Leipzig Part Two - The “Runde Ecke” Stasi Museum

Jump to Comments

I thought this part of our trip to Leipzig deserved a post of its own, and so here it is.  We went to the “Runde Ecke” Stasi Museum on Sunday, in driving snow and biting wind, but it was worth the battle with the elements to take a look.  The exhibition at the “Runde Ecke” is small, obviously has no big budget behind it, but what is there is definately interesting.

The “Runde Ecke”, an round-cornered building on the Dittrichring housed the offices for the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS - ‘Stasi’) during the DDR-times, and although everybody in Leipzig knew what the building was, as the exhibition shows, the building appeared on no DDR-era city maps of Leipzig.  According to the cartographers in East Germany, the “Runde Ecke” didn’t exist.  It was in this building that officers for the Stasi worked on their surveillance of the citizens of East Germany, checking post, phone-taps, pouring over photos or reading peoples letters.

When the protests began in Leipzig in 1989 that would eventually lead to the collapse of the East German state, the “Runde Ecke” was an obvious focal point, and one of the famous banners of the time that states When will there be a Museum here? hangs proudly above the boards that document the former inhabitants’ work.  The demonstrations in Leipzig in 1989, and their progress, take up one section of the exhibition, inside the main foyer.

Elsewhere, the exhibition covers how young people were trained in the Ministry, the use of sport in the DDR to further the ideology of the state, surveillance techniques, various artefacts from the offices that were found when the Stasi abandoned the building, an example of an office and a holding cell, and numerous photos, letters and memos taken from the Stasi files.  One of the most depressing examples, documents the reporting of a fifteen year old boy by his teachers for something he wrote in class, that even two years later was causing him trouble with job and education applications.

When a state and its officers, down to the teachers, start spying on the children of the country in their classes and homework, then it becomes clear that it is morally and ideologically bankrupt.  And that is of course nearly nothing, compared to some of the other things the Stasi got up to.

It was definately interesting, but it is a shame that there hasn’t been more money to put together a more comprehensive exhibition on what is an undoubtedly important part of DDR history.  Added to that, there was very little information available for non-German speakers, which was OK for me as I had top level translation services available, but considering that Leipzig will be hosting some World Cup matches this summer, it would be good if they make it more accessible for those without the linguistic skils.  The Museum is free, which is great as I guess they want it to be accessible to all, but probably explains why they don’t have much money.  There is a place, however, where visitors can leave donations.

There is information about the “Runde Ecke” on the Museum’s website, which has some info in English but doesn’t seem to be working properly at the moment (the German content is fine).

On the Atari DJ Tapedeck: ‘Dancing in the Street’, Martha Reeves & The Vandellas.

3 Comments

Filed under Elsewhere, General, Germany, Leipzig, Museums, Photos