This museum, one of Leipzig's newest, could hardly have been imagined during the Cold War. The building was the headquarters of the dreaded Stasi, the East German Ministry for State Security. Exhibits detail how Stasi operated within eastern Germany through various methods, most interesting of which show the tools of espionage, such as hidden cameras and letter-opening (and resealing) machines. Other exhibits show the extent of the massive spying, with entire floors devoted to handwriting samples from Leipzig's citizens, and extensive personal files on various members of the population. One exhibition, called "The Power and Banality of the East German Secret Police, documents the meticulous and paranoid methods by which the police monitored every exchange of information in the country. They constantly seized private letters and listened in on phone conversations -- at times monitoring up to 2,000 calls at once. The exhibition also traces the steps local people took to throw off the Communist regime and end Stasi terror. On the nights of December 4 and 5, 1989, local citizens seized the building. Leipzig is called Heldenstadt, or "city of heroes, for its role in toppling the government of East Germany.
This museum, one of Leipzig's newest, could hardly have been imagined during the Cold War. The building was the headquarters of the dreaded Stasi, the East German Ministry for State Security. Exhibits detail how Stasi operated within eastern Germany through various methods, most interesting of which show the tools of espionage, such as hidden cameras and letter-opening (and resealing) machines. Other exhibits show the extent of the massive spying, with entire floors devoted to handwriting samples from Leipzig's citizens, and extensive personal files on various members of the population. One exhibition, called "The Power and Banality of the East German Secret Police, documents the meticulous and paranoid methods by which the police monitored every exchange of information in the country. They constantly seized private letters and listened in on phone conversations -- at times monitoring up to 2,000 calls at once. The exhibition also traces the steps local people took to throw off the Communist regime and end Stasi terror. On the nights of December 4 and 5, 1989, local citizens seized the building. Leipzig is called Heldenstadt, or "city of heroes, for its role in toppling the government of East Germany.