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Shredded Secret Police Files Being Reassembled

Posted by samzenpus on from the burn-the-papers-from-now-on dept.

An anonymous reader writes "German researchers at the Frauenhofer Institute said Wednesday that they were launching an attempt to reassemble millions of shredded East German secret police files using complicated computerized algorithms. The files were shredded as the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and it became clear that the East German regime was finished. Panicking officials of the Stasi secret police attempted to destroy the vast volumes of material they had kept on everyone from their own citizens to foreign leaders."

4 of 222 comments (clear)

  1. Jigsaw Puzzle by biocute · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Maybe someone could create an online jigsaw puzzle game, and let the internet people reassemble those docs.

    --
    Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
  2. Iranian Revolution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The Iranian revolutionaries did the same thing to CIA documents in the embassy. The re-assembled documents are available at www.memoryhole.org

  3. Why do this, you ask? by u-bend · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think that the pursuit of historical documentation and a better understanding of a strange and dangerous period of the near past should justify the project alone. As someone who grew up as an American in that neck of the woods, pre and post Soviet demise, it's going to be really interesting to see what they find.

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    u-bend
  4. Stasi files by harmonica · · Score: 5, Interesting

    there might be some Western leaders as well who would not like their secret files to be made public...

    No "might" necessary, there are Western leaders and others who don't want their Stasi (secret police) files public. Former West German chancellor Kohl successfully sued to keep his files under wraps.

    That's for the simple reason that those files often contain the most private details of what the Stasi had assembled using bugs and other means. Besides, nobody can easily check what is true and what they might have falsified in those files. After all, we're talking about a totalitarian regime which shot people trying to leave the country illegally.

    However, all that doesn't mean that there won't be investigations if German authorities find something interesting in those files. So some people do have to fear that their past surfaces, but not from publication of the files.

    Movie recommendation on the topic: this year's Best Foreign Language film at the Academy Awards, The Lives of Others.