Unofficial collaborator

[4] The network of secret informers, commonly known in German sources by the initials IM, was one of the most important instruments of repression and also one of the most critical pillars of power supporting the one-party state that ran East Germany.

[citation needed] The Stasi network of Informal Collaborators (IMs) covered all sections of the population in the Democratic Republic.

The network provided crucial support to the country's elaborate surveillance system, and it made possible the monitoring of groups to which an identifiable Stasi officer could never have gained more direct access.

They fell back a little in the mid-1960s for the initial phase of the period of reduced east-west tensions between the two Germanys associated with the time in office, first as Foreign Minister and then as Chancellor, of Willy Brandt, before climbing steeply through the early 1970s to peak at a little above 200,000 during the mid-1970s.

[11] A younger researcher on the subject, East Berlin born historian Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk, questioned this figure in 2013, but without providing any similarly careful estimate of his own as to the number of IMs in 1988/89.

[12] Kowalczuks own figures, appearing in his book "Stasi konkret" (2013),[3] have not gone unchallenged, with criticisms that his conclusions are empirically unconvincing, that his logic contains grave errors, and that his statistical approach is flawed.

Assertions by Kowalczuk in the press appearing to state that the number of IMs was only half that previously accepted are inaccurate because they take no account of the massive broadening of information gathering activity by the Stasi that was a feature of the final years of the German Democratic Republic, and left almost every second citizen thinking himself a surveillance victim.

It is in any event clear, as the BStU has repeatedly pointed out, that the term "Informal collaborator" ("Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter" / "Informeller Mitarbeiter"’ /"IM") was not always precisely defined, and that very careful investigation is needed in order to prove any individual case on order that the individual responsibility, or where appropriate the guilt, of any one person may be determined.

They would have sought to conceal the true basis for their "curiosity", as representing, for instance, the local council, the military or the tax office in order to get their target-interlocutors talking.

Sample-based analysis of these Stasi records in Rostock and Saalfeld shows that approximately 18% and 5.9% of the populations, respectively, were assessed as AKPs who were, for the most part, ready to talk.

Conversations with "official" Stasi partners could fatefully affect peoples' lives, leading to career difficulties or travel restrictions.

It is estimated that the Stasi employed 3,000 (including HVA agents) of these informants in West Germany, and between 300 and 400 in other western countries.

Additionally, people identified by the Stasi as persistent political adversaries ("Feindlich-negative Personen"), were – each according to his/her importance – subject to surveillance by several IMs recruited for the purpose from among their personal contacts.

[45] A recurring feature of the analysis of the role of Informal Collaborators in the German Democratic Republic has been a succession of legal actions undertaken against authors in order to try to prevent the naming of former IMs.

A new development came in 2010 with the attempt, initially successful,[46] but which was rejected on appeal, of a former Stasi spy in Erfurt to prevent his name appearing on a website.

[47] The great range of circumstances that led to collaboration with the Stasi makes any overall moral evaluation of the spying activities extremely difficult.

There were those that volunteered willingly and without moral scruples to pass detailed reports to the Stasi out of selfish motives, from self-regard, or from the urge to exercise power over others.

Others collaborated with the Stasi out of a sincerely held sense of duty that the GDR was the better Germany and that it must be defended from the assaults of its enemies.