Searching for Great Plates and Great Adventures

I stared through the holes in the remnants of the Berlin Wall. Most of the graffiti had dulled, yet the messages still shone brightly. This was the physical landmark and a figurative symbol. This was the barrier between Western freedom and blue jeans, and Communist constraints and bread lines. As a child of the Cold War, I can still specifically remember watching when those East Berliners finally made it over that wall.

The tourist maps of Berlin covered all the well-known destinations near the city’s epicenter. Of course I took pictures underneath the Brandenburg Gate and Checkpoint Charlie, but I wanted to go beyond the wall, deeper into the past of this modern city.

As I thumbed through brochures at a souvenir shop, a dusty section caught my eye. Finally I had what I was looking for, the former Headquarters of the Stasi.

The Staatssicherheit (popularly known as Stasi) has been described as the most effective and repressive intelligence agency to have ever existed. Popularized in the West by the movie The Lives of Others, it is legend 50% of the population was spying and reporting on the other 50%.

My search for the Stasi led right into the lion’s former den. Deep in the heart of old East Berlin stands the former headquarters of the Secret Police, now a museum. However, just getting to the Stasi Museum required a few tram transfers, a small walk, and the sight of gray and decaying buildings, each identical to the next. Surprising to me, the streets were empty, save for a few old women at a bus stop. If I didn’t know any better, it could have been 1984.

Upon entry, the museum still looked like a government office building with only a few visitors. It possessed nearly intact furniture, artifacts, and paperwork. A poster of East German ice skater Ekaterina Witt hung on one wall, while next to another was a file cabinet full of observations and notes.

The untouched office of the former director was interesting, but the real insights were the vast numbers of dossiers and spy gadgets. One of the most fascinating was the collections of seat cushion covers kept in jars. The intent was to keep a scent of each interviewee in case the dogs were ever needed to track them down. To this part of the collection, my mind remains perplexed.

The trek to the Stasi headquarters was a trip into the past, reminding of the divisions and paranoia of the German people. While most of Berlin has become a colorful city, the Stasi dominated East is still catching up.