Free Republic

For a profession as covert as theirs, you might have thought the Stasi would kit out their spies with an inconspicuous wardrobe to aid them in their secretive work. However far from blending in, a new exhibition has revealed that operatives from the secret police of former East Germany looked astonishingly like, well, spies. Dodgy fashion secrets of the Stasi show how they seem to have taken a leaf out of the book of many a Hollywood screen spy.

  A major Internet company is under investigation by more than 30 state attorneys-general for alleged wiretapping violations. In Europe and now Texas that same company faces anti-trust inquiries on whether it unfairly penalizes its competitors, and its operations face criminal wiretapping inquiries throughout Europe, as well as in Australia and South Korea.Yet, inside the Beltway, it’s business as usual. The Obama Administration plans to award the company a sweetheart, no-bid contract for satellite imagery and access to classified data. After protests, the Administration backtracks, allowing other companies to bid, but still intends to award the contract to the...

Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue is a wanted man -- at least according to the liberal activist group that's put a de facto bounty on his head. A network of liberal groups known as Velvet Revolution started an ad campaign offering $200,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the man whose trade organization has become a thorn in the side of the Obama administration and congressional Democrats. The group is not leveling any specific charges of criminal behavior. Rather, it is casting a wide net, fishing for any whistleblowers from Donohue's past who might come forward...

Justification and Options for Creating U.S. Capabilities Establishing security is the sine qua non of stability operations, since it is a prerequisite for reconstruction and development. Security requires a mix of military and police forces to deal with a range of threats from insurgents to criminal organizations. This research examines the creation of a high-end police force, which the authors call a Stability Police Force (SPF). The study considers what size force is necessary, how responsive it needs to be, where in the government it might be located, what capabilities it should have, how it could be staffed, and its...

The Berlin Wall anniversary is a reminder that people smugglers were once regarded not as the scum of the earth but as heroes. Hartmut Richter was one. He fled East Berlin five years after the wall was built by swimming across one of the canals that separated the city. He then helped another 33 people escape by smuggling them across the border in his car. Twenty years on, he worries about what is called Ostalgie - nostalgia for the old East Germany. The former German Democratic Republic has largely been romanticised in film, fashion and design. But Mr Richter warns...

On Nov. 9, 1989, large crowds of German citizens from both East and West Berlin approached the Berlin Wall. At several border crossing points, East Berliners began shouting at the armed communist guards, demanding they open the gates and shove aside barbed wire obstacles. The confused guards yielded and disappeared. The gleeful crowds from the communist East and the free West mingled and mixed, occasionally waving at television cameras. Young men whacked at the wall's hideous concrete with pick axes and sledge hammers, then passed the tools to other eager hands. Make no mistake. The Berlin Wall was a prison...

In local German elections, the successor to East Germany's Communist Party makes major inroads, a potential challenge for Chancellor Angela Merkel ahead of national elections in September. PARIS – Sunday’s local German elections favoring left parties were variously described as “a wake up call,” a “shock,” and a “setback” for Chancellor Angela Merkel. But while the results may affect her plans for Germany’s next governing coalition, few analysts expect the popular German leader will lose national elections scheduled for Sept. 27. Nevertheless, the former Communist Party of East Germany, now known as the Left Party, made startling gains in the...

Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter, commonly known as the East German secret police or the Stasi was formed in 1950. Between 1950 and 1989, the Stasi employed upwards of 274,000 persons in an effort to root out the 'class enemy'. Apparently, the Obama Administration has learned this lesson from history rather well. As of today, the White House is seeking out information on your family, your friends, your co-workers. They are seeking out information on anyone who may dare to speak out against health care reform. President Obama, we are not afraid. We will not be silenced. Wanted: Snitches There is a lot...

If you see anybody publicly opposing President Obama’s plan to implement a government-centric overhaul of the health care system, the White House wants you to report that person (or persons) ASAP. From the White House website: There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see...

Secret files of Communist East Germany's Stasi security police were sent to a film set for use as props, triggering an investigation into how such sensitive documents were obtained.The authenticity of the files were revealed when 15 former political prisoners were being filmed for a docu-play called Staats-Sicherheit (State Security) by public broadcaster ZDF. "It's just unbelievable that something like this could happen," CDU politician and former East German civil rights activist Vera Lengsfeld said. "This must be cleared up right away." One of the "prop" files was actually the genuine file of one of the actors. The German Government's...

The past can never be predicted, and perhaps never more so than when it comes to the German left. Two years ago, we learned that Nobel Laureate Günter Grass -- the literary scourge of all things fascist, especially America -- had himself been a member of the Waffen SS. Now comes another zinger that casts the radical political and social upheavals of the late 1960s in new and revealing light. The historical surprise concerns a turning point whose ripple effects were felt in Europe and beyond. On June 2, 1967, a West German policeman fatally shot an unarmed, 26-year-old literature...

Is Germany doing enough to figure out how much the Stasi, East Germany's secret police, influenced West Germany? Or would it prefer to not open old wounds? The discovery that the policeman who unwittingly helped triggered the 1968 student protest movement was a Stasi spy has unleashed a heated historical debate. The revelation that the policeman who shot Berlin student Benno Ohnesorg in 1967 was a spy for the Stasi East German intelligence service has led to an intense historical debate in Germany. Ohnesorg's death radicalized many students and is seen as one of the factors that lead to the...

East German Spy Shot West Berlin Martyr The name of Benno Ohnesorg became a rallying cry for the West German left after he was shot dead by police in 1967. Newly discovered documents indicate that the cop who shot him may have been a spy for the East German secret police. It was one of the most important events leading up to the wave of radical left-wing violence which washed over West Germany in the 1970s. On the evening of June 2, 1967, the literature student Benno Ohnesorg took part in a demonstration at West Berlin's opera house. Mohammad Reza...

During the Cold War, the Stasi - East Germany's secret police - sent "Romeo" spies to the West. They seduced secretaries working in Bonn and tricked them into handing over secrets. More than 30 of the women were later prosecuted for spying. Now a former senior Stasi officer has told BBC News the women should be pardoned. One of those targeted by the Stasi more than 30 years ago is Gabriele Kliem, who still suffers the consequences. "It's like an invisible amputation of the soul," she says. "I am totally alone, I don't have any family, I don't have any...

Cologne, Germany - A senior executive at Russian gas monopoly Gazprom is under investigation in Germany over the claim that he was a German secret-police officer in the communist era, a prosecutor confirmed Tuesday. The newspaper Die Welt was set to name the man on Wednesday as Felix Strehober, chief financial officer of Gazprom Germania. It said it was possible he would be charged in Cologne with perjury after making a statutory declaration last year, 'I have never been a salaried employee of the Ministry of State Security (Stasi) or the equivalent.' Die Welt said more than 100 pages in...

Grainy pornographic films made for officers of the People's Army of former Communist East Germany have surfaced in the Stasi files in Berlin. Movies with titles like Glass Dreams, Private Werner's Big Surprise and F***ing for the Fatherland were made by a secret unit set up within a barracks of the army in Biesdorf in East Berlin. While the west fretted about the Cold War turning hot, soldiers based at Biesdorf were measured all over to see if they were well-enough endowed to play in the blue movies that mimicked those of the west in both style and substance. Officially,...

The supermarket chain Lidl has been accused of using methods reminiscent of the Stasi secret police to spy on employees in Germany. The company, which has more than 400 stores in Britain, reportedly monitored details of intimate conversations and personal relationships. Surveillance teams would arrive early on Monday mornings to install between five and 10 miniature cameras in Lidl stores, according to the German news magazine Stern. The retail chain insisted that the cameras were not to spy on staff but for "the identification of possible misconduct" adding that "details and observations do not apply to casual conversation". But in...

E. Germans drew blueprint for Cuban spying A once-jailed Cuban exile's research reveals how East Germany exported its repressive Stasi security system to Cuba, where it lives on today. MICHAEL LEVITIN BERLIN -- In the cavernous underground jail once run by East Germany's notorious Stasi security agency, Jorge Luís Vázquez leads a visitor into a dank, tiny, pitch-black cell, then slams the iron door shut. The world vanishes into darkness. Moments later, the door swings open and light returns. ''Well, how was it?'' asks Vázquez, a Cuban exile who was jailed in one of these very Stasi cells in 1987,...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Nearly two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall a German company plans to give the Trabant, a stinky two-cylinder car that became the symbol of communist East Germany, a new lease of life. The new Trabants will no longer have tiny engines, noxious fumes and plastic bodies but will retain the iconic design of the original -- like Volkswagen's new Beetle or the new Mini. The Trabant was the most common vehicle in the former East Germany and was produced without major changes for nearly 30 years. Known in the West as a "spark plug...

BERLIN — Researchers have discovered a Cold War “shoot-to-kill” order in what amounts to the clearest evidence yet that East German troops were given a licence to fire on people fleeing to the West, the Times of London reported. The written order, issued to Stasi secret service agents, states: “Don’t hesitate to use your weapon even when border breaches happen with women and children, which traitors have often exploited in the past.” It was found by a researcher in a regional archive of Stasi documents in the city of Magdeburg.