi was reported to have adopted “convivial and slightly paternalistic” (Lewis 2021, 15) tones in recruitment meetings . Also, Stasi agents took measures to maintain the informer-officer relationship. When Wiens refused to sign the oath, the agents allowed this so “long as it did not impinge on his sense of exceptionality” (Lewis 2021, 25). The inclusion of a written commitment or oath was a fickle part of the recruitment process. According to Stasi records, author Christa Wolf, an informer since the 1950s, seemingly agreed with little pressure. However, when asked to make an “oath of silence” she “…became visibly uncomfortable…” (Miller 1999, 39). However the policy of asking for an oath was maintained in recruitment policies. In Stasi guidelines it states:

“In cases where the candidate is not wholly convinced about what he is doing, the effect

of this action must be particularly exploited, since it strengthens the awareness of having taken on an obligation” (Miller 1999, 39-40).

When the incentives, trust and opportunities were not successful, the Stasi agents shifted to coercive methods. Ideally, the Stasi sought to foster informer-officer relationships that were long lasting, dependable, and sustainable from voluntary recruits who were ideologically driven and patriotic. However, the MfS knew that this was not always likely and established pragmatic methods of recruitment. According to Guideline 21 (1952) blackmail was an approved method of recruitment, so long as it was used by agents on the grounds of “threat of criminal action” (Lewis 2021, 14). However, despite the official policy, blackmail was a common tool in the Stasi agent’s toolbox. Novak, who was blackmailed into being a Juliet agent, remarked that she worked with the Stasi out of fear of punishment. She states: “I did not want to spend seven years in Bautzen like Erich Loest, where no one, since I had no family, no blood ties at all, would even have brought me a packet of cigarettes” (Lewis 2021, 11). The Stasi concocted a situation that placed Novak in a vulnerable position for coerced enlistment. The Stasi spied on and recorded her socializing and dalliances with Icelandic students. Upon her return to the university from Moscow, she was unexpectedly expelled from university accommodations by the residential college administration based “on grounds of immorality”. Her paranoia increased when she found a room being leased soon after with little trouble (Lewis 2021, 16).

Conclusion: Opening the Stasi Can of Worms Post-1989

The Stasi was dissolved shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall came down, and along with it the implicit air of secrecy that dominated the GDR society. The event signified the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union, and the The Iron Curtain soon fell as well. Many residents of the GDR started to question the level of collaboration and complicity of their society with the Stasi. Allegations, accusations, and insinuations became rampant. Between 1990-91, the topic was controversial that legislation was implemented to officially open up the Stasi archives. Christine Wilkening correctly predicted that the Stasi scandals would “turn them [informers] into scapegoats, to whom blame for recent crimes was disproportionately assigned, while other sections of the SED apparatus were spared anything like the kind of scrutiny to which IMs were subjected” (Ring 2015, 228). The initial policy to destroy or bury the files was met with strong public opposition as many reasoned that such an act would cement “...the continuation of injustice if the facts that the archive contained were not brought to light and to court” (Ring 2015, 231).

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