The Stasi: The East German Intelligence and Security Service

✍ Scribed by David Childs, Richard Popplewell (auth.)

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 267
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The Stasi were among the most successful security and intelligence services in the Cold War. Behind the Berlin Wall, colleagues, friends, husbands and wives, informed on each other. Stasi chief, General Mielke, prided himself on this situation. Under Marcus Wolf, Stasi agents were spectacularly successful in gaining entry into the West German Establishment and NATO. Some remain undiscovered. Now, for the first time in English, two British experts reveal how the Stasi operated. Based on a wealth of sources, including interviews with former Stasi officers and their victims, the book tells a fascinating yet frightening story of unbridled power, misguided idealism, treachery, widespread opportunism and lonely courage.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-xiii
German Communism, the Comintern and Secret Intelligence 1918–43....Pages 1-32
The Origins and Development of East German State Security: The Ulbricht Years, 1945–71....Pages 33-65
The MfS, the SED and the East German State....Pages 66-81
The MfS as an Internal Security Organ....Pages 82-111
East German Foreign Intelligence, 1945–89....Pages 112-141
HVA Operations Against West Germany....Pages 142-173
From Triumph to Catastrophe: The Stasi Under Mielke and Honecker 1971–89....Pages 174-192
The Aftermath....Pages 193-195
Back Matter....Pages 196-253

✦ Subjects

European History;Modern History;European Union Politics;International Relations