Watching over Paradise

The Ministory for State Security (MfS)- known as the Stasi- could draw upon vast resources and powers. At the point of its dissolution in 1989, it maintained 91,000 professional officers and 189,000 Unofficial Collaborators or spies. The MfS functioned as a domestic security service, a public prosecution service and an intelligence agency all rolled into one. It was not bound by considerations of postal, banking, or telecommunications secrecy, the demands of medical confidentiality or any form of private sphere. Enjoying almost unlimited legal powers and not subject to any form of administrative or judicial oversight, it conceived of itself as the shield and sword of the Party to which it reported directly. This devastating array of powers was augmented through co-operation with other state agencies such as the police, the SED, and the various mass organizations. - DDR Museum description

Captured with an iPhone and processed with Reality Capture in Oct 2019.