As intelligence chief, Wolf achieved great success in penetrating the government, political and business circles of West Germany with spies. In 1957, Markus Wolf became head of the Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (HVA) (Main Reconnaissance Administration), the foreign intelligence section of the Stasi. Wollweber resigned in 1957 after clashes with Ulbricht and Erich Honecker, and was succeeded by his deputy, Erich Mielke. The Stasi held this status until November 1955, when it was restored to a ministry. The Minister of State Security simultaneously became a State Secretary of State Security. Following the June 1953 uprising, the Politbüro decided to downgrade the apparatus to a State Secretariat and incorporate it under the Ministry of the Interior under the leadership of Willi Stoph. Zaisser tried to depose SED General Secretary Walter Ulbricht after the June 1953 uprising, but was instead removed by Ulbricht and replaced with Ernst Wollweber thereafter. Wilhelm Zaisser was the first Minister of State Security of the GDR, and Erich Mielke was his deputy. The Stasi was founded on 8 February 1950.
9 Stasi officers after the reunification. 7.3 Tracking down former Stasi informers with recovered files. 3.3 District Departments and Area Precincts. The files were maintained by the Stasi Records Agency until June 2021, when they became part of the German Federal Archives. After German reunification, the surveillance files that the Stasi had maintained on millions of East Germans were opened, so that all citizens could inspect their personal file on request. Numerous Stasi officials were prosecuted for their crimes after 1990. The Stasi also maintained contacts, and occasionally cooperated, with Western terrorists. Under its long-time head Markus Wolf, this directorate gained a reputation as one of the most effective intelligence agencies of the Cold War. Its Main Directorate for Reconnaissance ( Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung) was responsible both for espionage and for conducting covert operations in foreign countries. It arrested 250,000 people as political prisoners during its existence. One of the Stasi's main tasks was spying on the population, primarily through a vast network of citizens-turned-informants, and fighting any opposition by overt and covert measures, including hidden psychological destruction of dissidents ( Zersetzung, literally meaning "decomposition"). Erich Mielke was the Stasi's longest-serving chief, in power for 32 of the 40 years of the GDR's existence. The Stasi motto was Schild und Schwert der Partei (Shield and Sword of the Party), referring to the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany ( Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, SED) and also echoing a theme of the KGB, the Soviet counterpart and close partner, with respect to its own ruling party, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). The Stasi was headquartered in East Berlin, with an extensive complex in Berlin-Lichtenberg and several smaller facilities throughout the city. It has been described as one of the most effective and repressive intelligence and secret police agencies to have ever existed. The Ministry for State Security ( German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, MfS, German: ( listen)), or State Security Service ( Staatssicherheitsdienst, SSD), commonly known as the Stasi ( German: ( listen)), was the official state security service of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany, GDR).
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