The Ministry for State Security - Everyday life at a public authority Backdrop Blur
The Ministry for State Security - Everyday life at a public authority Poster
7.5 1h 30m

The Ministry for State Security - Everyday life at a public authority

Former heads, senior officers and the rector of the MfS law school explain how the ministry functioned. The interviewees see themselves as legitimate actors with a clear mandate and political enemy image. They provide an insight into the techniques and routines of secret service work, psychological tricks during interrogations and the management of “unofficial collaborators”. What they all have in common is that they are not aware of any moral guilt. The directors contrast their footage of prisons and archives with the statements of former Stasi employees in an attempt to expose their evasions and efforts at suppression.

Top Cast

  • Kurt Zeiseweis

    Kurt Zeiseweis

    himself

  • Gerhard Niebling

    Gerhard Niebling

    himself

  • Karli Coburger

    Karli Coburger

    himself

  • Gerhard Neiber

    Gerhard Neiber

    himself

  • Horst Männchen

    Horst Männchen

    himself

  • Willi Opitz

    Willi Opitz

    himself

  • Wolfgang Schmidt

    Wolfgang Schmidt

    himself

  • Günter Möller

    Günter Möller

    himself

  • Wanja Abramowski

    Wanja Abramowski

    himself

Overview

Former heads, senior officers and the rector of the MfS law school explain how the ministry functioned. The interviewees see themselves as legitimate actors with a clear mandate and political enemy image. They provide an insight into the techniques and routines of secret service work, psychological tricks during interrogations and the management of “unofficial collaborators”. What they all have in common is that they are not aware of any moral guilt. The directors contrast their footage of prisons and archives with the statements of former Stasi employees in an attempt to expose their evasions and efforts at suppression.

Rating

7.5 / 10
2 Reviews
0 Popular

Recommendations

Night Will Fall

When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".

Night Will Fall

7.6 2014