Export hit from the GDR: the state security service

The GDR secret service was involved in over 28 countries in the global South, such as Asia, Africa and Latin America. The MfS database "Sira", a kind of electronic inbox of the GDR foreign intelligence agency HVA, which has been preserved by chance, allows us to reconstruct quite well where the focus of information gathering from developing countries lay from 1969 onwards.

The Stasi's activities abroad were aimed at supporting the power interests of the USSR and the Eastern Bloc. In relation to the Third World, i.e. essentially the former colonial empires of Western Europe and the USA, this meant shifting the overt and covert military conflicts with the West to less explosive battlefields.

In operational terms, Zanzibar was "the first step into the uncharted territory of the Third World", emphasized Markus Wolf, head of the HVA for many years. Was the GDR State Security Service involved in African civil wars?

Extensive archive material, previously unevaluated sources and witness statements shed new light on the history of GDR state security.

PARTICIPANTS

Dr. Thomas Rieger Lawyer

Anna Warda Leibniz Center for Contemporary History Research

MODERATION

Prof. Dr. Helmut Müller-Enbergs Political scientist

Admission free!Translated with DeepL

Next date:

• Date Tuesday, 10/December/2024 19:00
• Venue Deutsches Spionagemuseum
• Address Leipziger Platz 9, 10117 Berlin-Mitte