Existing comment:
"[People] would stand in the square holding a banner that said they wanted freedom... After just two minutes, they would be arrested and blocked up for years."
-- Harry Santos, former Stasi prisoner
Secret Police:
Behind the Iron Curtain, communist governments ruled in part through domestic terrorism -- informants, kidnappings, torture, murder, and imprisonment without trial. Secret police forces, such as the KGB in the Soviet Union and Stasi in East Germany, existed not to enforce the law but to maintain the power and control of the government.
In East Germany, the secret police stood at the center of a network that included as many as one informant for roughly every seven citizens. |