Originally posted by the Voice of America.
Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America,
a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in
the public domain.


Looking Back: The Fall of East Germany's Feared Stasi 30 Years Ago

Jamie Dettmer

   It was the best of times for thousands of protesters who 30 years ago
   stormed the Berlin headquarters of East Germany's hated Ministry of
   State Security, better known as the Stasi.

   For them, January 15, 1990, was a time of hope -- the day that spelled,
   in effect, the end of East Germany, or Deutsche Demokratische Republik
   (DDR). It was a state created by Moscow out of the Soviet-occupied zone
   of post-Nazi Germany.

   The Stasi's motto was "Shield and Sword of the Party," and without an
   effective agency of state repression, East Germany was exposed as a
   shell.

   German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier marked the 30th anniversary
   Wednesday of the storming of the Stasi headquarters, describing it as a
   "profoundly democratic act."
   In the weeks before the Berlin HQ was overrun, anti-Communist
   protesters had celebrated as the Berlin Wall fell and while the secret
   police's regional stations were occupied one by one. Regional
   demonstrators were becoming ever bolder as the country's Communist
   leaders were exposed as helpless to do anything to stop them. Moscow
   had stayed its hand, despite appeals form East Germany's Communist boss
   Erich Honecker to then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for Russian
   military intervention.

   Now it was the turn of Berliners to shutter the Stasi, in the DDR's
   capital, tolling the final bell on East Germany's agency of internal
   repression.
   Shaping Putin

   For a KGB colonel, though, one Vladimir Putin, it was the worst of
   times, a time of stinging indignity. Many of his biographers say it has
   shaped his autocratic governing style now as Russian president, and
   also his fear of anti-Kremlin protesters.

.