This web site examines the role German bureaucracy played during the Holocaust. Berlin was the administrative center of the National Socialist Party (NSDAP) as well as the headquarters for the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office, home of the Gestapo and SS). As such, specific sites within Berlin will be surveyed including the Topography of Terror, former home to the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, the Villa at Wannsee where plans for the 'final solution' were completed, and the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

The Socialist Unity Party (SED), though vehemently anti-fascist, was every bit as totalitarian as the NSDAP. The 'sword and shield' of the SED was the Stasi (Staatssicherheit, 'Ministry for State Security'). For the forty year duration of the German Democratic Republic, the Stasi wrought terror on the inhabitants of Eastern Germany.

In many ways, the Stasi was more effective--certainly more subtle--than the SS and the Gestapo, having perfected many of the techniques of its predecessors. By the fall of the Berlin Wall, one in six East Germans was informing on the other five.

I interviewed three individuals regarding their perspectives on East Germany and the Stasi. Wenzel Peikert told me about his escape from East Berlin as a young boy. Sarah spoke about how the past of current government officials can come back to haunt them. An American Army intelligence officer spoke to me about his work in 1960’s Berlin. His job was to convince West Berliners to spy on their eastern cousins. All three individuals are testament to the lasting effects of the German secret police.