26. The GDR had the largest secret police network in the world, and its files on citizens cover 111km
To maintain order, the GDR had the Stasi, the world’s largest secret police network. It’s estimated 1 in 90 East Germans worked as informants, and the Stasi employed 91,000 people at its peak. The Stasi’s headquarters in Berlin encompassed 40 buildings. The SED imposed mass surveillance in the GDR, whittling out dissidents and imprisoning them with little evidence. The Stasi arrested 250,000 East Germans, and also carried out covert operations abroad. Historians are still reading through the Stasi’s files on ordinary people and will be for a long time. Surviving records fill an incredible 111km of shelf space.