A Tyranny of Intimacy: Stasi Surveilliance & its Photographic Afterlife

A Tyranny of Intimacy: Stasi Surveillance and its Photographic Afterlife offers a new perspective on the ways in which the German Democratic Republic’s Ministry for State Security undertook mass photographic surveillance of its citizens and foreign enemies. Over the course of the GDR’s surveillance regime the Stasi’s meticulous records resulted in 180 kilometers of files, 35.6 million card indexes, tape recordings, videos, and over two million photographs (Childs 1999). As part of their observation practices the Stasi photographed suspicious activities in public places, citizens attempting to escape across the Berlin Wall, and documented related evidence of failed and successful escapes to the West. As such, the surveillance regime both undermined and reinforced a sense of private and public life for GDR citizens, which has had a residual effect in terms of contemporary aesthetic responses to the visual legacy of the Stasi.

The Stasi surveillance machine has captured the imagination of the public through film, media, and visual culture. This book comprises a close study of Stasi surveillance photographs and their contemporary afterlife with rich photographic material previously unpublished.

IMAGE: BStU Berlin