Germany edition

Stasi

The following articles have been tagged with "Stasi":

New tool unravels Stasi secret files

Science & Technology: 27 Jan 12
Germany's "puzzle people" will soon be able to count on a new tool in their Herculean task of re-piecing together thousands of ripped-up former Stasi secret police files. READ »

Restored Stasi HQ opens doors to public

National: 14 Jan 12
More than two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall the former headquarters of East Germany’s feared secret police, the Stasi, has opened its doors to the public following an €11 million restoration project. READ »

Immigrants stop 8-year population decline

National: 13 Jan 12
A large number of new immigrants pushed up Germany's population in 2011 for the first time in eight years, the national statistics office, Destasis, said on Friday. READ »

Three children die of injuries each day

Society: 9 Jan 12
Three children die each day in Germany from accidents, violence and suicide, according to new figures released Monday which show that the dangers increase as adulthood approaches. READ »

Historian wants ban on communist uniforms

Society: 27 Dec 11
A prominent historian of communist East Germany and its Stasi secret police has called for a ban on the public display of communist era uniforms or insignia. READ »

Renowned East German author Christa Wolf dies

Society: 1 Dec 11
Christa Wolf, one of the best-known authors from former communist East Germany, died on Thursday aged 82 in Berlin following a long illness, her publisher said. READ »

Armed neo-Nazi scene embraces violence

Society: 28 Nov 11
The rise of the National Socialist Underground (NSU) has focused attention on Germany's neo-Nazi scene, which experts say includes violent militants with professional weapons training. Ben Knight reports. READ »

Honecker's hunting lodge sold for €2.5 million

National: 21 Nov 11
An old hunting lodge belonging to former communist East German leader Erich Honecker has been sold at auction to a hotel group for €2.5 million, although there are still legal claims to resolve. READ »

Mickey Rourke trashes Germany

Society: 2 Nov 11
Mickey Rourke has launched a stinging attack on Germany, where the US actor recently bought a house in Wiesbaden for his Russian girlfriend. He slammed the country's doctors, its "boring" cities, and his girlfriend's "German personality." READ »

Westerwelle praises Poland's 'vote for Europe'

Politics: 10 Oct 11
Germany on Monday welcomed the outcome of the Polish general election, calling it a "vote for Europe" after the campaign was marred by an opposition leader's anti-German tirade. READ »

Polish opposition leader attacks Merkel

National: 5 Oct 11
German Chancellor Angela Merkel wants Poland to "submit" to the will of its powerful neighbour, Polish opposition leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski claims in a new book. READ »

Computer will soon piece together torn Stasi files

Society: 2 Oct 11
A computer system to put torn shreds of Stasi files back together and reveal what they say should be ready for testing in just a few months. READ »

Former Stasi workers to be banned from archive

National: 12 Sep 11
The German government has taken a step forward in its move to ban former employees of communist East Germany's Ministry for State Security, or Stasi, from working in the authority that administers the archive of Stasi files. READ »

Germany sends 'Pina' to the Oscars

Society: 10 Sep 11
Veteran German director Wim Wenders is carrying the torch for Germany in next year’s Oscars with his 3D documentary “Pina.” READ »

Germany’s top ten tech inventions

Science & Technology: 9 Sep 11
The last century would have been very different if it hadn’t been for the German genius for technological innovation. The Local rates the top ten Teutonic inventions that have changed your life. READ »

Spymaster's widow loses pension battle

National: 15 Aug 11
The widow of Markus Wolf, the shadowy spymaster of communist East Germany, lost a court battle on Monday to reclaim his "honorary" pension. READ »

Village remembers Iron Curtain coming down

National: 11 Aug 11
When the Berlin Wall went up overnight 50 years ago, the trapped East German enclave of Klein Glienicke became one of the most tightly guarded communities on the planet. AFP's Deborah Cole reports. READ »

Betraying Berlin

Analysis & Opinion: 19 Jul 11
Roger Boyes, the Berlin correspondent for the British daily The Times, is going back to London. In his last column for The Local, he explains why he had to end his stay in the ‘narcoleptic’ German capital. READ »

Stasi files chief says GDR was more than spies

Society: 23 May 11
Roland Jahn, the new head of the archive housing the former East German secret police files, wants to shift attention from the Stasi to the rest of the communist dictatorship in an attempt to better understand how it worked. READ »

Exhibition shows everyday life as communism crumbled

Society: 17 May 11
A new exhibition at the German Historical Museum (DHM) in Berlin offers insight into everyday life in East Germany and post-communist eastern Europe with never-before-seen photos. Curator Yara-Colette Lemke took The Local on a tour. READ »

Jahn determined to remove ex-Stasi workers from files authority

Society: 24 Apr 11
Roland Jahn, the new head of the national Stasi files archive, says he will remove all 47 members of his staff who used to work for the feared East German secret service. READ »

More than 50 ex-Stasi work for files authority

National: 26 Feb 11
More than 50 former Stasi members still work for the authority which administers the former East German secret police files, it was revealed on Saturday. READ »

Cottbus chamber of commerce head resigns after Stasi allegations

National: 23 Feb 11
The president of the Cottbus Chamber of Commerce, Ulrich Fey, has resigned in the wake of allegations he worked with East Germany’s notorious secret police. While admitting to contacts with the Stasi, he said he was never an informant. READ »

Police officer suspended following Stasi informant allegations

National: 17 Feb 11
A Cottbus police spokesman was suspended from his duties Thursday following allegations he worked as an informant for the Stasi, East Germany’s feared secret police. READ »

Stasi law change could lead to more probes

National: 9 Feb 11
An amendment to the law relating to East German secret police files on Wednesday will likely lead to more investigations into the pasts of people working in the public sector, a spokesman for the file archive said. READ »

Merkel backs Cyprus reunification efforts

Politics: 11 Jan 11
Chancellor Angela Merkel, on the first visit by a German head of government to Europe's last divided capital, voiced her solidarity on Tuesday with Cyprus in its elusive efforts to reunify the island. READ »

US ambassador seeks to soothe WikiLeaks damage

Politics: 8 Dec 10
The US ambassador to Berlin, Philip Murphy, sought Wednesday to stem the diplomatic damage from awkward cables on WikiLeaks, calling Germany's maligned Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle "a friend." READ »

Digitally desecrating Germany’s landscape

Analysis & Opinion: 4 Nov 10
With nearly a quarter of a million Germans opting out of Google’s Street View service, US author and journalist Jeff Jarvis laments the digital bombing of the country’s landscape. READ »

Popular new TV drama dubbed East German 'Dallas'

Society: 30 Sep 10
As Germany prepares on Sunday to mark the day East and West Germany merged into one nation after four decades of division, the programme "Weissensee" on ARD public television has become a runaway hit. READ »

Ex-official: East German teen athletes doped

Sport: 14 Sep 10
Teenage athletes were subjected to doping under communist East Germany's vast programme of steroid abuse, a leading former sports official has admitted in his new book. READ »

East German opposition figure Bohley dies

National: 11 Sep 10
Bärbel Bohley, a key figure in East Germany's reform movement that helped oust its communist leadership, died Saturday, an association she co-founded said. Bohley was 65. READ »

Bavaria mourns adored Green party figure after double tragedy

Politics: 18 Aug 10
Tributes flowed on Wednesday for the widely admired Bavarian Green party politician Sepp Daxenberger, who died of cancer during the night, just three days after his wife succumbed to the same illness. READ »

Stasi checks for public servants extended

Politics: 6 Aug 10
Candidates for government jobs, including elected office, now face Stasi background checks until 2019 under a government plan revealed on Friday. READ »

The damage control president

Analysis & Opinion: 1 Jul 10
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to nominate Christian Wulff as president was an act of damage control. But his difficult election on Wednesday has ended up tarnishing both her beleaguered government and Germany’s new head of state. READ »

Gauck turns to The Left for votes ahead of election

Politics: 29 Jun 10
One day ahead of Germany's presidential election, candidate Joachim Gauck on Tuesday went hunting for votes with a visit to the socialist Left party despite previous attempts to distance himself from its politics. READ »

Gauck not intending to damage Merkel in presidential race

Politics: 20 Jun 10
Presidential candidate Joachim Gauck says he will not allow himself to be used to damage Chancellor Angela Merkel, and after a one-on-one meeting with her candidate Christian Wulff, said he was qualified to do the job in his way. READ »

Gauck criticises government savings plans as not fair enough

Politics: 12 Jun 10
Joachim Gauck, the former East German civil rights activist and candidate for president, has stirred things up by criticising the government’s savings plans for not being socially fair. READ »

German media roundup: Little excitement for Wulff presidency

Analysis & Opinion: 4 Jun 10
The announcement Thursday night that the coalition government was backing Lower Saxony premier Christian Wulff as Germany's new president got a mixed reaction. The Local gauges the mood of the nation's papers. READ »

Merkel nominates Wulff for president

Politics: 3 Jun 10
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right coalition on Thursday nominated Lower Saxony’s premier Christian Wulff to be Germany’s next president. READ »

What's on in Germany: May 13 - 19

Lifestyle: 13 May 10
This Week's Highlights: John Malkovich plays a serial killer in Hamburg, Rufus Wainright sings in Munich, and electric Smart cars buzz around Berlin. READ »

Google 'Street View' car sabotaged in suspected privacy protest

Science & Technology: 30 Mar 10
Vandals in Germany have sabotaged a Google "Street View" car, police said Tuesday, an apparent act of protest against the navigation service that is controversial in the country amid privacy concerns. READ »

Berlinale crowd boos movie about notorious Nazi propaganda film

Society: 19 Feb 10
A big-budget German movie about the Nazis' most successful propaganda picture and the pact with the devil sealed by its lead actor premiered to boos Thursday at the Berlin Film Festival. READ »

What's on in Germany: February 18 - 24

Lifestyle: 18 Feb 10
This week's highlights: Shaolin monks in Munich, experimental film in Berlin, and an exhibition of sacred Himalayan art opens in Cologne. READ »

Construction worker confesses in Cologne archive collapse case

National: 9 Feb 10
Eleven months after the deadly collapse of Cologne’s city archive, a construction worker has given investigators their first confession in the case, media reports said on Tuesday. READ »

File reveals West Berlin locksmith copied police keys for Stasi

National: 3 Feb 10
A West Berlin locksmith provided East Germany's feared security force the Stasi with keys to police stations and other important buildings on his side of the divided city for years, according to a file found by weekly newspaper Die Zeit. READ »

Berlin insures future of Stasi file archive

National: 22 Jan 10
Work at the Stasi file archive in Berlin will continue in the future due to the “unbroken need” of people for the information collected by feared East German secret police, Chancellery Chief of Staff Ronald Pofalla ensured on Friday. READ »

Thousands mark moment when Stasi lost control

Society: 17 Jan 10
More than 3,000 people turned up at Berlin’s former Stasi headquarters on Saturday to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the day people stormed the building and took control of the feared secret police files. READ »

Requests to see Stasi secret police files surge in Wall anniversary year

National: 13 Jan 10
More than 100,000 people requested a look into their files created by the feared East German secret police, the Stasi, last year, the archive responsible for the documents said on Wednesday. READ »

When the lights go out in Wallywood

Society: 11 Jan 10
Wallywoods, a seminal gallery for Berlin’s avant-garde art scene, is locked in a Stalingrad-esque struggle for survival with intractable municipal officials. Ben Knight slips behind the lines to talk with its curator of chaos. READ »

The Local's year in review

National: 31 Dec 09
As 2010 kicks off, The Local takes a look back at some of the stories that caught our attention during the past year in Germany. READ »

New book digs up Stasi files on Günter Grass

Society: 29 Dec 09
A new book showing the huge lengths the East German secret police, the Stasi, went to in order to spy on Nobel Prize-winning author Günter Grass will go on sale in March, its publisher said Tuesday. READ »

Bisky suggests Left and SPD should make up, possibly even fuse

Politics: 5 Dec 09
Head of the socialist Left party, Lothar Bisky has proposed building a new relationship with the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and even suggested an eventual fusion could be possible. READ »

Brandenburg parliament rocked by Stasi scandal

Politics: 1 Dec 09
The vice president of the German state of Brandenburg's parliament and another regional official resigned on Monday following revelations of their past links to the East German secret police. READ »

Köhler honours activists who stood ground against East Germany

Society: 16 Nov 09
President Horst Köhler awarded Germany’s highest honour, the Federal Cross of Merit, to 12 former East Germans on Monday for standing up to injustices committed by the communist regime. READ »

1970s film on private Hitler rediscovered

National: 13 Nov 09
A documentary panned at Cannes in the 1970s for depicting Hitler’s personal life is now being shown in Germany for the first time. David Wroe speaks with the director about the film's vastly different reception nearly four decades later. READ »

Putin feels 'nostalgia' for East Germany

National: 8 Nov 09
Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who was posted as a KGB agent in Dresden under communism, has said he feels nostalgia for the former East Germany, in an interview to be broadcast Sunday. READ »

Ex-GDR officials gripe of persecution 20 years on

National: 6 Nov 09
There’s no question East Germany persecuted its citizens, but have the communist regime’s henchmen been wronged since reunification? David Wroe investigates. READ »

As the Wall fell: ‘We were looking for cracks in the façade’

National: 6 Nov 09
As a public affairs officer for the US Embassy in East Berlin just before the Berlin Wall fell, Peter Claussen had a unique view of life in East Germany. The Local spoke with him about how he remembers the historic time. READ »

East German victims lament lack of justice

National: 5 Nov 09
The collapse of the Berlin Wall rectified East Germany’s biggest crime. But as David Wroe reports, many of the communist regime’s victims are still seeking justice for other misdeeds two decades later. READ »

Former East German nudists still letting it all hang out

Society: 5 Nov 09
East German nudist culture is still encouraging Teutons to let it all hang out some 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall - and has even attracted fans from the West. AFP's Simon Sturdee reports. READ »

Emotional strain ends former Stasi prisoner's live re-enactment

Society: 2 Nov 09
Former Stasi prison inmate Carl-Wolfgang Holzapfel has broken off a week-long live performance art re-enactment of his internment over the weekend due psychological distress, organisers have announced. READ »

Former Stasi prisoner goes back to jail for art

Society: 30 Oct 09
Carl-Wolfgang Holzapfel, who famously lay prostrate across the border at Checkpoint Charlie to protest the communist East German regime, has returned to a Stasi prison for seven days to reenact his incarceration. READ »

East German sports doping victim speaks out after sex change

Sport: 27 Oct 09
Heidi Krieger was one of East Germany's star athletes, but years of forced doping caused her to opt for a sex change and become an outspoken advocate for the other victims. READ »

Former prisoner to re-enact Stasi jail time

Society: 24 Oct 09
A former prisoner of East Germany's fearsome secret police will return to one of its jail cells in a reenactment of the communist regime's oppression 20 years after the Berlin Wall fell. READ »

Left coalition set to take power in Brandenburg

Politics: 12 Oct 09
The centre-left Social Democrats announced Monday they will join forces with the socialist Left party to give Brandenburg its first “red-red” coalition, ending a decade of “grand-coalition” rule with the conservative Christian Democrats. READ »

Kaiser falls on sword over Stasi past to smooth red-red coalition

Politics: 11 Oct 09
The Left Party in the state of Brandenburg has cleared the way for a "red-red“ coalition with the Social Democrats after chairwoman Kerstin Kaiser ruled herself out of a ministry on Sunday amid concerns about her past links to the East German Stasi. READ »

Stasi victims still searching for peace after 20 years

National: 5 Oct 09
Twenty years have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall, but victims of communist East Germany's despised Stasi secret police say fighting off history's ghosts is still a daily struggle. READ »

Meet the man who brought down the Berlin Wall

National: 20 Sep 09
The Berlin Wall fell on the night of November 9, 1989 because of a hasty announcement by an East German official who had hoped the measure would "save" the communist regime, reports AFP's Audrey Kauffmann. READ »

Eastern town turns Stasi training camp into tourist playground

Society: 18 Sep 09
Once a Stasi security training ground for the likes of Honecker's bodyguards, the former East German city of Kallinchen is now dominated by tourists, including those drawn to a historic nudist camp and the re-purposed secret police facility. READ »

Leftist leader in Thuringia employing ex-Stasi officer as secretary

Politics: 12 Sep 09
Bodo Ramelow, the politician from Germany's socialist party The Left hoping to become the state premier of Thuringia, has reportedly been employing a former Stasi officer in his parliamentary office for years. READ »

Escaping in Berlin

Analysis & Opinion: 26 Aug 09
Roger Boyes, the Berlin correspondent of British daily The Times, knuckles down to write his new book – but only after a valiant effort to escape work. READ »

Football club Union Berlin ditches sponsor over Stasi past

Sport: 25 Aug 09
Berlin’s second-tier football club, 1.FC Union, has ditched its main sponsor following revelations the company's chairman had once been an officer with East Germany's dreaded secret police, the Stasi. READ »

Tragic Berlin Wall tunnel heroes honoured

National: 12 Aug 09
Nearly 20 years after the Berlin Wall fell, two men who tried to spirit their families to freedom in the West were honoured on Wednesday. AFP's Deborah Cole reports on a daring escape attempt and tragic love story. READ »

Stasi had file on Michael Jackson

Society: 30 Jul 09
Michael Jackson was in the files of the feared East German secret police, the Stasi, because of a concert he gave right next to the Berlin Wall in 1988, daily Bild reported on Thursday. READ »

Flash mobs banned in Braunschweig

Society: 28 Jul 09
Tired of flash mobs holding gatherings in Braunschweig’s Schlossplatz square, the city says it is forbidding the social networking phenomenon, according to a report published Tuesday by the news site Zeit Online. READ »

Merkel comic book sells out

Politics: 23 Jul 09
A new comic book about the life of German Chancellor Angela Merkel as "Miss Tschörmänie" has sold out in four days. READ »

Körting says Stasi checks not needed in Berlin

National: 11 Jul 09
Berlin’s state interior minister Erhart Körting says he does not want to see background checks made to root out workers in public services with an East German secret police (Stasi) background. READ »

Municipal posts rife with 17,000 former Stasi workers

National: 9 Jul 09
Some 17,000 former East German secret police workers are likely working in local government authorities in eastern states despite background checks, daily Financial Times Deutschland reported on Thursday. READ »

Building a perfect Union

Sport: 6 Jul 09
After being promoted to the Bundesliga’s second division, Berlin football club Eisern Union is about to inaugurate its newly renovated stadium - rebuilt by the loving hands of its devoted fans. Ben Knight helped out for a day. READ »

Deutsche Bank hired detectives to spy on staff

National: 5 Jul 09
Germany's biggest bank, Deutsche Bank, hired detectives to spy on its employees including a member of its supervisory board, managers and a shareholder, German magazine Der Spiegel reported. READ »

Merkel’s guards revealed as ex-Stasi

National: 3 Jul 09
Two policemen assigned to guard Chancellor Angela Merkel’s weekend house in Brandenburg used to be in the East German secret police, known as the Stasi, broadcaster ARD reported on Friday. READ »

Axel Springer planning tribunal with 68er radicals

National: 2 Jul 09
Media giant Axel Springer is planning a tribunal on the upheaval that rocked the late sixties, including talks with revolutionaries who were once the company’s bitterest enemies, CEO Mathias Döpfner said Thursday. READ »

Merkel says G8 'not sufficient' to solve global problems

Politics: 2 Jul 09
The Group of Eight industrialised powers (G8) is no longer the appropriate forum to thrash out the world's problems, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday. READ »

Magazine says Kurras reported Stasi defectors to East Germany

National: 6 Jun 09
Heinz Kurras, the recently exposed Stasi spy and former West German police officer, provided explosive information on defectors and prisoners to his East German masters, according to news magazine Der Spiegel. READ »

Labour Agency reportedly orders 'spying' on welfare fraudsters

Society: 4 Jun 09
Welfare recipient advocats are warning of what they call “Stasi methods” at the Federal Labour Agency (BA) to catch people claiming fraudulent benefits, according to German media reports on Thursday. READ »

Most Cologne archive documents intact despite collapse

National: 1 Jun 09
Three months after the collapse of Cologne’s city archives, experts are amazed by how many of the precious documents have survived the devastating accident. READ »

Dutschke family wants case reopened after Stasi discovery

Society: 30 May 09
The son of the late West German student leader Rudi Dutschke wants a new investigation into the 1968 assassination attempt on his father after the discovery a Stasi agent was responsible for the death of another student. READ »

Kurras' Stasi past almost revealed by researcher six years ago

Society: 28 May 09
Karl-Heinz Kurras, the recently exposed Stasi collaborator and former West Berlin police officer who infamously shot a student protester in 1967, was almost discovered six years ago, the Office for Stasi Files said Thursday. READ »

Stasi stole West German identities for sabotage ops

Society: 27 May 09
The feared East German Stasi secret police misused the identities of innocent Western German citizens as covers for secret agents, daily Berliner Zeitung reported on Wednesday. READ »

Stasi files still revealing secrets 20 years on

Society: 26 May 09
Germans are still applying in droves to see files kept on them by the feared Stasi secret police nearly 20 years after the Berlin Wall fell, the head of the vast archives said on Tuesday. READ »

Probe into former West Berlin cop's Stasi past opened

National: 25 May 09
Amid calls for a fresh investigation, Berlin’s interior senator Ehrhart Körting has opened a probe into the Stasi past of a former West Berlin police officer who infamously shot a student protester in 1967. READ »

Stasi link made in infamous student death

National: 22 May 09
A former West German police officer who infamously shot a protestor in 1967 may face trial for a third time after reports emerged on Friday that he was an unofficial informant, or IM, of the Stasi. READ »

Berlin exhibition brings East Germany alive for kids

Society: 11 May 09
AFP's Arnaud Bouvier looks at a new exhibition seeking to explain what it was like to live in communist East Germany to children with no memory of their country's turbulent past some 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. READ »

Merkel honours Stasi victims in Berlin

National: 5 May 09
Chancellor Angela Merkel became the first German leader to tour the main Berlin prison run by the feared East German Stasi secret police on Tuesday. READ »

Railing on Germany's Prince of the Rails

Analysis & Opinion: 26 Mar 09
Forget late trains and spying on employees. Roger Boyes, the Berlin correspondent of British daily The Times, explains why Deutsche Bahn boss Hartmut Mehdorn should be run off the rails. READ »

Merkel praises work of Stasi archive

Society: 15 Jan 09
On the 19th anniversary of the day East Germans stormed the offices of their country’s feared secret police, Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday praised the work of the archive responsible for sifting through the Stasi files. READ »

State premier Böhmer warns against East German nostalgia

Society: 29 Dec 08
In light of the upcoming 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall next year, the premier of Saxony-Anhalt, Wolfgang Böhmer, warned on Monday against adopting a rose-tinted view of communist East Germany. READ »

Former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt turns 90

Politics: 23 Dec 08
Helmut Schmidt, the chain-smoking former German chancellor who is enjoying a revival of popularity after governing more than 25 years ago, turns 90 on Tuesday. But while he's being lionized by the media, Schmidt would rather just be left alone. READ »

Stasi widow loses fight for bigger pension

National: 3 Dec 08
A Berlin court on Wednesday rejected a case of a widow of former officer for the Stasi, the dreaded secret police of communist East Germany, who wanted better pension benefits. READ »

Former economics minister turns his back on his party

Politics: 25 Nov 08
Former Economics Minister Wolfgang Clement has left the Social Democratic Party after being accused of disloyalty and for what he says is the SPD's flirtation with the post-communist Left Party. READ »

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