Stasi

Koehler examines the East German Ministry for State Security, better known as the Stasi, and the reach it held over the country's population. The agency ran a dense network of surveillance and control that was used to crush political dissent, and it was responsible for the imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of people. It stands among the most formidable secret police and intelligence services of the twentieth century.

The book works through the Stasi's record in a systematic way, covering its domestic repression inside East Germany and its operations abroad. Those operations include foreign espionage, terrorism and the training of terrorists, the theft of art, and covert activity in Latin America and Africa.