Museum in der “Runden Ecke”

Dittrichring 24
Dresden
Sexony
Germany
0341-961-2443

http://www.runde-ecke-leipzig.de.

Type: Museum
Hours: Daily from 10 am to 6 pm

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It is housed in the former Leipzig head office of the feared and despised Stasi, the secret police of the German Democratic Republic. The site was known as the Round Corner due to the curvature of the building. The Stasi managed to know a lot of what the citizens were up to through a wide network of spies, the illegal opening of mail, and wiretapping of phones. On display are some of the machines designed to open and close letters – up to 2,000 per day – as well as ones designed to read the contents of some without having to open the actual envelope. Money was routinely stolen from the mail and suspect letters routinely photographed onto microfiche. The technology to spy on their own citizens was highly developed and several small cameras and listening devices designed to be hidden in bags and clothes are on display. The Stasi’s ability to fake documents, both domestic and foreign, was impressive, as was the makeup and the planning that went into secret sting operations. The paranoia reached far and near: after the fall of the regime, a permanently staffed telephone listening post was found inside the Stasi building itself. Thousands of files that were kept on ordinary citizens are on display. An enormous pile of shredded paper bears tes timony to the attempts to destroy as much as possible in the final days of the regime. Probably the oddest item on display is a collection of bottles with people’s smells! The Stasi was convinced that they could develop reliable technology to identify people by smell and collected swabs and pieces of clothing for record keeping. Information in the museum is in German only, but an English folder with a room-by-room description is available at the entrance.