ABSTRACT
Stalin regarded the Soviet Occupation Zone as a promising opportunity to create an enduring core of a communist Europe. In February of 1950-just four months after the founding of the German Democratic Republic (GDR)-the East German security agency-the Stasi-was created. The Stasi effectively intimidated farmers as part of the collectivization campaigns, but its role was far more extensive and it comprehensively infiltrated all aspects of GDR society. Modelled after the Soviet KGB, the Stasi soon came to be the most hated and feared organizations of the East German government. It was around this time that the Minister of State Security complained that the Stasi was no longer able to recruit and retain the level of unofficial informants required to meet the increasing unrest. Perhaps the ultimate irony of the entire experiment in the GDR was that just when the regime thought it had completed the construction project of the 'new German', the entire scheme came crashing down.
