The Ministry for State Security (MfS) of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), founded in 1950, saw itself as the "shield and sword of the party." In practice, this meant espionage, repression, and disruption. Its main target was its own population. The Stasi, as the MfS was commonly known, was the most important early warning system and repressive apparatus of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED).

New Forum: 'Bring lime and bricks!'

Nevertheless, the Stasi could not prevent the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989. And with it, its own demise. Nine days after the unexpected opening of the border, the GDR's secret police was renamed the Office for National Security (AfNS). New name, old system — that's how the overwhelming majority of the 17 million East Germans saw it.

On January 15, 1990, the Stasi was the main topic of discussion at the meeting of the Central Round Table in Berlin. At these meetings, representatives of the old regime led by head of government Hans Modrow met with civil rights activists to discuss the future of the ailing GDR. That day, the New Forum political movement called for a rally in front of the Stasi headquarters. "Bring lime and bricks!" read one leaflet. The secret service was to be symbolically bricked up and the huge area was to be overrun "with imagination and without violence."

'The state had not yet abdicated'

Thousands of people answered the call, including Arno Polzin from East Berlin. There was one thing that the then 27-year-old toolmaker will never forget: "The fact that we were allowed onto the site unchallenged." No resistance, no controls — or was it a trap? When he entered the site, which had been hermetically sealed off for decades, he saw uniformed riot police on the top floor of a building.

They were obviously not there to intimidate or chase away the trespassers, Polzin told DW in an interview. Instead, they were watching with "interest and curiosity" what was happening below. In Polzin's eyes, this was a highly symbolic moment: "Okay, there no longer seems to be any immediate danger here."

GDR riot police watched as Stasi bastions stormed

With the storming of the Stasi headquarters, the last and most important bastion of the GDR secret service fell. However, it all began around 300 kilometers southwest of Berlin. On December 4, 1989, the artist Gabriele Stötzer and a group of women organized the occupation of the local Stasi building in Erfurt. Although the borders between East and West Germany were already open, they did not trust the peace. "The state had not yet abdicated," said Stötzer in an interview with DW.

The police, army, and Stasi were still armed. "There was a darkness hanging over the GDR that still lingered." In spite a feeling of uncertainty, the women summoned up all their courage and demanded entry to the Stasi — and the door actually opened. So they put their request to a stunned Stasi men: "You made files on us, that's our property. Now we want to retrieve them. We want to see if you're going to destroy them."

Recordings of our lives 'a great treasure'

Stötzer says she wasn't afraid at the time. Their goal was so clear, there was always something to do. The women proceeded as planned. As crazy as it may sound, they informed the mayor in advance about their upcoming action. And the public prosecutor was asked to seal the Stasi rooms in order to save the files. "We knew that this was also a great treasure, our treasure."

"Our lives were recorded in there," Stötzer says, speaking of the secret police methods as a means of total control "to practically snatch our lives from us, to criminalize us." In the eyes of the Stasi, she was an enemy of the state from an early age, she explains. Her crime: protesting against the singer-songwriter Wolf Biermann being stripped of his GDR citizenship in 1976 along with other civil rights activists. For this, Stötzer was sentenced to one year in Hoheneck women's prison.

'They went in, demanded the Stasi files, and no shots were fired'

Despite this humiliating punishment, she refused to flee to the West and made a living as a freelance artist in the GDR. The Stasi continued to monitor her. The way that she and other like-minded people later managed to peacefully dismantle the secret service in 1989 is something Stötzer still describes as "ingenious" and "magnificent" today. The unbelievable news from Erfurt spread throughout the GDR: "They went in, demanded the Stasi files, and no shots were fired." In Halle, Leipzig and Gotha — the Stasi was capitulating everywhere.

Only in Berlin did it take longer. Markus Meckel, GDR Foreign Minister for a short time in 1990 after the first free elections, has a reasonable explanation for this: the GDR was a centralized state. "That was the center of power, including the repressive apparatus." And the Stasi could only be removed "if the government itself became unstable and saw no other way out." That moment arrived on January 15, 1990.

Stasi records opening a 'great achievement'

Three days after the storming of the Stasi headquarters, the last communist GDR head of government, Modrow, gave up resisting. He ordered the dissolution of the secret service. The subsequent opening of the Stasi records was a "great achievement" of the GDR People's Chamber, Meckel told DW in an interview. An achievement "that had to be fought for despite resistance from the West German government."

Helmut Kohl, then the West German chancellor, instead wanted to keep the explosive material under lock and key. To stop this from happening, Polzin and many others occupied the Stasi stronghold a second time in September 1990 — and were successful. The most important goal of the GDR civil rights activists had been achieved: "My file is mine." To achieve this, the Stasi legacy stored in the dark cabinets had to see the light of day. However, according to Polzin, there was still another fear. The West German secret services might gain access to the files "before the citizens of the GDR even had a chance to know what was going on."

Secret files access 'was a really important act'

Without the commitment of civil rights activists in many places at different times, the dissolution of the Stasi and the opening of the files would have been almost inconceivable. They were determined to keep it that way. In 2021, the independent Stasi Records Agency was absorbed into Germany's Federal Archives and access to the files remains open today.

Markus Meckel, who served as the last GDR foreign minister, thinks this was a good solution. And he emphasizes how it set an example for other countries in the former Eastern Bloc that followed Germany's example. For him, the storming of the Stasi headquarters on January 15, 1990 has a special historical significance: "It was a very important act that must be remembered."

This article was originally published on January 15, 2020 and updated for the 35th anniversary of the fall of the Stasi.

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