After Hours Tour

Museen wirken in der Dunkelheit anders. Die After Hours Tour führt durch Berliner Häuser, wenn der reguläre Betrieb längst eingestellt ist. Die Besichtigung findet in einem exklusiven Rahmen statt. Die übliche Betriebsamkeit der Tagesbesucher bleibt draußen. Es geht um den Fokus auf die Exponate. Die nächtliche Stille verändert den Blick auf die ausgestellten Objekte.

For forty years, the Stasi secured the rule of the SED state party in the GDR. In its “struggle to combat the enemy,” the Ministry for State Security (Stasi) expanded its headquarters in Lichtenberg and across the country. In 1990, brave citizens stopped secret police employees from destroying documents; later, they turned Mielke’s headquarters into a publicly accessible space. Today, the Stasi Records Archive in the Federal Archives is located here, educating the public about the Stasi’s activities and the documents it left behind. “A monument to surveillance”: The Stasi Records Archive contains 111 kilometres of files, many of which contain personal data collected by the State Security. The exhibition “Access to Secrecy” vividly conveys the significance of this archive. After the tour, participants have the opportunity to visit our sample files collection of reproductions of original Stasi documents. In addition to the administrative and personnel files of Stasi officers, the collection presents documents on victims who have consented to the publication of their files. In this way, they are helping provide “access to secrecy”.