Declassified tapes give new insight into inner workings of East German Stasi

Trove of classified recordings includes interrogations by communist secret police

Erich Mielke Stasi
Stasi chief Erich Mielke gives a speech outside the agency’s headquarters in Berlin
(Image credit: stephanr66/Flickr)

The release of a series of top-secret Stasi tapes is shedding light on the inner workings of the once-feared German police agency.

The 14 highly classified recordings were once held by the agency’s elite training school, the Institute of Operative Psychology in Potsdam, and “offer a rare and candid glimpse into the corrupt heart” of one of the most hated and feared institutions of the East German communist government, The Times reports.

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Joe Evans is the world news editor at TheWeek.co.uk. He joined the team in 2019 and held roles including deputy news editor and acting news editor before moving into his current position in early 2021. He is a regular panellist on The Week Unwrapped podcast, discussing politics and foreign affairs. 

Before joining The Week, he worked as a freelance journalist covering the UK and Ireland for German newspapers and magazines. A series of features on Brexit and the Irish border got him nominated for the Hostwriter Prize in 2019. Prior to settling down in London, he lived and worked in Cambodia, where he ran communications for a non-governmental organisation and worked as a journalist covering Southeast Asia. He has a master’s degree in journalism from City, University of London, and before that studied English Literature at the University of Manchester.