Secret Police Headquarters (Berlin)

I step into the office of the high commander and survey the room critically. My eyes can't help but search the corners, cracks, and crevices, hoping to spot a secret compartment somewhere. Surely the head of the Secret Police would have kept some of the most incriminating files close to his personal body, and since there were fully three rooms of secretaries to get through before you reached him, he would have had plenty of time to secure such files before he was found out. While I stare at the ginormous phone console - the height of technology in 1989 - I think about the whispered conversations that would have taken place in this room, the names of certain "criminals" whose death sentences were signed on that desk.



A large tour group enters, so I decide it's time to follow the rope guidelines and move through the backdoor. Shockingly it's not a conference room or an office for bodyguards. It's a bedroom! Apparently, East Germany had so many enemies fighting for the chance to get in that the head of the Secret Police couldn't even afford to go home at night. I do have to wonder at the mindset of this place. How could anyone think this was a good system? At least 1 informer for every 6 East Germans?! Talk about a lack of privacy. Even for the top dog whose bedroom I now traverse.

As I move from room to room, smiling to myself at the stark wooden decorations which remind me of my childhood in Austria, I can almost sense the quiet fear this building would have instilled. Darkened windows, echoing hallways, propaganda posters, small all-white rooms that functioned as cells. Several of these latter rooms feature large boards containing the names, stories, and detailed documents of all kinds of inmates who once crossed these thresholds. I sit down in a chair across from Uta Franke and read about her "crimes," her desire to raise the level of debate and reform her country for the better. Her eyes look kind, though her words carry a fiery edge. What happened to her in this place? How did she keep herself alive during her imprisonment? Does one of the smell jars perhaps contain a piece of her clothing?


I never expected the Stasi Headquarters to touch me so deeply. In the entryway stands a smallish vehicle, and when I glance inside, I'm amazed to see 5 mini compartments used for prisoner transport. Isolation from the very start. Chains still dangle from the walls and the floor, and since there are no windows or lightbulbs, it's easy to assume how dark such a ride must have been. Silence was a powerful Stasi weapon.

When I leave the building, it is like gasping fresh air for the first time in weeks. Suddenly I can't get away fast enough. But at the end of the street, I turn to glance back, and I see the gate that had appeared in several pictures toward the end of my tour, the gate that East Germans tore down in the days following November 9, 1989. Thousands of men and women in their skinny 80's jeans and big floppy hair invaded this building and in doing so rescued hundreds of thousands of files from destruction. Overnight they dismantled not only the entire Stasi system but the fear that had come with it.

"The one who thinks differently is an enemy."

I'm not usually one to condone violence, but as I stare back at the Headquarters, I'm thankful for the fall of the Stasi and the entire Berlin Wall. I feel an affinity for the people who took back ownership of their country, who saved it from sinking into even further abuse of power. I'm thankful I have the freedom to work here in this country and openly share Christ. It is a milestone, because even though I sense a twinge of guilt toward Austria, for the first time, I am proud to be in Germany.