Ministerium für Staatssicherheit

This series leads through the former headquarters of the Ministry of State Security (MfS) in East Germany. The MfS, better known as the ‘Stasi’, was the official state security service of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The headquarters of the Ministry of State Security (MfS) in Berlin-Lichtenberg were a huge complex with around 50 buildings and thousands of offices, in which up to 7,000 full-time Stasi employees worked until it was disbanded in 1989. In order to secure the power of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), they organized the surveillance and repression of the GDR population and the GDR’s foreign espionage from here. 

Centre of this area was the so-called ‘Haus 1’, the headquarters of State Security Minister Erich Mielke, completed in 1962. The heart of the building are the historical offices of Mielke, the last Minister for State Security of East Germany. The former ministerial floor was planned according to the needs of Mielke and has been largely preserved in its original state since 1990 and can be visited as a museum.