Status: 01/11/2023 1:55 p.m
The Federal Archives contain more than 111 kilometers of Stasi files. Even after the dissolution of the Stasi records authority, interest in inspecting the files remained unbroken. Almost 30,000 applications were received in 2022.
Even after the dissolution of the Stasi records authority in 2021, interest in the Stasi files from the GDR era continues unabated. The Federal Archives are now responsible. In the past year, a total of 29,064 requests from citizens to inspect files were received there, according to data from the authority. This left the number almost unchanged compared to 2021, when 30,603 applications were made.
In the past year, files for security checks, checks on public sector employees and pension matters were used 7,574 times, it said. In 2,242 cases, it was about applications for rehabilitation of formerly politically persecuted and compensation. First, the editorial network Germany (RND) reported on the numbers.
Since reunification, 3.4 million requests for access to files
In the Federal Archives, more than 111 kilometers of documents from the holdings of the former GDR Ministry for State Security are available for research. Of these, 51 kilometers have already been archived by the Stasi and are personally accessible. Another 60 kilometers were found unsorted in the offices of the Stasi in 1990 and are now 94 percent accessible.
According to the Federal Archives, a total of 3.4 million applications for file inspection have been made since 1991.
The continuing great interest in the access to files shows “impressively that this part of our history is still having an impact today,” said the Bundestag SED Victims Commissioner, Evelyn Zupke, to the RND newspapers.
“Many people only now, in old age, deal with their own biography more closely – often when they retire or because children and grandchildren ask about it.” The requests for rehabilitation are still “at a high level,” said Zupke.
More visitors to the Hohenschönhausen Memorial
The Berlin-Hohenschönhausen memorial in the former Stasi detention center announced that the place was attracting more visitors again after the corona pandemic. A total of 308,474 people visited the former East Berlin Stasi prison last year.
Almost 60 percent were students. In the pre-Corona year 2019, the memorial had around 160,000 more visitors, with 460,000. Almost 98,000 of them came from abroad. Since the spring of 2022, the demand for guided tours has been approaching the 2019 figures again, it said.