East Germany’s secret police force, the Stasi, ran one of the most formidable surveillance states in modern history, with an informant for every seven members of the public at the height of its powers.
However, a collection of previously secret tapes from its elite training school suggest that it was also riddled with leaks, insecurities, petty corruption and bumbling incompetence.
Its spies put their lovers on the payroll, struggled to keep secrets and sometimes wrote up reports on their targets without setting foot outside the office, the recordings show. They also illustrate the obsessive attention to detail the Stasi was capable of applying when it chose to, with agents pumping the former neighbours of potential recruits for gossip about their favourite toys in infancy and