Published in Halle in 1992: The masterminds behind the Stasi list

Published in Halle in 1992 The masterminds behind the Stasi list As of: October 30, 2026 • 12:51 p.m

More than 30 years ago, a list with around 4,500 names of Stasi informants caused a stir in Halle. Who wrote it remained unknown for decades. Now the authors are speaking publicly for the first time.

In 1992, a list in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, caused a stir: it contained the names of around 4,500 people who were listed as unofficial employees of the Ministry for State Security between 1986 and 1989. Who was behind the publication remained unknown for more than three decades. Now the authors are speaking publicly for the first time.

In addition to around 4,500 real and alias names, the Halle list also contains information on the residences and places of work of people who were registered as unofficial employees (IM) for the Ministry for State Security (MfS). Unlike the full-time employees, they were not employed by the ministry, but were recruited as informants by the state security and were supposed to covertly provide information about people in their personal and professional environment.

According to an overview from the Federal Archives, 7.5 million applications have been received since 1990. more

In terms of population density, the GDR had by far the densest surveillance apparatus in the entire Eastern Bloc. The Ministry for State Security was both an intelligence service and a political secret police. As the "shield and sword of the party", it was intended to secure the rule of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), identify critics and prevent opposition activities.

In the fall of 1989, the MfS employed around 91,000 full-time employees, plus around 189,000 unofficial employees. If you look at the number of all MfS employees, you get a density of one informant for every 60 GDR citizens.

At the beginning of November 1989, the Stasi began destroying files on a large scale. When the events became known, civil rights activists occupied Stasi offices across the country to stop the destruction and secure documents.

Fearing that the IM files could also be locked up again, seven people get together in Halle and spend all night typing in a highly conspiratorial manner. Five of them talk about it in the ARD documentary “The Big Stasi Leak.”

The central players included the later head of the Halle Stasi records branch and pastor Ulrich Schlademann, the Leopoldina archivist Wieland Berg, the environmental activist Matthias Waschitschka, the Protestant pastor Thea Ilse and print shop operator Henning Schaarschmidt. Many of them were already involved in the opposition environmental movement in Halle against the environmental destruction in the chemical triangle in the 1980s - and thus found themselves in the sights of state security.

They were among the central players (from left): Ulrich Schlademann, Henning Schaarschmidt, Thea Ilse, Wieland Berg and Matthias Waschitschka.

One of their most successful actions was their "show fishing" on the occasion of World Environment Day in 1989. However, the fishing was the actual bycatch of the action: in order to draw attention to the devastating environmental destruction in the biologically dead Saale, opposition members dressed as construction workers unrolled a banner on the nearby bridge with the words "We only borrowed this earth from our children", while the People's Police were busy with the anglers and their protest signs on the river bank. The next day, many of those involved were interrogated by state security.

The group caused a stir in Halle in 1989 while “fishing” against environmental destruction.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Wieland Berg, Thea Ilse, Ulrich Schlademann and Matthias Watschischka worked as members of the personnel commissions at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg to check university staff for political backgrounds during the GDR. “Of course we were the only ones who knew about Stasi involvement,” remembers Wieland Berg in the documentary. The list should therefore provide the commissions with an additional tool and speed up processing.

The list went to around 30 ministries, parties and newspapers. But only the New Forum, the central representative of the civil rights movement during the peaceful revolution, publicly displayed them in its offices and thus made them accessible to citizens. She quickly became the talk of the town. People queued for hours in front of the New Forum office to gain access. In some cases, 700 appointments were made in just one day.

However, the extent to which someone had actually collaborated with the state security could not be determined from the list alone. This restriction was already pointed out in the foreword to the list: "In a few exceptional cases, people were registered for the IM without there being active cooperation with the Stasi," it says there. Joachim Gauck, first federal commissioner of the Stasi Records Authority, was critical of the list, but emphasized that his authority was not aware of a single case "where a person was on this list without reason."

However, making the list accessible was not without consequences. It triggered a legal dispute about how far the public coming to terms with the Stasi's past can go and how the protection of individuals from prejudice can be maintained. Various affected parties filed civil lawsuits against the New Forum, which had publicly displayed the list on its premises.

In 1994 the Federal Court of Justice prohibited further display. The New Forum went to the Federal Constitutional Court in 2000. The judges from Karlsruhe did not decide on the case again, but criticized the fact that the previous courts had not given enough consideration to the public interest in coming to terms with the Stasi past and freedom of expression.

In an interview with tagesschau.de, Thea Ilse emphasizes that the publication particularly contributed to initiating a social coming to terms with the GDR's past, but at the same time also raised the question of individual guilt. “We are strong enough in the Federal Republic to withstand such controversies,” she emphasizes.

According to Ilse, then as now, we need people who dare to “follow their conscience and their hearts so that our freedom and democracy do not end up in a dictatorship again.”

More on this topic in the ARD documentary "The Big Stasi Leak - Heroes or Traitors".

This topic in the program: tagesschau.de | Stasi list with 4,500 names published in Halle in 1992 | Oct 30, 2026 | 12:30 p.m