Fake mustaches, hidden cameras, 80,000 agents: How Stasi brutalized a nation

Disguises as tourists were often used to help agents appear "inconspicuous" in places frequented by Westerners. Props such as plastic shopping bags and cameras were often used.

These pictures from a staged surveillance scene helped to train prospective agents in how to keep suspects under watch. The dates all these photos were taken is unknown.

All parcels mailed to the GDR from West Germany were opened by the Stasi. The contents were sometimes confiscated.

The U.S. Embassy in East Berlin was constantly photographed and filmed.

An arrest is staged and documented for training purposes.

This picture was taken in the room of a teenager that allegedly showed pro-Western sympathies.

High-level Stasi functionaries pose for the camera.

Many of the disguises used by Stasi agents are detailed in Simon Menner's book.

Who would have guessed this gentleman was a Stasi agent?

So versatile: A Stasi agent blends in with the crowd.

East Germany had one of the highest levels of surveillance in the world.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the GDR, the Stasi began destroying its files by hand and with shredders, but many documents and images still exist.

So casual: This Stasi agent can blend into any situation.

Agents bugged apartments and drilled small holes in walls to film citizens with video cameras to find out intimate details of their lives.

A Stasi agent takes a picture of himself in the car.

HIDE CAPTION

The lives of Stasi agents

The lives of Stasi agents

The lives of Stasi agents

The secret techniques of Stasi agents

The lives of Stasi agents

The lives of Stasi agents

The lives of Stasi agents

The lives of Stasi agents

The lives of Stasi agents

The lives of Stasi agents

The lives of Stasi agents

The lives of Stasi agents

The lives of Stasi agents

The lives of Stasi agents

The secret techniques of Stasi agents

<<

<

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

>

>>

(CNN) -- The sometimes ludicrous disguises and complex surveillance techniques used by East Germany's Stasi secret police to psychologically brutalize the population have been revealed, more than two decades after the fall of the Iron Curtain.

From 1950 onwards, the Stasi infiltrated almost every aspect of society and by the mid-1980s, a vast network of unofficial informants and full-time employees had been created. Some spouses spied on their partners, as did neighbors and friends. The ratio of 80,000 full-time agents to the 16 million people in the GDR was higher even than in Soviet Russia.

Defying the KGB: How a forgotten movement freed a people

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and Germany's reunification the following year, most of the Stasi archives were opened to the public. Citizens can request their Stasi files from the BStU, revealing the meticulous surveillance they had been subjected to during the Cold War era.

Now the extent to which East Germans were being watched is documented in a new book by Simon Menner.

"People are fascinated by surveillance and secret services, but the public has little access to picture material showing the act of surveillance," the Berlin-based artist told CNN.

Watch: East Germany's spying system

In his book "Top Secret: Images from the Stasi Archives," Menner includes images that show the creative guises of Stasi personnel. "Most people would probably laugh seeing these pictures now. They look almost ridiculous," he said, "but they show a dark chapter of German history."

For more than two years, Menner, 35, went through thousands of images and documents at the archive of the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Archives of the former German Democratic Republic (BStU). "These images offer a glimpse into another world, an extinct culture, but it was a brutal system that showed no sympathy for its people," he said.

"The fact that Stasi spies had to try to look like ordinary people just shows that they had completely lost the connection to their citizens."

The aliases of people that spied on them are also in the files and on request the real names can be uncovered. Last month Peer Steinbrück, who is running against Angela Merkel in the race to be Germany's next chancellor released his Stasi file online, revealing that on his visits to the GDR a relative reportedly spied on him.

According to Menner, thousands of bags of Stasi images and documents are yet to be archived. "I have just scratched the surface and many secrets remain unknown."